“The Great Drowned Woman”, Marie-Jeanne Bérard

Somewhere between the appearance of the first man and that of Eve, a first woman was cursed. “She had declared herself unwoman, men exiled her as far away from them as possible, […] under the waters. Let everyone know: in the silence preceding the story, in this blind space to which everything is linked in rhizome, there was a drowning. » Sylvette Luzel swears to have met this woman of the sea around the age of 4, on a tormented Breton beach. She reappears to her years later, half-goddess, half-demon, archaic, mythological. Luzel will confine her to her home for three trying days during which memories will intertwine under the suffocating threat of a storm. A huis clos with a mastered style, oscillating between dreaminess, torpor and rage, The great drowned woman takes on a figure forgotten by Christian tradition, but who nevertheless persists in surviving the wear and tear of a patriarchal human history. A cinematic writing, which we follow as we would watch a film.

The great drowned woman

★★★ 1/2

Marie-Jeanne Bérard, Head First, Montreal, 2024, 193 pages.

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