Ma vie d'Edgar

by Dominique Fabre

French

Genres: France, French Literature

200 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1998

Reviews

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before me, I really wonder what there was. Kids often believe that everything begins the moment they’re born, but not your humble servant Edgar. I’m not even sure I could find the place where I lived before without making a mistake, Madame Clarisse Georges. I’m still not all there, but I know how to hide it well. I’m grown up now. I’m still quiet and unassuming too, but I’m not sure that won’t change. Sometimes I want to shorten all this and get right to the train station platform, to the moment we’re going home. I’ll be eleven then.

In a new translation from the French, My Life as Edgar (originally released in 1998 as Ma vie d’Edgar) is a strange little book about a strange little boy and his strained efforts to understand the strange and seemingly unknowable world around him. The novel opens with Edgar describing himself as having the “features of a kid with Down syndrome – a kind of coldness around the eyes, pale lips, big cheeks, a big butt, though my chromosomes weren’t really to blame”; he also has enormous ears, a tongue that won’t stay in his mouth, and at three years old, he drools and moos and growls at people who conclude that Edgar is “not all there”. With a beautiful single mother who doesn’t know what to do with her unusual son, Edgar will be shipped off to a sort of foster home in the country (which he loves) for the next eight years, and when he is finally brought back home to Paris, he will be immediately sent off to a church-run boarding school (which he hates). Throughout, we are in Edgar’s mind as he circles through experiences, mashing up the past and present and the parts he makes up, and even if he thinks of himself as a “noodle” or “the village idiot”, he comes across to the reader as intelligent and self-aware and in need of his Maman. I feel like I’ve encountered this boy-who-is-wise-beyond-his-limitations character before — I was put in mind of The Son of a Certain Woman, The Tin Drum, even in a way Nutshell — and while I suppose it makes some sense for an unfiltered child to use derogatory language when describing himself and others (Edgar frequently thinks in terms like “fatty”, “dago”, and “yid”), it gave me an unsettled feeling (even for 1998, author Dominique Fabre seemed to be pushing the bounds of good taste, but Edgar will repeat what Edgar hears with those enormous ears). Edgar has no control over his situation, thinks more than he is able or willing to communicate, and the interior life that Fabre paints is one of seeking and longing and unquestioned acceptance of a bad lot in life. This short work is more about what happens on the inside than on the out, and overall, it moved me. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

The waiting room wasn’t full, far from it, yet I wasn’t the only quiet, unassuming child in the Paris area in 1964, and if on top of everything else I weren’t hopelessly lazy, I’d describe to you in one go everything you need to know about 1964, and should the next year rear its head, as soon as I heard the sadistic pop of the champagne corks on December 31st — while hugs and wishes were exchanged — I’d take advantage of the slightest lull to inflict 1965 on you. And so on and so forth. It goes to show I won’t have lived in vain.

The opening scene has Edgar and his Maman (with her dark and ever-traumatized gaze) visiting a psychiatrist at the hospital at Rue d’Avron, and throughout the interior monologue that follows, Edgar will frequently address himself to this Madame Clarisse Georges; as though making up for their only in-person meeting at which he said nothing at all. Edgar then narrates going to the Parc Monceau with his beautiful young mother and it is here that they first meet Bernard: described initially as a doctor who saved an old woman’s life in front of them, and then as an accountant at a baby cereal factory who helplessly watched the old woman die, and finally as a man they later met on a train, it isn’t until much later that Edgar admits, “I made up what I didn’t know. I didn’t know much.” And so, while the narrative mashes up events from different periods in Edgar’s life, and it’s unclear what is real and what is invented, it is clear that Edgar (no matter his cognitive abilities) is doing his best to make sense of his existence.

I said oh, the Seine! to Isabelle, but I didn’t bellow so I wouldn’t hurt her feelings. I didn’t want her to think I was still the same moron from Rue d’Avron. She looked straight at me with surprise, as if there was no doubt now that I was there. There were two Edgars in the dictionary, but there were four Édouards next to them, with their portraits so you wouldn’t mix them up. Maybe there would be three when I was the president. Meanwhile, Maman sighed to give herself courage, Edgar the noodle was coming home.

