Est-ce que je te dérange ?

by Anne Hébert

« Et moi, Édouard Morel, homme sans grâce et peu sociable, un jour, j’ai vu Delphine au bord de la fontaine Saint-Sulpice, dans la lueur des marronniers roses alignés sur la place. Il se dégageait de toute sa petite personne une sorte d’entêtement à se trouver là, dans l’embrun de la fontaine, et à ne pas vouloir exister ailleurs, les coudes aux genoux, repliée sur elle-même, légèrement offusquée d’être au monde.

Depuis ce temps, elle me suit à la trace. »

Entre songe et réalité, ce récit poétique nous livre les mécanismes de la fascination et de l’obsession. Sous la douceur apparente se tapit une extrême violence.

Genres: Fiction, Womens, Literary Fiction, Canada, France

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Anne Hébert was a Canadian author and poet. She won Canada's top literary honor, the Governor General's Award, three times, twice for fiction and once for poetry.

Reviews

[Isabella Kratynski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sleep to my heart's content, day and night. Between naps, I read. A huge fatigue turns up between books, between naps. A black hole to swallow me up. The poets keep me company, I'm damned along with them, in the books and in my room in the country where I read. I read and I dream about hell and about the scarlet sky at the end of hell, like a bright border of flames.

Sometimes you find what you need. Am I Disturbing You? by Anne Hébert was that book, in a second-hand shop I'd never been to on a stretch of street I rarely walk.

Overly poetic, dreamlike, confusing, empty of plot, characters too slight to make sense, too much white space. And yet.

What I take away from this slim novella, though, the relevant thing I need to process is how someone can enter your life for so brief a period and suddenly leave it and leave an indelible imprint on you and dredge up long-forgotten (long-buried?) aspects of self, despite never really knowing each other, never having a claim on each other (that is, no explicit claim).

The story is of Delphine, evidently pregnant, and obsessed with Patrick Chemin, who has allegedly proclaimed his love for her but is recently married to the Fat Lady. Édouard and Stéphane find Delphine in the square.

Stéphane falls for her fast; for Édouard it's a slow burn. Édouard's a copywriter. Delphine has eyes only for Patrick and speaks only of her dead grandmother. Delphine never really disturbs anyone, until she does. Édouard finally dredges up some deeply painful (and painfully vague) childhood memories that explain nothing.

[Gillian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can’t say I really gained anything from this. I usually don’t mind a lack of plot as long as it’s superseded by some sort of poeticism or poignant prose and imagery. I didn’t find any that resonated with me here. I’m not a fan of pregnancy used as symbolism in conjunction with womanhood so perhaps that was part of my lack of enthusiasm towards the story.

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short but challenging novella about a Quebecois young woman or girl (her age is uncertain) who is orphaned via the death of her guardian grandmother and who ends up invading the lives of two Parisian bachelors who happen upon her in the street. More is evoked in this story than is explicitly stated, but by the end of the story Edouard--who unlike his friend Stephane does not fall in love with the woman/girl, whose name is Delphine--finds himself looking into his own past and spirit to discover the roots of his own self-sabotage. As for Delphine, there is little I can say here that will not betray some of the mystery of the story, but her vulnerability and fear are hard not to relate to and in the end I found her deeply sympathetic and not merely pathetic. I was a little less sure about Edouard. Perhaps best read as something of an allegory about homelessness, sorrow, and irredeemable loss.

[Justine Grondin · Rating 4 out of 5]

On dirait qu’il y a tellement comme autant peu de choses à dire sur ce roman.
Il n’y a pas d’intrigue incroyable. Pas de gros mystère à comprendre.
Seulement des histoires d’humains qui se blessent et s’attachent en trainant leurs traumatismes de relation en relation.

[Annelies · Rating 3 out of 5]

somehow both dreamy and harsh

reminded me a bit of breakfast at tiffany's

[koi · Rating 2 out of 5]

this made no sense

[Ziyah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t have any words really about what I just read…It felt like I was reading nothing and towards the end I was wondering where this was going. It’s not bad at all, it’s well written and the first chapter is intriguing (aside from the overwhelming use of “as if”) but it just seemed to lack something and became quite boring at times. So it wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad either. It feels like I missed some chapters or something because what did I just read???SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME😭.

I started reading the book two weeks ago but didn’t finish it, so today I read it and was kind of disappointed. Although the writing was good, it felt like there was no plot. Then I went back to the description of the book and read that Stéphane fell in love with her, I got excited thinking the book was going to pick up but it wasn’t fleshed out enough for me to care. It could have been an interesting subplot kind of like “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” but it wasn’t AT ALL… it was just put in randomly. ALSO, was I the only one that didn’t like Delphine or Edouard🤨 they both got on my nerves like him complaining about not wanting to be around her but he got her in his bed, in his house, and even tried to touch her. AND DON’T GET ME STARTED ON DELPHINE, at first I felt bad for her but after she kept talking about her grandmother in that damn rocking chair, I wanted to jump in the Seine River🙄. And PATRICK + THE FAT LADY(Marianna)‼️‼️Why was she in Edouard’s house?!?!? I’m either really stupid or it was written weirdly because the whole thing confused me on how they met Patrick and Marianna.

All this to say the novella is a 2/5 and now I have a fear of Pseudocyesis. I’m not telling you not to read it but this is what you should expect if you do decide to.

Positives: the first chapter, the cover, the writing (that’s it)

Negatives: it needed more of everything(details, background, povs EVERYTHING), Every character frfr Stéphane (for saying he loves this girl more than his mother), Delphine, Edouard(for shaving in the kitchen like what is wrong with you😦), the ending( I expected more).

[Antonia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite being less than 100 pages in length, the story is tiring. Perhaps that was Hebert’s intent? Like a character in Greek tragedy, Delphine is a figure of pathos. Hebert’s use of figurative language is strange and incomprehensible. It’s far weaker than her other literary works. I had high expectations of this book because it was nominated for the Giller Prize but was disappointed. It’s also one of Hebert’s last books to be published, and it's sad that a great writer left this world without a final literary blast.

[Donald Schopflocher · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novella with themes of betrayal, emptiness, obsession and compulsion, and memory. The girl Delphine is a haunting figure, one whose sudden appearance and disappearance jolts Edouard into an understanding of himself. The book has many striking images, but is too short to allow a real connection to its characters. I wondered if it was perhaps more poetic in the language it was originally written in (Canadian French).

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Giller? Ok. Guess I missed a hundred pages or so that might fill in why Edouard even cared about Delphine. Might re-title the book: "I Cared for a Weirdo Who Ruined her Life and Wanted to Share That". Obsession isn't nearly as simple as what went on in this novella, in my opinion.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

For such a short story to evoke interest, emotion and fascination in it's characters is always a sign of a great writer. Even read in translation, I could tell this author was able to create a fantastic work. I assume it would be even better in the original.

[Bianca Ferazzutti · Rating 1 out of 5]

There was not a page that was turned where I didn’t ask myself “what am I reading right now”. Maybe I missed the whole concept but??????????

[Anna Chiaramonte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminiscent of Andre Breton's Nadja.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Complicated to understand but very good