Themes and Genres of Germain’s works: “possibility of a poetic form that calls for an individual responsibility vis-a-vis the problem of evil,” ( )
●“To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” - Adorno (56)
●Germain struggles with the questions of “...is there any poetic form that can communicate such a radical experience of evil? If so, what function does language play in the remembrance process?
●Germain often speaks of her writing as “a quest for meaning” and writes “because the world is as much a tale as a History, as much a poem as a scream, as much a marvel as a disaster” (56)
○The question of the existence of God in conjunction with the presence of evil is at the heart of her quest (56-7)
○Searching for meaning in while the mystery of the world in question to God’s existence, and the disarray of history lamenting the existence of evil (57)
●Marie-Helene Boblet-Viart’s analysis on The Book of Nights describes the novel fitting into the genres of fable and legend
○“The fable is the literary communal and salvation version of the work of historical reminiscence, scared of its own memories; the displacement and condensation of the legend give them a dream-like quality and render them writable/legible” (57)
○Germain addresses the relationship between fiction and history by utilizing the literary genres that transcend historical facts, enabling her to conjure “a trans-subjective imagination”/to create “a collective mentality” (57)
●The biblical imagery of Germain’s texts is described as offering “an interpretative framework to help the reader make sense of and give words to historical events,” particularly “...the various manifestations of evil throughout Western history” (57)
○Writes within the belief-system of Judeo-Christianity as a means to “articulate language and the experience of evil” (58)
■Germain’s works “suggests that faith needs to become the canvas” which the text is written in order to not only account for human emotions but to also address the meaning and the challenge evil represents in the quest for meaning (65)
■Germain’s depicts evil as suffering, which leads the reader to a “cathartic lament,” which develops into a “complaint against God” (66)
Schmid, Muriel. “Topic of Lament: Sylvie Germain's "invitation to a Journey" and the Memory of Evil”.Religion & Literature 39.2 (2007): 55–69. Web...
Definition of magical realism ( )
●a literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy.
●Characteristics of the genre present in the text
○Fantastical events portrayed in a realistic tone
○Real world setting
○author/narrator deliberately withholding information/explanations pertaining to the fictional world
○Plentitude, or an extraordinary abundance of disorienting detail
○Hybridity
■Literary genres
■characters
○Political critique
Victor-Flandrin’s magical inheritances
●Vitalie's smile
●Hybridity
●Victor-Flandrin’s inability to view his reflection
●Victor-Flandrin’s leaving remains of his shadow behind
●7 magic tears of his father
Symbolic meaning of 7 ( )
●number forming the basic series of musical notes
○Blue-blood’s vision, Theodore-Faustin and Raphael’s musical voice
●Spiritual 3 + material 4 = 7
●perfect order, a complete period or cycle
○7 subsections of each chapter
●medieval students pursued a total of seven subjects, (the liberal arts)
●7 colors of the rainbow
●the 7 deadly sins
●ancient Babylonians observed the movements of the 7 planets, numbered them, and used them to predict eclipses and other astronomical phenomena
○Blanche’s visions foreseeing WWI
Elements showcasing feminine writing
●Associating the female body with intelligence
○Visions/bodily reactions of female characters to foreboding conditions
●Emphasis on emotions playing a large role in what it means to be human
○Emotions dominate the lives of the characters
●Cyclical notion of time
○Repetitions of occurrences
○Cyclical narration
■Ending of the novel is also the beginning of the novel
●Gender roles depicted
○Vitalie's husband remains nameless to be viewed as a placeholder for the typical male experience
■Passes down the masculine trait of silence of his emotions
■traditional masculinity ruins the Peniel bloodline
○emphasis on Vitalie's name (meaning life)
○maternal bloodline
○Vitalie passes down stories that excite and inspire
○protagonist’s relationships with ‘imperfect’ women
■challenges the typical male protagonist with societally "desirable" women; prizes, trophy wives for the “hero”
●Establishes the Peniels as people at odds with the patriarchy
