Incest - Softcover

Angot, Christine

 
9780914671879: Incest
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0914671871 ISBN 13: 9780914671879
Verlag: Archipelago, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

A daring novel that made Christine Angot one of the most controversial figures in contemporary France recounts the narrator's incestuous relationship with her father. Tess Lewis's forceful translation brings into English this audacious novel of taboo.

The narrator is falling out from a torrential relationship with another woman. Delirious with love and yearning, her thoughts grow increasingly cyclical and wild, until exposing the trauma lying behind her pain. With the intimacy offered by a confession, the narrator embarks on a psychoanalysis of herself, giving the reader entry into her tangled experiences with homosexuality, paranoia, and, at the core of it all, incest. In a masterful translation from the French by Tess Lewis, Christine Angot's Incest audaciously confronts its readers with one of our greatest taboos.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

AUTHOR: Christine Angot is one of the most controversial authors writing today in France. Born in 1958 in Châteauroux, Angot studied law at the University of Reims and began writing at the age of 25. After six years of rejections, Angot published her first novel, Vu du ciel, the story of woman named Christine told from the perspective of an angel who died after being raped as a little girl. Her subsequent novels have dealt with a variety of taboo topics, including homosexuality, incest, and sexual violence, and have continually blurred the line between autobiography and fiction. Ever since gaining widespread notoriety with the 1999 publication of Incest, Angot has remained at the center of public debate and has continued to push the boundaries of what society allows an author to express.

TRANSLATOR: Tess Lewis is a translator from German and French and an Advisory Editor of The Hudson Review. She has been awarded translation grants from PEN America and PEN UK, an NEA Translation Fellowship, and a Max Geilinger Translation Grant for her translation of Philippe Jaccottet.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

