Claire Etcherelli (2001) Elise ou la vraie vie.pdf

ELISE OU LA VRAIE VIE

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TWENTIETH CENTURY TEXTS

Claire Etcherelli

ELISE OU LA VRAIE VIEEdited by

John Roach, B.A., Ph.D.Lecturer in French, University of Aberdeen

London

First published in this edition in 1985 byMethuen Educational Ltd Reprinted 1987

Reprinted 2001 byRoutledge

11 New Fetter LaneLondon EC4P 4EE

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

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Text 1967 Editions Denol

Introduction and Notes 1985 John Roach

All rights reserved. No partof this book may be reprinted

or reproduced or utilized in any formor by any electronic, mechanical or other means,

now known or hereafter invented, including photocopyingand recording, or in any information

storage or retrieval system, without permissionin writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataEtcherelli, Claire

Elise ou la vraie vie.(Methuens twentith century texts)

I. Title II. Roach, John843.914[F] PQ2665.T36

ISBN 0-203-98579-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-05093-6 (Print Edition)

Transferred to digital reprinting 2001

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii

INTRODUCTION 1

The author 1

France and Algeria, 18301962 4

Overview 11

Elise and Lucien 13

Elise, Marie-Louise and Anna 17

Elise and Arezki 19

Work and politics 22

La vraie vie 28

Form 30

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION 38

BIBLIOGRAPHY 41

ELISE OU LA VRAIE VIE 43

NOTES TO THE TEXT 219

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to express my thanks to the Carnegie Trust Scotland for a travelgrant which enabled me to do work in Paris, and to Madame ThrseMairesse at Editions Denol for allowing me to consult their files onClaire Etcherelli and Elise ou la vraie vie and for general information.

INTRODUCTION

THE AUTHOR

Claire Etcherelli was born in Bordeaux on 11 January 1934. Her fatherwas a docker. In 1942 he was arrested by the Germans and deported;later that year he was shot. Claire went to live with her grandfather inthe Basque region of France. In 1943 she returned to Bordeaux andbecame a pupille de la nation, which meant that her education andwelfare were paid for by the state as she was a war orphan. She waseducated at a church school in Bordeaux and was a very able pupil. Shespoke of her youth in an interview with Francine Mallet (Le Monde, 22November 1967):

Ds mon enfance, jai t marque terriblement; toute majeunesse sest passe dans une grande solitude force, dabordamre. Je souffrais de tout; de mes vtements, de ma gaucherie.Je souffrais surtout dtre retranche des autres lves dupensionnat lgant o, grce une bourse de pupille de la nation,jai t leve, mais o la diffrence des milieux sociaux craientdes barrires infranchissables pour moi. Aprs, cest moi-mmequi me suis retranche des autres volontairement. Jai cherch mesingulariser: par exemple, en ne me prsentant pas au bac.Depuis lge de trois ans je cherche dans lcriture un plaisir, unrefuge.

She left school and married when she was eighteen. She began writingseriously in 1953 but her first works were turned down by publishers.When she was twenty-two her first child, a son, was born. A year laterher marriage broke up. In 1957 she moved to Paris with her child andfound work in the Citron car plant. She stayed there for seventeen

months, then went to work in another factory before getting a job in atravel agency. This work was less physically exhausting than her labourin the factories and allowed her the time and energy to begin writingagain. She started what was to become Elise ou la vraie vie in 1960 andtook over three years to write it.

The manuscript was rejected by several publishers before aninfluential intellectual figure in Paris, Maurice Nadeau, editor of theseries Lettres nouvelles for the publisher Denol, accepted the novel andit was published in 1967. The previous year, Claire Etcherelli hadremarried. Her husband was Mohamed Cherchelli, Director of Tourismfor Algeria. Their marriage was short-lived and when the novel cameout, the author was living alone with her two sons (the second was bornin 1961).

Elise ou la vraie vie won wide acclaim and the author became theobject of a great deal of attention. The most important immediatecoverage was an article by Claude Lanzman in the widely read andinfluential magazine Elle (16 November 1967). This was followed aweek later by a lengthy interview with Simone de Beauvoir published inthe left-wing weekly Le Nouvel Observateur. Both writers noted thefeminist interest of the novel and the authenticity of its tone; they saw itlargely as an indictment of the social ethos of male superiority and anattack on the economic structure of a society which exploited thepowerless, by subjecting them to dehumanizing conditions of work inorder to produce goods for the affluent. Over the next few weeks thenovel gained further publicity and Claire Etcherelli received a number ofliterary and intellectual accolades, including an interview andfavourable review in the prestigious daily newspaper Le Monde. Theculmination came when Elise ou la vraie vie won a major literary prize,the Prix Femina, in November 1961. The Figaro Littraire (10 December1967) declared that the vote reflected a right-left split among themembers of the jury. The reviews certainly seem to bear this out. Theextreme right-wing weekly Minute (30 December 1967) responded tothe award of the prize with the headline Fatima Fmina and theirreviewer, like many on the right, deplored the books sympathetictreatment of the Algerians and concluded that the novel was anti-Frenchand endorsed terrorism. On the left the book was praised for its portrayalof racism and the dehumanizing effects of work practices in mass-production factories. Generally the reviews tended to focus on thedocumentary value of the novel; for example, the reviewer in LeParisien (28 November 1967) called it un reportage plutt quunroman, and Philippe Snart in the Revue de Paris dismissed the novel

2 ELISE OU LA VRAIE VIE

as du Zola rcrit par Sagan! However, both before and after theFmina prize, some reviewers were more generous and closer to theopinion expressed by Dominique Aury in the Nouvelle Revue franaise(1 January 1982), le rcit simple et droitfait honte et inspire lerespect.

Interest in the novel and its author revived when the film version,directed by Michel Drach, came out in November 1970. It receivedenthusiastic reviews, though once again the response was largelydetermined by the political allegiance of the reviewer.

Since then Claire Etcherelli has continued to work part-time in atravel agency and to write novels. She has published two further works,A propos de Clmence (1971) and Un Arbre voyageur (1978). Thoughwell received by critics these novels did not command the same degreeof attention and public response as her first novel. Both are variationson the quest for la vraie vie. At the same time she seems to havewanted to extend her narrative technique and both novels have a moreambitious formal structure than Elise ou la vraie vie.

In her second novel Claire Etcherelli once more makes a woman,Gabrielle Fardoux, her main character. The main theme of the novel isthe difficulty of knowing oneself and the impossibility of knowinganother person; the political and social context of the novel is verymuch subservient to this theme. The final lines of the novel reinforcethe point as Gabrielle, once more alone, reflects that: Quelques annesplus tt se promettant de tenir une espce de journal qui partirait de sajeunesse et se terminerait sa mort, elle avait commenc ainsi: Abritederrire mon apparence je demeure invisible tous. Qui me connat?.A propos de Clmence is a carefully constructed novel but its artifice isunconvincing, it produces insubstantial characters whose predicamentsremain somewhat abstract for the reader.

Un Arbre voyageur is in two parts. The first, much the shorter, isnarrated by Anna, a friend of the main character, Milie. The second partdevelops the story of Milie who has left Paris to live in a run-downhouse in the country. Within this section there is a long flashbacktracing Milies childhood and her working-class origins. The novel hasa rich network of themes and a variety of narrative styles ranging fromthe diary-like entries of Annas section, to the classic form of theflashback to Milies childhood, as well as sections which read like a filmscript: Milie, la lettre dans la main. Retenant lespoir, rejetantlamertume. Bruits de la ville un jour de soleil. Douleur supportable, peine gnante quand elle aspire lair chaud. The changes in narrativestyle, the shifts in time and space are well handled by Claire Etcherelli

INTRODUCTION 3

and Un Arbre voyageur is a much more coherent novel than A proposde Clmence.

Claire Etcherelli had originally intended her three novels to be atrilogy entitled Des Annes noires. There was a common thematic linkbetween them and they covered developments in French society andpolitics from the fifties to the seventies. Another link was the characterAnna, who appears in all three. In A propos de Clmence she appears asa friend of Clmence, and in Un Arbre voyageur she is the narrator ofthe first part of the novel. In an interview in the Quinzaine littraire (1630 June 1978) Claire Etcherelli explained that: Anna correspond quelque chose qui me fascine: lide quon puisse se dpasser et quonpuisse arriver ce que dit Anna: savoir qui on est, se possder de partout.This search for self-knowledge, for an identity, is at the centre of ClaireEtcherellis writing. It involves both a journey inward towards self-knowledge and a reaching out towards others. In the end an identity canonly be achieved through solidarity with others, which in turn demandsinvolvement in the common struggle against those forces in societywhich destroy human dignity. Claire Etcherellis way of engaging inthat struggle is by writing, though, as she says, she is sceptique sur lerle de lcriture, sur la puissance du livre. Mais il nest pas inutile detmoigner de ce qua pu tre la condition relle des individus dans unesituation politique donne (ibid.).

