EFFROYABLES JARDINS

by Michel Quint

"Certains témoins mentionnent qu'aux derniers jours du procès de Maurice Papon, la police a empêché un clown de rentrer dans la salle d'audience. [...] L'ancien secrétaire général de la préfecture a peut-être remarqué ce clown mais rien n'est moins sûr. Par la suite l'homme est revenu régulièrement sans son déguisement à la fin des audiences et aux plaidoiries. À chaque fois, il posait sur ses genoux une mallette dont il caressait le cuir tout éraflé. Un huissier se souvient de l'avoir entendu dire après que le verdict fut tombé: - Sans vérité, comment peut-il y avoir de l'espoir?" L'auteur dédie ce court texte lumineux, émouvant et métaphorique à la mémoire de son grand-père, ancien combattant à Verdun et de son père, ancien résistant. Le deuxième volet d'Effroyables Jardins a paru en 2002 aux éditions Joëlle Losfeld sous le titre Aimer à peine.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, France, World War II, Roman, School, French Literature

64 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 2000

About the author

Né en 1949 dans le Pas-de-Calais, Michel Quint obtient le Grand Prix de littérature policière pour Billard à l'étage en 1989 et publie Effroyables Jardins, best-seller international en 2000. Il habite à Lille.

Reviews

[Erin *Proud Book Hoarder* · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short, reflective piece that would be ideal in schools, telling moral lessons and how heroes grow out of the mundane before a child's eyes. Beautifully written in a poetic, first person point of view, the story is told as an adult looking back toward childhood. Let's just say this story, for a change, gives a positive reputation for clowns. A neat twist in sobering circumstances, all is happy and better in the end, as people do sometimes truly grow and thrive from tragedy if they overcome. Rather than an actual story, it is composed an introduction, a life changing scene, and an afterword.

[Nilo0 · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5
داستان کوتاه و نسبتا خوبی داشت.
اولش خیلی ساده پیش می‌ره اما فلش‌بک به داستان گذشته که در زمان جنگ رخ داده باعث عمق دادن به داستان می‌شه بخصوص ته ماجرا که ارتباطش با حال مشخص می‌شه.
داستانی پیچیده و در عین حال ساده از هزارتوی احساسات و عواطف انسانی که زیر چهره دلقک پنهان شده.

[Hanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Personally, I don’t like clowns. To me, clowns are not funny, they are tragic. I’ve always had that feeling and after watching Brassed off many years ago, that sentiment only got stronger. I can never look at a clown and laugh. I just can’t.

Michel Quint has the same sentiment at the start of this book, but he has a better reason: clowns remind him of his dad who dressed up like a clown regularly and attended parties, much to the son’s embarrassment because dad was no good at being a clown.
Throughout the book however he learns why the dad dresses up like a clown. It’s not a hobby, it’s not a pastime, it’s a tribute. It’s in honour of someone, of something, that happened and changed his life forever during the second world war.


This story has the potential to touch you big time, to be heart-breaking, to be 5-stars or more. But the problem is that it feels unfinished. It’s 80 pages long, and it should have been at least double that amount. It’s like the author wrote some of the backbone chapters, showed his publisher what he was working on and the publisher decided not to wait until it was done, and took it as it was. There are just parts missing. I can't explain it any other way.

My second problem is with the translator: I know I should just have read it in French, but I had the Dutch version available to me so that’s the one I read. French is a language of long poetic sentences that easily take 6 or more lines. Dutch is not. A sentence of 6 lines in Dutch tends to be unreadable. You can’t just translate word for word from French to Dutch (or English for that matter) and leave in those long sentences with 5 or more sub-sentences and 20 comma punctuations for every point. You have to respect the rules of the language you are translating into, while trying to keep the spirit of the author.
That’s the challenge, that’s why translating is hard. That’s why I have so much respect for translators, but still try to read a book in the original language if I can. This translation here is just not good.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Effroyables jardins is a beautiful little book, perhaps just a bit too beautifully tied together, but beautiful nonetheless. It is a tribute to Quint's father, but if you are thinking "oh, come on...." , it's not what you may expect. You really want to read this rich little novella.

