The Fool and Other Moral Tales

by Anne Serre

From the brilliant, sui generis Anne Serre - author of the celebrated Governesses - come three bewitching, thoroughly out-of-the-way tales. 'To make a pact with the thing that threatens you is arguably the smartest trick of all.' 'The Fool' may have stepped out of a tarot pack - to walk a mountain trail or worm his way into a writer's mind. 'The Narrator' proposes his mirror image, a storyteller in sheep's clothing, who has a bone to pick with language. In 'The Wishing Table', the orgiastic antics of an incestuous family are recounted by one of three daughters. A dream logic rules each of these unpredictable, sensual and surreal romps no doubt, yet deeply moral, and entirely unforgettable ones.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, France, Fantasy

228 pages, Paperback

First published September 24, 2019

Reviews

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Fool & Other Moral Tales is Mark Hutchinson’s translation of three c.50 page stories by Anne Serre, The Fool. The Narrator and The Wishing Table.

In the US this was published by New Directions. But in my UK edition, this is book #17 from the brilliant publisher of from-the-French translations Les Fugitives - see https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... for my reviews of all 17 books.

In the belief that short works make for an ideal introduction to an author’s oeuvre we focus on short books. Our flexible approach gives translators and editors optimal conditions in which to perfect their work.
…
Travelling, wandering, deserting, running away… Les Fugitives are about stories of people who don’t fit in; stories raising old and new questions about gender and identity; stories about strangers, about almost-love, and about solidarity: from the late nineteenth century, 'the divine countess' of Castiglione, to Barbara Loden's Wanda, to the women of today.

Their book #6 was, the Governesses Hutchinson’s translation of Serre’s debut Les Gouvernantes (1992) - my review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The stories in The Fool & Other Moral Tales were, in the French original published separately as Le mat (2005), Le narrateur (2004, although the translation is of a revised 2019 text) and ‘Petite table, sois mise!’ (2012), although bringing them together as done here is certainly very effective. Serre herself commented on the English collection:

I consider each of my books as a piece in a jigsaw puzzle; I don’t know what the image will look like in the end. I’m very curious to find out. Those three stories are probably three pieces that belong together, even though they were written at different times.

In particular, The Fool (Le mat) and The Narrator (Le narrateur) form a natural pair. Both revolve around both writers and a certain presence. In the former, The Fool from the Tarot card of the same name is an ever-present figure in the life of the writer who is telling the story, one which also references Mann’s Hans Castorp and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary:

He doesn't enjoy company, as we have seen. Anyone who spots him coming feels very uneasy; indeed, in a good many novels, and in life as well, we have seen families abruptly torn asunder, couples who loved each other hate each other, children in good health suddenly drop dead, horrific car crashes or worse in the vicinity of his ghastly, magisterial presence. He happens by and turmoil ensues. He happens by and you get one of those inexplicable moments, just when you were feeling happy and at peace with yourself, when everything clouds over, grows dark, comes crashing down. Even Virginia Woolf, who knew a great deal about the subject, went and threw herself in the Ouse when the fool happened by. There are times, however, when you want to be carried off by him, you want to curl up in his icy chill, you want to gaze into his eyes which do so much harm and yet so much good. You’re crazy when you’re a writer.

[As a small aside, the card depicted on the cover of the New Directions editions appears to me to be from the wrong set of cards to that described in the story - see below]

In the second story, the ‘presence’ is the writer themselves, “the narrator”, and the way they interact with, and fictionalise the lives of, those around them (“How dare you turn me into some sort of paper puppet.) And at one point the narrator is likened to Death. The fact that the narrator’s story is narrated by another narrator - the story is told in the third person - adds another intriguing layer.

For those (myself included) who loved The Governesses, the first two stories, while interesting, show only flashes of the outrageous exuberance of the earlier novel. But The Wishing Table (‘Petite table, sois mise!’ - the title comes from The Brother Grimm fairytale) takes The Governesses and raises it to another level, with a tale, narrated by a now 40-year old woman, looking back (actually rather fondly) on the frenzied, incestuous life of her family before she left home at age 15:

I will always deny that my childhood was traumatic. And it's not out of loyalty to my parents that I insist on the beauty of that period of my life. Our union was so intense and so compact, our sexual complicity so steadfast, like a firm handshake, that I've been drawing strength from it ever since.

