Jean had a way of claiming his due, or more than his due: a somewhat egotistical way of deciding, of drinking, of eating, of sitting, of occupying his place.”ĭuring this holiday Marie finds herself strongly sexually attracted to a man around ten years younger than her. “There was definitely strength in his character – or rather, there were bouts of strength. Marie seems very devoted to her husband, but the authorial voice – which shifts between tenses – suggests he not entirely worthy: Jean was next to her, serving her coffee, giving her a cigarette: and intimate little scene, on the balcony of a hotel, overlooking the sea.”

There is something ineffable around Marie that was making her happy. “It wasn’t as hot as earlier on, but as the afternoon came to an end, everything remained steeped in torpor, retaining the heat of the whole day. It begins with Marie and her husband Jean on holiday in the south of France, away from their Parisian home: Marie was published in 1943 and details the sexual awakening of a young married housewife (the original title was A La Recherche de Marie, maybe it was felt Anglophone readers wouldn’t get the reference to Proust?) It has an elegiac tone at times – not only for Marie but for everyone she encounters and for the city of Paris – and I felt the spectre of war was certainly present. I’m not familiar with Belgian writer Madeleine Bourdouxhe’s work but the afterword explained she was a friend of Simone de Beauvoir and Victor Serge, among others, and she was part of the resistance during the war, so I’m glad to have finally discovered her. The striking cover of Marie and the fact that it is published by Daunt Books was enough to convince me to pick up this novella, and I’m so glad I did. Marie – Madeleine Bourdouxhe (1943 trans.

Thomas andrieu philippe besson