Winter Mythologies and Abbots

by Pierre Michon, Ann Jefferson (Translator)

Michon’s exquisite short narratives transport us to the heart of the Middle Ages as witnesses to the double-edged power of belief

This welcome volume brings to English-language readers two beautifully crafted works by the internationally acclaimed French author Pierre Michon. Populated by distant and little-known figures—Irish and French monks, saints, and scientists in Winter Mythologies; Benedictine monks in the Vendée region of France in Abbots—the tales frequently draw on obscure histories and other literary sources.

Michon brings his characters to life in spare, evocative prose. Each, in his or her own way, exemplifies a power of belief that brings about an achievement—or catastrophe—in the real world: monasteries are built upon impossibly muddy wastes, monks acquire the power of speech, lives are taken, books are written, saints are created on the flimsiest of evidence. Michon’s exploration in ancient archives has led him to the discovery of such often deluded figures and their deeds, and his own exceptional powers bestow upon them a renewed life on the written page. This in turn is an example of the power of belief, which for Michon is what makes literature itself possible. Winter Mythologies and Abbots are meant to be read slowly, to be savored, to be mined for the secrets Michon has to tell.

Genres: Fiction, France, Short Stories, French Literature, Literature, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction

116 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Pierre Michon’s writing has received great acclaim in his native France; his work has been translated into a dozen languages. He was winner of the Prix France Culture in 1984 for his first book, Small Lives, the 1996 Prix de la Ville de Paris for his body of work, and the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française. His works include Masters and Sons, The Origin of the World, and Rimbaud's Son.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pierre Michon is a faithful follower of Marcel Schwob and Jorge Luis Borges… As their worthy successor he writes his elegant erudite vignettes in the extravagant and highly ingenious style…
Brigid’s Fervor is a tragic tale of converting Irish tribal king’s family to Christianity…

She says, “I want to see your God face to face…”
“Swear to me,” says Brigid, “that I shall see Him tomorrow.” He looks at her with staring eyes, a large, irascible old man ejected from his dream back onto earth. He says, “You will see Him when you die, as will all of us in this world.”

Stories of bloodthirsty warriors and valour… Of divinity and blasphemy… Of faith and believers… Saints and sinners…
Bloody massacre caused by the desire to possess a rare book… Curse turning a brutal fighter into a crowing bird…

He is looking for dead men. This is his passion. The fact that he is a doctor in Marjevols is of little importance: he prefers bodies that have ceased to suffer to the suffering bodies of his daily round.

No need to be surprised – he is an anthropologist studying prehistoric man…
Scholars and explorers… Hermits and monks… Lovers and mistresses… The visible and the absolute… Reality turning into figment…
Abbots is about three medieval monasteries and their heads…

The monastery is devoid of charm, thrown together with planks of wood and peat, for the whole thing, which was founded and consecrated by Philibert the Ancient, has been trampled a hundred times over by the Normans—burned down, bailed out, rebuilt, taken apart. The walls of the chapter house are cob, the cloister is raw brick. The choir is older, built of the local white stone, but the fires have turned it black. It is fire too which melted the great bells, and the ones hammered by the blacksmith brother are small and shrill. A ring of logs forms the library – which, besides some canonical odds and ends, contains the Life of Saint Martin, the Life of Saint Jerome, and much learned bullshit from before the Revelation.

The abbots are human and they’re not free from the ordinary human flaws: they live, they disport, they sin, they pray and they seek glory…

He makes his way down as night falls. He can hear his miserly old man’s breath in the night. Bats fly past; it’s our own tiny heart beating up there. It’s the tiny black heart of the pope, of Hilère, or of the lowliest cowherd. No one knows. One man is all men, one place all places, thinks Hilère. He wonders whether this thought comes from God or the devil.

We clearly see the effects but we not always can see the causes.

