With the Animals

By Noelle Revaz

Considered the standard-bearer for the great Franco-Swiss literary tradition, exemplified by authors such as Jacques Chessex and C. F. Ramuz, Noëlle Revaz may also remind English-language readers of Louis-Ferdinand Céline: With the Animals, her shocking debut, is a novel of mud and blood whose linguistic audaciousness is matched only by its brutality, misanthropy, and gallows humor. Narrated by the singular Paul—a violent, narrow-minded farmer whose unceasing labor leaves him with more love for his livestock than his family—With the Animals is at once a fantastically exaggerated and entirely honest portrait of masculinity gone mad. With his mute and detested wife and children huddled at his side, Paul is only roused from his regimen of hard labor and casual cruelty when a farmhand, Georges, comes to work on his property for the summer. His sovereignty seemingly threatened, an element of unwanted humanity now injected into his universe, Paul's little kingdom seems ripe at last for a revolution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Release date: May 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781564787552

Book preview

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Originally published in French as Rapport aux bêtes by Gallimard, Paris, 2002

Copyright © Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 2002

Translation copyright © 2012 by W. Donald Wilson

First edition, 2012

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Revaz, Noëlle.

[Rapport aux bétes. English.]

With the animals / Noelle Revaz ; translated by W. Donald Wilson. -- 1st ed.

p. cm.

Originally published in French as Rapport aux bétes by Gallimard, Paris, 2002.

ISBN 978-1-56478-754-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-56478-721-7 (cloth : alk. paper)

I. Wilson, William Donald, 1938- II. Title.

PQ2678.E8167R36 2012

843’.92--dc23

                                                           2012004233

Partially funded by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency

The publication of this work was supported by a grant from Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council

Cet ouvrage a bénéficié du soutien des Programmes d’aide à la publication de l’Institut français/ministère français des affaires étrangères et européennes

This work was supported by the Publications Assistance Programs of the French Institute / French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs

Ouvrage publié avec le concours du Ministère français chargé de la culture –

Centre national du livre

This work has been published, in part, thanks to the French Ministry of Culture –

National Book Center

IAClogo.jpg                       PH_logo_byline_EN_black.jpg

www.dalkeyarchive.com

Cover: design and composition by Sarah French

Printed on permanent/durable acid-free paper and bound in the United States of America

WITH THE ANIMALS

NOËLLE REVAZ

Translated by W. Donald Wilson

Dalkey Archive Press

Champaign • Dublin • London

Contents

Begin Reading

Translator’s Note

Paul, the narrator and principal protagonist of With the Animals, is an unusual character: a barely literate farmer who lives in almost complete isolation in a remote location, never precisely specified. He has a wife whom he treats with callous brutality: their relationship is summed up by the name he gives her: Vulva. (The author has confessed that in using this word she felt a sense of shame she needed to overcome, since it was her point of departure for the entire novel.) Paul also has several children to whom he is so indifferent that he is unsure how many of them there are, or of their names. He seems capable of concern and affection only for his cows: they alone are fully real for him. Revaz has described Paul as a childlike consciousness who has yet to achieve adulthood: he has both good and bad in him, but he has never learned to recognize feelings and is unable to find a place for them in his life.

All of this is seen through Paul’s eyes and related in his voice. Indeed, the substance of Noëlle Revaz’s novel is at least as much a voice as a character or a story. Paul is embodied by his language. Not only does it display his lack of literacy, his awkwardness, coarseness, and brutality—one critic has described it as a slap in the face to fine language—his struggle to express himself especially reflects his difficulty with emotions and his existential incompetence.

In the original French, Paul lives in no specific place, nor does he use any particular form of speech or dialect: his idiom is an invented one. Of course many of the idiosyncrasies of his French are unavailable in English, such as his mangling of the more complex French negatives, his ease in inventing reflexive forms of verbs, and his placement of adjectives before rather than after nouns (and vice versa). Also unavailable was his constant use of the impersonal pronoun on, used to create a greater impression of detachment and depersonalization than is allowed by its closest available English equivalent, you. I was therefore concerned to develop a voice that, while delivering that slap in the face, would not show any strained attempt to write incorrectly or distort the English language unnaturally, but would flow instead from Paul’s character and situation. Lacking any example or conventional usage to follow, Paul would have to improvise his language, resulting in a certain stylistic awkwardness. His word-order would be unconventional, reflecting the spontaneous order of his thoughts (for instance in the placement of adverbs or in stating the topic or subject of sentences first, as in Georges, he said). His use of conjunctions would be weak. Object pronouns would sometimes be omitted, and the definite article would sometimes occur where no article is normal in English. He would be uncertain of grammatical categories, confusing nouns, adjectives and verbs. His grasp of verb forms, especially of the verb ‘to be’ (as in there is + plural, or you/we/they was), and of pronouns would be unsure (as in me for I and them for those). Yet he would not use common dialect forms such as ain’t, and only occasionally employ double negatives.

