Hunting and Gathering

Anna Gavalda, translated by Alison Anderson

Chatto & Windus

Otago Daily Times, June 3rd 2006

Although set in contemporary Paris, Anna Galvada’s novel Hunting and Gathering could take place in almost any cosmopolitan capital. Imbued with the flavour of France, it remains accessible to international readers because of the four damaged and dysfunctional individuals who form the heart and soul of this captivating tale.

Camille is an artist living in the tiny attic of a mid-city apartment block and working nights as a commercial cleaner. So far, so cliche, except that the starvation is self-imposed, and the cause of her physical self-denial has also left her artistically paralysed. When she falls ill in the middle of a freezing winter, another resident of the apartment block takes her in and nurses her back to health — much to the disgust of his flatmate Franck, a hedonistic, and apparently boorish young chef.

Her saviour, Philibert Marquet de la Durbellaire, is an unlikely hero. A real gentleman (by birth, nature and education), he is also obsessive-compulsive, afflicted with a chronic stammer and pathologically shy. Although a qualified historian, he makes his living (much to the disgust of his aristocratic family) selling postcards outside a museum.

The fourth member of the quartet is Paulette, Franck’s grandmother. In the early stages of senile dementia, she has recently moved to a rest-home where she is desperately unhappy — a fact that leaves Franck racked with guilt and pity that he hides behind a wall of hostility. Much of this is directed towards Camille, whom he sees as ruining the perfectly good arrangement between himself and Philibert. Gradually though, they find ways of living together.“The awkwardness of the first days, the hesitant dance and all their embarrassed gestures were slowly changing into a discrete, everyday choreography.” When Camille arranges for Paulette to join them, they find that between themselves they have formed a functional, loving and ultimately healing family.

Done badly, this could be pure soap, but Galvada writes with a combination of irony, humour and a genuine affection for her characters that renders them entirely believable. Her language, too, is rich, evocative and very well translated. In parts it borders on poetry; “Camille Faque wasn’t alive. Camille Faque was a ghost who worked by night and piled up stones by day.” Elsewhere, her images are almost tangible, such as Camille’s description of Philibert as a “Funny, sad clown playing to the gallery, stuttering in front of the salesgirls, and wringing her heart.” This is her third novel, and I’m off to hunt down more of her work.