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Company of Ghosts
When a bailiff turns up, a teenager tries to salvage her mother, their dignity and the TV. When a bailiff arrives at a housing project on the edge of Paris to draw up a routine inventory of goods in view of seizure, the reception he receives from Rose Melle and her teenage daughter is more than he has bargained for. Rose, forever unhinged by the trauma of childhood spent under Nazi occupation, mistakes him for a collaborationist thug and assails him with her alternately tragic and hilarious memories of Vichy France. In a narrative that lurches giddily between 1942 and 1997, Salvayre picks at the sores of recent French history, exposing its continuing authoritarianism. "The Company Of Ghosts" won the Prix Novembre in France.
184 pages, Paperback
First published August 27, 1997
3 people are currently reading
130 people want to read
About the author
Lydie Salvayre
53 books43 followersLydie 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.
She won the Prix Goncourt 2014 for her novel Pas Pleurer.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
March 8, 2014
This book made me reet proppa melancholy, as they say in the North (of England). By this, I don’t mean the sort of heartsick longing melancholy one finds in a Camera Obscura LP or a French classic, I mean full-on Weltschmerz—the sort of sadness that takes all week to shake off. You roll around on the floor, beating the boards, cursing the naturally evolving world constructed within a naturally evolving series of universes and multiverses, desperate for a better tomorrow for you and your children (or, if no children, you pray for the opportunity to ever have children with an actual woman). This preamble, you may have observed, is a typical MJ ploy to fill the review box with my own ramblings, and thus hook the reader into caring about the book. Don’t you dare start skipping! This novel takes place in a French slum in 1997, when a process-server (or repo man) arrives to make an inventory of the repossessable items in the hovel of a mother and her daughter. The mother is tormented by memories of Nazi thugs in her childhood and torments her daughter by eloquently recounting these memories in detail before lapsing into endless tormented screams. Meanwhile, the virginal daughter is tormented by romantic longing and her own murderous thoughts. Torment is the operative. Like Salvayre’s The Power of Flies, this novel probes in dark psyches, unflinching in its warts-and-more-warts depiction of how the vilest aspects of our pasts invade our present. The novel suffers from a lack of focus and stretching the conceit too far (plus confusion as to who is narrating). The bonus short story here is a dark Swiftian piece that seems chillingly real.
February 5, 2016
Intéressant d'un point de vue stylistique, une manière déroutante mais pertinente d'aborder les sévices de la seconde guerre mondiale. Une expérience que je ne regrette pas.
A noter que malgré l'enchevêtrement des voix et l'absence apparente des normes conventionnelles du dialogue, pas une seule fois je n'ai perdu le fil !
A noter que malgré l'enchevêtrement des voix et l'absence apparente des normes conventionnelles du dialogue, pas une seule fois je n'ai perdu le fil !
July 18, 2017
The Company of Ghosts, by Lydie Salvayre.
Translated from the French by Christopher Woodall.
Dalkey Archive Press, 2006. (Original: Éditions du Seuil, 1997.)
184 pages.
RIYL: Georges Perec, Patrick Modiano, 'The Handmaid's Tale'
* * * * * *
"My mother fell silent a few seconds while the process-server inexorably pursued his inventory without realizing that what he was thus making was an inventory of our memories, [...] an entire history, the objects of which bore marks that only we could read." (p.121)
There you have, in a nutshell, the scenario of this fascinating short novel by Lydie Salvayre, a French author whose name only recently came to my attention. In 1997, the novel's teenage narrator, Louisiane, and her mother, Rose, live together in a poor apartment. Rose's memories of the brutal treatment suffered by her own mother and brother under the Vichy state of Phillippe Pétain are never far from her mind; when she falls behind on rent payments and the bailiff comes calling, she mistakes him for one of Pétain's thugs, and directs a torrent of obscenity at the confused lawman. Louisiane, meanwhile, is a mess of conflicting feelings: thrust prematurely into the responsibilities of adulthood by her mother's mental illness, she first tries to appease the process-server with obsequious shows of compliance (and plenty of sedatives for Rose), but quickly gives in to the adolescent desire for someone to take her side and hear all the gripes she has about her horrible mother.
