L’île haute by Valentine Goby (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: L’île haute by Valentine Goby Joseph A. Reiter Goby, Valentine. L’île haute. Actes Sud, 2022. ISBN 978-2-330-16811-7. Pp. 288. Blanc, Vert, Jaune are the chapter titles of three fateful seasons in the life of a twelve-year-old who unexpectedly finds himself in the French Alps, far from his Batignolles home in Paris. It is January 1943 and the asthmatic Vadim, traveling by train for the first time and then trudging hours through deep snow in the footsteps of a stranger, arrives in Vallorcine, a village in the shadow of Mont Blanc, ostensibly to alleviate his medical condition. He has never experienced snow before nor seen a mountain, and does not understand why he must call himself Vincent Durcelles, the name of the son of his mother’s employer, whose identification papers he now carries. Although a baptized Catholic, he must cast off his Vadim identity and invent a past which does not include a non-practicing Jewish Russian father and grandparents. The racial laws have branded him undesirable and as he comes to realize: “Ce n’est jamais qui tu es qui compte, c’est pour qui on te prend” (131). The family that shelters him treats him as a son, and villagers, school master, and curé are welcoming. Unlike Au revoir les enfants and other sheltering accounts, there are no collaborators in Vallorcine and even the Italian occupiers seem non-threatening. Often they work with the villagers, attend mass, but mostly loiter about in their uniforms and fancy feather-adorned felt hats, one of which provides for a highly amusing episode. The dazzling splendor of the Alps, as well as the rustic rhythm of life that the seasons dictate, are seen through Vincent’s eyes. He is awe-struck by the majesty of the mountains, their power, indeed, by their personalities. Each season, at least at one point, brings on a vertigo and paralysis akin to Stendhal syndrome. Vincent feels he is contemplating a Klimt painting. He hears and expands the verses of Rimbaud’s Voyelles. The many tones of white, the burgeoning greens of spring, and the golden fields before the autumn rains are presented with lyrical intensity and finesse. Vincent attempts to abandon his two Parisian identities by completely adapting to Alpine life. He learns to herd and harvest, to predict the weather, to recognize the regional plants, insects, and fauna. The author has supplied him with effective guides—his protector family, a blind neighbor who teaches him to see lucidly, and most importantly the ten-year old Moinette, a precocious girl, who begins every conversation with “T’as déja…?” or “T’as jamais…?”, then revealing some unknown, and concludes with “C’est un secret” or “Ne le dis à personne.” She is Vincent’s language tutor as well, as he greedily adopts the local patois, in the hopes of becoming an authentic Vallorcin. But that is not meant to be. Mussolini resigns at the end of summer; the Italian soldiers are called home, and Nazis will soon replace them. Divulging the end of the novel would be unfair to Goby’s introspective, inventive, thought-provoking, and touching work. [End Page 238] Joseph A. Reiter Phillips Exeter Academy (NH), emeritus Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French