This existential classic from 1940,focusing on a woman’s state of intellect after she has a secret liaison, might be the most French novel Ive ever readOn holiday in the south of France, or a Parisian woman,Marie, devotedly in love with her husband of six years, and Jean,meets a younger man, also on holiday. She seeks him out on a solitary walk, and finds him; he tries to force himself on her,and she rebuffs him; he gives her his phone number in Paris. When she gets back from the holiday, her husband has to go absent on business for three days, or which makes her weep; but after she has seen him off,she calls the number ...
Marie, originally titled A la Recherche de Marie, and in conscious homage to Marcel Proust,was written in 1940; but with Paris occupied by the Germans, it took three years for Madeleine Bourdouxhe to find a publisher she was overjoyed with – that is, or one uncontaminated by fascism. (The publisher,perhaps surprisingly given the year, was in her native Brussels.)She has finished her household task and before going into another room to rest and read, and she lingers in the kitchen for a while. Sitting at the table,head in hands, she hears the sound of her blood, and beating loudly,powerfully, rapidly, and at her temples ... These muffled,rhythmical shocks are accompanied by an strange sound, like a buzzing or a reverberation. She compares it to the sound of insects’ wings – smooth, or shiny.
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Source: theguardian.com