○Originating from the sea
○isolated, but have unmatched knowledge from having a connection with nature
○Detached from the idea of owning land
○Emphasizes the location of one’s life as opposed to an having individual identity apart from it
●Challenges the notion of history used to enforce patriarchy
○Early on the novel associates history with negativity
○Depicts war in a non-glorious, grotesque and devastating manner
○Title alludes to The Book of Hours & The Book of Days
■challenges the Book of Hours by depicting the lives of individuals instead of religious text
Story vs Plot
Night of Water
Story:
●Peniels are established, coming from water
●stuck in their ways and living on the river, they live isolated lives
●Theodore-Faustin marries Noemie and have Herminie-Victoire and Honore-Firmin
●Theodore-Faustin battles in the Franco-Prussian war
●Honore-Firmin leaves to explore the land
●Noemi becomes sick and dies
●Theodore-Faustin rapes Herminie-Victoire
●Victor-Flandrin is born
●Herminie-Victoire dies
Plot:
●establishes life through an "oceanic night"
○water (the feminine) as the source of life
●establishes the Peniels as simple, isolated people but with being apart from society, they gain unmatched knowledge and connection with nature
●Inheriting his father’s silence and traditional masculinity, Theodore fights in the war where he becomes traumatized, splitting his personality into two
●Masculine traits of silence and aggression is what marks Theodore-Faustin’s impediment, resulting in a distance between himself and Victor-Flandrin
Night of Earth
Story:
●Victor-Flandrin travels around until settling down in a rural area, quickly marries Melanie, a farmer's daughter, and takes inherits the property of the land from her father
○has 4 children, Augustin & Mathurin and Mathilde & Margot
●purchases a horse that later kills Melanie
Plot:
●Victor-Flandrin marries into his new environment and way of life
●establishes familial connection with the land by growing a family on the land
○does not view the land/farm as a means of earning money/economy but as a means to support his family
●finding a place to settle into and making it into a home = symbolic of evolution of humankind
○an idealized period for the Peniels/humankind
●purchases a horse and attaches a name to it symbolic of his past (Sheldt)
○only knowing love of "passion," in a violent fit, Scheldt/Victor-Flandrin's past unintentionally kills his wife
○symbolic of his emotional baggage and an inability to express himself sabotaging his relationship in the worst way possible, by means of death
■Theme: humans' inability to express the passion of their emotional selves in a healthy manner results in death
Night of Roses
Story:
●Victor-Flandrin is in a state of depression, so Mathilde stakes over the household and dedicates herself to him
●Mathurin dies in combat
●after causing/witnessing the death of Father Rat, Margot meets his secret niece Blanche
●Victor-Flandrin marries Blanche and have 2 (Violette & Rose) more children and dies
●Augustin returns home as both twins (Two-brothers)
●Margot gets engaged and is stood up the altar on her wedding day
●Benoit-Quentin is born
Plot:
●after the death of his first wife, Victor-Flandin rebels against the notion of love and dedicated to demonstrate love towards him, Mathilde promises to never leave him
●He quickly marries Blanche who he is attracted to solely for having similar insecurities/being deformed and demonstrating sacrificial love towards him
○she demonstrates sacrificial love; gives him 2 children before soon after dying
●lacking inner strength, Blanche dies of fear foreseeing the upcoming war
●Augustin, traumatized by his twin's death, returns home and assumes living as the both of them
●from being stood up at the alter, Margot is also traumatized & continues lives out the day of her wedding
○Theme: trauma prevents individuals from living in the present
●even after finding a seemingly perfect match, Victor-Flandrin is unable to connect emotionally, leading to a one-sided relationship
○Blanche ultimately gives him all of her strength and he gives her none in return
Night of Blood
Story:
●Victor-Flandrin is depressed again
●he rapes a woman in the forest after drinking boar’s blood
●Victor-Flandrin hires Blue-blood to work for the family and later marries her
●Baptiste & Thadee are born
●Blue-Blood dies
●Victor-Flandrin and Benoit visit Paris, meet Ruth and Alma, and bring them home, and Victor-Flandrin marries Ruth
