With “Comme de l’eau dans l’eau”, Bernese author Myriam Wahli imagines a successful prophetic story. The plot takes place in the village of La Plaine (GE). The heroine, a teenager called Marcelle, lives in a brutal daily life whose contours she tries as best she can to outline.
“Like water in water” is a fiction that comes to life in the hamlet of Malval in the village of La Plaine, in the territory of the commune of Dardagny (GE). This locality is home to one of the Firmenich perfume factories.
In the near future, the world we know has collapsed. Among the many changes, electricity is now rationed and cars are off the roads.
Marcelle, the protagonist of the novel, works at “the big nose-deceiving factory” called Le Flacon. She has to deal with her brother Adam running away, suffering abuse from her sick father, all while trying to find her place. In this raw and harsh setting, Myriam Wahli signs, after “Venir grand sans commas” (2019), a second spontaneous and sinuous work.
A geographic starting point
It took the author four years to publish this second novel. It all started in 2019, following a meeting with Swiss rapper Gabriel Arellano who told him about growing up in the village of La Plaine. Greatly curious about geographical locations and their toponymy, Myriam Wahli decided to go there. She will return several times to stroll through the village, but also to walk to the hamlet of Malval. A stroll that its main protagonist Marcelle also undertakes.
To progress, you cling to everything you find, your nails dig into the earth to grab the roots, make handles, your palm closes on a tuft of grass that you hope you can cling to. life as much as you do it, you invent holds in the rocks, to climb further.
Marcelle is a teenager who has a hard life. She has to work in a factory to earn money, she is abused by her father every Sunday. His mother is no longer part of the scene and since her disappearance, Adam has continued to run away from home. The young woman must therefore also moderate the neuro-atypical behavior of her brother.
Adolescence, from prosaic to lyrical
In this chaos, the heroine fiercely tries to push these elements away from her. To be able to grow, get through it and deploy.
You were given the name of an eye with two l’s. It’s stupid, but for a long time, you imagined that you would grow wings. You grew up, the wings never came and instead, breasts formed on your chest and hair colonized your armpits and pubis.
Having chosen to be interested in this period of life, Myriam Wahli explains it as follows in the QWERTZ podcast of November 20: “Adolescence, for me, is the place of the catch-all, of everything possible , from not yet fixed We express ourselves through a language that can go from completely prosaic to very lyrical. Adolescence is a bit like a. track of rap: verbal outings of great vulgarity and then just after thirty seconds of opera”.
A building to tell the story of the end of the world
Every day, the heroine of “Comme de l’eau dans l’eau” works at the Le Flacon factory. This sprawling building resembles some kind of animal. With a huge digestive tract, full of pipes, full of turns and scents. It is located right next to the Allondon river. To document the writing of her novel, Myriam Wahli wanted to visit the building, but she was refused entry.
“Such a building that works with flows right next to a river still indicates potential pollution with consequences for global warming,” confides the author. This place is located on the borders of the canton of Geneva. At the last stop of the regional train. “It didn’t take much for me to choose it as the location of my story,” she concludes.
Layla Shlonsky/sf
Myriam Wahli, “Like water in water”, editions La Veilleuse, September 2024.
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