"Lorsque Myriam, mère de deux jeunes enfants, décide malgré les réticences de son mari de reprendre son activité au sein d'un cabinet d'avocats, le couple se met à la recherche d'une nounou. Après un casting sévère, ils engagent Louise, qui conquiert très vite l'affection des enfants et occupe progressivement une place centrale dans le foyer. Peu à peu le piège de la dépendance mutuelle va se refermer, jusqu'au drame. A travers la description précise du jeune couple et celle du personnage fascinant et mystérieux de la nounou, c'est notre époque qui se révèle, avec sa conception de l'amour et de l'éducation, des rapports de domination et d'argent, des préjugés de classe ou de culture. Le style sec et tranchant de Leïla Slimani, où percent des éclats de poésie ténébreuse, instaure dès les premières pages un suspense envoûtant."-- cover.
"When a mother of two young children, decides despite her husband's reluctance …
"Lorsque Myriam, mère de deux jeunes enfants, décide malgré les réticences de son mari de reprendre son activité au sein d'un cabinet d'avocats, le couple se met à la recherche d'une nounou. Après un casting sévère, ils engagent Louise, qui conquiert très vite l'affection des enfants et occupe progressivement une place centrale dans le foyer. Peu à peu le piège de la dépendance mutuelle va se refermer, jusqu'au drame. A travers la description précise du jeune couple et celle du personnage fascinant et mystérieux de la nounou, c'est notre époque qui se révèle, avec sa conception de l'amour et de l'éducation, des rapports de domination et d'argent, des préjugés de classe ou de culture. Le style sec et tranchant de Leïla Slimani, où percent des éclats de poésie ténébreuse, instaure dès les premières pages un suspense envoûtant."-- cover.
"When a mother of two young children, decides despite her husband's reluctance to resume work in a law firm, the couple is looking for a nanny. They hire one. There is too much drama and prejudice related to class or culture" -- cataloger's summary.
Un des points forts de ce roman est de s'ouvrir sur sa fin glaçante, qui distille ensuite son horreur tout le long de la lecture sans que Leïla Slimani ait besoin de forcer le trait. Au contraire, elle a une écriture très directe, ne s'encombre pas de formules de style et laisse la psychologie des personnages au lecteur qui parcourt tout le récit en cherchant des raisons au spectacle effroyable du premier chapitre, quitte à tirer des conclusions hâtives.
Hyper intéressant la manière dont un couple de classe moyenne se met à avoir des attitudes de grands patrons vis-à-vis de la nounou (qui prend vite un rôle de domestique), et comment la critique sociale peut se glisser dans des petits détails qui révèlent l'hypocrisie des personnages. C'est d'ailleurs cette facette du roman qui m'a intéressé, plus que le côté déséquilibre mental un peu vague qui justifie l'escalade de la violence.
The first time I read Chanson douce (2016), Leïla Slimani’s Prix Goncourt winning novel, was in the summer of 2020, when France was in lockdown (‘confinement’) and reading became my way to ‘leave’ the apartment. I read a Dutch translation with – like the English version – the hideous title The Perfect Nanny. (I guess it sells better?) This year I added [b:Le pays des autres|57999007|Le pays des autres|Leïla Slimani|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1620638303l/57999007.SY75.jpg|75775877] to my list and figured it was time to reread Chanson douce in the original language.
In the style of – but not quite like – Albert Camus’ [b:L'Étranger|15688|L'Étranger|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1332596551l/15688.SY75.jpg|3324344] Slimani starts off with a bang: Le bébé est mort. From there on, she unfolds the story of a bobo couple with two young children in the rue d’Hauteville (10th arrondissement) that steadily comes to depend on its nanny Louise, a woman from …
The first time I read Chanson douce (2016), Leïla Slimani’s Prix Goncourt winning novel, was in the summer of 2020, when France was in lockdown (‘confinement’) and reading became my way to ‘leave’ the apartment. I read a Dutch translation with – like the English version – the hideous title The Perfect Nanny. (I guess it sells better?) This year I added [b:Le pays des autres|57999007|Le pays des autres|Leïla Slimani|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1620638303l/57999007.SY75.jpg|75775877] to my list and figured it was time to reread Chanson douce in the original language.