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐ ⭐ Michelin stars

A gourmet dish from Pierre Michon that inspired me to make food associations, although the book is mostly about food for the soul. According to the French restaurant guide: Two MICHELIN Stars are awarded when the personality and talent of the chef are evident in their expertly crafted dishes; their food is refined and inspired.
This is not the guide's highest rating, but it is nevertheless prestigious and hard fought over by aspiring restaurateurs. Pierre Michon shares with famous chefs an interest in fresh thinking, quality over quantity and exquisite presentation.
In literary terms, this translates into very small portions short stories, pared down to basic elements that are then arranged in a refined and inspired tableaux.
Because the stories included are so compact, the book gathers together three collections linked by theme and historical period... and it still clocks in at just about 100 pages

Three Miracles in Ireland, (fifth and sixth century)
Nine Passages on the Causses, (fifth to XIX century)
Abbots (eleventh century)

The Ireland stories are inspired by ancient manuscripts and legends from a period where myth and religion crossed paths on the green island. I did a quick check, and both the chroniclers and the heroes of these sketches are historical figures, verifiable.
Three stories for the three patron saints of the country: Patrick, Brigid and Columbus. The witnesses/narrators are abbots and kings, with names like Suibhne, Finn Barr, Finian. Some of them are baptising virgins, others go to war or hunting. The most memorable sketch is about hunting for words in an ancient manuscript.
What Michon is interested in, both here and in the rest of the book, is the eternal conflict between the flesh and the spirit, the life of action and the life of contemplation. Instead of spelling out his theories, the author is simply letting his saints and abbots act out their lives.

Is this what it is to be a saint? Is it what it is to be a beast? Is it what it is to be at the mercy of the soul, or in thrall of the body?

>>><<<>>><<<

The middle section is about the Central Plateau in France, a causse which I think is a cliff, a valley or a karstic plateau in Auvergne. Anyway, it is a place with a long history, where prehistoric bones are discovered and where warlords and monks are fighting over a spring in the early Middle Ages. The lives of two saints are linked to the place, and the interest of the author seems to be in the way history is written and rewritten for certain purposes. Religious texts are apparently filled with such lives of saints that more fiction than fact. Yet time passes over everything and covers the controversies with a blanket of snow.

“All the bones have been bleached white by the rain, the dew, and the snow.”

>>><<<>>><<<

The three abbot stories that together make almost half of the whole book are my favorites here. They are more elaborate and more focused on the theme, with stronger characters. They are set during the period when the abbey of Cluny was the most influential spiritual force in France and in Europe. One of Cluny's aging abbots named Eble retires to Normandy and takes over a ruined establishment on the coast:

On the midget island of Saint-Michel, facing the vast sea, he is contemplating the clouds and the water.

Eble is a miracle worker, but in order to reclaim the land and to build his monument to posterity he needs the hands of the local fishermen and peasants. His own hands stray over the body of a local married woman. As Eble approaches the end of his life, he is more concerned with questions of legacy and purpose than with worries about sin.

Next sketch is about a hunting party, a young knight and a powerful woman. There is also a mythical animal to be hunted, something to be found in a lot of medieval French manuscripts. Once again, the spiritual and the savage nature of the people get mixed up and cannot be considered separately.

Pierre in his chronicle is undecided as to whether the boar is a demon or an angel, or at any rate a messenger.

The message is still unclear to abbots Theodolin and Hugues in the third and last last story. They hunt for the sign which gives meaning to the world and they think it can be found in one of the relics that were such a major source of income and fraud in the period: The era, as we know, loves bones.

Bones, clouds, frozen lands, prayers and old books are companions to the reader in this journey back through time. The people we meet and their concerns with life haven’t changed much through history. We still wonder why we are here and what we are doing with the miracle of life that we received. I don’t have any grand message for my closing remarks, unless it is one of the thoughts that come to abbot Eble on the shore of the ocean:

Life is an undending chant.

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

290118: further proof that word count is irrelevant, proof the French do dense wonders in very short form, proof even in translation French can be beautiful writers. these two works, miniature they may be, envelop, drown, the most hesitant reader in worlds 'we cannot understand' perhaps... but resonate as if dreamed. as with short philosophy works there might be necessity to have read much other work for the world, times, society, to be absorbed such that these brief tales can be read... only when i think too much do i wonder if a reader from another culture than 'french' or at least 'western', can be so strongly affected... i hope so...

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plagued by doubt and the devil, Michon’s characters inhabit marginal landscapes in uneasy, often apocryphal times.

