Fleur Jaeggy, Trans: Tim Parks (And Other Stories)
Sometimes less really is more, and Fleur Jaeggy’s novel, Sweet Days of Discipline exemplifies this. Though it’s a considerably short piece by usual standards (weighing in at just 101 pages), the story is narrated extremely well within this space. The precision with which Jaeggy writes allows the story to be this concise without compromising on content.
Ostensibly, the book is about the memory of a girl’s time in her boarding school and the crush she develops on a fellow pupil. Set in Switzerland, there are some vivid descriptions of the landscape, and the connection with nature is an integral part of the plot as the narrator takes daily, early morning walks. The narrator of the piece does have a tendency to repeat certain phrases, but rather than making the story seem dull, it more reflects the mundane existence she has in the school and her feelings of being trapped.
By setting the story in a boarding school, Jaeggy immediately connects with something we can all relate to; we have all struggled with childhood friendships, parental expectations or the trials of school days. However, the claustrophobia of also living with classmates sets a greater level of intensity for the narrative. The narrator describes her fellow classmates, room-mate and her schemes to win the attention of the new girl, Frédérique, in a particularly compelling, borderline sinister, way. What is interesting is that there is no real plot or trajectory; it seems more a description of events that happen whilst in boarding school, yet there is a distinct driving force within the narrative.
The girls are from all over Europe and this allows the narrator to note the differences in personality and customs from each country and the ways in which they respond and cope with being in a boarding school in the Appenzell canton. Alas, not speaking several languages, it was sometimes tricky to work out the meaning of the French phrases included in the novel, which were not easily coherent in the wider context and did detract a little from the immediate understanding of the text. However, these did not occur regularly enough to affect the overall narrative.
As with all good books, Jaeggy has the gift of allowing the reader’s imagination to fill in the gaps of things unsaid in the text. There seems to be a trend for European translations at the moment, and it seems that there really are some gems out there, this being one of them. If you haven’t got much time but want something well-written, encapsulating the darkness and obsession that only teenage girls seem to possess (but without the whingey teen-angst that comes with it), then definitely give this book a whirl.
Price: ÂŁ8.99. Info: http://www.andotherstories.org/
words LUCY MENON