Anne Serre - Each sentence evokes a dream logic both languid and circuitous as the governesses move through a fever of domesticity and sexual abandon. A sensualist, surrealist romp

Anne Serre, The Governesses, Trans. by Mark Hutchinson, New Directions, 2018.
excerpt


‘In a large country house shut off from the world by a gated garden, three young governesses responsible for the education of a group of little boys are preparing a party. The governesses, however, seem to spend more time running around in a state of frenzied desire than attending to the children’s education. One of their main activities is lying in wait for any passing stranger, and then throwing themselves on him like drunken Maenads. The rest of the time they drift about in a kind of sated, melancholy calm, spied upon by an old man in the house opposite, who watches their goings-on through a telescope. As they hang paper lanterns and prepare for the ball in their own honor, and in honor of the little boys rolling hoops on the lawn, much is mysterious: one reviewer wrote of the book’s “deceptively simple words and phrasing, the transparency of which works like a mirror reflecting back on the reader.”


‘Written with the elegance of old French fables, the dark sensuality of Djuna Barnes and the subtle comedy of Robert Walser, this semi-deranged erotic fairy tale introduces American readers to the marvelous Anne Serre.’ — ND


‘Anne Serre’s first work to be translated into English is a hypnotic tale of three governesses and the sensuous education they provide. Roaming the country estate of a staid married couple, Monsieur and Madame Austeur, Inès, Laura, and Eléonore are not exactly Jane Eyre types. Prone to Dionysian frenzies, they lounge naked in the sun or bound about like deer. Should any passerby fall “into the trap of their vast, lunar privacy,” they pounce upon, seduce, and devour him (“in a ladylike manner”) to sate their ungovernable desires.
‘These are no ordinary governesses, after all, and this is no ordinary country household. The governesses “wind up, all three, at the end of the afternoon when the garden is getting chilly, pressed up against the gates like dead butterflies,” waiting to seduce strangers who happen to walk by.
‘This could be the setup for a neo-pagan farce about the battle between Eros and civilization, but as Serre delves into the three women’s existence, the novel taps into deeper, quieter waters: the Keatsian twinning of joy and melancholy. “It was life itself advancing,” Monsieur Austeur thinks upon witnessing the governess’s mysterious arrival, while sensing that each of these hedonistic women harbors an unknowable secret and ineradicable sadness. He provides a sense of order to counterbalance their chaos, and indeed, the same could be said about the work’s steely prose.
‘Told in surrealist bursts, each sentence of this novella evokes a dream logic both languid and circuitous as the governesses move through a fever of domesticity and sexual abandon. Serre works in fairy-tale archetypes, but she subverts them, too. Monsieur Austeur is an ironic but benevolent figure of order and masculinity who calms the feverish longings of his women just by concentrating late at night in his smoking room. “He receives all these cries, these chirrups and yelps from the women and children of the house, and, shuffling them together in his heart, sends them back transformed, slow and steady like the signals from a lighthouse.”’ - collaged



“A cruel and exhilarating book. Anne Serre’s style is perfectly controlled. Colorful, by turns elegant and violent, it provokes that enchantment borne out of an unbridled imagination.”- Paula Jacques, Marie-Claire


Serre’s first work to be translated into English is a hypnotic tale of three governesses and the sensuous education they provide. Roaming the country estate of a staid married couple, Monsieur and Madame Austeur, Inès, Laura, and Eléonore are not exactly Jane Eyre types. Prone to Dionysian frenzies, they lounge naked in the sun or bound about like deer. Should any passerby fall “into the trap of their vast, lunar privacy,” they pounce upon, seduce, and devour him (“in a ladylike manner”) to sate their ungovernable desires. This could be the setup for a neo-pagan farce about the battle between Eros and civilization, but as Serre delves into the three women’s existence, the novel taps into deeper, quieter waters: the Keatsian twinning of joy and melancholy. “It was life itself advancing,” Monsieur Austeur thinks upon witnessing the governess’s mysterious arrival, while sensing that each of these hedonistic women harbors an unknowable secret and ineradicable sadness. He provides a sense of order to counterbalance their chaos, and indeed, the same could be said about the work’s steely prose. On the neighboring estate, an old, solitary man watches the voluptuous displays through a telescope, his omnipresent gaze at once leering, reverent and affirming. Serre’s wistful ode to pleasure is as enchanting as its three nymph-like protagonists. - Publishers Weekly (starred)


Three young governesses upend the staid marriage of their employers and abandon their charges for erotic adventures in this exquisitely strange, novella-length fairy tale.
Monsieur and Madame Austeur and their passel of young boys occupy a country house with their three governesses, Eléonore, Inès, and Laura. Across the way, an old man spies on the young women—who tease him with erotic tableaux—through his telescope. These are no ordinary governesses, after all, and this is no ordinary country household. The governesses “wind up, all three, at the end of the afternoon when the garden is getting chilly, pressed up against the gates like dead butterflies,” waiting to seduce strangers who happen to walk by. Told in surrealist bursts, this novella combines the dreaminess of Barbara Comyns, Aimee Bender, and Kathryn Davis with the fairy-tale eroticism of Angela Carter. Each sentence evokes a dream logic both languid and circuitous as the governesses move through a fever of domesticity and sexual abandon. Serre works in fairy-tale archetypes, but she subverts them, too. Monsieur Austeur is an ironic but benevolent figure of order and masculinity who calms the feverish longings of his women just by concentrating late at night in his smoking room. “He receives all these cries, these chirrups and yelps from the women and children of the house, and, shuffling them together in his heart, sends them back transformed, slow and steady like the signals from a lighthouse.” But when Laura becomes pregnant after one of her many trysts, Monsieur’s order is upended, and he must succumb to the roiling femininity of a house full of caretakers, mothers, and desiring young women. This is a fascinating fable about marriage, longing, and sexual awakening—about what can happen within the walls of a house when the barriers between nature and domesticity are stretched to their breaking points.
A sensualist, surrealist romp. - Kirkus Reviews

“A delightful sabbath.”- Libération
“The story, classical in appearance, soon jolts us out of our sleepy ways.” - Florence Sarrola, Le Monde