{"id":1659,"date":"2006-06-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-01T23:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/?p=1659"},"modified":"2025-01-02T12:02:55","modified_gmt":"2025-01-01T23:02:55","slug":"hunting-and-gathering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2006\/06\/03\/hunting-and-gathering\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunting and Gathering"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anna Gavalda, translated by Alison Anderson<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Chatto & Windus<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Otago Daily Times, June 3rd 2006<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Although set in contemporary Paris, Anna Galvada\u2019s novel Hunting and Gathering<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u2014 much to the disgust of his flatmate Franck, a hedonistic, and apparently boorish young chef.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fourth member of the quartet is Paulette, Franck\u2019s grandmother. In the early stages of senile dementia, she has recently moved to a rest-home where she is desperately unhappy \u2014 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.\u201cThe awkwardness of the first days, the hesitant dance and all their embarrassed gestures were slowly changing into a discrete, everyday choreography.\u201d<\/em> When Camille arranges for Paulette to join them, they find that between themselves they have formed a functional, loving and ultimately healing family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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; \u201cCamille Faque wasn\u2019t alive. Camille Faque was a ghost who worked by night and piled up stones by day.\u201d<\/em> Elsewhere, her images are almost tangible, such as Camille\u2019s description of Philibert as a \u201cFunny, sad clown playing to the gallery, stuttering in front of the salesgirls, and wringing her heart.\u201d <\/em>This is her third novel, and I\u2019m off to hunt down more of her work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anna Gavalda, translated by Alison Anderson Chatto & Windus Otago Daily Times, June 3rd 2006 Although set in contemporary Paris, Anna Galvada\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[47,52,370,18],"class_list":["post-1659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-47","tag-anna-gavalda","tag-fiction","tag-odt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1660,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659\/revisions\/1660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}