It seems that it was the suitor Bernard who convinced Isabelle to send her son off to the country, and perhaps it was later paramour, JP, who suggested boarding school when he was old enough; and while Edgar wishes he could express himself more fully than a mumbled “Well yes” when his Maman calls to check up on him, you don’t get the sense that he blames his mother for abandoning him — both the farm and the boarding school are filled with the children of unwed mothers. This might well be a perceptive social portrait of 1960s-70s France (the 1968 “revolution in Paris” plays out in the background and Uncle Jos at the farm has communist sympathies) but its primary value to me was as the story of this little boy who might look and act unusual, but whose heart and mind functioned the exact same as my own; this is the universal story of the quest for love and meaning and the reader roots for Edgar to find them. I was invested, and ultimately, moved.

[Janelle]

Narrated by Edgar, a child with big ears, a big head and self described ‘not all there’, it started off kinda charming. He’s 3-4 years living with his unmarried mother in 1960s France. But I got bored once his mother left the story and he got sent to school. I found myself skimming so decided not to finish. Skipping to the end, he’s only 11 so the child viewpoint wasnt going to change.

[Joseph Schreiber · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 – 4 stars
This is a brave little book that I suspect has missed the mark with some readers. Narrated by Edgar, a boy with Down's Syndrome—it's really more stream of consciousness narrative—the first section has quite an endearing tone as young Edgar describes life in 1964 Paris with his single mother, Isabelle. The arrival in their lives of a married man, changes things. Edgar is aware that his appearance and his large, hypersensitive ears set him apart. He knows he is "not all there." At the age of four he is sent to a foster family in a rural region where he will live for the following six years. With Auntie Gina and Uncle Jos and an assortment of other children of unwed mothers he finally has a family. However, the narrative becomes very disjointed. Edgar reports what comes to mind, moving back and forth in time, from event to event, and his language and expressions absorb and reflect the prejudices and politics of 1960s working class rural France. He has no filter. He talks of Dagos and cuckolds and Stalingrad, not understanding that the terms are loaded or derogatory, and he describes himself as the village idiot. But he goes to school, is given responsibilities, and has friends to play with. It all ends when he enters boarding school at the age of 11. Ultimately he will try to take control of a life which has repeatedly pushed him off to the side.
Longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2023/06/03/no...

[Cherise Wolas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alas, I could not get past 45 pages of this. I'm not sure if it's the translation or not, but what I read was very off-putting, not the subject matter but the language used. Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Archipelago Books for an ARC.

[itselv]

يُروى الكتاب عن طريق طفل يدعى "إيدغار" وهو يعاني من متلازمة داون، يناقش الكتاب كيف تمت معاملة الأشخاص ذوي الإعاقة في ستينيات العام الماضي في فرنسا تبعًا لقلة الوعي في المجتمع ولقلة البحوث الطبية في هذا المجال.

أتمنى لو كنت قادرة على الاستمتاع بالنص، فهو كما يبدو لي نص بهوية قوية عذبة وبفكرة مهمة وملهمة، على عكس الترجمة التي كانت بلا هوية وبالكثير من الكلمات من اللغة الأصلية للنص متروكة بدون ترجمة! ترجمة ركيكة جدًا وغير مفهومة، وهي بحاجة لكثير من التوضيحات هامشية لتُفهم القصة كاملة. ولذلك وللأسف، توقفت عن القراءة عند ٢٩٪؜.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found myself unable to sync up with this coming-of-age novel set in 1960's France. I was taken by the sensitive nature of the child, but was put off by the ostentatious repetition of certain phrases.

[Nita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard not to think that abortion was illegal in France until 1975 and your humble narrator Edgar was born in the early sixties into a life of being shuttled around to what I gather are a group home and a boarding school respectively while his “single unwed mother” mostly endures his presence the at-most one day a week she must see him. This book and its Edgar will stay with me the way the Hungarian film Body & Soul stayed with me.

[Nick Haeg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed hearing about life in rural France in the 60s through the eyes of a strange child with magical hearing, but the writing was so off-putting and vulgar at times (albeit intentionally) and the narrative to meandering for me to put my heart into the book.

[leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

maybe it was because of the translation but the writing is just kind of off putting?? despite my high hopes from the interesting blurb it was really rather unextraordinary…

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A quiet, gentle book about a sensitive boy growing up in 1960s France, a boy who isn’t quite “all there” but one who has his own distinctive voice and perspective on the world. He sees the world in his own unique way – a child not like other children. I wasn’t totally convinced by the voice, and that means I couldn’t fully engage with Edgar. I found the book interesting in its depiction of the life of a child who is sent away by his mother as she can’t cope with him, and how he relates to his caregivers. But overall the book didn’t quite hit the mark for me. Can’t quite put my finger on why, as it’s a brave attempt to give a voice to the usually voiceless, but I never quite believed in Edgar.