However, there would also be another side to Paul’s language. In particular, Noëlle Revaz has written that in composing With the Animals she allowed herself to be guided by the music of words and the rhythms of sentences at the expense of grammatical rules, and I was mindful of this. As in the original French, Paul would at times be quite creative in his vocabulary, coining a number of (frequently ‘portmanteau’) words. Now and then, indeed, he demonstrates a considerable gift for language, and even a hint of poetry emerges at times, as if to suggest the potential for a more fully human Paul . . .

1

Before when I go out in the morning I’ve knocked back a good brimmer already and things fall together like straw. Till then I’ve a face like night on me and a garlic mouth and I can’t stand anyone wants to be coddled like a snot-nosed pup. Head under the tap and already I’m getting the machines out. Vulva, she’s still dragging round, she scrubs down in a corner and dries off in the kitchen.

There’s feeding to be done. The animals, they’re astir long before us, they’re no slackers, they wait patient till we’ve finished our purgings to recruit up their strength, to get back to the grind. There’s the feeding and then the milking. Vulva, she’d be good help if just she knew how, but already the milk cans is full when still she’s hacking about inside, and I go in and find the coffee cold and the toast going dry. Sometimes I eat nothing she’s fixed and I never drink what she’s brewed and I spit her cooking back at her. Vulva’s a tough nut, she never turns a hair. It’s like the animals: when they’ve seen what a stick is for they think twice before they misbehave, and that’s the way to handle them, giving them to remember and respect the master.

Mornings there’s a phenomenal pile of work waiting. You knew that before you went to sleep, you knew already from the evening before, but even if you get the urge to go out and set at it again and get well ahead you still have to lie in bed and sleep, but it drives you crazy figuring there’s nothing useful you can do all night but waste time. I can lie long awake in the dark if I think about that pile of work waiting. Vulva, she never thinks. Always she goes to sleep off by herself and grunts the whole night away.

If there’d been no Vulva on the farm things would have gone easy. I’d never have had the cost of a farmhand if Vulva had left the spot for some capable body, I’d never have gotten the machines and I’d never have had the debts nor needed to sell land we had from before Pa. There’d have been no young ones, and young ones make work for you. It’s watching all day they’re not playing on the harrows, it’s making sure they’re not hiding in the silos when they’re filling, and never go gabbing with the farmhand, seeing it can hurt you to learn Portuguese alongside French. Vulva’s brood, she didn’t make them on her own, and someone has to be father to them. When I have them I give them what they need, and a good hiding if they get too wild, for if you love you lay on the stick.

Life, that’s what it’s like, all holes and dents and no sport at all, never a pretty picture, and nights when you see Vulva all slattern settling down into bed and churning stupidness in her craw that’s still bloated from supper a shame rises up in you and a great urge to lash out that heaves your arm out of the bed and sets you grabbing things and waving them, and I bawl: For shit’s sake, that’s enough!

The thing is, every night, or near, the lust comes over her and she goes rubbing against my leg, and it works you up though at the same time it disgusts, and it’d put the fear into you, the loud moaning and clinging she does. I drive her across to the far side for her to leave me in peace and sleep nice for me off by herself.

Sometimes at night when I take the notion, when I hear her breathing quiet, I slip between her legs and do the business quick, so she won’t come molestering me with her hussy’s plagueries.

2

At the very start when he came, the farmhand, I said to Vulva: He’s coming, that farmhand. He’s a Portuguese. He doesn’t speak the language good. He’ll have to be looked after for him to stay and not go stirring up the law on us.

And Vulva she said yes.

And you’re not to go hanging about him nor getting thick. This fellow, he’s coming to work, so you’re not to go showing any belly, he’s not one for the women.