FRANCE AND ALGERIA, 18301962

Charles X, anxious to give his lack-lustre regime some prestige, decidedto seize Algiers, which at the time was loosely under Turkish authority.On 5 July 1830 General Beaumonts force landed at Siddi Ferruch andthus began Frances involvement with Algeria. Years of sporadicfighting followed until in 1847 the main indigenous resistance forces ledby Abd-el-Kader were finally defeated, though the country was not fullypacified until 1871. It is important to note that the people of Algeria,then as now, are not of one race though they share a common faith,Islam. The majority are Arabs but a sizeable minority, some 20 per centof the population, are Berbers (themselves a multi-racial group) theoriginal people of North Africa before the Arab conquest. In thenineteenth century there was also a strong Jewish community, most ofwhom were descendants of Jews who had settled in North Africa afterthey were driven out of Spain in 1492. After 1870 the Jews were givenfull French citizenship, the Muslims were not. The European settlers,


the colons, used the diversity of the Muslim population fosteringanimosities between Arabs and Berbersto divide and rule.

Three waves of French settlers arrived in Algeria. The first wererepublican insurrectionists sent there in 1848. The second came in 1871after Frances defeat by Prussia and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. Thethird came after an outbreak of phylloxera in 1880 had devastated thewine-producing areas of France. A census taken in 1872 showed thatthere were 245,000 European settlers in Algeria: French, Italian andSpanish. To meet their demands vast tracts of the best land in thecoastal regions were appropriated and distributed to them.

With the great increase in the number of settlers came political andadministrative changes. An administration on the French model tookover from the army most of the running of the country. The littoral wasdivided into three dpartements, Oran, Algiers, Constantine, while thesouthern region, mostly desert, was still administered by the army. Thedpartements, like those in France, were run by a prefect appointed bythe government in Paris. The communes, the smallest administrativeunits, had an elected mayor if there was a European majority or anappointed administrator if the majority was Muslim. Likewise, a Frenchlegal system was introduced. In overall charge of Algeria was theGovernor-General, appointed by and responsible to the Ministre delIntrieur in Paris. The country was run in a way designed to serve theinterests of the Europeans; for example, only they had the vote ingeneral elections and could choose the deputies sent to Parliament inParis (two deputies and one senator per dpartement). In fact, from firstto last the Europeans had a built-in majority in all representativeinstitutions. Not only were Muslim voting rights very restricted, butMuslims were denied many of the other civil rights enjoyed byEuropeans. Ninety per cent of Muslims were illiterate and the few whodid go through the whole French education system frequently foundthemselves alienated from their own community and rejected by theEuropeans. Commerce, industry and the professions were all almostexclusively a preserve of the colons.

In 1930 the Europeans celebrated one hundred years of French rulewith great pomp and circumstance. The population was made up of 800,000 colons and five million Muslims; Algeria seemed secure, politicallystable and economically prosperous. But the surface calm belied thereality and the indif ference of the Europeans to the injustices of thesystem made them ignore the signs of mounting resentment andhostility. Perhaps the fact that the opposition was often bitterly dividedalso encouraged the colons not to take it seriously. In the twenties and

INTRODUCTION 5

thirties it was split into three main strands. There were the culturalfundamentalists, whose single concern was that there should be nodilution of Muslim cultural identity, no erosion of Islamic faith andprinciples. They were therefore opposed not only to the French but,even more vehemently, to the second Muslim faction, mostly made upof the educated class, who sought equal rights and integration withEuropeans. These educated Muslims had obtained all the Europeanprerequisites for success only to find themselves denied access to therewards. One of the leaders of this faction was Farhad Abbar, who, after1940, was to move to the third group, those demanding independence.Significantly the independence movement drew its strength from thefirst wave of Muslim immigrants who went to France after the FirstWorld War.

In the 1930s some European politicians did try to introduce reforms.The modest proposals of the 1936 Viollette-Blum plan would havegiven citizenship to about 30,000 Muslims, that is, the educatedminority and those with the highest economic stake in the existingstructure. But even this was too much for the colons and the Bill wasdefeated. In 1944 General de Gaulles provisional government tried torevive the principle of assimilation, but again it was rejected and on thisoccasion by both Muslims and Europeans. The Muslim population wasfirmly set on independence. There were two main reasons for this. Thefirst and most obvious was the colons refusal to concede anything,which had worsened the plight of the Muslims as their numbers grewand the resources available to them decreased. The second was theexperience of the immigrant workers in France during the 1920s and1930s which had convinced them that the idea of assimilation was anillusion. The racism they encountered, the difficulties of their existencein Francelow wages, menial jobs, poor housing in the slums of thebig cities, separation from their familieshad not only made theimmigrant workers resentful but had left them convinced that the onlyhope for Algeria was independence. And it is not surprising that manywere attracted by the revolutionary, anti-colonial, anti-imperialistideologies prevalent at the time.

When the Second World War ended there began a series of colonialwars and the success of these campaigns was to set an example for theAlgerian nationalists. In this context the war in Indo-China was ofparticular significance; it showed what could be done and what could bewon, it also showed that independence could only be won by totalcommitment to the force of arms. The Muslim demonstrations in Stifin May 1945 had left 103 Europeans dead. In the savage reprisals which


followed some 40,000 Muslims were slaughtered, and after these eventsno amount of liberalization could stem the tide of Muslim opposition. Aprophetic slogan appeared on walls throughout Algeria: La valise ou lecercueil. The years between 1945 and 1954 were the lull before thestorm.

The fall of Dien-Bien-Phu brought defeat for France and peace inIndo-China. Four months later on 1 November 1954 (All Saints Day,when the colons were commemorating their dead) the Algerian warbegan. From the first it was clear that this was not going to be anoutburst against colonial abuses. but a concerted campaign againstFrench rule. The FLN (Front de Libtration Nationale) declared that itsaim was full independence and the creation of an Islamic Algerian state.The French goverament was equally intransigent: Algeria was Frenchand would remain French. The Ministre de lIntrieur, FranoisMitterrand, sent in the army. The savagery which was to characterizethe war was evident from the first.

In 1956 a new French government, headed by the socialist leader GuyMollet, launched a military campaign designed to wipe out theinsurgents. The number of conscripts sent to Algeria was increased, apolicy that met with opposition in France, particularly after themassacre of a platoon of soldiers (twenty-two men) in May, at Palestro,a village some fifty miles south of Algiers. These killings, together witha wave of shootings and bombings in Algiers which killed forty-ninecivilians, led to massive reprisals and to the Battle of Algiers (whichhas since been made into a remarkable film by the Italian director, GilloPontecorvo). This battle, which was intended to wipe out the guerrillasin Algiers, was led by General Massu who commanded some 8000 menof the lite parachute corps, the most battle-hardened of the Frencharmy units. It marked an escalation in the war. It also demonstrated thatthe military felt able to conduct the war very much its own way, often withdisregard, if not contempt, for the civil government. In October 1956 oneof the leaders of the FLN, Ben Bella, was seized by the French andimprisoned. The manner of his capture caused an international incident.A Moroccan plane in which he was travelling with some companionswas diverted to Algiers in flagrant breach of international law. InNovember, France and Britain embarked on the disastrous Suez war.The result was an increase in military support for the FLN from Egyptand Tunisia.

In 1957 the Battle of Algiers was won with the capture of theguerrilla leader Saadi Yacef. The bombings ceased, but the methodsused to bring about pacification were denounced as institutionalized

INTRODUCTION 7

torture. The torture shocked France and brought world-widecondemnation. In France opposition to the Algerian war increased,whereas in Algeria the army and the Europeans grew more determinedthat there should be no sell-out. The conduct of the war was intensifiedand certain acts were committed which challenged, and at times openlyflouted, the authority of the French government. In May the Molletgovernment fell and France was without a government for three weeks.

In February 1958 the French bombed the Tunisian border village ofSakiet, from which had come sporadic firing at French reconnaissanceplanes. The bombing flattened the village and killed eighty people,among them women and children. The incident caused an internationaloutcry and precipitated a deep political crisis. In April the Frenchgovernment again fell and the nation was without a government forthirty-seven days. On 13 May, demonstrators in Algiers rioted andseized government buildings, demanding the recall of General deGaulle. On 1 June de Gaulle became Prime Minister and three days laterhe was in Algiers making his famous Je vous ai compris speech to theEuropeans. In September the FLN formed its government in exile, theGPRA (Gouvernement Provisoire de la Rpublique Algrienne)presided over by Ferhat Abbas who promptly rejected de Gaulles offerof la paix des braves. Also in September the Fourth Republic came toan end, and the constitution of the new republic was accepted byreferendum.