The plot, as you'll have gathered from this summary, is rather minimal, and the cast of characters is not large. It's in the telling of the tale that Salvayre shines: constantly shuttling the narrative focus between 1943 and 1997, she lets the past speak through the present in a way that is unforced and powerful. As Rose begins to air out her many grievances, Louisiane, who has heard them all before, must both interrupt (for the benefit of the process-server) and complete (in an aside to the reader) her mother's telling. Sometimes, it can be difficult to know whether the words on the page are Rose's direct speech or Louisiane's secondhand report, owing to the lack of quotation marks. I suspect this was a deliberate stylistic choice, and I don't fault the author for it: while occasionally disorienting, it never grows distracting. And each time one of Rose's traumatic recollections or Louisiane's lyrical flights threatens to derail the narrative, Salvayre handily reestablishes us in prosaic reality by reference to the process-server "inexorably pursuing" his grim tour through their apartment. (The process-server, who rarely speaks during the novel, has his say in the book's appendix, which was first published separately. I didn't feel that this section added very much to the work, beyond the mildly scandalous revelation that the process-server regards Marshal Pétain as a great French patriot; I hadn't realized that anyone in France subscribed to that particular strain of historical revisionism. Then again, I'm sure many outside the United States would be shocked to learn that the traitor Robert E. Lee is still held in high esteem by a number of my countrymen...)
In closing, I'd like to highlight a passage which suggests the moral importance of this work, and its value for readers today. In this flashback, Rose is six years old, sitting in the audience at a public ceremony in celebration of motherhood; her own mother, an unmarried woman, has not been invited to take part in the festivities, and Rose realizes that her mother's unconventional views have made her a pariah. This moving scene is as well-written as any passage in the novel, but it resonates with me for a special reason: as an American in 2017, I can't help tracing parallels between the Vichy regime and my own country's reactionary conservative movement, lately empowered by the election of President Trump. One need only consider the list of local notables onstage during the festival to be struck by the affinity:
"I can see [...] the Mayor, a red-white-and-blue scarf pinned to his massy chest, surrounded by Madame Duvert, the Departmental Delegate to the French Union for the Defense of the Race, Madame Vérine, Member of the Regional Association for Christian Marriage, Abbott Vincent, Chairman of the Association for the Improvement of Public Morals, and Monsieur Perrachon, Vice-Chairman of the Regional Alliance against Depopulation, a sly and repellent creature who looked rather like this man here, she said with a grimace, pointing at the process-server, the same hypocritical face, she added for good measure." (p.110, emphasis added)
Translated from the French by Christopher Woodall.
Dalkey Archive Press, 2006. (Original: Éditions du Seuil, 1997.)
184 pages.
RIYL: Georges Perec, Patrick Modiano, 'The Handmaid's Tale'
* * * * * *
"My mother fell silent a few seconds while the process-server inexorably pursued his inventory without realizing that what he was thus making was an inventory of our memories, [...] an entire history, the objects of which bore marks that only we could read." (p.121)
There you have, in a nutshell, the scenario of this fascinating short novel by Lydie Salvayre, a French author whose name only recently came to my attention. In 1997, the novel's teenage narrator, Louisiane, and her mother, Rose, live together in a poor apartment. Rose's memories of the brutal treatment suffered by her own mother and brother under the Vichy state of Phillippe Pétain are never far from her mind; when she falls behind on rent payments and the bailiff comes calling, she mistakes him for one of Pétain's thugs, and directs a torrent of obscenity at the confused lawman. Louisiane, meanwhile, is a mess of conflicting feelings: thrust prematurely into the responsibilities of adulthood by her mother's mental illness, she first tries to appease the process-server with obsequious shows of compliance (and plenty of sedatives for Rose), but quickly gives in to the adolescent desire for someone to take her side and hear all the gripes she has about her horrible mother.
The plot, as you'll have gathered from this summary, is rather minimal, and the cast of characters is not large. It's in the telling of the tale that Salvayre shines: constantly shuttling the narrative focus between 1943 and 1997, she lets the past speak through the present in a way that is unforced and powerful. As Rose begins to air out her many grievances, Louisiane, who has heard them all before, must both interrupt (for the benefit of the process-server) and complete (in an aside to the reader) her mother's telling. Sometimes, it can be difficult to know whether the words on the page are Rose's direct speech or Louisiane's secondhand report, owing to the lack of quotation marks. I suspect this was a deliberate stylistic choice, and I don't fault the author for it: while occasionally disorienting, it never grows distracting. And each time one of Rose's traumatic recollections or Louisiane's lyrical flights threatens to derail the narrative, Salvayre handily reestablishes us in prosaic reality by reference to the process-server "inexorably pursuing" his grim tour through their apartment. (The process-server, who rarely speaks during the novel, has his say in the book's appendix, which was first published separately. I didn't feel that this section added very much to the work, beyond the mildly scandalous revelation that the process-server regards Marshal Pétain as a great French patriot; I hadn't realized that anyone in France subscribed to that particular strain of historical revisionism. Then again, I'm sure many outside the United States would be shocked to learn that the traitor Robert E. Lee is still held in high esteem by a number of my countrymen...)
