Books beyond the radar—The Illusionist

Originally published as Le Rempart Des Béguines Françoise Mallet-Joris’ novel The Illusionist is an easy but lovely read. The narrator Hélène lives in a small provincial town that cannot help but remind us of the one in Flaubert’s novel. There, mercifully, the comparison ends. Hélène’s father is a widower with wealth and political aspirations and little energy for his daughter who whiles away her time day-dreaming. She says, "I forgot that I was not yet sixteen, and at times I would be overwhelmed with the desire to run away. It would be better, I thought, to beg by the wayside than to have to go on dying of loneliness! As I walked in the streets I became so lost in reverie, my steps were so weighed down with desires, as well as a feeling of guilt, that I lost all notion of where I was going. It seemed to me that with one step more I might reach the horizon…"

Being both bored and imaginative, it isn’t long before Hélène seizes the opportunity to make an unsolicited visit to her father’s mistress Tamara. Tamara is young, somewhat Bohemian, and nothing like the other townsfolk. Hélène and Tamara begin an affair. As their relationship evolves and takes several sharp turns, Hélène grows into a young woman. Tamara grows into an old one. We see the archetype of the crazy cold French heroine in Tamara, Breton’s Nadja from the eponymous novel, Flaubert’s Emma. One of Tamara’s other suitors, an artist by the name of Max Villar, befriends Hélène and soothes her. He says, "My child, you’re too young to understand Tamara’s motives. You’re sixteen, you can’t imagine what it is to be thirty-five." By then we are invested enough in Hélène to wish that she never understand what it is to be Tamara.

Despite the somewhat spotty English translation (I’m going to try to find the original) Mallet-Joris’ narrative keeps a sweet languor. Entirely lacking in hysteria it gives us an immediate sense of Hélène’s journey and allows us to walk the road with her. When the book came out in 1947 it created a stir but by 1970 Mallet-Joris was a member of The Goncourt Academy. Guy Casaril made a film based on the movie. If you have suggestions on where to find it please email me!

It is impossible to read this novel without thinking of the other book about a girl, her father, and his mistress: Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan. Unfortunately I read that one too in translation. That book was permeated by the sea and the sun, the narrator was less analytical. The biggest contrast in the two works is in the father figure. In Mallet-Joris’ work he is benign, somewhat secluded, and clueless. In Sagan’s work his virility leaps from every page.