General de Gaulle became the first President of the Fifth Republic inJanuary 1959 and secret negotiations were begun with the GPRA. InSeptember, de Gaulle promised self-determination for Algeria; herealized that though the military war could be won, the political warwas lost and thus there could be no military solution. In June the nextpeace talks at Melun with the FLN failed and in September thereappeared the Manifeste des 121, a declaration against the Algerian warsigned by 121 (later 200) leading figures in France, who urgedconscripts to desert and thus hasten the end of what was seen as a warof repression and torture. In November de Gaulle declared: Un jour il yaura une Rpublique algrienne and in December the United Nationspassed a resolution supporting Algerias right to independence. Areferendum in France in January 1961 approved the governmentsproposals for Algerian self-determination. At the same time theextremist European terrorist organization, the OAS (Organisation delArme Secrte) was created by colons and army officers opposed tothe peace settlement, with the aim of eliminating all those considered tobe the enemies of Algrie franaise. The OAS began a bombing


campaign in Algeria and attempted to assassinate de Gaulle. In April,four generals attempted a putsch in Algiers, but the army did not backthem. De Gaulle declared a state of emergency and the generals werearrested. The OAS increased its terror campaign in 1962, killing allthose (Europeans and Muslims) deemed suspect. In February 553people were killed. At the same time the OAS launched a terrorcampaign in France. The first victim was a four-year-old girl, blindedby a bomb intended for Andr Malraux. This outrage provoked massiveprotest demonstration in Paris. The marchers gathered in the Place de laBastille. There were clashes with the police, who responded violently,killing eight demonstrators outside the Charonne mtro station. Half amillion people marched in silent protest at the funeral of the eightvictims. In March, at Evian, in the second round of peace talks with theFLN an agreement was reached. A cease-fire followed, and in April areferendum approved the terms of the peace treaty. In July 1962 Algeriawas declared independent and on 15 September, Ben Bella became thefirst President of Algeria.

Social and economic changes in France 19451958

Colonial wars in Indo-China and Algeria dominated French politicsthroughout the fifties, divided the nation and finally brought down theFourth Republic. But the political traumas of twenty-four governmentsin thirteen years, the savagery of the wars, the terrorism and the collapseof the Fourth Republic, should not mask the fact that other significantchanges were occurring in France over the period. Profound economic,social and cultural changes were taking place in the country. The flfteenyears between 1945 and 1960 were a time of reconstruction on everylevel following the physical, material and moral devastation of WorldWar Two.

Perhaps the most successful element of the reconstruction wasFrances economic revival. The foundations of what was to become theeconomic miracle of the sixties, were laid in the preceding decade bythe skilful management of administrators who facilitated expansion,investment, research and the development of new industries. Oneconsequence of the economic revival was a constant need for labour,which was largely met by bringing in foreign workers, mostly fromNorth Africa but also from other parts of Europe (Italy, Spain and laterPortugal). There was also considerable internal immigration as Frenchpeople moved from the provinces to the new industrial zones in oraround the cities. Not only did more and more people find themselves in

INTRODUCTION 9

an alien environment, cut off from their roots, living in difficultconditions (aggravated by a chronic housing shortage), but they weredoing dreary, repetitive, arduous work, dictated by the demands of massproduction. And it was the Algerians who were at the bottom of theindustrial and social hierarchy.

In the huge manufacturing plants relations between workers werestrained; the demands of production, the organization of labour and thesystem of rewards exacerbated racial tension. And for the Algeriansthere were the added tensions caused by a brutal war. Hostility, angerand fear often turned into violence. And every political crisis andcatastrophe only made things worse. This is the context of Elise ou lavraie vie.

Immigration

Contrary to popular belief, the Algerians were not the largest group ofimmigrants in France during the 1950s. Indeed, not until 1982, whentheir numbers rose to 795,000, did they become so. In 1954 the twobiggest groups of immigrants were the Italians and the Spaniards,numbering 507,000 and 288,000 respectively. There were only 211,000Algerians. By 1962 the figures were: 629,000 Italians; 441,000Spaniards; 350,000 Algerians.

Between 1946 and 1954 there was a tenfold increase in immigrationin France, but despite the fact that there were fewer Algerians thanItalians or Spaniards, they seemed more numerous because of theirimmediately visible differences of race and culture. The Italians orSpaniards, though foreign, were still Latins and Catholics; the Algerianswere aliens.

The Algerians were invariably given dirty, arduous and low-paidjobs. Most of them were unskilled workers in heavy industry,production-line hands in car plants, or labourers on construction sites.They congregated where the jobs were, in the large conurbations ofParis, Lille, Lyons, Marseilles. They could only obtain and afford theworst housing and lived in ghettos, often in conflict with the Frenchpoor who had been unable to move out as they moved in. Furthermore,from 1954 until the Evian peace treaty in 1962, Algerians were suspect,they were the enemy within. They were subjected to constant policesurveillance, rounded-up, frequently arrested and deported, or theysimply disappeared. As the war intensified Algerian workers alsocame under pressure from the FLN. They had to contribute to war fundsand were subjected to a strict disciplinary code as the movement sought


to alienate them still further from the French. One example of this codewas the imposition of Islamic principles forbidding the use of alcoholand tobacco. It was as dangerous for an Algerian, vis--vis his ownpeople, to fraternize with a French person as it was for a Frenchperson to fraternize with someone whom the popular press alwaysrepresented as a fifth columnist. Thus, Elise and Arezki foundthemselves under suspicion and pressure from both sides. Suchfriendships were so rare that they stood out and made the couple highlyvulnerable. It was a particularly dangerous situation for Arezki, sincethe main priority for an Algerian working in France in the 1950s was toremain anonymous.

OVERVIEW

When Elise ou la vraie vie first came out the author attracted as muchattention as the novel. It was as if many reviewers needed to find someway to explain how someone from Claire Etcherellis background hadmanaged to write such a powerful and accomplished work. Much wasmade of the autobiographical parallels between author and heroine andcritics tended to emphasize the documentary aspects of the novel: itsdepiction of the living and working conditions of the poor, the unskilledand the immigrants. The novels authenticity was widely praised but itwas attributed to the fact that the novel was a record of the writers ownexperiences. It would be foolish to deny that Claire Etcherelli drew onher personal experience for her novel, but the way the raw material ishandled makes Elise ou la vraie vie a work of the imagination, skilfullycrafted, varied and subtle in its treatment of character, theme andnarrative.

The novel is not anecdotal, it does not merely illustrate aspects ofworking-class life in the 1950s. Its documentary aspect serves a widerpurpose than that of simply conveying information; the novel is not aslice of life. The naturalistic details are not ends in themselves, they arean integral part of the novels thematic structure. Work practices, racialprejudice, the abuse of police powers, terrorism, are all political themesvery relevant and obvious ones in France in the late 1950s. However,the author does not treat them in any programmatic way, she does notset out to prove a case, but rather challenges the social and politicalvalues which sustain prejudices of all kinds. Her aim is to engage thereader in a debate on issues about the relationship between society andthe individual, and these issues are not confined to the historical contextof the novel; they are very much alive today. The detailsfactual,

INTRODUCTION 11

historical and socialare presented in a series of images and build upthe social and political context within which the characters live. We aregiven many details about car production, wages, working conditions,the noise, the smell, the organization of the plant and so on, but thesedetails are not there because the author is primarily interested in carproduction, but are used to convey the experience of those who aresubjected to the conditions described. The factory, the production lineare gigantic, strangely alive and sinister and above all powerfulcompared with the vulnerable and subservient human beings. We areled to reflect on what such conditions do to people and the world of thecar plant comes to symbolize the wider social and political organizationof society.

Claire Etcherellis characters are not mere case-studies. She attachesgreat importance to creating characters who are individuals; this appliesto Elise and all with whom she has a personal relationship, and even tominor characters. There are no stereotypes. One of the themes in hernovels is the way society thrives on stereotypes, dogma and prejudice,all to the detriment of the individual. No character in Elise ou la vraievie is there merely to illustrate some social or political point.

A first-person narration creates certain problems for the novelist. Itrestricts the point of view and limits the action to events in thenarrators life. In Part One Elise leads a narrowly circumscribed life andthe reader could easily be subjected to the same monotony. However,Claire Etcherelli avoids this; Elises narrative is more than a passiverecord of her life in Bordeaux, it reflects the dawning of her self-awareness, the outward monotony of Elises life is contrasted with herinward emotional, intellectual and moral awakening. The manner of thenarration does raise the question of the narrators reliability. Is Elisetelling the truth? In a first-person novel subjectivity is unavoidable andwe at least have to believe Elise is not deliberately trying to mislead.Claire Etcherelli introduces certain details to suggest that Elise is beinghonest in her account. Annas letter, Luciens Cahier, other peoplesremarks about Arezki, such details as these corroborate Elisesjudgements. The advantages of having a first-person narrator are that itgives a sense of immediacy and authenticity to the narrative and allowsthe author to show Elise growing in self-awareness through herrelationships with others and through her own changing understandingof her experience without authorial commentary.

The novel is carefully structured. Parts One and Two follow a similarpattern: a slow opening, increasing activity leading to a breakdown inrelationships and ending with Elise alone. The pattern is repeated but it


is also contrasted; in Part Two the tempo is faster, the action morecomplex and at the end, although Elises loss is irrevocable, she isdefiant and resilient, determined to meet the challenges which confronther.

Elise ou la vraie vie cannot be reduced to some convenient literarygenre. It is neither a documentary, proletarian nor feminist novel.Elements of all three categories are present, but Claire Etcherelli hassuccessfully combined them in a way which takes her novel beyond thelimits of any single category. She has written a work of aesthetic andmoral interest. We are encouraged to make our own mind up and toresist the temptation to label.

ELISE AND LUCIEN

Surtout ne pas penser. The opening words of the novel express Elisesdilemma at the end of a process of learning to think for herself, aboutherself, about her life. Her story is the story of her awakening to others,to work, to love, to politics, to history, to death, but above all to herself.The emotional, intellectual, sensual and spiritual awakening necessitatesthought and brings joy, sorrow, a sense of freedom and a terribleresponsibility to act upon the insights revealed by her experience.