At the same time I grabbed her tight behind to let her catch on how and where to contain the lust. Vulva’s like that, it’s only with the body she understands. The head, it lags far behind; it’s set real light, and sometimes I tell myself even if it was taken clean off she’d still be the same Vulva as long as she was left the rest. Thinking’s not for her. She never has ideas, Vulva, it all just comes to her from below, and when I tell her that’s what she thinks with she says that’s so, and it’s the truth. She’s never understood a thing, all she’s good at is making young ones and the business goes with it, but she can learn fast if it’s stamped in the flesh. When she has to obey I train her with the tweezers, and that works straight off, I warrant. Or else it’s the big stick, like for the young ones, or worse, the rope or the chisel on the wrists, and then she catches on and says yes.

It’s due to that inevitable we’ve stopped talking and there’s no more chat heard in the farmhouse, just the young ones playing outside at their yells. But it’s real no problem, for that’s how I work, in peace and quiet to reflect and focus on the animals. Vulva, she never says a thing out of her trap, she just goes yes, for she always agrees, or else it’s watch out dummy. The words come out of her all soggy wet like sludge, so it stirs the disgust in you, and I never let her open her gob when the powers that be come by to say hi and make sure there’s no finagling on the side.

Every day she’s there beside me, Vulva, and when all’s said I’ve gotten used, for I never see her and never give her a thought. But sometimes God help me I say to myself: Vulva’s a person too! and I look at her new like I’d never seen tits on a hussy or a stupid big chin and big fat lumps to knead in fistfuls like dough. What a homely one she is, that Vulva! She’s plainer than turkey-hens.

It’s strange even so, watching her go sometimes, seeing her in the kitchen or feeding the young ones, there comes almost a hankering after something, almost the urge to say just once: Sometimes you’re a good woman, Vulva!

But never as far as saying it, for there’s visions come warning and showing you the sight of Vulva at nighttime and keeping you on guard, for them hussies they draw the littlest opportunities to themselves and twist them for their own benefit. And so when I look at her, Vulva, I like to let on she can think too. It’s true Vulva she has her head, she has her eyes and all that. When you watch her going you never think so at all, you’d think she’s asleep, but maybe she’s just playing dead and she’ll rise up and make a revolution, trap me in the cellar. There’s things like that happen.

The days I’m watching her she feels it, Vulva, for she tries to profit, softening me with all her sighs: she fancies I’m wanting to get snug with her, so she botches off the housework. But me, I try to talk, I let on I’m ordering the youngsters about, but at the same time I’m watching, and what do I see? That this Vulva can’t talk, that this Vulva she understands nothing, and when you say a few words she can only go yes yes yes, and the lips never budge, so anyone would figure she never sees nor hears a thing, for when she’s asked for example: What do you think about them seeds, Vulva? she gawps off into space and drops the housework and never answers, with her gob stuck wide. So I tell myself this Vulva here can never think, there’s nothing inside her head like I’ve always known, and I cross over to do her a hurt for she gets on my nerves saying nothing and being more gormless than’s possible, so I let loose a clout. I like to do that, for Vulva she never lets a squawk but just goes far off, so at least you’re quit of her.

Right, and then after that I’m left with the wee ones on my hands. A wee one’s no hardship, it just has to learn to keep its mouth shut and clean off its plate, and when it’s all gone you just need to yell: Outside! It’s hardly out of you before there’s never a one in sight.

The wee ones they don’t like Vulva neither, they don’t care for her one bit. They turn up for mealtimes and they’re off again as soon as you try to get some profit out of them. Vulva, she puts them to bed at night and it makes them feel to puke when she tries to give her kisses, for you hear the gagging as soon as she closes the door. The wee ones take after me some, but a bit after Vulva too, and that’s what puts you off and leaves you never able to take to them nor put their names on each.

3

The day the farmhand came we got the room ready. I’d asked Vulva to clear out a place close to the house, in the glasshouse where we put tomatoes to grow in spring and lettuce in winter, for the glass walls keep the heat in. Inside we put a sort of a bed and a chair, and Vulva brought real clean blankets and sheets with flowers that smelled from the wash.

Well that’s it, I said to Vulva. That farmhand he’ll be waked up in here good and early as soon as the sun comes. He’ll never be able to do his shirking off, for the whole place is on view from outside: if he starts letting on he’s sick or wants a smoke we just need to keep an eye out and report him.

Vulva she said yes. So then I told her to pay attention and I took her by the shoulders, for she has to catch on, seeing these things is of real mortal importance: Listen now, Vulva, I said, when I’m out at the cows or in the workshop, or at the mowing, or on the tractor, you’re not to be chatting with this farmhand.

Vulva she said yes. I know well she’s no tattler, but I said it to make certain she wouldn’t start gabbing.