[Thomas Pugh · Rating 2 out of 5]

There isn't much in the way of plot, which, to be honest, I expected. My Life as Edgar is very much a slice of life novel, following the young and self-proclaimed 'not-all-there' titular Edgar, in 1960s Paris and rural France.
But when a novel lacks a plot, it needs something else to drive it forward - anything else, which we just don't get here. The last installment of this blog (Vernon Subutex) also featured a novel set in Paris with very little plot. But Vernon had characters with charisma and (as we are in France) a certain je ne sais quoi. The writing sparkled, and reading was a joy.
Edgar is all a bit more...bland. Yeah, I get that Fabre is putting a spotlight on the marginal, suburban and uninteresting types, holding a mirror up to the work-a-day reader. But the trouble is, they are uninteresting.
Edgar (the character) has a slow, plodding way about him, he is largely unreactive to the troubles life throws at him. And this all gets a bit samey. The prose reflects the drab Formica and polyester existence of its protagonists and the whole thing winds up being... suburban and uninteresting.
This is not to say the novel doesn't throw up some interesting questions. Edgar repeats time and again that he is 'not quite all there' a phrase which is often said about him, and which he has taken to the heart of his existence. But is it true? There are passages where Edgar sees more than others. And when he does fail to grasp something which others deem obvious, is this simply because he is living up to the expectations set of him? We only ever see Edgar through his own perception of himself, but more than this, it is his own interpretation of others' perceptions. This raises questions of how we see others, and how we see ourselves. We never get a balanced view of either Edgar or the other characters, and while this may be an exaggeration, is it really different to our own view of our world?
When all is said and done though, despite the existential questions, I found My Life as Edgar just a bit dull.
This review is taken from my blog: https://theworldisabookblog.blogspot.com

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Edgar loves nothing more than listening to the birds in the trees, the squeaking of moles in nearby chalk quarries, the conversations trickling out of the carpeted offices surrounding his favorite park in the suburbs of Paris. He also listens to the hushed conversations of passersby, strangers who whisper that he is “not all there.”

But what constitutes the supposedly insufficient nature of Edgar’s interior life? Dominique Fabre gives himself over to Edgar’s way of seeing, his sensitivity, his innocence and wisdom, his longings and perceptions, his tentative interpolations into the social fabric of 1960s France, and in each passage we find a stirring answer. Fabre’s lucid, layered, and utterly fresh bildungsroman will take you by surprise and leave an immutable mark on your heart.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: In under two hundred pages, this story will twang whatever heartstrings you still have and make you realize how seldom you really look at anything.

Before me, I really wonder what there was. Kids often believe that everything begins the moment they’re born, but not your humble servant Edgar. I’m not even sure I could find the place where I lived before without making a mistake, Madame Clarisse Georges. I’m still not all there, but I know how to hide it well. I’m grown up now. I’m still quiet and unassuming too, but I’m not sure that won’t change. Sometimes I want to shorten all this and get right to the train station platform, to the moment we’re going home. I’ll be eleven then.

You're charmed or you're not, but that's a representative of the tone (and Mme Georges is a creep).

All y'all who like Flowers for Algernon but would prefer to smile while reading it, all y'all who like Zazie in the Metro but would prefer not to work that hard, here's us a book. It doesn't really linger in the mind, though, so not An Event...a pleasant Sunday's pleasure read.

Archipelago Books only wants $13.99 for an ebook. If you need some sincere sweetness, spend it.

[J Earl · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Life as Edgar by Dominique Fabre and translated by Anna Lehmann is an interesting look at the world through the eyes of a child who is considered "different" by the world around him.

I have only read one other book by Fabre and for me this one did not measure up. The frustrating part is that I can't quite put my finger on why. It is a child's perspective, so I wasn't bothered by what interested him or how he perceived things. I did care about him, though not as much as I would have expected after spending so much time in his head. Ultimately I think I simply wasn't offered, or at least didn't take away, any lasting thoughts that might have changed my life or perspective.

What I guess I expected was to gain some insight, some pearls of wisdom, whether from Edgar's actual pondering or from my adult reception of his thoughts. But it seemed like most everything just left me thinking I was following someone's life without anything in it for me. And if there isn't something in a book for a reader (entertainment, new ideas or perspectives, even a deep glimpse of a different way of life) then why read it? What I took away kept me from being too negative, there were moments that gave me pause and made me think about things. But those moments were never built upon and I fell back into just following along. Admittedly this could just be a disconnect between me and the book rather than something specifically about the book. But there it is.