Here’s St Columba who, appalled by his own violence, “seeks and finds a desert in the loathsome Irish Sea: on the bald island of Iona”; here’s Sweeney, last seen in At Swim-Two-Birds, still flitting from tree to tree, gathering wild cresses, “a saint and a madman, a thing of God”. Here too are the leprous saints of the Causses – the limestone plateaus of the Occitanie, where the skies are dismal, the land is arid, and “there are trees growing whose names are known only in Purgatory”. And finally the mediaeval abbots of Mont Saint Michel – vacillating crazily between venery and religious fervour.

The stories are fragmentary and the writing is wonderfully spare, yet haunting – a tribute to Ann Jefferson’s translation. There is a sense of otherworldliness – another place, another time, another frame of reference – that I have not encountered since reading William Golding’s The Spire. Yet at the same time, these semi-mythical characters are accessible to the reader and not so distant after all.

Short but impressive. Liked it a lot.

[Old Man JP · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of tales that Michon wrote based on research he did in the archives of French history. Most of them don't give a date but seem to be from about a thousand years or so ago although some are a little later. Most are based on religious myths and are written in a very romanticized fashion in Michon's very poetic prose. Some are about the battle between good and evil or traps set by Satan as well as other mythical beliefs. Probably, my favorite tale was about a young girl bathing in a river when an archbishop sees her and tells her about the "true" god. After he tells her of this god she says she would like to see him. He tells her she will if she is baptized but when she is she says she still can't see him. He then says she must melt a wafer on her tongue and go through other ceremonies and she says if she does "swear to me I will see him tomorrow". She is then told "you will see him when you die" and so she drinks poison. Another favorite tale takes place in a much later period during the reign of Robespierre, in which forty seven men march to protest poverty and are sent to the guillotine. The thing that kept coming to my mind as I was reading these tales, in particular the religious ones, is that back then most knowledge was based almost entirely on mythology and so was excusable but many of these myths are still believed today in spite of the vast amount of factual knowledge that has been learned since. Incredible!

[Josh Friedlander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this in one of those little street libraries along with A Frolic of His Own and History (reading in progress and seriously, which amazingly tasteful reader is seeding these things?) and took it just on the strength of a jacket quote from Guy Davenport. Strange, unique, fairy tale-like fictions from the Early Middle Ages (with occasional jumps to the French Revolution and even the modern era, through a glass darkly), when Christianity wrestled paganism in Ireland and la France profonde. Monks and local fiefs experience revelation, lust, anger and loneliness. Ann Jefferson translates Michon's French into delicate, beautiful English, full of rare words from a remote, miraculous, sylvan era.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very strange book, pieced together from shreds of medieval monastic chronicles. Pierre Michon's Winter Mythologies and Abbots are both short and sweet. My favorite title was Abbots, particularly the pieces about the abbey of Saint-Michel and a relic that is supposedly a tooth from the decapitated head of John the Baptist.

This is not a book that could have been written in the English-speaking world, which makes it a bit odd for those who are unfamiliar with the type of chronicles from which the stories are drawn. Fortunately, the individual pieces are crisp and sharp-edged.

The term causses which is used extensively in the first book refers to a region of limestone plateaus in France's Massif Central, known for its caves.

[είναι η θεία Κούλα · Rating 3 out of 5]

Αυτές οι ιστορίες παίζει να είναι και πεντάστερες. Αν μεταφραστούν στα ελληνικά θα τις ξαναδιαβάσω σίγουρα.

Υ.Γ. Ανθή Λεούση, από ποιο αλλού ήρθες; Τού πότε; Υπήρξε; Νταφακ γιου τοκιν αμπαουτ?

[a ☕︎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

a precision of language i haven’t seen anywhere else, and dense, which explains why this took me three days to read though it is 116 pages. dreams of monks found only in footnotes. this same evening in may, after vespers and none, at the hour when the first lamps are lit and before the first psalms are sung, he summons all the monks to the chapter house: some fifteen patricians like himself, drawn or banished here by a violent reading of the life of saint martin, by their courage, by their cowardice, by a brother who wants to rule alone because the fiefdom is only small, and—who knows?—some by god.

[Aung Sett Kyaw Min · Rating 3 out of 5]

With an intoxicating delivery reminiscent of a quality one might find in certain aphoristic religious texts of the East, Michon weaves together a series of misty fables in which monks tussle with feudal warlords, Word mingles with Flesh, and pagan-like femininity takes special delight in erasing and redrawing at whim the borders between preternatural evil and all-too-human goodness. Michon is an absolute master of economy; he makes you hang onto every word, and every sentence, which drips with Rimbaudian savagery (my compliments to the translator).