In closing, I'd like to highlight a passage which suggests the moral importance of this work, and its value for readers today. In this flashback, Rose is six years old, sitting in the audience at a public ceremony in celebration of motherhood; her own mother, an unmarried woman, has not been invited to take part in the festivities, and Rose realizes that her mother's unconventional views have made her a pariah. This moving scene is as well-written as any passage in the novel, but it resonates with me for a special reason: as an American in 2017, I can't help tracing parallels between the Vichy regime and my own country's reactionary conservative movement, lately empowered by the election of President Trump. One need only consider the list of local notables onstage during the festival to be struck by the affinity:
"I can see [...] the Mayor, a red-white-and-blue scarf pinned to his massy chest, surrounded by Madame Duvert, the Departmental Delegate to the French Union for the Defense of the Race, Madame Vérine, Member of the Regional Association for Christian Marriage, Abbott Vincent, Chairman of the Association for the Improvement of Public Morals, and Monsieur Perrachon, Vice-Chairman of the Regional Alliance against Depopulation, a sly and repellent creature who looked rather like this man here, she said with a grimace, pointing at the process-server, the same hypocritical face, she added for good measure." (p.110, emphasis added)
December 17, 2021
This is the second book I've read from French author Lydie Salvayre. This title resembles in too many ways the first novel I've read titled "La puissance des mouches", which is not necessarily good neither for readers nor for the author.
In this book, readers read and hear a mother and daughter telling the inventory of their tragic and traumatic lives to a baillif, who's doing the inventory of their belongings inside their appartements.
The 2 books have so much in common:
- long monologues to count their life stories,
- sad, unhappy, and dramatic lives inherited from one generation to the next,
- the first book was about a son and a father, who hated each other and lived apart, while here it is about a mother and a daughter, living together with mixed feeling toward each other.
- the writing style, the format, and the themes are all similar.
Reading these 2 books gives readers a good picture of the author's favorite themes: family and inheritance of life and behaviors from the family.
In this book, readers read and hear a mother and daughter telling the inventory of their tragic and traumatic lives to a baillif, who's doing the inventory of their belongings inside their appartements.
The 2 books have so much in common:
- long monologues to count their life stories,
- sad, unhappy, and dramatic lives inherited from one generation to the next,
- the first book was about a son and a father, who hated each other and lived apart, while here it is about a mother and a daughter, living together with mixed feeling toward each other.
- the writing style, the format, and the themes are all similar.
Reading these 2 books gives readers a good picture of the author's favorite themes: family and inheritance of life and behaviors from the family.
February 17, 2025
1943, sota el règim de Vichy, dos gallets de poble embravits pel deliri feixista de l'època apallissen a mort un jove d'una família contrària a Pétain. Mig segle més tard, la violència i la impunitat de l'assassinat segueixen turmentant les dues persones que queden d'aquesta família: una dona amb trastorn mental que, entre demència i lucidesa, està convençuda que aquell règim no ha desaparegut del tot. I la seva filla de 18 anys atrapada pels espectres d'un passat que no és el seu.
Una prosa sense contemplacions, directa i àcida per descriure un entorn sòrdid i que malgrat tota la incomoditat, t'arrenca més d'un somriure.
Una prosa sense contemplacions, directa i àcida per descriure un entorn sòrdid i que malgrat tota la incomoditat, t'arrenca més d'un somriure.
April 5, 2025
C'était une histoire bouleversante, l'huissier faisait bien le contraste avec la situation. La relation entre la mère et la fille me peine un peu mais il était normal qu'elle soit comme ça. La lecture était fluide mais il faut se concentrer pour ne pas mélanger les diverses lignes narratives. Petite pensée à Jean, il ne méritait pas ça.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 17, 2025
Really good, narratologically amazing, but I'm not sure I would've ever picked it up if not for class
November 20, 2025
was confused pretty much the whole way through but four stars for sheer impact anyway
August 15, 2024
"La compañía de los espectros" és una novel·la que es mou entre el drama, la comèdia i fins i tot, en alguns moments, en el pur esperpent. D'aquesta manera, l'autora aconsegueix fer més mengívola una història que és vertaderament corprenedora, com un assassinat absolutament arbitrari, comès per dos eixalabrats enquadrats per les circumstàncies en les files del poder, trastoca no només una existència, sinó també la de la generació següent. I és que si bé la persona trastocada és Rose, l'existència de la seva filla tardana Louisiane és també una vida encerta manera ancorada en aquells fets de 1943, que l'obliguen, a pesar de la seva curta edat, a viure fent-se càrrec d'una mare que només és funcional per moments i sense poder desenvolupar-se d'acord amb la seva edat. Enmig d'aquest espectacle, que es desenvolupa en les poques hores que dura la visita de l'agent judicial, la figura d'aquest pot esser vista com una mostra de la impassibilitat de l'estat davant la situació de les Mélie, tant en el moment original del trauma com en el moment actual en el que aquest mostra les seves grises conseqüències. El món continua girant i la maquinària del Leviatan no s'atura per res ni per ningú.