The fairy tale link in the title is interesting, as it is commonly used as a label for Serre’s works, although she prefers to describe them as more surrealist fables, with dream-like imagery. And the narrator’s own account in this story has similar characteristics:

I left home at fifteen. I set out wandering at random and eventually wound up in a hotel in Normandy with a thousand francs in my pocket. I don't remember how I managed to end up there, in that particular hotel. My life ran along songlines like the ones in dreams. Even the shifts from one situation to the next had the same lack of logic you find in dreams. I was here and then I was there. How did I get from one to the other? I couldn't tell you. In spite of that, I never had the feeling I was lost. On the contrary, it seemed to me that I knew very well who I was, where I was going and why, just as you do in dreams. And so I was safe from harm.

And Serre herself raised the dream approach when questioned on the morality of the moral tale in The Wishing Table:

Interviewer: I want to talk about dangerous writing. There are passages in The Governesses that are scandalous, ranging from the risqué to the shocking, but then there are those in “The Wishing Table” which go even further, describing perverse criminal acts. Indeed, this is where the narrative’s tension rises from; the protagonist is a willing participant in her sexual abuse. How do you approach this kind of writing? Is there danger there for you?

Serre: The only danger in my life is not writing. When I stop writing for a few months because I have nothing to write about, the image I was talking about earlier may start to fade. That’s the danger. As for the scandalous passages in my books, they’re not scandalous to me because they’re like dream narratives. And in a dream you can be a merry murderer. But I understand that this might be a little hard to swallow for the reader.

Overall, not quite as striking as The Governesses but still worthwhile. 4 stars and
I look forward to further translations by Hutchinson from Serre’s works - her 2020 novel Grande tiqueté - sounds particularly interesting, and she has a very sensible attitude to book length, regarding 120 pages as ideal for a novel:

When I’m working on a new book, Mark [Hutchinson] will sometimes ask me if I’m going to write a bit more than a hundred and twenty pages this time. Yes, yes, I reply, and write about a hundred and fifty or a hundred and seventy pages. Then I make cuts, removing large chunks wherever it seems needlessly long, and in spite of myself, as if by magic, when I’ve decided that the book is well and truly finished, I look at the page numbers and there are a hundred and twenty pages.

A quote which also speaks to the closeness of translator and writer, a rather unique relationship (“not only because he’s been my best friend for thirty years, but because his role in my life is rather unusual. Ever since we first met, he has been my main literary companion, my one real interlocutor).

Interviews with the author:
https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog...
https://www.thewhitereview.org/featur...
https://bombmagazine.org/articles/ann...

Other reviews:
https://www.musicandliterature.org/re...
https://www.nylon.com/anne-serre-the-...
http://columbiareviewmag.com/2020/04/...

Extract:
https://harpers.org/archive/2019/10/a...

The different potential sources for The Fool:
As on the New Directions cover
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider-W...
Marseilles version:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foo...

[Andy Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high expectations of this after The Governesses, and it’s fable-like approach to unconventional sexuality, but, as with The Beginners, I was disappointed.

The first two stories struggled to get my full attention, and I found hard to follow, but the last The Wishing Table certainly did, though it’s subject matter is quite unappealing. It rather took me by surprise.

It is about a woman who grew up in an incestuous family. It’s very rare I read this sort of thing. Given the choice I usually avoid it, so it’s been in a short story collection or from a précis I’ve long since forgotten.

The three daughters are not presented as victims, rather as being fascinated by the open view of sex that their parents present. To them, this was just how life is. The parents aren’t depicted as evil or perverted. The narrator says of her mother

As I’m sure you’ve understood, the idea that anything untoward was going on in her house had simply never occurred to her.

If anything, this manner of presentation is more dark and disturbing than it would have been otherwise. The innocence of the children is palpable, especially when the abuse moves outside of the family. It is bold writing, and makes me wonder whether Serre researched such cases or if there was anything autobiographical in her writing.
Not enjoyable reading, but affecting and thought-provoking.

[Ian, etc. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Presenting the best and absolute worst of Anne Serre. The back cover calls this collection “radically heterodox,” and somehow still undersells it. There is an infinitely wide discrepancy between the different members of this collection, if not in quality certainly in enjoyment and Frenchness, ranging from the sublime 4.0 of “The Narrator,” to the cautious 3.5 of “The Fool,” and finally the nauseating 1.5 of “The Wishing Table,” strategically placed at the collection’s end, I assume, so as to avoid frightening off the reader too early. Impossible to review as a collection, so I will disregard the last book, except to confess that the dark provocation of novels like these (or “Lolita”) has never seemed to me a necessary evil — the points that are made and the feelings that result can be made better other ways.