[Justin Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michon's magic works here, in a way it didn't quite for me in Small Lives, and didn't at all in Masters & Servants. I like the middle ages, I don't like the 19th century, and I really didn't like the 20th. Sue me.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

The hangings on the large wagon part; the princess steps down. Her bare feet are made of white card like a wasps’ nest. She kneels, she lifts her veil, she takes the cool water in her card-paper hand, she drinks passionately as if she were kissing her angel. For a long time her eyes remain closed, as if she were clasping her angel to herself, then she opens them and looks at her hand: it’s the long, pale hand of a young girl. She throws off her veil and runs on her pink, young girl’s feet. She dances and laughs till she cries. The barons, the bishops, and the grooms look at her. She looks at them with a sort of hunger.

Soon they are ready for the return journey. The hangings on the large wagon are open; the princess sits in it with her hammerediron jewelry and her gown which reveals her arms and her shoulders, her universal hunger. Bishop Sigebert touches her arm as he talks to her, Duke Gontran her hair. She laughs loud and often. It is as if it were her angel touching her through each man. They set off before dawn; six pairs of oxen are placed between the shafts of the large wagon to climb the gash of the Tarn. When they are on the causse and they stop to unharness, it’s daybreak. Enimia, who is looking at the daylight, wants to see it gleaming on her rings. She lowers her eyes to her hand: her rings are sunk in the puffy blisters of a wasps’ nest. All her blood returns to her heart. As her blood stops, she says, “Satan.”

*

[Esteban · Rating 4 out of 5]

Se leen como ejercicios borgeanos aplicados a material celta y merovingio y pasados por un exceso sustractivo en búsqueda de estilo. Michon escribe con frases cortas que suelen ser bellas y precisas, pero que no dan respiro, y terminan agotando incluso dentro de los límites de un cuento. Los resultados son irregulares. En Tres prodigios de Irlanda logra comunicar y ampliar el extrañamiento que provoca una buena lectura de su material original, especialmente en el excelente Tristesse de Columbkill. En comparación el resto de los cuentos quedan un poco desdibujados.

[Panayotis Xh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ολιγοσέλιδοι λυρικοί βίοι αγίων, βασιλέων και άλλων Κελτών, ανθρώπων του Μεσαίωνα και μη, όπου κάθε λέξη είναι ποίηση, κάθε σελίδα είναι μια ενδόμυχη και άκρως μυστική συνάντηση με κάποιο θείο λεξεοπλάστη· ιδανικό για την εποχή — σαν να σου εμφανίζεται μέσα στο φως του κεριού σε ένα μοναστήρι της Αναγέννησης, η σκιά του Θεού

[Ripleyland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abbots was far better than Winter Mythologies.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent set of extremely short stories covering the engagement of christianity with pagan Ireland, availability of grace in the material world, religious communities and the transmission of knowledge through history in the French Causses, and religious communities in the Vendée.

Highly elliptical, mystical, and cynical. desire and violence are always present. michon creates beauty and mystery through precision.

translation by Ann Jefferson comes highly recommended:

"There is, however, excellent news on the Michon translation front: an exceptional translator has, at last, appeared. Ann Jefferson, a former professor of French at Oxford, has delivered Michon’s two books of short stories, Mythologies d’hiver (1997) and Abbés (2002), in a single slim volume. I read Jefferson’s versions in something close to shock: they feel as Michon feels in French. There is the velocity, the precision, the music, the compression, the singularity, the power."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/...

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't recommend this slim one enough. It's historical fiction raised to a level of perfection usually only aimed for by poets. Ingenious miniatures that, every paragraph, deliver small potent doses of what it might have felt like to live in the Middle Ages, and/or remind us how impossible it is for us to ever bridge that gap. Plot construction is very sharp, too.

[Daniel Polansky]

A delightful series of interlinked vignettes discussing god, belief, the power of story and faith. The prose is lovely, the narratives surreal and clever. Reminded me of Borges. Lots of fun, I'm going to check out more by Michon soon.

