Darrieussecq's Pig Tales: Marianne's misfortunes at the turn of the millennium

Romanic Review, Nov 1999 by Lantelme, Michel

Interestingly enough, the writer appears as a "candidate" under the scrutiny of the manager-publisher, the latter acting as the sole authority. Ironically, the contract stipulates that the salary of the employee is established at half the minimum wage. In this profitable business, the publisher dominates and derives personal gain: "The director had me get down on my knees, in front of him, and while I was hard at work, I day-dreamed about these beauty preparations, about how good I was going to smell, about the glowing complexion I'd have." (4) Next to him, the writer appears to be holding a lesser role: "And the contract specifically said that during the annual inventory clearance, I would be entitled to some cosmetics. I'd have a chance at getting the most famous brands, the most expensive perfumes!" The perspective of some kind of a profit seems to be working here as an incentive rather than a case for haggling. This is an opportunity to remind our readers of Louis-Ferdinand Celine who, presenting his own publisher as a fictional character in his Conversations with Professor Y, settled his accounts in a more direct fashion: "All in all, if you look around, you'll see any number of writers end their days as ragpickers, but it's a rare publisher who takes to sleeping under the bridges .. a riot, isn't it? ... I was talking to Gaston about all that, just the other day, Gaston Gallimard. . . "2

Dealing apparently with esthetics-depilatory creams, perfumes, ointments-Darrieussecq may very well be exposing in reality, not without a good deal of humor, her desire to be published, what critic J.-L. Cornille would call her desire to appear ["sa volonte de paraitre"3]. At the same time, she suggests that it involves a form of prostitution. Obviously, a first book is unique; it only happens once. But this is just a start, a first step, and everyone is awaiting the next one, as Philippe Lejeune suggests: "Perhaps one is an author only with his second book, when the proper name inscribed on the cover becomes the common factor of at least two different texts [ . ]."4 Two? three? four? How many exactly? We shall abstain from ruling on this issue and willingly grant it takes a great deal before a coherence or a style fully develops, or before some kind of an authority may be claimed. For now, the writer making her debut is not entitled to the list "By the same author." In this regard she is very different from Knut Hamsun, an author she mentions several times, recipient of the Nobel prize for "his entire works." As far as she is concerned, all the young employee can hope for, in the perfume store, is the "medal" of the best worker.

Becoming a writer raises mixed feelings in the mind of our heroine as she makes her way to a more complete metamorphosis. Because writing is a matter of breathing, and perhaps because she remembers Flaubert in his gueuloir, she becomes addicted to yoga and does breathing exercises in order "to hold [her] pen correctly." (121) One would be wrong, however, to picture her practicing in a quiet setting. She has her own version of yoga. Darrieussecq's gueuloir is in fact a real pigsty, a barnyard where crawling, grunting, braying, and snorting are common practices. Only because she had first lost the ability to speak can she now search for her own voice. This quest for better writing does not exclude a certain amount of fear. The sewer system in which she hides takes her straight to the Museum of Natural History, where animals of her kind are stuffed, classified, and labeled.