A boy in his early teens is mortified by his father, who embarrasses his son into the ground by performing as a clown wherever he has the opportunity. He finds the rest of his relatives little better, in the inimitable manner of the very young. Until one of these relatives, Gaston, takes him aside and tells him the story behind his father's eccentricity. Not too promising, heh? But Gaston and the boy's father were young and foolish men during the German occupation of France in World War II, and that generation had some stories to tell. The story is so beautifully constructed and so tightly bound together that I cannot bring myself to tell any piece of it in isolation.

And the language! No classical French here; the book is narrated in the boy's slang when portraying his unhappiness with his family and in Gaston's energetic and colorful patois as he relates the central revelation of foolishness, fear, revenge, guilt, generosity and self-sacrifice. Curious about how the translator handled these distinct slangs, I sampled the translation by Barbara Bray (the edition I purchased has an English translation followed by the original French!) The less said about this translation, the better. Let it suffice to note that effroyable means "frightening, appalling, horrifying", whereas Bray offers "In Our Strange Gardens".

Apparently, a movie was made based on this book. I have no idea how it manages the three distinct layers of time and perspective of this intricate little piece of clockwork.

[The Reading Bibliophile · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un bijou !

[Michael VanClief · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was a very short book which I liked but I was just so confused during the entire read. Maybe it was because the text is originally in French? So maybe the translation made it hard to understand. All I remember is that the book is set during World War II and people were in a ditch

[Laetitia Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Je l’avais déjà lu à l’école mais n’avais plus aucun souvenir de cette nouvelle. Alors, je me suis lancé dans la journée et, au delà qu’il se lise très vite (80 pages environ), j’ai aimé l’angle du secret du père, un fils qui a honte et qui découvre la vérité poignante. Un beau livre, émouvant.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A touching novella about how people often run deeper than our impressions of them, particularly in times of great upheaval and conflict. Very moving in parts, extremely funny in others (unusual for a World War II book), this translation from the French, by Barbara Bray, is short but will leave the reader thinking for quite a while about sacrifice, dignity, hope, and love both romantic and filial.

[Frey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Très verbeux, un gros mélange de registres de langages et un bel honneur à son père.
C'est une histoire intéressante - j'avais beaucoup aimé le film, qui au final ne suit que le postulat de base, pour le rendre probablement plus accessible au public, tout en enlevant au final toute la base biographique du père et la réalité.

[Maks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Petite lecture improvisée et lue en 1h, bon c'est très court 80 pages, mais comme mon fils venait de le lire pour son cours de français, le résumé me plaisait bien, je me suis lancé et je ne suis pas déçu, une histoire qui commence de manière anodine mais se transforme en récit de la seconde guerre mondiale, du passage de la honte d'un enfant pour son père à la fierté la plus totale, à l'hommage, sujet de fond Intéressant et retournement de situation exceptionnel en font une histoire touchante à l'écriture parfaite. À lire. (et j'adore cette couverture).

https://unbouquinsinonrien.blogspot.c...

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Our Strange Gardens is an interesting short fable about the horrors of WWII from the perspective of the Resistance. It is at once a story of war that offers hope as well as a coming of age story. Definitely worth reading, and at only 80 pages, it can be read in one sitting.

[Justine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Petit livre sympathique à lire
Mais je n'ai pas spécialement adoré l'histoire

[Silvia Lozano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Relato con tintes autobiográficos. Es un relato lleno de sentimientos y sensibilidad. Me quedo con algunas frases interesantes.

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good. same vibes as the ww2 well/pit story in windup bird chronicle

[Selma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bof bof, l'idée initiale -un enfant qui a honte de son pére- est intéressante, mais le reste ne m'a pas du tout captivé ! C'est dommage :/

[Elisala · Rating 3 out of 5]

L'amorce: Un garçon a un peu honte de son père qui fait le clown, jusqu'à ce qu'on lui explique pourquoi...

