La vie commune

by Lydie Salvayre

Suzanne, la narratrice, est depuis plus de trente ans l'employée exemplaire de Monsieur Meyer et ne souhaite rien d'autre que cette servitude bien réglée. Mais désormais elle va devoir partager son territoire avec une nouvelle secrétaire, une femme vulgaire, mamelue, péremptoire et dont les idéaux petits-bourgeois choquent la morale pudibonde et sa conception de la vertu. Au coeur de ce huis-clos somme toute banal, les sournoiseries quotidiennes, les punitions, les petites batailles acharnées, dérisoires, prennent les dimensions d'une guerre civile. La gêne, l'antipathie, le dégoût deviennnent obsession, haine, désespoir. Le délire puis la folie s'installent. Lydie Salvayre, à travers cette fable ironique et cruelle, fait de la vie de bureau le révélateur du cadre où se déroulent toutes nos guerres, petites ou grandes : la vie commune.

Genres: Fiction, French Literature, France

160 pages, Pocket Book

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Lydie Salvayre is a French writer. Born in the south of France to Republican refugees from the Spanish Civil War, she went on to study medicine in Toulouse and continues to work as a practicing psychiatrist. She has been awarded both the Prix Hermes and the Prix Novembre for her work.
She won the Prix Goncourt 2014 for her novel Pas Pleurer.

Reviews

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

podsjeća na Amelie

[Patti Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun book about a woman who drives herself crazy obsessing about her co-worker's perceived intentions to destroy her.

[Sara Vickery · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t know what exactly to expect when I started this book, but I liked the story so I pushed through to the end. It’s important to know it’s a French book translated to English, which I didn’t realize when I first started. So the rhythm/voice was hard for me to get into. But I enjoyed the stream of conscious neuroticism so 🤷🏻‍♀️ good enough

[Pascal Gistelinck · Rating 3 out of 5]

La vie commune van Lydie Salvayre, uit 1991.
Mij voordien totaal onbekend want uit de ruilbak gevist.

En dat valt goed mee, deze bijtende, psychologische zwarte klucht over een secretaresse die compleet gaga wordt wanneer ze plots haar bureau moet delen met een andere dame, die haar op alle gebieden aftroeft.

Salvayre zou trouwens later nog de prix Goncourt winnen.
3 1/2 sterren.

[Cameron Jester · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, it was entertaining and very on the nose with what being on the verge of a psychotic break is like - just cue the voices and it would be a full on mental snapping. Anywho, would’ve liked some more backstory to make it a full 4, but I see what the author was going for.

[Bea · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brief and amazing read. Suzanne, the protagonist, is so palpable from page one that I smiled almost throughout the book. Great book to study if you want to learn about 1st person character.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/4 stars

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the reviews, etc. I've read about Everyday Life focus on it being a novel of office politics and professional entrenchment, which it is, but I couldn't help reading it as also a story about health -- specifically, the onset of age-related dementia. Rather than the narrator's decline being entirely a result of the new secretary moving into her turf (I don't think I'm giving too much away here?), there's a physiological dimension as well, and that way made the story more tragic than the tragicomic I expected. The narration is deep within one character's distorted, paranoid perspective, and the way Salvayre suggests the perspectives of other characters as a way of revealing the "truth" of the situation was impressive, shifting my sympathies and opinions as the novel progressed. If I was slightly disappointed to find this not so dryly funny as I expected - and was in the mood for when I picked it up - I still enjoyed it very much, albeit not quite in the way I thought I might going in. Nothing wrong with that, though.

[Jeroen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found this in a treasure trove in Galway, Ireland, i.e. a second-hand bookstore that had somehow acquired a vast bulk of Dalkey Archive leftovers. You can see why this particular publisher went for this: it has that detached, minimal, French post-nouveau roman style that they often go for. Having said that, it didn't do much for me. I was looking forward to some clever observations on the alienating qualities of the office, but there's little of that. Instead, it's much more about the debilitating mind, and what is good about it is that it allows the more objective truth to shine through the subjective narrative of our protagonist. That is, one reads between the lines that the new secretary isn't all that bad: rather, it is the mind we are roaming in for the time being that is fucked up.

In this sense it is a similar work to Bernlef's Out of mind, which deals with dementia, and it is also similarly flawed. Apparently, it is hard to portray the faltering mind without it coming off as rather gimmicky and contrived.

[Kasia Harmak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Całkiem dobre studium obsesji jako "myśli, która się nie zużywa", choć dla mnie to raczej historia nienawiści niż szaleństwa. Autorkę porównuje się do Elfriede Jelinek zupełnie na wyrost. Łączy je być może jedynie pewna brutalność w ujmowaniu rzeczywistości, ale Jelinek robi to genialnie literacko, a Salvayre zaledwie dobrze, bo jest jednak przede wszystkim psychiatrą, a dopiero dłuuugo potem pisarzem. Czytałam z zainteresowaniem, z jakim obserwuje się ciekawy dokument ze studium obłędu, ale też z obojętnością, z którą czyta się utwory nie dość dobrze skonstruowane, by zawiesić niewiarę w wykreowaną w nich rzeczywistość.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

For anyone who suspects that working too long in an office job will drive you crazy, this book will confirm all your worst fears. This novella enters the mind of a somewhat unbalanced secretary who has worked at the same job for 30 years. A new, younger arrival gradually drives her over the edge. The story is told from the delusional viewpoint of the main character, so it is difficult at times to tell the difference between reality and her skewed version of it. An interesting character study.

[Elie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just what a book should be: clean, concise and with such well-drawn characters that when I first started explaining the plot to someone, for a second I thought the narrative happened to a friend. Quite simply, Everyday Life is about a woman who works at an office with another woman. If you work at an office, you should read it - that's all I'm saying.

[Alessandro Margheriti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Racconto di una nevrosi di ufficio in uno stile sprezzante e a tratti crudele. L'autoironia riesce a salvare il libro dal risultare patetico e ti permette di sorridere delle "disgrazie".
O sogghignare, dipende.

[linnea · Rating 3 out of 5]

liked it but it is not that memorable, just remeber a bitter woman who reminded me of my mom's cousin

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hah! Reminds you of how cranky you can get during the little battles of everyday life. A better than French version of the Office, without the stapler and jello trick.

[Jaga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gombrowicz-extra-light

[Marie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very odd story, narrated by a very tiresome person throughout. Seems reminiscent of a story that would have to be read for a literature class.

[Jessica Orndorff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really interesting to try to like a book with a completely unreliable narrator like this. A great exercise in critical reading, but I couldn't quite like this book!

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some people just really get under your skin.

(Probably more like a 3.5)

[Suzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author did a great job capturing the paranoia of the main character.