Her awakening is slow and indeed for the twenty-seven years of herlife spent in Bordeauxthe period covered in Part One of the novelshe resists it. During this time she is essentially concerned withprotecting herself and creating an existence within a narrow physical,intellectual, emotional and moral environment, conditions which aredesigned to shut out all that is unpredictable or unfamiliar: Scurit.Jaimais ce mot et ce quil voquait Il remplaait le mot bonheur (p.97). The scurit is founded on her brother Lucien, but his desires andambitions progressively run counter to her need and the growingdistance between them provokes changes in her which slowly break upthe passive, dormant existence in which she was seeking refuge.

Biographical details are rapidly outlined in the opening pages. Thereis no reference to parents or any close relative other than thegrandmother, and we see from this both how intensely Elise loves herbrother and how emotionally deprived she is. What emerges from thesepages is her isolation. She is solitary and vulnerable and seeks to protectherself through the protectiveness with which she surrounds herbrother. She delights in the role of sister-mother and at this stage in herlife tacitly endorses the grandmothers philosophy of homely fatalism:Le Bon Dieu a une grande louche et il sert tout le monde (p. 57).

INTRODUCTION 13

Despite having ni vocation, ni ambition (p. 57) Elise is bright,resourceful, resilient, perceptive and brave, and we see her develop asthe circumstances of her life change and as she rises to the challenge.The changes are invariably brought about by Lucien, who dominatesPart One. Elise has no life of her own, no desires beyond being with him,caring for him and seeing that he is happy within the confines of herpossessiveness: Je continuai vouloir le conduire (p. 56). She clingsto him because he gives her life purpose and meaning. Luciens growingneed for independence clashes with Elises desire to retain a state ofmutual dependency. Various individuals enter Luciens life, each onedisrupting Elises life more profoundly.

First there is Henri, then Marie-Louiseand with her comes thefeeling that quelque choseallait dfinitivement mchapper (p. 67)then, disastrously, there is Anna: A partir delle tout changea (p. 77).As Lucien detaches himself from her, as he exploits her, Elise begins tosee her life and the world about her differently; she too changes, shedevelops new levels of awareness which will be rapidly expanded andenriched in Paris. In this sense, Luciens relationships act as catalysts:they erode Elises longing for security, they challenge her static view ofherself and of life.

Elise is first aware of her brothers rage for independence when, atthe age of fourteen, he becomes fascinated by Henri and passionateabout roller-skating. The latter symbolizes his desires for self-expression, his longing to be free, to flee, and Elise senses this longingas she secretly watches him: Je laperus seul dans le brouillard glacles patins aux piedsje le regardaije devinai son bonheur, cevagabondage dans la brumela sensation de la libert retrouve (p.58). The turning point for Lucien and Elise comes when Lucien,frustrated and peeved at not having been chosen for a starring part in thegym display in the school games, deliberately falls from the bar in thegym and is severely injured. During his convalescence he seems tobecome dependent on Elise once more, but his intensive reading of left-wing newspapers, magazines and books makes him aware of hisdissatisfaction with his life and of his need for some form of liberationand self-affirmation, some grand gesture to break out of his prison:Jtais comme un tre enferm dans une bulle de verrece que jevoulais, ctait casser la bulle pour que quelquun mcoute (p. 65).

Elise herself feels une sensation dtre envase (p. 64) and she toobegins to see the world through new eyes as she reads the books thatLucien leaves lying around, Je lisais et se levaient les voiles pais (p.69). Her reading makes her call into question cette gymnastique bien


rgle (p. 68) which has been her life. She is frightened by what shereads: les lectures de Lucien me troublaient. Avec une logique terrible,ces crits dnonaient tout ce qui mavait paru naturel (p. 69). What issignificant here is Elises new awareness of herself, of her life, and hercritical attitude to what she reads; in other words, she is beginning tothink for herself and with this new consciousness come newresponsibilities. She recognizes this new awareness: Je vis macondition, jen devins fire (p. 69). This new-found sense of herselfmarks a major development in her consciousness and sharpens her socialawareness, so that when she goes to work in the car factory she candistance herself to a certain extent from the conditions she encountersthere.

Elises love for her brother never ceases, but it does not cloud herjudgement of his actions or her understanding of his motives. She islucid about his fundamental egoism, his child-like self-centredness, hisneed to gratify his every desire immediately and his rage and sulkingwhen he cannot. His life is a series of histrionic gestures. Ironically,Lucien sees himself as a victim, which is also how Henri (the fakerevolutionary) sees him: Iimage mme de la victime dun systmecette belle figure creuse sortie des archives de la Rvolution dOctobre(p. 81). His rhetoric masks the shallowness of his thoughts; for examplehe writes to Elise: Je me suis trouv dans la ncessit matrielledaccepter un boulot pnible, mais combien exaltant. Je vais me mleraux vrais combattants, partager la vie inhumaine des ouvriers dusine(p. 97)fine words which are not substantiated by his actions. He doesnot work hard at the factory and he shares very little, indeed we neversee Lucien give anything emotionally or materially. It is not that he ishypocritical, but rather that he is locked into a pattern of self-dramatization which he mistakes for commitment and action. His granddeclaration: je tmoignerai, pour ceux qui ne peuvent le faire is nevercarried out. It is significant that Lucien is neither liked nor trusted by hisfellow workers. For example there is the incident which occurs when heis haranguing the workers after the bombing of Sakiet. As he evokes thechildrens suffering a man calls out, Dis donc, cest toi qui nous causescomme a? Est-ce que cest pas toi, par hasard, qui as lch ta femme etton gosse Questce que tu viens nous faire de la morale (p. 241).Lucien considers that his private life does not come into such matters:Quest-ce que ma vie personnelle vient faire ici? he asks. But, as theman replies: a fait beaucoup, mon vieux! And we learn that Lucienhas been cheating Marie-Louise of the child allowance and using themoney to buy himself and Anna a new record-player and new books (p.

INTRODUCTION 15

242). Since he considers himself to be superior, Lucien does not seewhy he should be bound by notions of responsibility or honesty. Hisideas remain abstractions since the values he ostensibly defends arenever borne out by his actions.

Luciens moral weakness is apparent from his treatment of Elise,Marie-Louise, Anna and the grandmother, all of whom, to a greater orlesser extent, love him and depend upon him. He exploits thememotionally and financially and he betrays them. He betrays Marie-Louise most cruelly and callously, he betrays Anna when he abandonsher to move to Paris, and his repeated betrayals of Elise culminate in hiscasual revelation of her relationship with Arezki. In all these instanceshe is convinced that his actions mark his superior independence, and thattheir reactions are a measure of their sentimentality, their conformityand hence of their inferiority.

In the end Elise recognizes that Lucien is a sad, pathetic figure, buther love is such that she does not reject him. She feels pity withoutcondescension. His death is an ironic commentary on his wasted life. Hechased after images and sensations, mistook gestures for actions and hiscommitment was swallowed up by the cynicism that Elise had detectedfrom the first, Je le trouvais cynique, rus (p. 57). Luciens life is a seriesof humiliations. He is motivated by a bitter anger, a self-destructiveenergy which can only be fed by sensations and which cripples andperverts all his relationships. Throughout his futile life Lucien is sansamarres (p. 81), adrift not on a voyage of discovery or fulfilment but adownward spiral of destruction into which he seeks to drag others. Thefinal line of the newspaper report of his death is an ironic epitaph: Onignore pourquoi le jeune malade senfuyait en pleine nuit et quelle taitsa destination (p. 269).

Elises reflections on his death pick up the irony: L dans ce platpaysage, avait fini laventure de sa vie. Vie manque, mort drisoire.Les jeunes hros du sicle mouraient au volant dans les fracas de leursbolides et lui se tuait sur un solex (p. 273).1 And her final comment onwhat might have been Luciens response, mimics his warpedindifference: Et alors? aurait-il dit de sa voix caustique. Et aprs? (p.273). Lucien was always running away, without ever knowing what hewas running towards; he never knew his destination. He dies as he hadlived, accidentally.


ELISE, MARIE-LOUISE AND ANNA

Marie-Louise and Anna sharpen and challenge Elises self-awareness.They arouse her feminity and make her think about the condition ofwomen in society. And her thoughts alert the reader to this importanttheme in the novel. Since they both intrude on her relationship withLucien and succeed in displacing her, she is instinctively hostile to them.This hostility not only shows how exclusive and possessive her love forLucien is, but also discreetly alerts the reader to the subjectivity of theaccount. Elise does not hide her hostility, indeed she is very conscious ofit and it stimulates her into difficult, often painful self-analysis. Herrecognition of her own prejudices is a measure of the growth of her self-awareness. Part of her resentment arises from the fact that Marie-Louiseand Anna not only disrupt her relationship with Lucien, they alsoundermine and challenge her own self-image. In Part One Marie-Louiseand Anna intrude on the protective, static environment which Elise hasfashioned for herself, in the same way as Luciens books lead her tothink about herself and to confront possibilities, choices and emotionsshe has hitherto ignored and suppressed. Her reaction to them gives usinsight into her character. By breaking the shell within which Eliseseeks to liveme faire une petite vie moi (p. 64)Marie-Louiseand Anna, paradoxically, prepare and make possible her liberation andher self-fulfilment.

