We Were Forbidden by the late Belgian writer Jacqueline Harpman (1929-2012) collects three intriguing never-before-translated stories, each originally published in French in the early aughts. Throughout the trio, Harpman nimbly examines personal agency, particularly for women. Ros Schwartz, who also translated I Who Have Never Known Men, skillfully captures Harpman's unembellished clarity, reflecting the directness of her spare prose.
"The Ardennes Forest" opens the collection, a dystopian narrative about a military group assigned to patrol the forests during a seemingly senseless war: "We didn't understand why we were walking, why we took great care to keep our weapons in working order... or why we still thought of ourselves as soldiers." Originally a company of 104, "the cold, hunger and disease had reduced our number to just thirty-seven exhausted souls." When the group happens upon a deserted village, for a few days they eat their fill, drink wine, dance, sleep in beds--and remember comfort and community.
Harpman's writing turns autobiographical in "The Outcast," which takes readers to Casablanca where her Jewish family fled to escape the Nazis during World War II. Written in first-person, the 15-year-old narrator recalls the cleaving of a close friendship over twisted words, cruel accusations, striking ignorance--and an administration that unfairly ostracizes and silences her as punishment. At the end of the 40-day ban, she takes her turn and "ostracize[s] them all"--but it's to her own detriment: "in the first battle I waged in the world, I was beaten hollow and I still bear the scars."
The final story, "The Broom Closet," is also the best, a slyly entertaining meta-narrative spotlighting an author composing a story about a woman and her affairs. Using first-person, Harpman shifts without warning--but entertainingly--between writer and protagonist. The young wife is 22, "married for six tedious years" but later, her creator will decide, "twenty-two may be too old, let us say nineteen and married three years." In the throes of plotting, the writer interjects, "Lord! Is she blonde or brunette? I no longer have any idea; I'd have to go back to the previous pages but that would interrupt my flow!"
Given Harpman's notable playfulness in "The Broom Closet," certain details might imply connections between the three: the Ardennes may geographically link "Forest" with "Outcast"; the soldier named Ulrich could be the same in "Forest" and "Closet." The suggestion of such liminal narratives makes Harpman's fiction even more cleverly enticing, while evergreen themes--war, coming of age, the fine art of writing--ensure Harpman's posthumous relevancy. --Terry Hong
Shelf Talker: Three newly translated stories from the late Belgian writer Jacqueline Harpman memorably capture women seeking, losing, and reclaiming agency.