This is not to say provocation is without its place, because the absolute character assassination of all writers everywhere represented by “The Narrator” is brilliant and brilliantly entertaining. Here is the incisiveness I love from Serre, the cutting words that slice through to the core, but almost as an afterthought, almost she couldn’t help but to observe. Perfect predecessor to my favorite of hers, “A Leopard-Skin Hat,” and wonderful to see the other side of the narrator, his love and life.

“The Fool,” too, feels like a book that knows me. Writes depression out preciously, and holds it for you to observe and acknowledge. I love Serre best when she speaks of death, articulates its charms in plain language, and does not fear to be submerged.

I believe this is all of Serre that has been translated thus far, and so godspeed to Hutchinson and co. as they endeavor on in their delicate work. Leaving for your consideration and as a send-off a project I wrote yesterday, halfway through the collection, titled “How They Are Talking:”

A cold ache when they talked too much, a sort of speaking into or out of the vacuum of space, and it was a testament to how well they knew each other, really, that when they spoke too long it could send them drifting into the abyss. Because the words were not ever what they wanted to say. And as they spoke it was like God also was speaking, below and around and through them, and in this way it filled them and sustained them, but in this way, too, they could come untethered, having got too close to the God-words but not so close as to say them. This was the ache: the fragile mystery almost between them, trembling and cold.

What they wanted to say, certainly, was I know you and always have known you. What they wanted to say was it is okay, and I’m here. But then there were the circumstances. Naturally, he had loved poorly in the past. She knew this and how poorly she had been loved and wouldn’t again. This had become an irreducible promise and part of herself, that she would safekeep her inmost self if no one, as no one else did or had. Yes, there was a limit to what she would allow, even with him, and though she gave of herself as much as could be given, for this very reason she would portion out herself and that sparingly, so as not to leave too much of that inmost self behind. She loved lavishly, but with caution. And she needed differently besides, the surety being first and foremost, and it the simplest thing he couldn’t offer and tried. And one day the other They said it would, and him disbelieving Them for a lifetime of the opposite, for a lifetime of this never being the case with him, or considering that this is the surest he’s been, but even the surest he’s been has never quite been enough, and has in fact resulted in a lot of preventable troubles — wounds he has made and does not wish to make again. So in sum, he thinks, it must be They are right, being more sure than he is or ever has been, and it must be right this hard cold is precursor to a good he doesn’t yet know about. And in all this he almost forgets about her, even as he knows her so well, he forgets her and unknows himself also in these perpetually unspooling apprehensions, thin fine webs of thought.

But what to make then of all this knowing left between them? Or is it even true that he knows her? Or that she knows him? Is there enough of either to know either, or is all knowing an exercise of the imagination (a playing of pretend)? But it feels like she knows him when she asks where they should go and he says the place exactly where she knew he would, and where secretly she wanted to go but wanted him to say it, since of course it is always nicer to go with the full or at least assumed-full faith and credit of both parties. And it feels like he knows her when she asks where they should go and he says the place exactly where he knew she wanted to go but said it like it was he who wanted it, and of course he did, but indirectly, wanting it for the brightness it would bring to her face for him to want it too, and maybe wanting it earnestly because he has seen through her the path to wanting this place, the steps her love took to get to this end point. This was the important thing, the thing that could not be overlooked: that he knew her loves and she knew his and they each had followed after each these trails pressed by the other, and if it wasn’t the path they would have chosen for themselves, it was a warmth of a kind to be in the hands of another and pulled gently into a new and absolute notion of the beautiful.

So you see it would not have been possible to arrange a separation, or for them not to talk even too much, even until the coldness came up around them, for all the beauty they could lose. But it was also every conversation an acceptance of this irresolution that was dying in a way. And the Others would think when They overheard that this is what death was like when We thought of it fondly. They would think, this is as far as We go in life and no further, and is maybe the closest We can come to love, and so this knowing is antecedent to dying because on earth as it is now any more is too wonderful for me, I cannot attain it. And so they speak with the knowledge that death in this way is all around them, and God is all around them, too, and they speak to discover what is beautiful between them, and they are speaking to each other now. Out of the dark they are speaking to each other and almost you can see them, the words they are nearing.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three tales which speak across each other, each more precisely delivered than the last, culminating in a final scene of devastating clarity.

It feels as though I had already been intimately woven into Serre's dream logic before I even picked up the book - discovering in it traces, echoes, assemblages of words and cries of recognition from the dark map of my life. And for this, I am grateful.

[Bookmuppet · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Narrator" was by far the best among the three short stories (are they long enough to be novellas?). I found the style flat, deliberately but not always to the story's benefit. On the positive side: this approach is somewhat evocative of Milan Kundera's anti-psychological storytelling; on the negative: with the writing so uninvested in any detail or development I struggled to care as a reader.

