Vassilis Alexakis: L'enfant grec (2012)

Vassilis Alexakis's lovely novel L'Enfant grec makes many digressions, and I shall be making some of my own to illustrate the areas he covers, putting in brackets things he doesn't mention.

Alexakis's novel is also very autobiographical. It concerns an (unnamed) old man who has had a major leg operation in Aix-en-Provence and must now walk on crutches until his leg heals. Due to his mobility problems he can't immediately return to his flat in the 15th arrondissement, so he is temporarily living in L'hôtel Perreyve in rue Madame, very close to rue Fleurus and close to a western entrance to the Jardin du Luxembourg in the 6th arrondissement. The name of the hotel and the streets are real, as are the narrator's geographical details.

At one point the narrator and his companions turn from rue Guyemer (which borders the western edge of Luxembourg), cross rue de Vaugirard and take a few steps into rue Napoléon, where the narrator becomes very interested in the bronze woman with the hat and even joins her on her seat outside L'Institut hongrois.

 

We can see more clearly here that the girl's eyes are closed.

(On her ankle is the creator's signature: it is by Andràs Lapis and there's a copy of it in Szeged in Hungary. The original was made in 1975, although this particular sculpture dates from 1992.)

(And 'Kala palati', inscribed on the brim of the hat, is the title of the sculpture, which apparently means something like 'Under the Hat'.)

 

Much of L'Enfant grec – along with the memories of the narrator on crutches – is set in the Jardin du Luxembourg. The recuperating man now sees things at a much slower pace, a world in a grain of sand: he has time to reflect on his now slow present, and on his past.

 

The narrator often mentions L'Auberge des Marionnettes in the Jardin du Luxembourg, although there is no such establishment. But there is a place called La Buvette des Marionnettes, which is very near the marionnette theatre.

 

And the Buvette even has a menu including two puppets Alexakis frequently mentions in the novel: Guignol and Gnafron.

 

L'Enfant grec is a wonderful (if often wildly imaginative) guide to the Jardin du Luxembourg. The narrator mentions the statue of a boy ('Le Marchand des masques') to the south-east of Luxembourg near L'École des Mines, with its several masks at the boy's feet.

 

There, Balzac – who the narrator says disliked the Jardin (and implies that that is a reason why there's no statue or bust of him here) – makes an obscure appearance as a mask.

 

Alexandre Dumas is also there.

 

And so too is Barbey d'Aurevilly.

 

Significant here is that the boy holds up a mask of Victor Hugo. The title of Alexakis's book, L'Enfant grec, comes from Hugo's poem 'L'Enfant', about a child left in the ruins of Thios after its destruction by the Turks in 1822. Several times in this novel, Alexakis mentions the Sénat in the Jardin du Luxembourg, to which Hugo belonged from 1876–85. And throughout the novel we are reminded of the young Greek narrator's reading habits – Hugo's Les Misérables, or Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, or Stevenson's Treasure Island, or many more classics. (He also speaks of the financial ruins of contemporary Greece.)

 

The novel is a cross between a guide – historical and modern – to the Jardin du Luxembourg, a guide to the narrator's thoughts and memories, and to his fantasies. It may be immensely digressive, but so too are many good books. And this is undeniably a very good book.

 

 

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The Monuments to Writers in Le Jardin du Luxembourg

The Monuments to Writers in Le Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, France: Literary Île-de-France #10

The Stefan Zweig monument was erected in 2003 as a tribute to the Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer (1881–1942) who first traveled to France in 1902. 

 

Zweig killed himself in Petrópolis, Brazil.

The statues of Montesquieu and Étienne Pasquier aren't as clearly visible as the other statues. It may well be possible to see them close up, but it is by no means obvious, which is a pity.

Paul Verlaine's marble bust was sculpted by Auguste de Niederhausen Rodo, and the women emerging from the stone represent the three souls of Verlaine: the religious, the sensual, and the childlike. Oh, and that's a pigeon on his head. At least it's better than a traffic cone - see the Diderot post.

