I planned to begin reading Muriel Barbery’s
latest novel, La vie des Elfes, after breakfast one morning. I
did not stop until I passed well over 100 pages. I was enthralled. My heart is firmly in the 19th
century – George Eliot, the Brontës, Austin, Crandall, to name a few, so I love
the detailed descriptions of landscapes, pastoral scenes, and peasants. I felt those places when I read Elfes. It is like a painting. I see some figures, some color, some light,
but it doesn’t move me. Then I see
Monet’s “Haystacks,” and I am driven to tears.
Likewise there are novels I enjoy, but every once in a great while, a
real masterpiece comes along that moves me on so many levels. This novel is one of those. I hear the voices, the wind, and the raining
beating on the thatched roofs. This is
no ordinary novel.
Muriel Barbery was born in Morrocco, but her
family left for France when she was only two months old. She studied there and received a certificate
for entry into government service 1990.
In 1993, she taught Philosophy in several colleges. She gave up teaching and lived for two years
in Japan. Muriel has written two
previous novels, including the internationally renowned The Elegance of the
Hedgehog. She currently lives in
Europe.
The Life of Elves is a lyrical,
mesmerizing story of discord among living beings. The war this launches upsets the balance of
nature. Two young women – one born in
France and the other in Italy – possess magical powers. The two children possess supernatural powers,
which allow them to resist the encroaching army. The Italian girl, Clara, possesses an
extraordinary power to hear music and visualize the notes. She learns to play the most complicated
compositions with almost no training.
The Spanish girl, Maria, who later moves to France, is able to
understand and communicate with nature.
As the children develop their talents, they are able to see, hear, and
communicate with each other.
Barbery writes, “There
was a fallow field, overgrown with sleek serried blades of grass, rising gently
to meet the hill through a winding passage, until it reached a lovely stand of
poplar trees rich with strawberries and a carpet of periwinkles where not so
long ago every family was permitted to gather wood, and would commence with the
sawing by first snowfall; alas that era is now gone, but it will not be spoken
of today, be it due to sorrow or forgetfulness, or because at this hour the
little girl is running to meet her destiny, holding tight to the giant paw of a
wild boar. // And this on the mildest
autumn evening anyone had seen for many a year.
Folk had delayed putting their apples and pears to ripen on the wooden
racks in the cellar, and all day long the air was streaked with insects
inebriated with the finest orchard vintage.
There was a languidness in the air, and indolent sigh, a quiet certainty
that things would never end, and while people went about their work as usual, without
pause and without complaint, they took secret delight in this endless autumn as
it told not to forget to love” (19-20).
The prose reminds me of a Monet canvas.
Throughout the
novel, Barbery has sprinkled some wonderful moments. For example, when Maria approaches a table
“with three cloves of garlic and her glass [which] is an arrangement for the
eye that pays tribute to the divine” (79).
She slightly moves one of the cloves.
Some pages later, Barbery explains, “The paths of fate: a garlic clove
moved one millimeter and the world is utterly changed; the slightest shift
disturbs the secret position of our emotions and yet it transforms our lives
forever” (114).
The Life of Elves by Muriel Barbery will give the reader pause
to stop – on almost every page – to consider her words, to wonder at the beauty
and timelessness of her prose. 5 stars
--Chiron, 4/16/16
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