The Governesses by Anne Serre

Source of book: borrowed from the library

 

I ended up reading this book because another book by Anne Serre made the International Booker longlist. That one looked interesting to me, but, like most of the other books this year, was too new to make it to any of our local libraries. However, I did see The Governesses, which appeared to be her best-known work. Since it was short and potentially oddball, I figured it would be a fun contrast read to the rest of my current pile.

 

And weird it is. I really am not sure what it means - although it clearly has plenty of metaphorical stuff going on. It feels like an alternate universe, somewhere that is much like our own, but with some deep supernatural reality that ours lacks. 

 

The basic idea is this: an isolated country estate with a few adjacent neighbors. The parental couple with some unknown (but large) quantity of boys as offspring. Or something. They hire three governesses: Inez, Laura, and Eleonore, to look after the boys. 

 

There are also the little maids who live upstairs in the servants’ quarters, and an old man who watches the governesses with his telescope. 

 

And the goings on are…interesting. The governesses are clearly terrible at their actual job. They would rather sunbathe naked, or wander around the extensive park of the estate. 

 

To say nothing of what happens if a “stranger” happens by. A male stranger. Who is carefully baited into the woods, and then drained of his life force by an hours-long orgy that nearly kills him. But leaves him dreaming of the governesses. 

 

Not that much happens in the book until Laura becomes pregnant, and gives birth to yet another little boy, who will join the rest. This starts a series of events leading to a mysterious conclusion. 

 

Are the governesses terrestrial naiads, lying in wait to devour unwitting men? (Perhaps the Melusines of French mythology?) Are they the Graces, as the boys think them? Are they the Fates? Are they somehow enchanted prisoners of the estate? Part of feral nature? It isn’t clear, and the ending never answers the question. 

 

In an interview, the author said she wrote the book from the subconscious, and also that the surrealists have been a big influence on her. This makes sense in the context of the book. Very surreal, very dreamlike. 

 

She also noted that her own rather unexpected sexual awakening as a teen was written into the book - the feral desire that is somehow also innocent. 

 

One could, perhaps, read into the book any number of female experiences. It is very much from a female perspective throughout most of the book, with brief exceptions for the father and the old man. Mostly, it is an observation of the governesses from the inside. 

 

I can’t say I have read anything quite like it. The language, as translated by Mark Hutchinson, is beautiful, carefully chosen, and evocative. It is all about mood, small details, observation, experience. Rather than try to analyze it, I would recommend letting it wash over you. There is little plot, the story is short, and it doesn’t have to have some deeper grand meaning. 

 

One idea I do want to highlight is the contrast between the yearning of the governesses to find partners, and the way the parents of the boys wish to marry them off. Compare these two passages:

 

Oh, if only they could leave! Run off with this man who has happened along, using him to pass through the gates and loving him because he can take them to a place where their bonds will be ever so gently loosened at last. So that, one day, each of them will be able to live and speak in her own name, be alone in the world, and free of the others at last.

 

And this one, about the attempts to make the governesses “presentable” to society:

 

By clipping their wings, arranging a lock of hair, correcting a facial expression, adjusting their bodies, and persuading them to rein themselves in and be a little more accommodation, Madame Austeur is hopeful of securing a happy future for them. It wouldn’t take much, she says to herself, as she closes her notebook. 

 

One could see in there a social critique - a generation gap perhaps. 

 

A significant reason I make a point of reading books in translation is that every language has its own flavor - even when translated. Every country has its own literary tradition and feel. It is a good thing to have variety in literature, in perspectives, and in sensibilities. 

 

The Governesses is an intriguing book, a quick read, and one that makes me want to read Serre’s other books in the future.