In "The Narrator" this approach to storytelling makes sense. The investigation of the figure of the narrator and the relationship between his (? - can't remember now) adventures as a character to the role of the narrator for storytelling push the story forward. But in the other two stories this "flatness" sabotages the story. Both "The Fool" and "The Wishing Table" read like first drafts.

[Elise · Rating 1 out of 5]

if you think a collection of short stories is insipid and the prose is eye-rolling on the first short story, the next two short stories will NOT convince you otherwise. truly hated this book.

[Kyle C · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked "The Fool". In this story, a woman finds a Tarot card depicting the fool and is mesmerized by the details of the image. Like Calvino's Castle of Crossed Destinies, the narrator projects her own meanings onto the card, imagining different stories and different fools in the card. She starts to see the fool all around her. I particularly liked the whimsical tone of the tale. The narrator is haplessly afraid that she will forget a word. She feels she is becoming the fool. She worries about the missing words in the books she reads. She likes to ride a scooter outside of the city because she likes the orchards and only enjoys books with mountains. It is zany and eccentric and weird.

I found "The Narrator" a less interesting metaliterary tale about a weak narrator who is overshadowed by the characters in his story and wants to break free of the constraints of the plot. The characters are annoyed that their narrator is less well-read than they are. It's a cute premise but the story was too ethereal and abstract. Metafiction doesn't make for powerful drama. In contrast, "The Wishing Table" is a droll parody of Sade (if such a thing is possible), a somewhat fabulistic narration of a young girl who was sexually abused by her libertine family. In contrast to Sade, her mother turns the domestic space of the home into a depraved sex ring. It's an elliptical and troubling form of critique.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was initially disappointed by The Fool and Other Moral Tales, the second Anne Serre book translated and published by New Directions. The title story, the first of three novelette-length pieces, is decent if unremarkable for me; I may have had a different relationship with it if I had more connections with tarot. The second story, The Narrator, is classic po-mo fodder that feels utterly trodden: a narrator comes to terms with the autonomy of their rebelling characters. Yawn. The last story, the extremely controversial "The Wishing Table," is the one that saves this for me. It's a brutal, direct depiction of a woman recounting and coming to terms with the incestuous dynamic of her familial relationships, seemingly of a kin with other new French extremist works in literature and cinema. The tone that Serre strikes, where you start out the story wondering with sickening fear that it will be quasi-fabulist before it reveals itself to be taking the stakes of the trauma at play to full seriousness, really works at the scale that Serre is operating in here, if that makes sense. I would recommend The Governesses far before I ever hand someone this volume, and I hope ND keeps publishing translations of her!

[Rithu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was just browsing the shelves at the library and this book just fell out and landed by my feet and I was like :0 what!! a sign from the universe to read this :0 So I started reading it and I really liked the authors style, it was hard to put it down. My favorite story was the second one, the Narrator character felt so personal and I like how far the author went into his dreamscape and internal world. I just wish we had gotten more of that story instead of it ending so abruptly. The third story threw me for a loop because I was NOT EXPECTING ALL THAT. I had to put it down for several weeks and digest things, but I enjoyed the ending of it when I finally got around to it. It felt like some of it shouldn't have been published, but then I had an internal conversation with myself about why books are banned and what that means which was interesting to think about. God, I just love this authors writing so much it feels like an old forgottten parable or like you're reading somebodys diary from just after they woke up when theres no filter between their waking/night selves. fun book :)

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d really love to fish this out in a French edition, just to see if Hutchinson’s translation is actually as felicitous as it feels. This is definitely not a collection for everyone, as the ‘moral tales’ of the title is more of an ironic recasting of what I can only describe as a plain spoken screwiness. The final story is both luminous and exceptionally odd and fucked up, and definitely makes it clear that this collection is not for everyone (there’s a lot of parent-child incest with young children that the protagonist treats as completely normal, in part because of her very Sadean life philosophy) but this rating is mainly for the exquisite first story, a meditation on life, death, writing, and the first card of the Major Arcana.

[kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first two stories are perfectly fine. A very specific style from a very specific tradition, and it works here. Then, uh. Well. The third story is a considerably graphic tale of incest that includes very underage children and it's...I mean damn, what do y'all want me to say? It's uncomfortable to read. It's pretty horrifying, to be honest, and I am not convinced it's an allegory or anything else that would even pretend to justify the format. No idea how I would recommend this book without looking like a dickhead. It won't stop me from reading The Governesses because that content is (apparently) devoid of similar subjects, but good gravy.

