On Searching for Equivalents

I’ve spent the last few months weighing novels. I have measured sentences and traced the outlines of authorial styles. At first, it was a search for equivalents. I was picking up French books with the sole purpose of finding Francophone authors who reminded me of the English writers I held close—I was searching for familiarity in another language.

This search for equivalents was a result of the trepidation and discomfort I felt when faced with the towers and rows of French books in bookshops and libraries. The issue of where to begin was somewhat resolved by searching for authors who would remind me of Virginia Woolf, Rachel Cusk, and Deborah Levy. I noted the recommendations of other readers, thrilled to find that some had already drawn connections to Marguerite Duras, Annie Ernaux, and Nathalie Sarraute. And so, Duras’ Le ravissement de Lol V. Stein, Ernaux’s Journal du dehors and Le jeune homme, and Sarraute’s Enfance all found their way into my little french library—a three-shelf unit I thought was ideal at the time but which is overflowing six months after its assembly. 

But, I stumbled at first, in and out of these books. I read one word after the other, so intent on perfectly understanding each word while my grasp of the sentence, the paragraph, or the chapter as a whole was tenuous at best. It was much like carefully placing one foot in front of the other on a tightrope without noticing the rope itself, or the drop below. However, there was a sort of recognition. These books were not french versions of the english texts I loved so much, but instead, they were in dialogue with one another. I recognized decisive and unreliable female characters; female desire, pleasure, and hunger seemed more immediate and visceral; and time slowed in the French language. I am reminded of Cusk’s observation in an interview with Merve Emre and printed in The Yale Review: “I’ve moved to France, I’m reading French novels in French all day every day, and this is the thing I’m most struck by: They go much more slowly. Time pauses. The book’s location in time is completely different” (Emre 2024). I haven’t yet read enough to make a statement of French literature as a whole, but in the books I have read over the last few months, there seems to be somewhat of an indifference towards action, or consistent and measured action, in French novels. Instead, time itself, as Cusk says, is slow, and I would add that it is drawn out, stretched to the extent that there is no precisely demarcated beginning, middle, and end. 

I have come to realize that the familiarity I was searching for in French books was that of a feeling. It was the feeling I got when reading Woolf, Cusk, and Levy. The feeling that I was being challenged, that my vocabulary was growing and becoming more intricate, and that feeling of recognition when some things, which had spent so long tucked away in the recesses of my mind, were mirrored back to me on a page. It was also the feeling of excitement of what can be done with language and literature. And, it was the paradoxical feeling I was left with at the end of a book, of being both satiated and ravenous, I was filled up but I also wanted more.

I weighed novels only to discover that they fluctuated in unison and were just as weighty as the other. I measured sentences only to find a variety of structures that could not be measured. I traced the outline of authorial styles to witness them overlapping, crossing borders, and intertwining with one another, it seemed almost seductive. So, I did not find a Woolf, a Cusk, or a Levy in French, which is a good thing—I would hope that they are only recognizable in their French translations. However, I did feel that Sarraute’s Enfance drastically rewrote the rules of memoir and it reminded me of Levy’s Living Autobiography, which also bends our understanding of structure and biography, all the while experimenting with memory and recollection. I recognized the scalpel-like precision of Cusk’s writing in Duras’ prose. Then, as I continued to read, I found Françoise Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse to be reminiscent of Tessa Hadley’s short fiction as it too captures the complexity of human relationships and the detrimental effects of seemingly inconsequential decisions. And, I have just started Leïla Slimani’s Le parfum des fleurs la nuit, a meditation on writing, creativity, and literature—which deserves a classification of its own within the genres of literature—and which reminds me of Woolf’s winding and wandering narratives.

I was taught in French for roughly six years and it is odd to return to the language as an adult. French is not my mother tongue and it has long been the language of instruction, of error, and of mispronunciation—it was a language I felt I could not perfect, it was a language of frustration. I feel as though I have cheated my way back to French. I have found a shortcut that is full of enjoyment, pleasure, and playfulness with the language. And, in turn, I look more softly on grammar, structure, and correctness. Perhaps this feeling of cheating stems from reading without having to worry about a test or an essay, it is reading for reading’s sake and it is the first time I am doing so in French.

I am reading French books voluntarily, as I have for many years in English. I now spend more time in French bookshops than I do in English ones and I often have a list of books I am looking for. I have only wanted to read in French these days and during my most recent visit to Librairie Gallimard, for the very first time, I did not bring a list. Instead, I went from table to table, from row to row, I was browsing just as I would in an English bookshop. The French have a wonderful word for this: bouquiner, to browse through books or rummage through bookshelves. I have always loved how close this verb is to bouquet, as if every book picked up is part of a whole, presented to us in a moment. So, I didn’t have a list and for the first time I picked books simply because they caught my eye and simply because the first few sentences corroborated this initial attraction. I am no longer in search of equivalents but in search of a language, a literature, and its literary voices. After years apart, I have reconciled with the French language, our relationship isn’t perfect and I continue to make mistakes, but we now have an open dialogue. It is the early days of our relationship and while I hope to one day translate French works into English, I am content with plunging straight into the language and swimming slowly through its waters.

Emre, Merve. 2024. “Rachel Cusk: The novelist on the ‘feminine non-state of non-being’.” The Yale Review, Spring 2024, Volume 112, No. 1.