In the style of – but not quite like – Albert Camus’ [b:L'Étranger|15688|L'Étranger|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1332596551l/15688.SY75.jpg|3324344] Slimani starts off with a bang: Le bébé est mort. From there on, she unfolds the story of a bobo couple with two young children in the rue d’Hauteville (10th arrondissement) that steadily comes to depend on its nanny Louise, a woman from the banlieue.
By describing her characters and their daily lives, Slimani underlines the differences between the couple and Louise. Without a single word of judgment she puts forward the couple’s lifestyle in a way it is hard not to dislike them. Louise on the other hand earns some sympathy, until the tide starts to turn, after which Slimani creates the image of a somewhat backward and fragile woman who gets obsessed with her portrayal of the family.
In my opinion, Chanson douce is a socially engaged novel rather than a suspenseful whydunnit. It is disruptive and raw at times and does not seem to spare any of the characters. My main criticism is that Louise occasionally is too much of a stereotype, which pushes the story towards the edge. But hey, it’s fiction and it’s beautiful.
This book lays all bare from the very first paragraph:
The baby is dead. It took only a few seconds. The doctor said he didn’t suffer. The broken body, surrounded by toys, was put inside a grey bag, which they zipped shut. The little girl was still alive when the ambulance arrived. She’d fought like a wild animal. They found signs of a struggle, bits of skin under her soft fingernails. On the way to the hospital she was agitated, her body shaken by convulsions. Eyes bulging, she seemed to be gasping for air. Her throat was filled with blood. Her lungs had been punctured, her head smashed violently against the blue chest of drawers.
Having said that, it rolls on quite indifferently from a time before that occurs.
Louise is hired as nanny in a nuclear family of four where she cooks, mends clothes, and rears kids. She's impeccable. …
This book lays all bare from the very first paragraph:
The baby is dead. It took only a few seconds. The doctor said he didn’t suffer. The broken body, surrounded by toys, was put inside a grey bag, which they zipped shut. The little girl was still alive when the ambulance arrived. She’d fought like a wild animal. They found signs of a struggle, bits of skin under her soft fingernails. On the way to the hospital she was agitated, her body shaken by convulsions. Eyes bulging, she seemed to be gasping for air. Her throat was filled with blood. Her lungs had been punctured, her head smashed violently against the blue chest of drawers.
Having said that, it rolls on quite indifferently from a time before that occurs.
Louise is hired as nanny in a nuclear family of four where she cooks, mends clothes, and rears kids. She's impeccable.
Naturally, there are changes that affect the impeccability, but I won't go into that as it would beast upon this short book. Even though the book—to myself—bears some hallmarks of needing some editing, I really enjoyed its curtness, the "French" way of simply curtailing emotional stuff that's not significant in terms of plot; reading this book was like watching Olivier Assayas's perfect film "Summer Hours", where a bunch of people do stuff seemingly without "meaning" in the Hollywoodesque sense of the word; even though the punchline of this book is seemingly published at its very start, it's not: is life about goals or the journey?
There's a lot to be said for how well written the book is at times. Simple and short sentences strengthen it:
Paul serves the wine, and the conversations soon rise high above such earthly considerations as food. They speak louder and louder. They stub out their cigarettes in their plates and the butts float in puddles of sauce. No one has noticed that Louise has withdrawn to the kitchen, which she is energetically cleaning.
The rhythm of the book is not very complex, but why should it be? It's akin to reading Kurt Vonnegut or Amelia Grey, whose stories often rely on being quite curt, and still emotional due to being human.
This is a short, but not really memorable book; there's a spectral and haunting undertone that seeps through the book, adding a horrific taint throughout, but I didn't feel it to be enough. Still, I'll definitely read more by this author.