[Rashmi Duggal · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book based in the early 14th century depicts many short narratives from the stories of monks, saints, scientific minded people. The myths and mythologies show the power of belief as was prevalent at that time in Ireland and Northern France. Religion has been taken as a double edged sword, which is relevant even today, People on the path of religion are led by faith as well as fear like the eldest daughter in Kings daughters. Some stories are based on hollow faith and then there is Satan skilled in manipulation.
However for fully understanding the deeper meaning biblical language needs to be understood in more detail.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

"All things are mutable and close to uncertain." Wonderful gem of a book, short tales that are plucked out of medieval times, that inhabit the cold and the religiosity of that era, but with power still now.

[Jeff Carpenter · Rating 3 out of 5]

obtuse. my attention wasn't abundant enough.

[Bob Lopez]

DNF. Vinettes concerning kings, abbots, princesses, it actually sounds interesting but the narratives were hard to trace, and resulted in a boring reading experience. No rating.

[Robert C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haunting text, stories that stick with you, but due to what appears to be an aesthetically intentional cynicism, the endings become predictable in their bleak denouements.

[Kyle Clewett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I knew more about the history of the spread of Christianity through Western Europe, to fully appreciate this.

[Tonymess · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s the High Middle Ages, with its beautiful images, assiduous scribes, and horses.


Pierre Michon, as publishers Yale University Press and Archipelago Books (for “Small Lives” and “The Eleven”) is a multi-award winning French writer, including the Prix Décembre, Grand Prix SGDL de literature, the Prix Louis Guilloux, and the Prix de la Ville de Paris.


Our work is actually two works, Mytholo­gies d’hiver, pub­lished in 1997, and Abbés, 1992, are combined here in what, is still, a short work (totalling 116 pages). However that doesn’t mean it is a light read, this prose is denser than the forests portrayed.


As the opening quote alludes to we are in the High Middle Ages and our book opens with “Winter Mythologies”, twelve character portraits, thee miracles in Ireland and nine passages on “the Causes”. Our story opens with “Brigid’s Fervor”, where the daughters of a King are bathing in the river and are approached by Patrick, the archbishop of Armagh. They are convinced that baptism will help them see “the true God” and take part as well as preparing for their first Holy Communion. Brigit, the eldest daughter, is convinced she will see the Son of God, with tragic consequences.

For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...

[Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are truly the most fascinating and entrancing set of stories. They project us mainly into the period between 500 and 1000 A.D. in Ireland and northern France. Each story is quite short and revolves around few characters. The characters are all realistic in the sense that we know them and how and why they do things - no matter that one might be an abbot or saint. The scenes and environments of this extraordinary part of our history are beautifully drawn. One steps into these worlds.

I would say that these stories are exquisite, not in the effete sense of delicately beautiful, but in the sense that great poetry is exquisite. And that is the max I can say about them. I recommend them highly and I will re-read them and other work by M. Michon.

[ℳatthieu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poésie en prose mais bien peu accessible pour moi. La plupart de ces historiettes ont pour thème la réligion et le sacré. Le style est sibylin et elliptique : le lecteur doit faire l'effort de "recomposer" le recit pour combler les trous. J'étais souvent perdu en lisant.

"On les pousse dans juin avec les mains liées. Sur la charrette, il pense à sa mère debout dans juin sur le pas de sa porte à la Malène, [...]"
Parle-t-on ici du mois de juin ?

[Marvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quelques textes brefs qui évoquent des moments dans la vie de personnages réels (ou quasi réels?) de l'histoire de France et d'Irlande.

Le livre plaira surtout aux lecteurs qui ont déjà quelques connaissances historiques et religieuses des personnages, notamment ceux qui ont vécu au Moyen-Âge. Mais sinon j'ai beaucoup aimé le style de l'auteur, sans gras ni fioritures.

[Hristos Dagres · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ένα σύντομο βιβλίο με μικρές ιστορίες που κατά πλειοψηφία αφορούν πρόσωπα του πρώιμου Μεσαίωνα σε Γαλλία και Ιρλανδία. Πολύ ενδιαφέρον, με ασυνήθιστη θεματολογία και εξαιρετική μετάφραση σε όμορφα ελληνικά.

[Pyqos]

"...le sourire du renard et le regard du loup, il tend sa main ouverte"