I would, selectively, recommend this book. In fact, I have a couple people in mind who I think would really like it. I just wouldn't go to everyone I know and suggest it.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Rita Egan · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Life as Edgar
by Dominique Fabre
Translated from the French by Anna Lehmann

This is an odd little story, told in first person narrative by Edgar, a little boy with an intellectual disability who is growing up in1960s Paris. This is very much a "voice" book and it is so unusual to hear the voice of a person with ID in literature. It is mostly internal dialogue, which begins with Edgar as a newborn baby. The author seems to be making the point that receptive language is much more developed than expressive language than most people assume, and although Edgar's language skills are quite basic, he shows a level of astuteness that we don't expect. As the story progresses, Edgar's language skills develop, but he still retains a simplistic speech structure, mono-labeling and he is fond of inserting idioms into his dialogue in unexpected places to sometimes hilarious effect, a common trait among the speech challenged.

This is a fairly linear story with a clear beginning, but I am slightly baffled at the ending and have so many questions about what the author hoped to achieve with this story. As a parent with a son with Down Syndrome I appreciate the voice that he has given to Edgar, I recognise so many characteristics and mannerisms, but I wanted more from the story. I can see why certain reviews on GR say they were bored. I enjoyed reading this, but I am not sure who to recommend this to .I would be happy to chat about it.

Publication Date: 16th May 2023
Thanks to #netgalley and #archipelago for access to the egalley

[Theediscerning · Rating 2 out of 5]

So sue me, but I came here to check on other reviews at the 40% mark, and didn't return to the book. It starts fine, with a kid who is "not all there" and with humongous jug ears, and an incredible ability to remember his birth and to hear everything, including people's thoughts. It was good to see his mother gain a new boyfriend through the kid's naivety and inability to really understand things, but then he gets dumped on a rural school, and all interest was lost. The sustained question about his reliability as a narrator was probably there, but he was addressing one particular person – and I think if he had been addressing us, or a future self, I might still have been able to engage. Certainly the observational writing, whether about his lavatorial cleanliness or dead Dutch women (I think…) was a bit too helter-skelter for me. And it wasn't like there weren't warning signs – the eighteen years between original publication and English translation a clear sign of a lack of urgency and need. A generous two stars.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fabre writes about ordinary people living on the edge of society, people whose hopes for the future appear no more than just getting by and appreciating any crumb that falls their way. This one is centered by Edgar, a three year old kid who is deemed to be ‘not all there’, but it really focuses on the world and people around him as he grows up. I loved Fabre’s The Waitress Was New’ and ‘Guys Like Me’ , but this was a more challenging read. I found it quite difficult to roll with the three year old Edgar, or even with the eleven year old version, but the book does have some perceptive observations on people and life. If you are thinking of trying Fabre out, I would suggest the other two mentioned above as the way in. An OK read.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

My thanks to Archipelago Books for an e-ARC of this title.
I really enjoy Fabre's other 2 books translated into English.
This less so.
While he does get the wandering mind of a 3-11 year old who is "not all there", I have to admit that interests me less than the wandering mind of an adult.
And, it ends suddenly. Just as it was getting good - being an 11 year old in a Catholic boarding school in a rural area.
This was just Fabre's second novel. I am not sure if he picked up the story of Edgar again later.
Hoping for more translations of his work.

[Ayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Net Galley and Archipelago for providing me with and ARC

This is my first Fabre novel and I had no prior knowledge of the style or the themes before starting, yet from the start, Edgar and his peculiar actions drew my attention. The way he describes himself and bends the lines between the retelling of his childhood and the imaginary additions he inputted were done very seamlessly. Though at points it felt as if the novel's plot was slow-paced and felt more of a short story stretched thin, Edgar's character always drew me back in and made the book stand out.

[Jonathan yates · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deserves good reviews, bravo to the writer for trying to write something different, perspectives are often monochromatic and this one is clearly it's own thing and maybe he has it right or wrong, but he tried something difficult so mad props Mr. Fabre, also it was a pretty easy read, I read it in two sittings.

[Sarah Hawthorne · Rating 1 out of 5]

He stays a child the whole book so there’s really no change of viewpoint. I lost interest not even halfway through. There were some humorous lines and introspective thoughts but I would not recommend at all

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting story. Seems to be a good translation of this unusual tale. This one will stick with me for a while.

Thanks very much for the free ARC for review!!