Elise responds differently to the two women. She feels jealousy andresentment towards Marie-Louise, and anger, even fear, towards theenigmatic Anna; Jen venais regretter la mdiocrit reposante deMarie-Louise. Je craignais Anna (p. 165). Jealousy drives Elise to takea certain mean pleasure in Marie-Louises unhappiness. It makes herfeel smug and superior to see Marie-Louise modelling herself on thewomens-magazine image of a wife and a woman (p. 75). But she alsorecognizes the drudgery and humiliation which are so often the lot ofwomen in her milieu. In Paris, Elise experiences the long hardship, thephysical and spiritual degradation of work. As one of her colleaguessays: cest quoi, pour moi, la vie? Cavaler, regarder lheure, travailler(p. 178). And their domestic life is no better: le retour chez soi, elles seretrouveraient dans une autre alination (p. 158). The women in the carfactory and Marie-Louise are like the filles de mon quartier qui, quinze ans, prenaient le chemin de lusine (p. 57). There is no ironywhen Elise comments: Lhroque Marie-Louise elle qui se levait six heures et restait jusquau soir rive sa machine (p. 82).

INTRODUCTION 17

Anna represents another form of feminine entrapment. Marie-Louiseembodies female conventionality whereas Anna demonstrates theillusion of female unconventionality. Marie-Louise casts herself in therole of wife and mother; Anna casts herself in the role of lover andoutsider. Both however, submit themselves to a predetermined imagewithin which they seek refuge and which places each of them in asubservient situation. Anna cultivates a persona which dramatizes her asa doomed, fated being.2 She creates around herself a fey mysteriousnesswhich masks an emotional and moral shallowness, a fear of life and ofresponsibility. This makes her the ideal partner for Lucien, his femalecounterpart.

Annas letter (pp. 779) to Lucien is extremely revealing; it shows(unintentionally, of course) the discrepancy between the image sheseeks to project and her real character. Though the letter purports to bean honest confession, its revelations are disingenuous. The dramaticopening and the use of vous, give the writing a literary, artificial tonebelying the professed spontaneity of the emotions proclaimed. Thevocabulary, syntax and structure of the letter reveal how carefully it wasplanned. For example, the biographical details, the repetition, thepunctuation, the irony are all introduced for maximum emotive effect.She contrives subtly to flatter Luciens masculinity and intellectualpretensions, through such phrases as: avec vous je me suis sentie, butthere is also the pulp-romance prose of entre les bras de lhomme quiva tre ma naissance et ma mort. Pour les voir contents, je faisais toutce quils voulaient, tout ce qui pouvaient leur plaire. And the letterends with the plangent: Lucien, nous reverrons-nous pour tre amis?Anna, like Lucien, lives off others and feeds her self-image. She givesnothing, though she portrays herself as self-sacrificing, and there is afine piece of unintended self-disclosure in her letter when she writes,Jaime avoir.

Luciens remark Elle a t inscrite divers mouvements. Maintenantelle milite moins, elle a trop doccupations (p. 88) is ironic sinceAnnas politics, like the men in her life, are mere dcor for her personaldrama, as Henris account of her suicide makes clear (p. 164). Thistheatrical gesture corroborates Elises judgement: Anna, cest uneimagination dmesure qui se voitprisonnire de limage, elle ne semontreque prte jouer son rle (p. 104). And her judgement isvindicated by Henris comment, by Annas passivity and by herbehaviour following Luciens death. She is unable to give anything andcan only go on repeating her experience which offers no possibility fordevelopment or growth. Like Lucien, Anna is a negative character, at


best a figure of pathos and failure, driven by an ultimately cripplingegoism, motivated by a spurious sense of superiority. Thus Elisesjudgement of heris not a reflection of her animosity towards Anna butrather it is evidence of her perceptiveness and of her powers of analysis,qualities which she applies to herself and which develop rapidly whenshe moves to Paris. Luciens sarcastic comment about Elise is true:Elle a mis vingt-huit ans se rveiller (p. 142), but her awarenessoperates in a much more lucid and critically constructive way than he iscapable of appreciating. Her analyses of Marie-Louise and Anna movebeyond prejudice. Elise forms her judgements without sentimentalityand without bitterness, and when Anna becomes Henris mistress afterLuciens death, she comments: Anna met Henri comme une baume surune plaie. Ses amants successifs nauront t que cela, des pansementssur une blessure, celle de sa vie, mal construite, congnitalementboiteuse (p. 280). Her words sound harsh but are in fact compassionateand they are directed as much at herself as at Anna. Annas mode ofescape is an awful temptation for Elise who finds herself in a similarsituation at this point, alone, in pain and in need of a refuge: Ladouleur me guette, tapie dans mon futur, camoufle dans les souvenirs;elle mattend pour me frapper mais je la contournerai et me dfendraihardiment(pp. 28081). The strength and determination to resist, todefend herself hardiment come from the love which she shared withArezki.

ELISE AND AREZKI

In Bordeaux Elises life was founded on a desire for protection, stabilityand security. In Paris she is in an alien environment, surrounded by theunknown, alone and vulnerable. Jaspirais soudain me retrouver maville familire, la grand-mre, et notre vie claustre. Les tresmeffrayaient, la vie meffrayait (p. 101). Paradoxically, the soul-destroying work in the car factory brings her a new awareness, a newresilience, a new self-confidence. It shows her she is able to adapt andsurvive. It is a new life and it sets her free. Tant dtres nouveaux sontentrs dans mon champ et si vite; le feu a clat en mille langues et je mesuis mis aimer les tres (p. 130). This intensely liberating experienceis crucial for Elises subsequent relationship with Arezki.

She is aware of racism before she meets Arezki, aware of thedivisions and animosities which exist in the factory. She experiencedArab suspicion and hostility after her clumsy attempt to befriendMustapha, she has realized how easy it is to be patronizing and

INTRODUCTION 19

condescending, above all she has survived nine days of the awfuldrudgery of production-line work. Thus Elise is very much alive to therealities of the world about her when Arezki first appears. He stands outas someone new and Elise is conscious that he is different, not just inhis appearance, but in his manner. He has a certain composure, astrength: Il y avait sous ses pais sourcils un feu noir (p. 131). Theirrelationship builds up casually, almost accidentally, as circumstancesbring them together at work. In this hostile, dehumanizing environment,where human relationships are at best merely functional and moreusually non-existent, their love, almost paradoxically, begins to growand flourish. And to understand the novel we must understand the wayin which they come to see and respond to each other as separate, uniquehuman beings.

Neither is young: Elise is twenty-eight and Arezki is thirty-one, yettheir romance has a certain innocence about it which intensifies theimmediacy and honesty of their actions and words. Their courtship (forthat is what it is and Claire Etcherelli cleverly expioits the clichs ofconventional romance to explore the relationship) the ritual ofmeetings, gestures, language and emotions, doubt, anxiety, resentment,jealousy, are all heightened by the clandestine nature of theirrelationship. They are surrounded, hemmed in, by taboos and fears:racial, cultural, historical. But this forces them to shed their ownprejudices in order to be able to cope with those of others. The lengthsthey have to go to in order to conceal their relationship shows howdeeply divided, hostile and unjust society is. What shines through theirlove is its perfect normality; that it should be so abnormal in the eyesof others, that it should meet with such hostility and prejudice, is ameasure of the sickness in society.

Elise and Arezki have to meet discreetly and furtively, often in theunfashionable districts of Paris, city of lovers, or seek anonymity incrowdcd areas like the Boulevard St. Michel. Once they meet auxTernes, off the Champs-Elyses. Arezki dresses up for the occasion, notonly because of the locality but also because he wants to show off hisnew shirt. Briefly, Elise sees Paris la nuit, celui des clichs et descalendriers (p. 195), but the romantic image is soon shattered as racismand class prejudices manifest themselves: un Arabe accompagn duneFranaise!elle est franaise et boniche assurment, a se devine sonallure (p. 196). This insult prefigures the humiliation they share whenthe police raid Arezkis hotel, where they have gone to make love.

In this long episode (pp. 22733) their love is confirmed. They arealone in Arezkis wretched room, hesitant and embarrassed, when the


intimate tension is shattered by the sudden irruption of the police. Elisesees and hears the casual, systematic violence through the windows;they wait silently as the police work their way through the hotel beforebursting into their room. Claire Etcherelli structures the build-up anddevelopment of the scene brilliantly, bringing out the racial hostility,intimidation, terror tactics and insults. This is not the incidental racismof the workplace and the street, but racism with official sanction, areality which is deeply rooted in society. All the insults, verbal andphysical, are calculated to humiliate Elise and Arezki. Yet through hishumiliation their love is consummated. Elise has now experienced theindignities to which Arezki is subjected, she has shared his condition.More than their sexual union, this sharing is the consummation of theirlove, and the experience transforms their relationship, giving them thewill and the courage to face the ugly reality which confronts andchallenges them. Elise finds that Arezki has given her life a meaning, apurpose, a direction, in other words, a future. They have the strength tolive out their love and no longer fear the insults which continue to bedirected at them. As Elise says: Je navais plus peur (p. 264).

She experiences a surge of life:

Mutile par ma vie rabougrie, par ma passion fraternelle et meshorizons borns, ma sensualit bien vivante, et qui navait trouvpour sexprimer que ces contemplations nocturnes et les joiesmystiques du renoncement, clata la chaleur de cette amitisecrte. (p. 168)

If Arezki transforms Elises life, the same is true of her impact on him.Claire Etcherelli builds up a portrait of Arezki, a complex, highlyindividual human being, a person of quality, endowed with physical,and above all moral, courage. His character is bound up with, but notmerely a result of, his origins. The author supplies various biographicaldetails, not as simple background information, still less as exoticdocumentation, but to substantiate Arezki in his individuality, his fullestparticularity and to give him within the novel the same intensity anddepth of being which Elise has. Thus, whereas the society about himviolates his individuality, reduces him to an ethnic object, the novelpromotes the dignity denied him by the stereotype within which he isotherwise conflned. He is proud, intelligent, resourceful and skilled athis work. He also has a nice, wry sense of humour. He is sensitive andprotective toward Elise during their delicate courtship. His wholecharacter, with its strengths and weaknesses, contradicts the caricatural,

INTRODUCTION 21

racist image of the lazy, incompetent, sex-mad Algerian. Arezki is themost powerful, positive character in the novel.3 And with his personalqualities comes political commitment. He is involved in the Algerianstruggle. He is not like Lucien, a rebel without a cause, nor like Henri,an armchair ideologue. He is directly involved in a struggle which heknows to be just, but he is too honest to draw any easy satisfaction fromthe conduct of the struggle: Les hommes, soupirait-il, tu ne peux pastimaginer ce que cest. Moi, moi le premier. Ici, je bois; ailleurs, je puniscelui qui boit. La guerre, a narrange pas les hommes (p. 261).

Theirs is like any other love story, with its doubts, quarrels,jealousies, the longing to be together, the feeling of abandonment, thejoy at the thought of the other, le son de la voix aime (p. 223). It isprecisely the ordinariness, the normality of their love which makes thehostility it provokes so perverse, so abnormal. Their love is onlyextraordinary in the way that all love is extra-ordinary: because it isspecial, unique to the lovers. The fact that Elise is French and ArezkiAlgerian makes their love seem extraordinary only because of theiniquitous context within which they live. Those who censure, judge andabuse them because they are of different races merely condemn theirown blind prejudice. In this remarkable love story, the author skilfullyexposes the racist response in all its corruption and does so by focusingour attention on the individuals rather than on their race. And it is asindividuals that they see each other: Tu oublies que je suis un Algrien.Oui, je loublie (p. 181). Elise and Arezki come to love each otherbecause they are who they are and not because of, or in spite of, whatthey are.

Hawa is Arezkis name for Elise. She learns, after his death, that itmeans Eve; in western mythology the woman who brought about the Fallof Man. But for Arezki, Elise-Hawa is the saviour, the person who giveshim dignity, who acts as a force of renewal and release. In their lovethey experience a sense of liberation, the joy of living. Despitethe hostility and vilification they suffer, their love gives them thefreedom to themselves; it gives them an intimation of la vraie vie.

WORK AND POLITICS

Work dominates Part Two. The lives of all the major characters arecircumscribed by their work in the car plant. The novel provides muchinsight into the conditions in the plant, but the details and descriptionsare not significant for their narrow documentary value, they are there toprovide a framework within which the novelist can develop a critique of


the effects of such practices. The factory is not a world apart, it is amicrocosm of society as a whole. The car-factory workers in the novelshare the lot of the majority of men and women who labour in society.4

In the car factory Elise becomes involved in the drudgery ofproduction-line work, and from this involvement there grows a newawareness. In this sense the experience is positive; normally, of course,factory work has only a negative effect on individuals and relationships.The work is organized so as to deny those on the production line anycontrol over what they do. They are subjected to a routine and toschedules, they are essentially subservient to the dictates of the chanewhose rhythm is set to extract the maximum output regardless of thehuman cost. The workers, mere adjuncts, are bound to the chane asslaves once were bound to the oars of a galley. Elise is embarque aveclui (Arezki) sur cette galre (p. 183). La chane dominait latelier (p.113). But it is important to realize that the workshop in which Elise findsherself is only one part of the huge plant. Even so, latelier 76 taitimmense (p. 111). The scale of the plant and the machinery dwarfs thehuman beings. Two highly symbolic descriptions make us see thechane as it seems to those subjected to its authority; it is a voraciousmonster, continually threatening and swallowing those who feed it. Therhythm of the work is exhausting; as Daubat comments: Autrefoistrois voitures lheure. Maintenant, sept (p. 120). And the demandsgrow greater all the time, determined by the tyrannical chrono: Lechrono, le chrono, attention! (p. 149). Time is of the essence and anyfailure to meet the schedules is punished by a system of fines, thewithdrawal of primes and, ultimately, the sack.

Fear dominates the factory, as it does the world outside: Attention,attention. Tous disaient ce mot du matin au soir (p. 126). Les blousesblanches se promenaient travers latelier, il fallait se mettre couvert(p. 146). There is something slightly sinister about these men whopatrol the shop floor, clinically checking on the work-time of theassembly-line workers, their blouses blanches standing out starkly fromthe workers overalls. Within the factory there is little fraternalsolidarity. Work schedules cause tension and hostility to develop. Inorder to keep their ill-paid jobs workers have to meet targets andmanagement pits them against one another: Javais depuis longtempsdcouvert lhostilit souterraine des ouvriers entre eux (p. 186). But inthe end the numbing drudgery of the routines is almost a blessing; habitacts as a sort of anaesthetic: vous vous habituerez (p. 112), Berniertells Elise. She learns to survive, but she also learns to reflect on herexperience, to recognize la chane for the wilfully dehumanizing

INTRODUCTION 23

process that it is. As Lucien says: A travailler comme a on retourne ltat aninial (p. 116). Because of the din and the speed at which carsappear the workers cannot talk to one another, they are governed bypetty, humiliating regulations; they have no sense of pride or ofachievement, no sense of purpose. As Elise remarks: On ne comprendrien au travail que lon fait. Si on voyait par o passe la voiture, doelle vient, o elle va, on pourrait sintresser, prendre conscience du sensde ses efforts (p. 126). Lucien tells her to do her work:

comme un bon outil, tu nes pas autre chose. Ne cherche jamais comprendre ce que tu fais. Ne demande pas quoi sert ceci ocela. Tu nes pas l pour comprendre, mais pour faire des gestes.Quand tu auras pris la cadence, tu deviendras une mcanique bienrgle qui ne verra pas plus loin que le bout de la chane. Tu serasclasse bonne ouvrire et augmente de trois francs de lheure.

(p. 148)

Any individualism is considered suspect and is repressed. Lucienhimself is moved to the paint shop; this is done to get rid of him and toremind troublemakers that they get the worst jobs. Mustapha, the non-conformist who answers back and refuses to wear the official workclothes, has by the end fallen into line, afraid of losing his job.

Not surprisingly, the noise, the fumes, the accidents, the physicaldemands all take their toll. Lucien in particular bears the scars of his work.Elise looks at his hand and sees la peau qui avait clat et des traces demercurochrome, ses phalanges boursoufles et plisses lui faisaient unemain de vieux (p. 139). His physical condition deteriorates after he issent to work in the paint shop and in a matter of months he has to gointo hospital. The women protect themselves by what one of them callsher ravalement; make-up is une parade, une dfense instinctive contreun travail qui finissait par vous clochardiser (p. 160). But the physicaldeterioration is only the outward sign of a deeper, more profounddamage to the individuals resilience, self-confidence, sense of purposeand dignity. Tous les jours, says Lucien je mabrutis un peu plus(p. 162).

It is not surprising that racism is rampant in such conditions. Themost menial tasks go to foreigners and, significantly, to another under-class, women. From her first day Elise is made aware of racial andsexual prejudice by the behaviour of the gateman and, more forcefully,by that of the doctor with his insultingly patronising way of talking toAlgerians and to her (p. 110). The insults and humiliations are part of


everyday life in the factory; Algerians have neither names noridentities, they are all Mohammed, bicots, ratons or crouillats.

La chane, le mot juste Attachs nos places. Sans comprendreet sans voir. Et dpendant les uns des autres. Mais la fraternit, ce serapour tout lheure (p. 129). There is no solidarity within the workforce;the activities of the ineffectual syndicat seem to be entirely confined towage bargaining and racial hostility pervades the factory. But thesocial, sexual and racial discrimination discribed by the author arefound throughout French society. In the car plant the managementexploits social animosity in order to divide the workforce and keepwages low. Far from politicizing the workforce the alienating conditionscause a certain fatalism, dumb resignation, passivity, Vivement laretraite (p. 255). Racism exacerbates the divisions between the workersand makes them unable to act together.

La peine commune, la sueur commune, les revendicationscommunes, ctait comme disait Lucien, de la frime, desslogans. La vrit ctait le chacun pour soi. La plupartapportaient lusine leurs rancunes et leurs mfiances. On nepouvait tre pour les ratonnades audehors, et pour la fraternitouvrire quand on entrait dans la cage. Cela clatait parfois, etchacun se retranchait derrire sa race et sa nationalit pourattaquer ou se dfendre. Le dlgu syndical sinterposait sansconviction. (p. 1867)

In this way racism functions as a means by which to maintain theworkforce in their subservient position; they are divided and poisonedby their prejudices and hostilities and rendered politically impotent.5

It is Lucien who begins Elises political education, but right from thefirst she is not always in agreement with him. She has little time for theideological debates he conducts with Henri and others; she finds themabstract. Indeed she is scathing about the intellectualization of politics:Je persiste mindigner quon nait fait aucune allusion aux principalesvictimes, les Algriens, la population l-bas et les migrs ici (p. 142).6As Elises experience makes her aware of prejudices, including her own,she seeks to understand why such things happen, why they are allowedto persist and, above all, thinks about what might be done to bring aboutchange. Thus the political themes of the novel are an essentialdimension of Elises developing, shifting awareness. But hers is not astory of political conversion to a particular ideology; she remainsunconvinced by Henris political analysis. In spite of, or perhaps

INTRODUCTION 25

because of his finesse psychologique, he strikes her as suspect, moiti spectateur, voyeur mme, excit par le spectacle (p. 162).Furthermore it seems to Elise that Henri (un futur grand sociologuesays Lucien) is preaching a typically irresponsible form of action:Henri est pour le chambardement total, non pour le repchageindividuel (p. 234). It is only too clear what the human cost of such achambardement total would be.7

Yet revolution may be the only means to a just end. Arezkisinvolvement in the Algerian cause is a much more powerful statementof political commitment than Henris philosophizing or the slogans ofpolitical parties. But we should not assume that because Arezki is in theFLN the author condones everything it does. She raises very difficultissues of just causes and evil means. On the one hand she deplores thehypocritical and sensational exploitation by the press of FLNretributions (p. 143), but on the other does not disguise the nature ofsuch acts, nor seek to excuse them. There is a scene in which Elise andArezki visit his uncle. The old mana typical Algerian immigrantisunder great pressure from the FLN not to drink, for reasons of ideologyand security: ils mont donn lamende. Et ils mont dit: tu en aurasune jusqu ce que tu tarrtes de boire (p. 219). The anonymous ilshave a sinister power to inspire fear. There may be a need to imposediscipline but it is being done hypocritically, since the chiefs drink, andmore gravely, this kind of intolerance may eventually lead to oppressionwhich destroys the justice and freedom being fought for.

Claire Etcherelli promotes very definite values in the novel, but notby creating a convenient grid of villains and heroes. Elise is able todiscriminate, she is appalled by what she sees and hears, but does notfeel the need to denigrate those whom she opposes. It is their views shedespises, not them. Characters such as Daubat and Bernier are nottreated with disdain, though their views are reprehensible. They arepathetic individuals whose views reflect the sad emptiness of theirexistence. The only way they can mask their own low self-esteem is byloathing others; they hide their own powerlessness by exercising theirpetty authority on those even more powerless than themselves. Theirprejudices and hatred reveal them to be victims of a system which exploitsand destroys them even more than it exploits and damages those whomthey despise. As Gilles says: Si le bicot nexistait pas, on inventeraitquelquun dautre. Comprenez, face lArabe, ils saffirment. Ajoutezlignorance, linculture, la peur de ce qui ne vous ressemble pas, laguerre par l-dessus (p. 251).


The political events come to a climax with the demonstration on 28May. Elise feels a great sense of excitement and enthusiasm (so muchso that she gives up the chance to be with Arezki). All around her thereis the feeling that some momentous event is about to take place, as if toconfirm Gilles statement: En France, il y a une vieille traditionrpublicaine. Elle se rveille quand vient le danger (p. 266). Thepolitical demonstration comes to nothing and is rapidly overshadowedby the personal tragedy which strikes Elise. Public and private hopescollapse, and of the two the private have the more profoundsignificance. In this novel, it is private experiences that lead us toperceive wider, public issues. But Elise ou la vraie vie is not a merevehicle for ideological debate and political analysis, its politics arisefrom the experience of the characters and from the new consciousnessthis experience brings them.

Perhaps the most subtle treatment of politics in the novel comes inthe character of Gilles and in the enigmatic figure of le Magyar. Gillesis an honest, decent man, a foreman who respects those in his chargeand is in turn trusted and respected by the men. When Lucien is rushedto hospital, and later when he is killed, Gilles not only helps Elise, but isable to comfort her: Sa compassion, mesure parce que sincre, metoucha (p. 277). Elise is very impressed by Gilles. She finds somethingcompelling in him, she admires his ability to command respect andaffection: Il vous restituait la dignit que labrutissement de la chaneet le mpris des chefs vous avaient te. Il vous rassurait. Exigeant etsevre, il tait dune justice remarquable (p. 212). Gilles and his wifeare communists (pp. 137 and 253). And although Gilles is noapparatchik, his party loyalty determines his response to severalimportant issues. The positions he takes cannot be attributed to anypersonal or moral deflciency but are the result of his loyalty to the partydogma. Three examples stand out. First, he is confronted daily with theevidence of the destructive effect fect of the chane, yet he defends thedignity of work and his belief in progress: vous avez votre travail enhorreur. Je ne suis pas daccord. Il faut faire bien ce que vous faitesVu sous un certain angle, ce nest pas beau, la chane? (p. 251). Second,when Gilles and Elise discuss the Partys attitude to the Algerian war,not only does he fail to convince Elise, but his answers sound lame anddefensive, like official reasons: Je suis daccord avec des dcisions quiont t peses, analyses et discutes (pp. 2512). Third, and mosttelling, there is Gilles attitude to le Maygar. This solitary, almostmute figure, so painfully a proletarian, is an immigrant andalthoughthis is never made explicitit is clear that he is a political refugee.

INTRODUCTION 27

Ctait un tranger. Mustapha lappelait le Magire. Daubat mavaitdit un Hongrois, et Gilles avait prcis un Magyar (p. 135). Thiscorrection is significant because the novel is set in the period just afterthe 1956 Hungarian uprising which was put down by a Soviet invasion.It is also the period which follows Kruschevs revelation anddenunciation of Stalins terror campaign. Gilles does not want toacknowledge that the man is a Hungarian, because if he did so he wouldbe breaking with the party line which maintained that the Hungarianuprising was counter-revolutionary and that the Soviet intervention wastherefore legitimate. Gilles remains loyal to the French communistparty, which at this time was possibly the most Stalinist of all westernEuropean communist parties.

Elises experience at work makes her engage in a process ofreflection and analysis. Politics makes her aware of the issues whichconfront her at work and in society. However, she approaches politicscritically. Ultimately the questions are what matter and she treats theanswerswhatever their ideological sourcewith caution. To beginwith her political views are coloured by her instinctive revulsion toinjustice and suffering, but they gradually become more consciouslycritical. She testifies against injustice and suffering, but she does notadvocate a particular political dogma. She is certainly wary of solutionswhich promise to be final.

LA VRAIE VIE

The phrase la vraie vie is probably taken from Rimbaudsextraordinary poetic prose sequence Une Saison en enfer where it appearsin Dlires I: Quelle vie! La vraie vie est absente.8 The phrase is aleitmotiv running through the novel. It is not used exclusively by oneperson, nor is it ever defined. It remains enigmatic, allusive, evocative,its meaning poetically absente. It is not some sort of cryptic clue to bedecoded to reveal a message, yet it demands to be interpreted; it is aninvitation to us to create our own meaning, to use our imagination to seethe world differently, to challenge the reality we are subjected to andbound in by. We are urged to strive for la vraie vie by refuting thoseaspects of life which the novel reveals as destructive and evil. We maynot know what la vraie vie is, perhaps it is unknowable, but we docome to know what it is not. A number of characters in the novelattempt to establish la vraie vie, but most of these attempts are ofdubious value and many wholly discredited.


The magazines that Marie-Louise reads create an image of la vraievie which is clearly fake, a distortion, designed to imprison theindividual within a convenient, exploitable stereotype of feminity. Forthe grandmother la vraie vie is keeping up appearances, and putting upwith whatever happens. For a woman who works with Elise la vraievie is retirement: Jaurai le temps, je me laisserai vivre but, as Eliseremarks, this resignation, this passivity sera la fin de votre vie (p.178). For Lucien, who is the first person to utter the phrase, la vraie vieis always the next thing he desires. Change is what he is after, but allthat changes are the circumstances of his life, not the substance. He wantsto be dans le coup, to be where the action is, but he also seeks, and cannever attain, le calme, la paix en dedans (p. 66) which is his firstdefinition of la vraie vie. For Anna it is bound up with her need to bedesired, a form of narcissism; while for Henri it lies in the idea ofrevolution which codifies all his thinking and justifies all his actions.Gilles knows what la vraie vie is, Party ideology provides the answer.He believes its absence is merely temporary, since he is involved in ahistorical process destined to bring it about. There is much to beadmired in Gilles, but his qualities are not attributable to his ideologicalconvictions and la vraie vie clearly does not reside in dogma.

Elises sense of la vraie vie grows out of her changing perception ofherself and of the world about her. As she comes alive, as she respondsto others, as she thinks, she begins to see life differently, to open herselfto new experiences, to meet new challenges and she refuses to submit tuthe injustice and oppression she encounters. She embraces lifesdiversity and potentiality, gaining an intimation of la vraie vie whichgives her the will to resist the injuries of life. Her love for Arezki andhis love for her, confirmalbeit briefly the reality of la vraie vie.Love gives them the power to surmount the ignominies andhumiliations of their lives. For Elise la vraie vie is both a journey intothe self and a movement outward. One of the most powerful paradoxesof the novel is the fact that Elise has her fuliest experience of la vraievie as a result of her saison en enfer in the car factory. She emergesfrom this destructive and barren environment with the confidence andthe emotional, intellectual and moral strength to meet the challengeswhich confront her. When she says: La vraie vie aura dur neuf mois(p. 279) she is not giving way to despair, but is referring to a symbolicgestation period which has brought her a new sense of life. Her couragein the face of catastrophe shows the moral resilience she has gained. Sheis not afraid to search for Arezki, nor does the cruel fact of hisdisappearance make her collapse into self-pity. Her determination to

INTRODUCTION 29

face the future is free of sentimentality. She fears the future and thepast: La douleur me guette, tapie dans mon futur, camoufle dans lessouvenirs; elle mattend pour me frapper (p. 280). She may feel, likeArezki, Je ne peux plus imaginer lavenir. Les rves ne viennent plus(p. 259) but, remembering the Arab poet he quotes: il faut vivrelinstant (p. 260), she determines to defend herself against fear: je medfendrai hardiment (p. 280). She remembers going with Arezki tovisit members of his family in the shanty-town at Nanterre. There shehad seen squalor and suffering, the misery of people condemned to livein ignominious conditions, she had felt the fear all around, douleur,douleur partout. But she had also sensed the moral strength of theinhabitants of this parcage inhumain. Un seul mot tait inconnu ici,celui de dsespoir (p. 224). This determination not to submit, thisdefiance is the essence of any vraie vie, which is hope, the will to liveand the determination to struggle for a better, a different life, a betterway of living. The books closing words testify to Elises faith in life,they are her tmoignage. The sober yet vibrant, spiritual qualities of thelanguage evoke the mystery of la vraie vie, its necessary absence, butalso convey the message that it must be present if life is to be more thanmere existence.

Mais sous les cendres, linvitable esprance tiendra bon. Je nesais do viendra le souffle qui lattisera. Je ne sais vers quoi elleme poussera. Je la sens. Dans mon ensevelissement je la sens.Indistincte, informe, impalpable mais prsente. Je me retire en moimais je my mourrai pas. (p. 281)

FORM

In an interview published in Le Monde (29 November 1967) ClaireEtcherelli stated: Jai choisi la forme du roman parce que je tenais crer des personnages, les faire vivre et que jattache beaucoupdimportance lcriture. The novel is not a documentary on racerelations, or the conditions of work in a car factory in France in the late1950s. Its social and historical context is important, but there is muchmore to the book. It is a valuable documentnot the same as adocumentarybecause the author has managed to treat her subjectimaginatively, and record personal and collective experience in ahistorical setting. Elise is not a slice of life, it is not an anatomy of aperiod or of an issue. It is a carefully crafted work in which the authorhas succeeded in creating characters who live in an environment very


different from our own, but who nevertheless come vividly alive for us.We are made to confront issues we may have taken for granted orignored (poverty, work, race, feminism) and we are brought to a newlevel of awareness and understanding without being preached at orhectored. The richness of the books imaginative content and its designcombine to give us aesthetic pleasure and moral insight; we sense lavraie vie, we sense that life is not merely an existence to be endured.As Claire Etcherelli said: la vraie vie cest la prise de conscience(Femmes daujourdhui, 10 April 1977). Elises prise de consciencegrows as the narrative unfolds, and with it the readers own prise deconscience.

Elise is deceptively simple, like a Lowry painting. But the apparentsimplicity is carefully contrived. Elise speaks directly of and from herexperience; we believe in her, her voice sounds authentic. The effectsought and attained is one of immediacy, of honesty.

The opening of the novel provides a good example of ClaireEtcherellis skill as a writer. She creates a sense of mystery; we areintrigued, somewhat confused about what is happening and want to readon in order to find out. At the same time the five ne pas in the openinglines strike an ominous note and suggest a strong desire to forget, toobliterate some painful experience. But the conscious effort to forgetstimulates memory and recalls the past which becomes the narrative.Retrospectively we may note that the author is careful not to mentionArezki at the beginning of the novel; she concentrates on Lucien andAnna who form a natural lead into the past, and this allows her to focusthe readers attention on those elements of the narrative which are mostpertinent to Part One. Because she has not mentioned Arezki she is ablelater on to describe Elises encounter and love-affair with all thefreshness of discovery and to sustain a degree of suspense by keepingthe reader unsure of the eventual outcome. She has been equally skilfulin connecting the end of the novel with the opening. At the end Eliseexpresses her determination not to succumb to the temptation of losingherself in her grief. The opening is her first statement of that resolve.The act of writing is clearly Elises way of remembering Arezki, ofrecording their love; the novel is her testimony to the value of his lifeand protest against the injustices perpetuated in society. Writing is herway of resisting the numbing grief which follows her loss, it is her wayof bearing witness: a private and a public act. In an interview(Quinzaine littraire, 231, 1978, p. 6) Claire Etcherelli spoke of writingas une sorte dexorcisme. Et larme dun combat. This is a recurringtheme in her novels.

INTRODUCTION 31

The plot is that of the classic realist novel: the central character goesfrom the provinces to Paris where she receives her education andreaches maturity. However, the novel cannot be described as real justbecause it deals with actuality, still less because it deals with proletariansubjects. Its form is a subtle extension of the realist tradition rather thana slavish imitation of it. It is unusual to find this kind of novel writtenfrom a subjective and female viewpoint; the episodic, fragmentednarrative, free of authorial explanation and commentary, is a departurefrom the norm.

Details of place, clothes and especially personal features are not theresimply as factual evidence; they serve a thematic purpose. Descriptionsof people are rare, the interest being always on their personal qualitiesrather than their appearances. Elise records their words and actions,revealing moral aspects of their personality. In Part One, Bordeaux isnot specifically named, though references to various places identify thecity. In Part Two, we are not given the name of the manufacturer or themodel made at the car plant. These are deliberate omissions; the authoris interested not in particular but in general conditions of life. Bordeauxwith its empty daily routine could be any provincial town. Theconditions in the factory are to be found in all factories, they are notpeculiar to this particular one but intrinsic to the organization of work inmodern society. The work is broken down into dull, repetitive tasks, inwhich human beings are merely the adjuncts of the machines, part ofand subservient to the automated process.

The novel falls into three parts or movements. In Part One, the firstmovement, there is little action or plot development. The secondmovement covers Elises arrival in Paris up to her first payday afterfourteen days in the factory. It is a period of disorientation,bewilderment and anxiety for Elise. The third movement covers herlove-affair with Arezki; Elises self-confidence has grown and the novelhas by now gathered momentum. The first two movements are roughlyequal in length but the third represents over half the novel. Thus theprivate, intimate story is the longest part, but the plot moves at such apace that it does not seem long. Furthermore, the pace of the narrativereflects the intensity of Elises emotional, physical and intellectualtransformation. However, the private love story develops within thecontext of public, historical and political events. Indeed, the lovers growmore committed to each other as they grow more committed to thestruggles in which they are involved. The love story remains in theforeground for the rest of Part Two. Despite the many constraints to


which they are subjected, their love brings them both personalliberation.

Elise and Arezkis meetings have to be fitted in outside workinghours; the factory dominates their lives. Their actions are alsoinfluenced by the social taboos that surround them. The carefulstructuring of the novel becomes very apparent in the closing sequence.The narrative accelerates rapidly as the story and the historical eventsmove to their joint climax. Dates and public incidents are used to add tothe sense of urgency. The French civilians in Algeria openly challengethe government in Paris and, as the demonstration of 28 May comes to ahead, Lucien is killed and Arezki arrested. The climax is in fact verymuch understated: the demonstration achieves nothing, Luciens deathis given a few banal lines in the newspaper, Arezki simply disappears(he is just one of many and of no concern to the authorities). Elisemakes no great emotional outburst and so the pathos of her grief is allthe more powerful. She faces her anguish and suffering with dignity andresolve. Elise emerges bereaved but convinced of the value of her lovefor those she has lost and the value of the experiences she has gonethrough. This conviction does not plunge her into resigned sorrow, butgives her the resolve to resist and to struggle for la vraie vie. As Arezkihad said to her Ce qui compte, cest ce quon est.

The novel has a range of subtle images and metaphors which reflect avariety of moods and themes. In Part One, for instance, Claire Etcherelliuses images which evoke a mood of resignation and create a feeling ofphysical and spiritual claustrophobia. There are recurrent references toenclosed spaces, cramped rooms, shut-in courtyards, narrow streets,even open spaces are shrouded in mist:

Le froid des

Documents

Claire Etcherelli (2001) Elise ou la vraie vie.pdf