Mysterious Solidarities - Pascal Quignard.pdf

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PASCAL QUIGNARD

Pascal Quignard

Mysterious Solidarities

TRANSLATED

BY CHRIS TURNER

When translator Claire Methuen travels back to

her hometown of Dinard for a family wedding,

she runs into her old piano teacher Madame

Ladon. After befriending the ageing woman,

Methuen begins to toy with the idea of a

permanent return to live in Brittany. She

becomes increasingly obsessed by her childhood

sweetheart, Simon Quelen, who, now married

and a father, still lives in a village further down

the coast where he is the local pharmacist and

mayor. Having moved into a farmhouse, she

soon spends her days walking the heathland

above the cliffs and spying on him as he sails in

the bay. As she walks, she is at one with the land

of her childhood and youth, ‘her skull emptying

into the landscape’. And when her younger

brother Paul comes to join her there, the web

of solidarities is further enriched.

‘This is a tale of dramatic episodes, told

through intermingling voices and the atmos-

pherics of the austere Breton landscape.

Ultimately, it is a story of obsessional love and

of a parallel sibling bond that is equally strong.

MYSTERIOUS

SOLIDARITIES

Tolals

IRieINCiat

IRSae