This worker that’s coming here, he’s a decent foreigner that hasn’t a penny to his name back home where he’s from, so he’s looking to put food in his belly with us and make his family happy and put food in their bowls like I do for you here. There’ll be no getting in his way.

Vulva she smiled with her teeth to show she’s willing.

I know you’re willing, I said just to soothe, but I know as well what a pester you are when you want something. You’re not to go near him: this farmhand sometimes he gets funny urges, I said to put the fear in her, he likes to clout women and there’s one or two he near killed.

She said yes, but I don’t know if she thought it, for she’s murky in the eyes.

It came time for the mail bus to set down the farmhand. Through the kitchen windows we watched him coming: a great hulk of a worker that filled the whole path, the way under the trees, and the whole stoop and came pounding on the kitchen door: boom boom boom! From close it made you jump, but I wasn’t scared like Vulva that ran into the bedroom. So it’s the same old story, and it’s me left to open the door.

What a strapping great lump, a whole pile wider, a whole pile taller than me! Close up I could see no eyes at all so I had to step back, he was so dusky with dark patches all over where you couldn’t make out a thing. I stuck out a hand to greet and he said hi in a funny deep voice. Vulva came back behind and I waved her off, for we had to discuss. The big farmhand took a chair, he sat down at the little table, gave a squy about him, and asked was she my wife?

Well yes, I said. That’s my wife Vulva.

I thought again about the lines I’d gotten ready about keeping his distance off other men’s women and especial the boss’s Vulva, for the boss he holds the farmhand’s fate and life in his hands, and I started off but the words came out about how obliging Vulva always is but she’s useless at working and thinks of nothing but sleep. The farmhand asked where she’d be sleeping, this Vulvia.

There, I pointed, first giving him the whole tour of the house that’s all corners and passages where we store the old wood and the old iron rusting away. There she was in the bedroom, Vulva, stretched out on her belly mending the shirts that’s always destroyed after the day’s work.

Out of here Vulva, I said, just as the farmhand he was saying: Good day, Madame, in his Portuguese accent, and it seemed real strange to hear Vulva called Madame.

Vulva she got up. If you didn’t know her you’d have thought she was angry, for she was all red in the mug and heaving her chin up like she was setting to take a bite out of it. But I know my Vulva, and I know who she owes yielding and fear to; she’d be total unable to invent a crabbed face just to inflict me humiliation in front of the big farmhand. I gave her a slap on the backside and said Out of here! She never turned a hair and we watched her go, and the farmhand he looked pleased, real relieved to see her big parts heading

Reviews for With the Animals

[reganrule · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Vulva. This is what Paul, the illiterate farmer-narrator of Revaz's With the Animals calls his wife. Lest you think it's a form of tenderness when he calls her "my Vulva," rest assured, "it's not often I call her 'my,' and more often it's 'that big lump,' or 'that floozy,' or 'that sow,' except when the opportunity comes up when you need to show your ownership, that you've a stake in the matter and you're master over her." Paul is unsure of the names and number of their offspring, but each of his animals has a name and a history. Such is Paul's relationship to his metonym of a wife. His physically and sexually abusive relationship to her is complicated by two potentially life-altering situations. The first, the arrival of the summer's farmhand (or intern), Jorge--immediately renamed "Georges" by Paul--and second, the discovery that Vulva has cancer. Georges is a former medical student who fancies himself an expert of female nature. He undertakes to soften Paul, to humanize "Vulvia" (Georges' accent). When Vulva leaves the farm for the hospital to receive radiation treatment, Georges finds himself alone with Paul, in other words, alone with the animals. SPOILER (or at least this reader's speculation):It seems to me this would make an incredibly disturbing horror film in the vein of "students get more than they bargain for when they study abroad." Vulva is essentially kidnapped, raped and impregnated against her will (over and over). Her physical and social isolation prolong the abuse. When Jorge arrives, he seems to understand her situation and endeavors to rescue her. This attempt is successful so long as Vulva remains in hospital, but alas, Georges' tenure at the farm comes up in September, and Vulva once again finds herself vulnerable and unprotected. She's survived only to endure further abuse. But does she? Curious whether other readers speculated that Vulva was responsible for the outbreak of illness that decimates the farm? Was Paul's mother responsible for the illness that nearly destroyed it years before Vulva's arrival? What to make of this: "That time on the farm, long before Georges ever set foot on it, after the fridge broke down, after that meat gave us the big stomach upset, Vulva never felt a thing in her bacon and ate by herself alone at the table that night with a smile on her mug just like we was all there"?