●Ruth births 4 children (Suzanne, Yvonne, Samuel, & Sylvester)
Plot:
●emotionally detached more than ever, Victor-Flandrin rapes a woman in the forest, later believing it to have been a dream
●Benoit-Quentin, who reminds Victor-Flandrin much of himself, connects most with him than all of his own children, and so they take a trip to Paris
●Benoit-Quentin, drawn to the self-assuredness and modernity of women in the city, is drawn to Alma, a serious but empathetic girl
●Victor-Flandrin is drawn to Alma's mother who rep. quality which the rest of his wives had not; she flees under the control (her strict father) who denies her self expression
●for the first time, he is able to have a mutually beneficial relation with a woman and thus is able to reconcile of his past wives through means of communicating and understanding one another
○Theme: it is Ruth, the symbol of the holistic feminine who rejects adhering to male control that relieves Victor-Flandrin, the male plagued by traditional masculinity and silence, of his inability to connect
Night of Ashes
Story:
●war returns
●Gabriel and Michael leave home to battle in WWII
●Nazis occupy the country and invade Blackland
●Benoit-Quentin, Alma, and others are killed
●Ruth is taken away with the rest of the children
●the Nazi twins travel to Berlin
●Raphael also shows up in Berlin
●the Nazi twins are absorbed inside of Raphael
●Victor-Flandrin returns to a state of depression
●Jean-Baptiste is born
Plot:
●Gabriel and Michael represent passion and violence of men, enlist as Nazi soldiers to go on the ultimate killing spree
●the Nazis, a symbol of war, oppression, and the patriarchy makes Victor-Flandrin's emotional pain and grief resurface
●Devoted to her father, Mathilde takes over the role of taking care of him and handling the grim situation at hand-- ridding of the remains of the dead
●influenced by the voice of Raphael, Gabriel and Michael view themselves as brutal and unfit for society, renounce their identities, allowing Raphael to absorbs them
●Victor-Flandrin is unable to connect with Mathilde despite her gender, for she does not represent the open and adoring depiction of femininity
Night of Night
Story:
●Victor-Flandrin, emotionally distraught, enters into the Dead-echo Woods and drowns
●Pauline gives birth to the last Peniel, Charles-Victor
Plot:
●without Ruth, Victor-Flandrin is unable to express himself and goes inside of Dead-echo Woods (p.250)
○the only place where he can come to terms with his sorrows (p.255)
●travelling within the woods, each threshold he crosses makes him more depressed, before ultimately reaching a well of water and reconnecting with Vitalie; the maternal feminine; the source of life, as he drowns himself
●unable to live without the type of feminine connection he gained from Ruth, Victor-Flandrin commits suicide
●Charles-Victor, the postwar Peniel, resumes the social and emotional progress that his ancestors left off at
What characters represent
Vitalie rep life & the fem.
name meaning
symbol of the force of life/living
associated w/ water
bathing the dead in her tears, lineage coming from the sea
Vitalie passes down stories; husband passes down silence of his emotions
all positive aspects
Valcourt rep. blind allegiance to a flawed leader
those who uphold the patriarchy in the name of the powerful elites who gain from it
Noemi reps. the woman who gives up her life in order to wait for a man
a woman who adheres to the patriarchy/expected gender roles & romance relations
Victor-Flandrin reps. symbolic as/for the product of rape
associated with the wolf
emotional loner (look up wolf archetype)
feared by his neighbors from his association w/ the wolf
associated w/ the #7 (pain)
7 fingers, 7 years spent in the mine, 7 tears of his father (magic)
Augustin rep. one who lives by academics
does not make a good soldier
self-contained love/passion
Mathurin rep. one who ignores academics and lives through nature
heavily passion-driven
Mathilde rep. one who is stuck in their ways “made of stone,” the mother/step-mother figure
demonstrates strength in being self-assured and holding onto convictions
Margot rep. one who is highly impressionable, innocent
her innocence nature and fear prevents her from processing traumatizing experiences
Blanche, Violette, & Rose rep. sacrificial love
rose symbol/mark
Blue-B rep. the sexually "undesirable" woman
bald, w/ an odd blue pulsing vein
Ruth rep. the fulcrum of the world
understanding
epitome of the fem.
what women do for men, children, & the world