Loin, à l'Ouest
is the latest book by Delphine Coulin. It will be published this August 18th chez Grasset in France: it is a beautiful saga, the story of a bunch of women, where the predominant character is, without doubts, Georgette, born Georges.
I immediately loved Georges's character!
Her mother, a matriachal family of great dress-makers, decided to call the baby Georges for homaging George Sand, adding, also an "s" for presenting, to this new creature arrived in the world, a masculine touch.
And Georges is all of it: indomitable, fearless, wild as the wind can be, she has been powerfully present and precocius in...everything; a sad event will change her destiny, for this reason she promised to herself of not marry anyone once adult.
But, once grown up she meets a guy, Vincent, beautiful like the sun and succumb.
In that moment in France women fight thanks to Louise Michel for obtain same equal rights: work, family, independance.
Vincent doesn't agree.
He wants less freedom for her woman.
Georges suffers a lot.
The first World War starts and problems will be sorted out in a way and in another.
Free from the chains of a devastating marriage and a horrible man, childless, Georges meets a wonderful man in Abraham a jewish from Polland, married, with three children. An intense story, the marriage of Abraham/Albert once discovered by the wife is gone soon: his wife in fact, decides to leave for other adventures with their children.
Abraham and Georges are extremely happy together, but the wild wind of the Nazi dictatorship reaches France. They have a beautiful house, they have several magasins, and where possible Albert expands much more the activity: they are proud parents of a tender, intelligent kid, called Serge. The war changes again the cards on the table of the life: Serge, in war is captured and imprisoned by the enemy, and Abraham/Albert will end in the camp of Auschwitz.
Georgette didn't imagine that his son had a flame in Lucie. Lucie will be the biggest enemy of Georgette for the rest of her existence. She became, once returned home from the camp, in fact, the wife of Serge, and the one who would have in every occasion and instant, criticized Georgette.
Serge devastated by the war won't never return to be as the old one seen before; he is closed in himself and he doesn't want to speak of what seen or experienced; what he would want is his old richness, a condition that her mother can't present him anymore because the war has deleted who they had been, forever. Serge becomes cold with the mother. His dreams are destroyed by the war, poverty, starting to live a fatalistic existence, pretty passive.
Just few things adds enthusiasm in his existence.
His relationship with the mother becomes everyday more tense and acrimonious.
The old business created before the second world war re-starts with success. Georgette in the while changes companions several times, being attached by Serge and Lucie, because of this freedom of customs and because she sounds different from the rest of women.
Serge and Lucie has had a daughter, Solange, very beauty; everyone fall in love for her, but...Errors will be committed because of love by Solange as well and she will live straining moments.
Maybe Solange, of all these women, Georgette apart, born with the freedom in her soul, will be the only one who will be in grade to create real happiness, chosing her own destiny at some point, without any kind of external ingerency, or the phantom of a distant past.
She has two daughters, Aurelia and Octavie. Octavie will be the one who will try to re-connect these generations of proud, mysterious women where a sort of sin, shame, disgrace, accompanied their existences.
Georgette and Serge at some point will become like two strangers in particular when the son wants to sell the Isba, the house where Georgette lived beautiful moments with Abraham/Albert; a sanctuary of her existence, where she loves to keep her more precious dresses, items, objects of the belle epoque experienced when her life was more simple: before that an irrational war would have destroyed all her dreams.
Yes, Georgette has been strong: for herself, for the rest of her family: she didn't complain and she worked and lived with what she had at the moment, in the present without looking too much to the past: sure she has a touch of melancholy that keeps just for herself and the privacy of her house and rooms. It is...private. And it is closed to the eyes of strangers or other family members.
Lucie, the so-called belle-fille hasn't never realistically wanted to understand the extraordinary character that Georgette was, seeing, what to her morality, were the errors and sins of Serge's mother.
Lucie is a disgusting character because, to my point of view, if Serge became such a negative person, is also thanks to her massive influence. And she will be, thanks to her behavior, the loneliest character of this book, hated by her daughter, by Georgette, because of her negativity, because of her intransigent touch, without signs of tenderness or understanding, but searching, constantly searching for discussions, and the possibility of putting hate in the various family-members.
Georgette as you will discover soon in the book is fascinated by Calamity Jane and a show she has seen once arrived in the West of France, with some part of the family once a disgrace abruptly broke the daily order of things: this legendary character will be the biggest inspiration for a wild temperament like the one of Georgette is.
This one is an unputtable down book. Characters are built magistrally well, the reading is extremely captivating and interesting presenting us three century of a family-story.
Highly recommended.
I thank Grasset for the physical copy of the book.
Anna Maria Polidori
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