Je L'Aimais - Anna Gavalda

I Loved Her is the title.  Or it could be I Loved Him, it's indistinguishable in the French without some context.  And in the book, it could be either way.  I read a previous book of hers that the French family gave me and loved it, so I bought this one when I was over there last November.  It's a short book - about 170 pages, I think - and a pretty easy read.  And I really enjoyed it.

It's a simple story, or at least a simple premise.  A woman, the narrator, is with her parents-in-law, and it's quickly revealed that her husband - their son - has left her for another woman.  The father-in-law takes her and her two girls to their country house for a few days.  She thinks he's distant and unfeeling and, in her raw emotional state, doesn't hesitate to tell him.  The bulk of the novel is a conversation they have one night after the kids have gone to bed, and it's his recounting how he met the love of his life (not his wife), how he lost her, how he hurt himself and his wife in the process, and how weak he is for letting life take control of him.  It unfolds a new side of him that she's never seen before and, while not forgiving of the mistakes he's made, illustrates how they happened.

A quote that really jumped out at me:
La vie, même quand tu la nies, même quand tu la négliges, même quand tu refuses de l'admettre, est plus forte que toi.  Plus forte que tout.  Des gens sont revenus des camps et ont refait des enfants.  Des hommes et des femmes qu'on a torturés, qui ont vu mourir leurs proches et brûler leur maison ont recommencé à courir après l'autobus, à commenter la météo et à marier leurs filles.  C'est incroyable mais c'est comme ça.  La Vie est plus forte que tout.  Et puis, qui sommes-nous pour nous accorder tant d'importance?  Nous nous agitons, nous parlons fort et alors?  Et pourquoi?  Et puis quoi, après?
And in English...
Life, even when you deny it, even when you neglect it, even when you refuse to admit it, is stronger than you.  Stronger than everything.  People came back from concentration camps and had more children.  Men and women that were tortured, that saw their loved ones die and their houses burn started running for the bus again, talking about the weather and marrying off their daughters.  It's incredible but that's how it is.  Life is stronger than everything.  And then, who are we to give ourselves so much importance?  We act out, we raise our voices and so?  And why?  And then what, after?


There's a lot of truth in that paragraph.

A good novel.  A good insight into two people - the narrator and her father-in-law - that tries to allow us insight into ourselves.  I don't know if it's available in English, but the vocabulary and the writing style is so simple yet pulls you in...I almost want to translate it just to dig deeply into it.

So who loved whom?  The father-in-law loved this other woman.  She loved him.  He loved his wife, and still does in a way.  The narrator loves - loved? - her husband.  It's hard to say.