[StevenCharlesMayday · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anne Serre is the real thing: uncompromising, intrepid, and most important of all, truthful. The three stories are really one story disguised as three stories; Calvino comes to mind, and maybe the strangeness of Djuna Barnes. I found nothing shocking here: the so called controversial third or final story, The Wishing Table, is breathtakingly original, but quite traditional or conventional in its resolve. It's about whatever you're going through in your life, it reads you with a magnifier. It's a beautifully written book by someone at the height of her powers. And twelve more novels hopefully set for translation. I can't wait to read them all.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first two stories are interesting enough. I can tell something is there and through a little digging at them and aligning myself with whatever artistic motives for the creation of this short collection, I'm sure there'd be a lot here. The title story, "The Fool" is an interesting look at obsession. The Narrator is a bizarre story about alienation, assimilation, ego, and creation. But here's the deal: the third one, which somewhere is described as the best story in the book, is too much for me. I don't want to read about a polyamorous family whose exploits involve their children.

[Amanda]

I have no idea what to do with this book. I bought it on a whim because of the cover. I just finished it up and while some of the writing is beautiful, the last story is so foul that I can't keep it and I don't even want to donate it.

The first story is about obsession. I'm not quite sure what the second story is about, but the writing is really interesting and lyrical. That third story though. It's about a survivor of childhood rape and incest and it is graphic. Spoiler warning: if you want you skip the rape of children section, just go to the part where she talks about moving out at 15.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

My my the last story. Started out so bawdy and over the top with literal incestuous romps but ended so elegantly. The meeting with Ingrid and the desperate but sincere insistence on the present story. A new married family life and a new haircut. How it can take so long or maybe never to ask “How are you”?

The second story, a vignette on the tortured existence of a hermetic creative. The gift of attention to detail and its curse on social relationships, situationships.

The first, a flirty portrait of a tarot symbol. Esoteric popcorn.

[Brenda D · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hadn't heard of this author before - I simply picked up this book because I really liked the cover! Apparently Anne Serre is a "fabulist" writer although I am not sure what that actually means. All of the stories (there are 3) were engaging although not connected in any way. The review that these stories are "seriously weird" is definitely accurate. I don't regret the time I spent reading this book but I don't think I'll search out more "fabulist" writers!

[Alissa Hattman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serre's three tales are strange, fabulous, beguiling, and wholly unsettling. A tarot card comes to life in "The Fool." "The Narrator" is a fascinating story where a writer's characters rebel against him. "The Wishing Table" is disturbing story about incest, not simply because of the topic but also because of its happy, fable-like tone. Serre's prose is sharp, haunting, and utterly transfixing.

[Cee · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's something oddly familiar about the feeling I got reading this, and I'm pretty sure it has to do with the style its written in. Other than that, this book didn't really catch my attention; though, there are a few quotes that I'm glad to have read this book for.

[talia silber · Rating 1 out of 5]

i may try to listen to this as an audiobook but i truly couldn’t get into this book - which can be seen in the fact that it took me 2 years to read 3 short stories.
it was like in one ear out the other vibes which is why i would think audiobook would be the move

[Mills College Library]

Fiction S488f 2019

[Alexander J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing, thought-provoking, a tad disturbing

[Diana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting concepts, but didn’t feel fully-formed. The characters were flat, the horror overly subdued. The most interesting theme was that of a glacial dining table...

[Kirsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the first story, skimmed the second, skipped the third...

[RensReadingRainbow · Rating 1 out of 5]

Can’t recommend it. The cover art sure is lovely, though.

[Janet · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not for me. I couldn't really figure out the first two stories, and the third was basically child porn.

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

“My memories are truncated and deformed, they always contain an error.”

[Jessa Richer · Rating 3 out of 5]

voluptuous

[Mal Scrivener]

don't ask me about this book please

[Pablo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A set of 3 short stories, you get the feeling of the same voice with a very different narration. Two of the stories are a play into the division of the surreal and personal perception, while another one deals with incest and trauma.

Definitely not a book I can easily recommend. It is one for those who want to expand their literary experience.

[Lee van der Kamp · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 2 stories got me very excited about reading Anne Serre. The last story was a big fat trombone-slide grimace. It's a very high bar to justify the bad taste of incest fantasies. It was not met. Poignant bildungsroman meets "The Aristocrats" may be a sketchy idea for a joke, but literature? Hey, you can write it, and I won't be shocked or appalled - or intrigued. Just disappointed that it was going so well.