It is one of the most striking books of this literary season, a finalist for the Goncourt Prize. Madelaine before dawnpublished by JC Lattès and written by Sandrine Collette, manages to touch on the universal and the timeless thanks to a story marked by an elusive and almost abstract aspect.
Following the tragic destiny of a small hamlet in a post-medieval, but still feudal, era, the author powerfully shows the injustice of life, the sadness, the resignation and the solitude of this forgotten peasant world at a time when only servitude exists. A tale-like text in the classic tradition of the genre: only despair prevails.
Since 2013, Sandrine Colette has occupied an important place in the world of French literature. First distinguished for his thrillers (Knots of steel, The dust remains), it also touches on other genres and deals with the human condition and family relationships. His previous novel, We were wolves (JC Lattès), followed the life in the forests of a man and his son, the only survivors of a bear attack.
Before writing this novel, she had completed a first version of Madelaine before dawn. A text that she abandons along the way to devote herself to We were wolves. Before coming back to it. The little girl in rags who comes out of the forest and changes the destiny of the hamlet of Montées obsesses him. Madelaine fascinates her. Although the story undergoes significant changes to become what it is today, Madelaine remains the most fascinating aspect of the novel. By representing the force of fate (or revenge?) in the face of injustice and submission, the young girl embodies the unpredictability, both of the story and the text.
The injustice of man, the neutrality of nature
The life of the small hamlet, its three houses and its handful of inhabitants is, in fact, above all punctuated by the harshness of their peasant condition and the cruel rhythm of an implacable and fatal nature. Death lurks on every page. Madelaine before dawn is a pessimistic book. The seasons pass, while men and women waste away. Accidents, departures, old age, severe laws of the local lord… Hope is not allowed and revolt is not possible.
When Madelaine arrives, she carries these two ideas within her: the hope of a blended family first of all, and the desire for a sudden revolt, despite the consequences that this may have. This is probably the strongest theme of the book: nature is what it is, neither just nor unjust, but neutral. Humanity, on the other hand, was built according to a system unchanged during centuries of feudalism and submission. If nature takes from the peasants as brutally and violently as the local masters, the relationship between the two is not the same. Resilience on one side, inevitability and injustice on the other.
With a style as incisive as it is abrupt, Sandrine Collette constructs her text like a complex and precise painting, which takes shape as the pages scroll by. Sometimes, more or less abstract turns of phrase are lost in an exercise in style taken to the extreme. But, in the end, the author's pen allows immersion and the form follows the background of Madelaine before dawn. The story is poetic, although serious, symbolic at times, and the timelessness sought by the author makes it possible to summon universality. An isolated hamlet, a forest and a structurally oppressive system. The story could take place centuries before or centuries later.
This balance between the concrete and the abstract – the characters who surround Madeleine are characterized, with their own issues, their dreams and their lives – allows a very particular attachment to the men and women of this isolated place. Conversely, the ambient pessimism and fatality leave no room for doubt: whether by the hand of man or by the passage of time, they too will fade away and be forgotten.
A strong woman facing a patriarchal world
Madelaine before dawn is also a magnificent text highlighting a woman, the spark of an unimaginable and unthinkable revolt by the oppressed. From a little girl carrying love to an indignant and determined young woman, the novel can also be appreciated as the story of a feminist figure facing a patriarchal world.
While the violent son of the local lord treats and disposes of the peasants as animals, Madelaine embodies free spirit, playfulness, carefreeness and true strength. The book retains its share of darkness, but, through Madelaine, hope is allowed, for a time at least. The character seems to evolve without the pen having any influence over her. All the others are trapped in the pages, doomed to accept their disastrous fate, while Madelaine enters “the page” suddenly and abruptly, and gives the story a second wind.
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Madelaine before dawn is a poignant, touching book with human and timeless themes. More than a story about unjust oppression and the harshness of nature, Sandrine Collette manages to create an archetype of an elusive and free character, which one would almost expect to see appear elsewhere, to bring forth another fire of revolt and show those chained in the cave that an outside exists, that another world is possible. Deeply philosophical.
Madelaine before dawnby Sandrine Collette, JC Lattès, 250 p., €20.90, since August 21, 2024 in bookstores.
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