HARD RETURN

Author: Julie Jézéquel
Year: 2011 (2009)
Publisher: Sekwa förlag
Language: Swedish (translator Ragna Essén)

There is often something mildly humiliating about people who have reached a moderate level of fame and try to monetise before they are duly returned to their rightful place in the mists of anonymity. Yet there is also something recognisable about it. I am quite certain that each of you who read this post would probably do the same if the opportunity presented itself. I would, too. If I were a famous musician, athlete, or artist you can be sure that before long you would find a recipe book, an eau de cologne, and a line of underwear with my name on it in a store near you. All of poor quality, of course. Especially the recipes.

Based on the above, I am usually sceptical of celebrities who have a go at writing novels. I imagine that theirs are more often than not sub-par products where the author’s name is a more important selling point than the quality of the writing.

It is a good thing then, that I am not excessively gaga over French cinema or I would have known, when I picked up her novel “Vända Blad” (“Retour á la ligne”, not available in English but the title could be translated to something like “Hard Return”), that Julie Jézéquel is a notable French actress who has appeared in numerous movies and TV-productions for more than three decades. Had I been better informed, I might have put the book down again but as it happens, in my ignorant bliss I carried the book home.

It turned out to be quite a charming read. Jézéquel is clever (and modest) enough to write about a world she knows well – television. Her protagonist Clara is an appreciated and productive writer of film scripts for TV. She does not write scripts for the big screen and she does not do series or soap operas. She keeps inside the confines of her expertise and never ventures outside. But when her producer one day insists that she rewrite an ending to one of her scripts she gets into an argument that ends up ruining her career. Overnight, she finds herself persona non grata in an entire industry.

In a desperate attempt to earn a livelihood, Clara advertises her services as a ghostwriter and meets with a somewhat peculiar client. One who asks her to re-imagine and put on paper his entire life story from scratch. He offers her no instructions, no framework, and no pointers other than a few documents to prove his identity and that of his family’s, some notes, letters and photographs, and a sizeable advance payment. Clara, not knowing what to think of it, gets to work.

“Vända blad” is the closest I will come to an up-lit novel and truth be told, it is far from a literary masterpiece. The language is simple and straightforward although not annoyingly so. The characters are few and stereotypical but in an endearing way. The side characters play no role whatsoever other than making Clara’s universe a little thicker but the story could just as easily have been told without their presence. The ostensible inconspicuousness of Clara’s client feels flat but marries well with Clara’s desperate attempts to try to understand this diffident person. The plot is linear with a few flashbacks but no offshoots or tangents while the ending, albeit surprising, is much too abrupt to make a lasting impression. The main indication that the book is drawing to a close is not to be found in the storyline but rather in the fact that you are running out of pages.

Despite these obvious flaws, I will admit I enjoyed the book. Without raising any critical issues it still touches on some curious topics that reveal one or two things about the working environment in French television. Another interesting connection, although superficial, is the examination of the relationship between an unwanted but real existence and a manufactured one.

To sum up, Julie Jézéquel has no apparent reason to be ashamed of her writing. She is probably not a writer I will return to seeing as there are so many other authors out there whose production I am yet to discover, but I am quite happy with having made her acquaintance and for the right reader and the right circumstance, I can actually recommend the book. As up-lit goes, it is vastly superior to the last book I read in the genre (the most detestable balderdash spawned from Jojo Moyes’s ungodly quill). This one is coherent, witty, and at the end of the day rather entertaining. It is just what you need for a tedious transatlantic flight or as a leisurely beach-read.

THREE MEN ON THE BUMMEL

Author: Jerome K Jerome
Year: 1900
Publisher: Bernhard Tauchnitz
Language: English

Sequels are a bit like the second cup of tea from the same tea bag: you recognise the flavour but miss the intensity.  

After the tremendous commercial fortunes of his “Three Men in a Boat”(see my review from October 2021), which marked the pinnacle of his fame, Jerome K Jerome’s star power faded relentlessly.  He wrote a few more books, typically based on his observations during one or another journey, but he was unable to repeat the success of his previous blockbuster. Eventually he returned to his most successful creations in the hope of being able to squeeze some more value out of them. In 1898, “Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow” was published as a sequel to his comparatively successful “Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow”, and two years later he returned to his boating heroes J, George, and Harris in “Three Men on the Bummel”.

This time around, our merry adventurers set off on a train-/bicycle ride across Germany. The tone of the novel is very similar to that of its predecessor. The travel party is just as inept and ill-prepared, the story line is frequently interrupted by more or less loosely connected anecdotes and tangents, and slapstick comedy based on awkwardness and absurdity abounds. The very decision process leading up to the trip offers the first laughs as the three gentlemen go to great lengths to ensure that their wives, who they assume will be devastated by grief and longing in their absence, will not demand to join them on their trip lest they perish from heart-ache and pining. Their disappointment upon discovering that the wives could not be happier about the chaps’ giving them some space and a bit of time to themselves, is priceless.   

Well under way, J, George, and Harris encounter a string of events and situations that allows Jerome to ponder on the cultural differences between the Brits and Germans and how their respective societies are organised. This is of particular interest as the book was written a decade and a half before the First World War and in the nearing end of the age of empires. Germany at the time was on the rise and had only recently caught up with the industrialisation level of France and Britain and seriously begun to challenge them as a colonial power. The novel was unambiguously intended for British readers and the narrator mixes humorous observations about the Germans and the British alike, but exclusively from an insular perspective. It is slightly amusing that many of the traits and characteristics that he ascribed to the Germans 120 years ago would still be recognised by a modern Briton as typical for a “Kraut” to this day.

Despite the jocularities, pranks, and antics, the British image of, or indeed prejudice to, Germany and the German people is palpable but unfailingly in a good-humoured and, as I read it, essentially respectful way. Jerome could hardly have penned a book like “Three Men on the Bummel” without having spent considerable amounts of time in Germany and gotten to at least superficially know German customs, language, architecture, cuisine, and geography. There is no doubt that Jerome during his travels around Germany took a liking to the country and its people.

A word on the history of my personal copy since it looks like it was flushed down the toilet before being retrieved from the water purification plant and subsequently dried over Mount Doom in Mordor. As a matter of fact this is the first 1900-edition which was owned by my great-grandfather, Emil, presumably through his English-born wife Magdalene who must have taken it with her to Poland and incorporated it into her husband’s library at the family estate in the early 1910s. It went on to survive two world wars and Stalinist oppression which banned Western culture and artwork, before being handed down to me by my grandfather before he passed away.   

Although this novel is less famous than “Three Men in a Boat”, as a leisurely read it is surprisingly charming for a sequel. The jokes are a little further apart and the sections of purple writing and half-baked musings a bit more tedious, but all in all, much like its predecessor, it is too a silly book.