Albertine Sarrazin: La Cavale | Runaway (1965)

On the face of it this should be a fascinating read: Albertine Sarrazin, famous for her criminal activities and for escaping from Doullens, breaking a bone in her ankle, being rescued by an ex-con (Julien Sarrazin) who finds several planques for her, plus the very interesting novelised version of her exploits in L'Astragale, the astragal being the ankle bone in question. And both novels were translated, although not, it seems, her third: La Traversière.

Unfortunately I didn't like this novel, over five hundred pages of tiny print to reveal what exactly? There haven't been many novels set entirely (well, almost) in prison, and obviously what we're reading here is very close to the reality of the prison life that Albertine Sarrazin –here called Anick – must have experienced. That's a plus, as are the many slang expressions that add a rich colour to the book, and most of which in their time must have been culled from prison life. So, a realistic depiction certainly, and certainly the boredom is more than adequately conveyed. And that's the problem: it's so well conveyed that the reader – well, this one at least – is bored too.

The book is divided into three more or less equal parts relating to the different penal institutions in which they're set, although they all tend to merge into one. We have the dirt, the endless waiting, endless hopes of escape and/or being released, the many letters bringing hope, the chores, the cups of coffee, the subferfuges, the chumminess of the inmates, the smoking and saving of nub ends, the reading and card games of belote to kill time, etc, etc. The monotony is sometimes broken with the occasional celebration, buying beer from the prison shop, or when Anick is allowed out to marry Zizi (Julien) and gets drunk, but there is nowhere near enough variety to same the novel. Which is very sad.

My Albertine Sarrazin posts:
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Albertine Sarrazin: La Cavale | Runaway
Jacques Layani: Albertine Sarrazin : une vie
Albertine Sarrazin: L'Astragale | Astragal
Albertine Sarrazin in Doullens, Somme

Albertine Sarrazin in Doullens, Somme (80)

In 1957 Albertine Sarrazin  – who would later briefly become a bestselling author – famously (or should that be infamously?) jumped  from a wall  to escape from La Citadelle, Doullens, where she was a prisoner. I've written about her biography below, and also her first novel L'Astragale (Astragal in English), which begins with her talking about her broken astragal, a bone in the ankle. She was relatively lucky: another inmate later leapt over the wall and broke both her arms and legs.

My Albertine Sarrazin posts:
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Albertine Sarrazin: La Cavale | Runaway
Jacques Layani: Albertine Sarrazin : une vie
Albertine Sarrazin: L'Astragale | Astragal
Albertine Sarrazin in Doullens, Somme

Albertine Sarrazin: L'Astragale | Astragal (1965)

As I wrote in an earlier post, Albertine Sarrazin (1937–67) was essentially rejected by her (semi- adopted) family and escaped from her school-prison to Paris, went on the game, was imprisoned again, escaped again but broke her ankle bone (astragal in English), and was luckily picked up by Julien, also an ex-prisoner, who became her lover and her husband.

This is the autobiographical story of a young prisoner rescued by a man fifteen years older than her, who first takes her to his mother, and then to various boltholes where she can hide until the search for her is over, and where her ankle is operated on at Julien's expense.

They escape to Paris, although the absence of Julien means she has to once more live on her wits, or rather her ass, and her  life is time and time again repeated in the language of the prisons, the language of prostitution, the language of the milieu. A number of reviews talk of the obsolescence of the language, the difficulty with the prison slang, although this is part of the book's charm, of its strange mixture of arcane language and poetic descriptions. This is a very powerful, and very rare, treasure.

My Albertine Sarrazin posts:
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Albertine Sarrazin: La Cavale | Runaway
Jacques Layani: Albertine Sarrazin : une vie
Albertine Sarrazin: L'Astragale | Astragal
Albertine Sarrazin in Doullens, Somme

Jacques Layani: Albertine Sarrazin : une vie (2001)

On the cover, the beautiful and photogenic Albertine Sarrazin stares longingly at the viewer, as if she loves him or her. The shot was taken two years before her senseless death, when she was for just two years caught up in in a merry-go-round of publicity after publisher Jean-Jacques Pauvert had discovered that she was a brilliant writer and published two novels of hers: L'Astragale and La Cavale, both in 1958, swiftly followed by her third and last novel, La Traversière. And then her life – frequently out of control – went out of control for keeps.

This biography tells us that Albertine Sarrazin – who was forced to assume a number of names throughout her life, only some of which she invented for herself – was born in Algiers and adopted by a much older couple via the Assistance publique. Well, that was always the official story – and one Albertine believed all her life – but it was in part a lie. Her 'adopted' parents were only half adopted, as her 'adopted' father, a doctor and a slimeball who appears to have believed in a kind of droit du seigneur (or droit de cuissage), was in fact her real father by his maid. But he never said a word about it, and never showed any fatherly love.

Growing up unloved and miserable, Albertine was shunted about to various places, one being the Bon Pasteur school-cum-prison in Marseilles from which she escaped for Paris. Raped by an uncle at the age of ten, she seems to have taken for granted the lust of a few of the people who picked her up while hitch-hiking, and on arriving francless in Paris what could seem more natural to her than prostituting herself in order to survive?

And then Albertine pursuaded Marie, a friend inmate from Bon Pasteur, to run away and join her. A mistake, as they acquired a gun and Marie used it when they held up a woman in a clothes shop  and shot her in the shoulder: but although Marie did the shooting, Albertine was seen as a instigator and got two more years than Marie's five. Moved from Fresnes to Doullens, Albertine couldn't face the thought of staying in prison any longer, jumped over the wall (the equivalent of four floors) and hurt her ankle.

This is when it gets really weird, far less believable than any movie. Staggering, Albertine was spotted by a lorry driver who could have lost his job if he'd taken her, so flagged down the next vehicle which contained a certain Julien Sarrazin and his boss, who was well aware of where she'd come from and was having none of it. By the way Sarrazin spoke though, Albertine could tell that he had served time, and (quite a stocky guy) Sarrazin told his boss that if he revealed any of this to anyone he was in trouble: meanwhile back in Amiens (a mere thirty kilometers away) he'd come back on his motorbike to pick up Albertine and hide her at his mother's.

The large Sarrazin family could barely afford another mouth to feed, and Albertine was shunted around various places in Amiens, but the relationship grew and they married, partly living by stealing and making a few returns inside.

However, Albertine had been writing for most of her life and was an undiscovered brilliant writer, although it was some years before Pauvert discovered her and she became famous. Her novel L'Astragale, translated into seventeen languages and as Astragal in English (but not 'The Anckle [sic] Bone' as Layani states), comes from the broken ankle bone on her fall from Doullens. She was now an important literary figure, but this was not to last.

Albertine Sarrazin died a few months before she reached thirty, and the repercussions continued for years: Albertine was mis-anaesthetised, should have had a blood transfusion but her blood group wasn't known, in effect her operation was a farce, but Julien Sarrazin – who had spent years waiting for release in prison – had all the time in the world to wait until the 'toubibs' (quacks) who had killed his wife got their just deserts. And eventually he won, although the surgeon had died before manslaughter was declared.

Needless to say, until the end of his life Julien Sarrazin worked to promote Albertine's work, and wrote a book himself – Contrescape (1975) – concluding when he met Albertine. Albertine Sarrazin is quite a read, and the 320 pages fly by.

Albertine was originally buried in the cemetery in Matelles, Montpellier, but transferred to L'Oratoire, where Sarrazin had built a tomb and sculpted a work of art on the top of it: a representation of an astragal.

My Albertine Sarrazin posts:
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Albertine Sarrazin: La Cavale | Runaway
Jacques Layani: Albertine Sarrazin : une vie
Albertine Sarrazin: L'Astragale | Astragal
Albertine Sarrazin in Doullens, Somme