Pourquoi aimer ce livre? Parce qu'il est court et percutant, qu'il est bien mené, tout le sel de l'histoire dévoilé petit à petit.

Pourquoi ne pas l'aimer? Peut-être quelques instants, quelques éléments un peu trop larmoyants, un peu trop on-va-vous-faire-pleurer...
En même temps, l'histoire parfois mérite bien une petite larme, non?

[Nick Thibodeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it while getting lost with the bus! Little, easy to read story of the time of a father during the Second World War

Thanks for the gift

[Daniel Read Good · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a beautiful little novela that absolutely deserves to be read again and again. There were moments that I felt I was a little lost and that may be due to the translation, but I still very much enjoyed this story.

This speaks true to the human condition and how no one can ever be seen for all that they are. We are all the villain in someone’s story, the hero, the lazy one, the arrogant one, the clown. Often it is too late and with sorrow that reflection makes our foolishness known to us.

I imagine that a lot of people read this and get different take-aways. Maybe my review makes no sense to you. But that is what I love about this little story. There is a lot to learn from it….if you can be still and listen while you read it.

[Gerdien · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5 stars

[mélie · Rating 3 out of 5]

merci les polymômes :)

[Mina Widding · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novell om att det finns mer bakom en persons beteende än man först tror, basically.

[Boris · Rating 3 out of 5]

First Sentence: "Some people who were there say that during the last days of the trial of Maurice Papon, in Bordeaux, the police prevented a man dressed like Coco the clown, but badly made up and in a very tattered costume, from entering the courtroom."

This book was translated from French. Michel tells the story of something that happened to his father and cousin in France during World War II.

It's one of those stories that people who lived during the war don't tell their children. As a son of Jewish refugees in Boston, I knew lots of people who had such stories. They didn't tell them. Not to children. Not to their children. I never asked either. These stories are always complicated. There's always guilt. People were hurt. People died. There was absolute wrong. For people who were there, there was no absolute right. It's hard to explain to children. How old do your offspring have to be that you don't consider them children?

So sometimes the only way to hear your parents' story is from someone else who was there. That's what this book is about. Michel's father is an amateur clown, and a bad one at that. This caused Michel and his family embarrassment and pain during his childhood. One day, Gaston, Michel's father's cousin takes Michel aside and tells him their story. Michel now understands his father's interest in being a clown.

Last Sentence: "I'll play the clown as best I can. And maybe, in the name of you all, I'll manage to play the man, too."

[Olivermagnus · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Our Strange Gardens starts out with our storyteller confiding how embarrassed and ashamed he is of his father, who often performed as an unpaid clown at various events. He's also ashamed of his father's cousin, Gaston, and his wife, Nicole, who are poor and engage in open displays of affection every time they are together.

One day Gaston tells the boy their story. The two men were Resistance fighters who blew up a generator. They assumed they got away until they were randomly seized as hostages by the Germans and tossed into a pit with two innocent men. They were told that they needed to select which one of the four would be executed. They survive based on actions from both an unsympathetic housewife and a German soldier.

This novella is based on events in the life of the author's father. While I wanted to know even more about these two men, I think the incident itself was so short that any attempt to make it a longer book would just be redundant. I learned a lesson in human dignity from a clown and that can't be a bad thing.

[Justine · Rating 3 out of 5]

En une petite cinquantaine de pages, Effroyables jardins parvient à évoquer des secrets familiaux, des corps bleutés et des nez rouges, de l'humour comme dernier et principal moyen de survie face au surréalisme de la guerre, l'absurdité de ses nouvelles lois et l'arbitrage contradictoirement aléatoire des hommes censés la représenter, des procès revus et corrigés sur la réelle identité des héros et des clowns, des coups du sort et de théâtre, des coups de malchance et de foudre, la valeur d'un cornet de frites...; et malgré un recours dispensable au parler rural, en définitive, ne présente aucune raison de passer à côté de lui. Plus qu'une histoire initiatique, ou coming-of-age story, c'est le récit de la maturité du jugement d'un enfant, qui avec les mêmes yeux change de regard sur les héros qui l'entourent et reconsidère l'importance de ne pas être sérieux quand le monde ne l'est plus.