D'aquesta manera, l'autora, guanyador del premi Goncourt de 2014 per "No plorar", ens fa anat endavant i endarrera en el temps, per fer-nos conèixer l'origen del drama i les seves conseqüències actuals. El context històric de la novel·la és l'època de la segona guerra mundial, quan la França derrotada en sis setmanes de juny de 1940 queda repartida entre una zona ocupada pels alemanys i la França de Vichy, un règim col·laboracionista i filofeixista en el qual la violència dels paramilitars campava amb total impunitat.
El resultat és una novel·la plena d'interès, encara que no sigui una lectura de les que captiven de forma immediata, ja que ens fa plantejar-nos moltes coses sobre el pes de la història i la indiferència amb les que n'observam les conseqüències.
D'aquesta manera, l'autora, guanyador del premi Goncourt de 2014 per "No plorar", ens fa anat endavant i endarrera en el temps, per fer-nos conèixer l'origen del drama i les seves conseqüències actuals. El context històric de la novel·la és l'època de la segona guerra mundial, quan la França derrotada en sis setmanes de juny de 1940 queda repartida entre una zona ocupada pels alemanys i la França de Vichy, un règim col·laboracionista i filofeixista en el qual la violència dels paramilitars campava amb total impunitat.
El resultat és una novel·la plena d'interès, encara que no sigui una lectura de les que captiven de forma immediata, ja que ens fa plantejar-nos moltes coses sobre el pes de la història i la indiferència amb les que n'observam les conseqüències.
June 9, 2010
I quite enjoyed this book (in truth, it is more of a novella, being less than 200 pages long). It is translated from French, but the translator did a remarkable job of managing to include and even translate the language-based humour that would be inherent to French speakers. Following the European style, this book does not use quotation marks which, I must admit, made things more than a bit confusing at times since between the mothers' rants, the story is told in the first person point-of-view of her daughter. There were some terrifically lengthy sentences, but these added to the cadence and general aura of insanity. Since the action took place primarily in one set of rooms, during the visit of one process-server, the book had something of the feel of reading a one-act play and I think that this could be successfully (and easily) transferred to that medium. Definitely a unique story, with clever turns of phrasing, this book was a very enjoyable read. However, stylistically speaking, I can see how this book would not have a universal appeal.
November 10, 2011
Punishing, though not at the level of some of Bernhard's work. Sadly, this never quite took the last step over the line. It's powerful, and the subject (the papered-over sins of Vichy France figures) is worthy. Probably more like 3.5 stars.
Still, I'm going to read more of Salvayre's work. She seems interesting. (Major props to Dalkey Archive for their French Literature series, which also introduced me to the excellent Jean-Philippe Toussaint.)
Still, I'm going to read more of Salvayre's work. She seems interesting. (Major props to Dalkey Archive for their French Literature series, which also introduced me to the excellent Jean-Philippe Toussaint.)
May 14, 2018
Originally picked this up used because it was on Dalkey Archives, the second press to publish my favorite author, Carole Maso. It was okay, but forgetful. The text an alternating paranoid monologues with a kafka-esque (if I am so allowed) finishing section. The collision of the tragically personal and the functioning state.
November 10, 2010
It is a portrait of generations, of getting old(er), and of inevitability of death.
May 20, 2013
Mooie stijloefening, volgehouden tot het einde. Hoog tempo en interessant thema. Desondanks toch niet echt aangrijpend...
March 26, 2018
This was given to me by a french major. He bought this book at a new bookstore in Logan Square.
August 30, 2015
Uma visão das consequências da 2ª Guerra Mundial em França com base nas memórias e loucura de uma mulher.
Gostei da mensagem do livro mas não muito da forma algo repetitiva como aborda o assunto.
Gostei da mensagem do livro mas não muito da forma algo repetitiva como aborda o assunto.
December 4, 2015
Le style et toute la construction du récit vous accrochent bien...au début, puis cela devient lassant ! La grossièreté des propos (encore une fois trop fréquente) n'ajoute rien au propos.
August 20, 2024
Meilleur livre Lire 1997. Style litteraire nouveau de dialogue en prose. La France sous Petain.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews