At 86, the American novelist continues to publish titles at a sustained pace that rival each other in inventiveness: 48 clues about my sister's disappearance was translated into French last March, Babysitter date of fall 2023. And the author of Falls and of Blonde already comes back to us with Bouchera masterful novel that could offend sensitive readers.
Four months of training
It is to a figure in American medicine that JCO dedicates this novel of astonishing power and ferocity. We are in New Jersey from the years 1850 to 1870. A mediocre eldest son, and therefore unloved by his father, Silas Weir becomes an apprentice doctor after only four months of training. His brothers studied at Harvard, he in a modest establishment. After causing the death of an infant, “forced to flee like a common criminal”he is first recruited by an owner “not to 'cure' but to 'restore' the worker to a position to earn room and board”. From these slaves, he then moves on to the insane women of the Trenton asylum where he obtains a position which, he is convinced, will allow him to realize his destiny.
Alongside the insignificant patients, another category is entrusted to the (bad) care of Silas Weir: women from the upper class whom their husbands find simply… rebellious. Their symptoms (extreme agitation, weariness, maniacal laughter, unquenchable crying, frigidity or sexual greed) are considered as evidence of hysteria. Drugged, they unknowingly undergo the removal of their ovaries, uterus and clitoris, an intervention “barely noticed by those who survived, most of whom continued to take laudanum daily”.
gullHe tied us with straps to a table blackened by our sisters' anguish.
But the most terrifying fate is reserved for those, destitute or abandoned by their families, who enter the laboratory, a wing where the practitioner operates without anesthesia or control, indulging in experiments of cruelty and barbarity without name. Arrangements have also been made with the establishment's gravedigger so that those who die are buried discreetly. Silas Weir was entrusted with the mission of reducing the number of suicides, which are detrimental to the institute, but these deaths are invisible. “It seemed only natural that Providence should grant me the freedom, which must be granted to genius, to experiment as I wish with the aim of advancing human knowledge and working for the good of humanity.” And to add: “Because the surgeon must practice, only practice ensures his competence. For his private clients, the surgeon must be trained”.
Desire for revenge
Strong in the belief that madness is a disease that can be treated, Silas Weir moves forward without trembling, convinced that he is accomplishing his life's work. A mission that he accomplishes with a desire for revenge: against his father, but also against his in-laws, who do not consider him at his true value. His growing reputation as a pioneer will soon bring him the coveted respect. Before Birgit, a young deaf and mute Irish servant for whom Weir has some affection, an unwilling guinea pig who has undergone fistula surgery several times, becomes the one who will lead to his spectacular downfall.
“Babysitter” by Joyce Carol Oates: Hannah's cruel fairy tale
By retracing the disastrous trajectory of this “butcher”, Joyce Carol Oates plunges us, with her devilishly sharp and uncompromising pen, into a time when women were no better considered than blacks at the time of slavery: they could be impregnated, punished, martyred, subjugated without fear. Based on authentic documents, it takes us into the head of Silas Weir thanks to the chronicle of facts and gestures written by an “I” blinded by his terrifying designs. But because she cares about her readers, she also offers us the testimonies of Birgit and Weir's eldest son, welcome counterpoints to a nightmare that had nothing to do with fiction.
⇒ Joyce Carol Oates | Butcher | novel | translated from English by Claude Seban | Philippe Rey | 473 pp., €25, digital €17