[Waven · Rating 5 out of 5]

This beautiful and painful story is the tale of a child learning his father's secrets, a twisted series of events that left deep scars on everyone they touched. They were events his father spent much of his adult life trying to honor and redeem. It is a war story, a love story, a story of respect and shame and unforeseen consequences, full of beauty and tragedy with a dash of the absurd. It is a story laid bare, stripped to its honest essentials so the truth can hang out in all its ugly glory. It is unforgiving but, at times, exquisite.

But I must admit I'm rather shocked by the number of low ratings this story has received. And I am bewildered by those who said they didn't "get it." For those whose imaginations and educations have left them unable to appreciate this gem, more's the pity.

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This very short WWII novel is what few war stories can be, uplifting and hopeful. With clowns. Though some of the plot twists and turns might stretch credibility, they work perfectly for what is really a parable of human nature. Few human lines can be drawn largely, boldly, and absolute. The fuzzy grey area in which we all live is home to humanity (on both sides), even amidst the depraved cruelties of war. A quick story worth your time.

[Mirvan. Ereon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very haunting book. The story is very good and well-written with a wonderfully done twist in the end. I am glad because it both has the French original and the English translation. I tired reading it first in French but gave up because it somewhat was strangely written in French with a lot of words that exceeds my level. But the English translation is good also, easy to read and accessible.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another reviewer referred to this book as a "gem" and I must agree. It took me less than 30 minutes to read and has lead to so much more pondering and exploring within myself. It's indeed very short but the power of the story, based on the author's father, is magnificent.

[Camille · Rating 1 out of 5]

Abandon p56/75, je m’ennuie à mourir et je déteste la plume 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

How touching this fruit / in our strange and terrible gardens

I finished this book, which has a fairly abrupt, twisty ending, and went, "oh." Then I proceeded to sit there for the next half hour thinking about it non-stop, and again went, "oh" At ~80 pages, you really can't go wrong giving this one a try. I think the back cover review describes it correctly as "a little gem of a book." It will not take you long to read but it will leave you thinking about it for far longer afterwards--which in my opinion, is the best sort of book there is.

I made the mistake of not realizing I had a bilingual copy of the book. It was getting late last night, so I decided to put it down after 62 pages. Turns out, the novella is only 80 pages long, and is followed by the repeated story in the original French. So, this can easily be read in a single afternoon, and might be a better experience for it (though my two days worked fine too!) The story is succinct, but manages to capture quite a lot in its few pages.

The book succeeds in telling a small, ironic, thought-provoking slice of a long and all-encompassing war. It is a darkly humorous, surprising, and ultimately moving rumination on the complexities of life and memory and the strange intricacies of human nature, which always reside somewhere between black and white; A poignant reminder that small acts create irreversible ripples, and that there is a story to be told in all of us. Though the back cover labels it fiction, it is notable that the author based the story on his own father's experiences. I can't deny I am curious to learn how much overlap there is between fact and fiction here, though knowing that distinction wouldn't alter the effect of the book.

In Our Strange Gardens is definitely a book that warrants one or several re-reads, and I can see myself returning to it in the future, after I have had a little more time to process my first go-through. It is a worthy addition to war literature generally and French occupation literature more specifically and I am happy to have it be my kick off to a new year of reading!

Knocked a star because after finishing the English translation, I was certain the original French is the superior version. Scanning the other Goodreads review, I am both pleased and saddened to say my assumption seems to be a correct one. Since I find it difficult to make the time to achieve a 25 book reading challenge, it would probably be a bit ambitious of me to claim I might one day tackle learning french...but you never know! Perhaps one day I'll be able to revisit this text in its intended language. It's a good book for it.