 

 

Jean-Antoine Injalbert's monument to the Belfort-born poet Gabriel Vicaire went up in the garden in 1902. He is perhaps best known for his collection Emaux Bressans (1884).

 

From a literary point of view, the composer Frédéric Chopin (1810—49) is of course most noted for his relationship with George Sand. Chopin's original cast iron bust was a victim of the World War II effort, In 1999, the Polish government — on the 150 anniversary of the composer's death, made a gift of this bust, which is a bronze replica of the original marble bust made by the sculptor Boleeshaw Syrewicz in 1872, which has been in the National Warsaw Museum since 1927.

 

This is a bronze and marble monument to José Maria de Heredia, a Parnassian poet of Cuban origin who took on French nationality in 1893. His single collection of poetry is Les Trophées, which consists of 118 sonnets. The monument was erected in 1925.

 

Sainte-Beuve's marble bust on a Lorraine stone plinth was erected in 1899, and is somewhat more flattering than the statue on his grave in the cemetery in Montparnasse.

The poet Louis Ratisbonne was a librarian at the Palais du Luxembourg, and the statue was erected in the gardens in 1911. It remembers his children's poems and fables, Comédie Enfantine (1860).

 

The Comptesse de Ségur (1799-1874) was a children's writer and of the 18 writers' monuments in the Jardin du Luxembourg, hers is only one two. She was of Russian descent.

Charles Baudelaire, whose monument was moved to a more frequented position in the park in 1966 to accord more with the greatness of the poet and the importance of the sculptor, Pierre Fixe-Masseux.

The quotation is the final verse from his poem 'Les Phares':

'Car c'est vraiment, Seigneur, le meilleur témoignage

Que nous puissions donner de notre dignité
Que cet ardent sanglot qui roule d'âge en âge
Et vient mourir au bord de votre éternité!'

 

 

 

I was so impressed by Laurent Marqueste's representation of Ferdinand Fabre, a novelist noted for his blend of French and Occitan, that I spent several minutes admiring it and taking photos of it. I didn't realize that a man had been watching my activities and was just bursting to tell me his piece of ironic Gallic observation: 'Monsieur, il a le droit de vous rendre hommage'. Lovely. Ah, the French.

 

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) was born in Rouen and died in Canteleu, a hamlet in Croisset. Jean-Baptiste Clesinger was responsible for this work, which was erected in 1922.

Stendhal (1783-1842) was born Henri Bayle in Grenoble, perhaps changing his name after Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the founder of modern archaeology, perhaps after his beloved Shetland(s), of which 'Stendhal' is an anagram.

 

'This bronze medallion representing Stendal, together with a simple plinth, was sculpted by Rodin from a drawing by the sculptor David d'Angers.'

 

George Sand (1804-76) is a pseudonym of d'Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin, and François-Léon Sicard sculpted this, which was erected in 1904.
 

 

'Inauguré en 1898, le monument à Leconte de Lisle, chef de file de l'Ecole parnassienne, représente une muse ailée enlaçant de ses bras le buste du poéte qui fut également bibliothéaire au Sénat.'

'Inaugurated in 1898, the monument dedicated to Leconte de Lisle, leader of the Parnassian school, represents a winged muse wrapping her arms around the bust of the poet, who was also a librarian of the Sénat.'

 

Théodore de Banville (1823-91) is another major Parnassian poet who was close to Hugo and Gaultier originally, and Rimbaud lodged with him between 1871 and 1872. The marble and bronze bust is by Jules Roulleau.
 

 

Henry Murger (1822-61) spent his youth among the 'Buveurs d'Eau' (Water Drinkers), a group of bohemian artists in the Latin Quarter, of whom Nadar was one. He gained fame for his 'Scènes de la vie bohème', in which he included representations of his friends.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Vassilis Alexakis: L'Enfant grec (2012)