Three days at my mother's house

Author: (French) Fran?ois Weyergang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: This novel by French writer Fran?ois Weyergang, aged 64, won the Goncourt Prize this year with a vote of six to four, defeating Michel Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island. The story depicts a man named Fran?ois Weyergraf who must write a book and create a dual self within it. The nested structure of the novel is not the focus of the review; rather, the gentle traps that have already been set and the promise of joy to the readers give the book an indescribable charm.
A writer, having promised a publisher to write a book titled Three Days at My Mother's House, decides to visit his mother who lives in the south to complete the novel after chatting with her and opening the gates of memory. However, he never manages to go. Women, travel, and other publishing plans keep him entangled. He is always busy traveling, reading, making love, and loafing around. To finish the book, the writer struggles in agony, pursued by tax authorities, discouraged by editors, and worried by his family. He even suffers from severe depression, with only his mother encouraging him.
One day, his mother suddenly collapses and is hospitalized, her life hanging by a thread. Only then does he truly return to her side and finally stay at her house for three days. After regaining consciousness, she smiles at her son and says, "I didn’t provide an ending for your book, but I gave you a stumble." Défina didn’t say she made me anxious. But who exactly are "all these people"? They also include our two daughters, two adult women who are very aware that their father is in trouble. Of course, they are included. They might also include my mother, my sister, and my sisters. But Défina, like me, hardly visits my family; I don’t visit my mother much either, feeling guilty about it. Almost every day, I tell myself, "I should go to Upper Provence-Alpes to see her," where she lives alone, but I never muster the courage.
In the film Eight and a Half [1], in the scene at the cemetery, when Marcello Mastroianni’s character, the director, suddenly sees his father appear, he sadly realizes they have barely interacted: "Dad, we’ve said so little to each other!" It’s very likely that one day, it will be my turn to regret—not regret talking too little with my mother, because I call her almost every night, but regret seeing her too rarely, especially in recent years. My eighty-year-old mother is even more pointed. On the phone, she concludes, "In short, I won’t see you much in my lifetime." That remark hits the mark! I don’t know if she realizes it, but seeing me silent, she patiently explains, "It’s true! You left home so young—how old were you? Seventeen or eighteen?" "Nineteen, Mom!" "Exactly. Look at today’s young people, still living with their parents at your age, and you see you left too early." Until the late 1990s, she visited Paris several times a year, staying at my place for a few days and at my sister Madeleine’s for a few days. In a way, it was her coming to see me. Now, she hardly leaves home. If she wants to come to Paris, she has to consult an expert in advance, and she thinks the best expert is in Marseille. Marseille is less than a hundred kilometers from where she lives, but she finds the distance too far.
I’m sure my friends have also told Défina their inner worries. I bet she received their calls while I was sleeping (usually, I don’t wake up until the second half of the afternoon, and sometimes even later): "What’s wrong with Fran?ois? He’s been out of touch. The last time I saw him, he looked unwell. We’re very worried about him." When Défina told me that I made everyone anxious, her voice was as low as the piano in Beethoven’s Storm Sonata or the bassoon in Vivaldi’s Concerto for Flute in D Major, "The Storm." In any case, there was a storm in the sky—this wasn’t a storm in a glass of water. Our shared life had nothing to do with a glass of water. Sometimes, our lives would whip up a hurricane. When the wind blows from two directions, it creates a whirlwind. I answered like that, adding that the "Cape of Good Hope" was famous because of its name, and that the relationship between hope and storm was more abnormal than the endless conflict between love and hatred. I also mentioned that the Latin word tempestas for storm could mean both good and bad weather. I struggled desperately to escape my, but Défina saw it all clearly.