I was homosexual for three months. More precisely, for three
months I thought I was condemned to be homosexual. I
really had caught it, I wasn’t imagining things. The test
results were positive. I’d become attached. Not the first few times.
It was the looks she gave. I started on a process, one of collapse.
In which I couldn’t recognize myself. It wasn’t my story anymore.
It wasn’t me. Still, as soon as I saw her, the test results were the
same. I was homosexual the moment I saw her. Things turned
back into me afterwards. Whenever she was gone. Other times,
even in her presence, I was myself again. I missed my daughter
so much on trips, when I was away for longer stretches, three or
four days. The feeling of betraying the only one I truly love. To
whom I’d dedicated all my books. Writing is impossible. When
you’re not yourself. My sexuality suffered. In the beginning I was
dissatisfied. Then. I wasn’t anymore. I was less and less. Except
for one thing (I’ll get to it later), that I never enjoyed doing.
Something specific, that involves all the rest. Except for once, I
remember. I never did it, so to speak. I had become one hundred
percent homosexual apart from that. Apparently. The moment I
saw her. But for this detail. Remaining fundamentally and profoundly
heterosexual all the while. (But, without theory.) One
detail that spared me. Otherwise I was completely homosexual.
For a short time, but still, three months. There were no men at all
in my fantasies, on the contrary, there were women rivals. I was
on the sidelines, they were rivals with each other. I was fascinated
by homosexuality. No one is fascinated by themselves, I wasn’t
homosexual. And yet. I ended up feeling an enormous desire. As
soon as I saw her arriving, I was caught. Even now, I still have to.
Even at this very moment. Have to stop myself from calling her.
Calling her at work, that’s my specialty. It amused her at first. All
the “quick calls.” The secretary knew my voice. Of course. Right
away. The secretaries recognize my voice. Right away, they know
it’s Christine. I keep at it, I’m relentless. I make it clear, I’m not
embarrassed. The weapon turns against me sooner or later. I use
it. My former editor used to say “she’s a serial killer.” I want to call
him too sometimes. My father has Alzheimer’s, typical, I call
others. I telephone. Her, I can’t count the number of times. I call
again. I hang up. I call back to say, “above all, don’t call me again.”
“I don’t want to hear from you anymore.” I don’t get a call. I
telephone again. I say “you could have called me back. So you
weren’t going to call, hunh? You don’t have the guts! To do the
opposite of what I tell you for once. When you know perfectly
well… it’s not what I wanted. You know it’s not true, what I say.
Not what I want. But the opposite. After three months, you still
haven’t figured it out. You know that’s how it is. And if you don’t,
well then…” Behaving like a baby. I’m perfectly aware. Not at first,
though it was normal to call her at work ten times in an hour. She
claims she loves me. For a blown light bulb, an empty ink cartridge,
a fax that won’t go through, to read her what I’ve just
written over the phone, for some anxiety attack coming on. Etc.
Dinner, do you love me, and I forgot to tell you, I thought to
myself, I’ll call her or I’ll have forgotten again by this evening. At first,
it comes off well, she likes it, it’s spontaneous, it’s a change. Serial
killer, it’s part of my charm. I tell her she’s a coward. She tells me
I’m crazy. A lack of balance doesn’t scare me, there are others who
can’t cope. Like her. People like her. Who have limits. I have none.
Her, she has them. Me, I don’t. She can’t stand it. When things
get so… neurotic. I get called insane. Several times. Don’t take it
as an indictment, you’ve got reasons, it’s just an observation. Some
people have limits, you have none. But still, I’m suffering. She
can’t take it anymore. She has her limits. Who could? I hang up.
I pass the mirror. Despite my face being all flushed, I think I look
pretty good. I say to myself, “I’m worth more than this.” I don’t
call her back. I say to myself “I’m not going to call her.” I say to
myself “how dare she… ten years older than I am… and not all
that attractive.” I lie down. Time to move on to something else.
There are other things in life than calling Mademoiselle. I decide
to read. I like reading. This doesn’t interest me. Coeur furieux, my
heart is even more furious. I close the book and try to watch The
Last Temptation of Christ. After five minutes I stretch out on the
sofa and weep. I don’t just shed a few tears. Pretty soon it’s unbearable.
I wonder who to call. Who to talk to about this. What number
to dial to start sobbing right after “hello” and then “what’s the
matter?” How many phone numbers before coming to my senses
again? There are always offers. “If things aren’t going well, call
me.” No, her. To see if she loves me to exhaustion, as she claims.
If not, then really! “I’d do anything for you,” but not take two
hundred phone calls. Right now, this minute! At her place, at
work, at the hospital, with a patient in front of her. And then. I
don’t call her again. I’m relieved, I’m finally free. Phew, I even say
it out loud. I say phew. I pick up the phone and put it on my stomach.
I tell myself that it doesn’t mean anything, there’s no reason
I can’t have it on my stomach. The remote control is on the ground
and still I’m not watching television. So there! Just because the
telephone is on my stomach, doesn’t mean I’m going to call. It’s
absurd! I’m so much better off without her. I’m not going to go
and call her now, just when I’m starting to calm down. Besides, I
have nothing to say. Not a thing. Phew. Really, phew. I didn’t want
to. I was never homosexual. I was never interested in breasts.
Mine included. We finally undressed one day. She said “touch
me.” “Never.” I’ll never be able to. I told her, I remember, even
though it was a long time ago, “your breasts bother me.” She said
“well just your luck, they’re very small.” That’s just it! as long as
I’m at it, I’d have preferred they were bigger. When she said “touch
me,” that’s not what she was talking about. When someone says
touch me… Fine, I put my finger in. You never get a chance to
touch something like that otherwise. Léonore has a book about
touching called Feely Bugs in the ‘Touch and Feel’ series. There’s
nothing like this in it. Not the plush bug, the one with feathers,
with lace, or, of course, the leather one, or the lamé one, or the
very soft bug, the carpet bug, the sticky bug, the padded bug, the
velvet bug or the bug with pleats, or the scratchy one, or the candy
wrapper butterflies she collects. When I felt how slimy it was! I
pulled back my hand. It’s peculiar. Too peculiar. It...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Archipelago
Erscheinungsdatum
2017
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0914671871
ISBN 13 
9780914671879
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
160
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
eucomply OÜ
hello@eucompliancepartner.com

Pärnu mnt. 139b - 14
Tallinn
11317
Estland