{"id":1759,"date":"2021-02-10T14:00:42","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T14:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/?p=1759"},"modified":"2021-02-10T14:00:42","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T14:00:42","slug":"review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: C\u00e9cile Coulon, A Beast in Paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Translated from French by Tina Kover (Europa Editions, 2021)<\/h2>\n

A Beast in Paradise<\/em><\/a> is the English-language debut of C\u00e9cile Coulon, and deals with the tragedy and determination of a farming family in rural France. The opening is a scene of bucolic tranquillity: \u201cOn either side of the narrow road snaking through rich green field, the green of storms and of gras, flowers \u2013 enormous, pale-hued, fragile-stemmed flowers \u2013 bloom all year round. They run alongside this ribbon of asphalt until it joins up with a path marked by a wooden stake, capped by a sign reading:<\/p>\n

YOU HAVE REACHED PARADISE\u201d<\/p>\n

We are invited into Paradise, a sprawling farm whose topography is mapped out for us in the first two pages, until we encounter an elderly lady with a long memory standing in the empty pigpen. The idyll is broken in the final line of this first chapter, in a style that will come to be recognisable as one of the contrasts that characterise Coulon\u2019s storytelling: \u201cone beast comes here each morning, to mourn.
\nBlanche.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then a flashback begins, first to a key episode in Blanche\u2019s adolescence and then to her childhood. Presiding over Paradise is Blanche\u2019s grandmother \u00c9milienne, whose dedication to the farm and its occupants \u2013 both human and animal \u2013 holds the family together and gives them a purpose: in Paradise, \u201ceverything began and ended with her.\u201d When her daughter and son-in-law are killed in a car accident on the perilous hairpin bend leading to the farm, \u00c9milienne is left to raise their infant children Blanche and Gabriel. Her own devastation is rarely mentioned: \u00c9milienne is a woman who raises herself up and marches on.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In addition to her grandchildren, \u00c9milienne takes in a young man named Louis who starts to work on the farm after the death of Blanche\u2019s parents. Louis is systematically beaten by his father and one evening flees to Paradise in search of a refuge that he assumed would be only temporary, but which \u00c9milienne calmly makes permanent. Louis becomes her trusted farmhand, as devoted to Paradise as \u00c9milienne is. Paradise is a haven, but also a succubus, a place that lives inside its inhabitants as much as they dwell within it: \u00c9milienne is part of the herd; Louis\u2019 greatest connection to Blanche is their shared attachment to Paradise, \u201cconsuming, voracious, untameable\u201d; even Gabriel, the only one who eventually summons up the strength to leave, is cursed with a black tree that had \u201ctaken root inside him in early childhood, a tree watered with fury by his parents\u2019 deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Headstrong Blanche and sickly Gabriel are marked out as different because of their family tragedy, and have few friends at school. Though Gabriel has an interesting story arc in his own right, the focus is on Blanche: this is a girl who circumstances have \u201cturned into a warrior at five years old.\u201d As the children stumble into adolescence, Blanche\u2019s proximity awakens feelings in Louis that she recognises but can never reciprocate \u2013 she only has eyes for Alexandre, the golden boy of the class. This is the love story that will raise Blanche up and then knock her down, and which forms the majority of the novel\u2019s intrigue. Alexandre is wholly undeserving of Blanche, an unremarkable man with \u201cbig ideas, big dreams and little words\u201d who has erected around himself a hubris of brilliance that fools everyone but Louis. Yet Louis, whose feelings for Blanche are widely known, is assumed to be simply jealous of Alexandre, and all his warnings go unheeded.<\/p>\n

The great strength of the narrative is the way in which it builds up the tension towards the d\u00e9nouement: in reality, years pass with very little happening, yet there is something compulsive about the awareness that something dramatic is looming. The balance between bucolic idyll and emotional and physical ferocity is also a key feature, and one that is particularly well rendered in Kover\u2019s translation. Deep emotions burst out of careful restraint, and in these moments the expression is exquisite (\u201cHer body remained upright through pure reflex, but inside, her whole soul, the soul made up of all the ages she had been, all the experiences she had had, caved in\u201d). Indeed, the entire novel is sensitively translated, particularly the shifts in tone but also the smaller details of vocabulary: the path to Paradise is \u201cpocked with brown puddles\u201d, tiny insects go \u201cskittering\u201d up Blanche\u2019s arms, one character \u201csoils another with shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

The feature I most enjoyed about A Beast in Paradise<\/em>, however, was the question over who the beast is \u2013 and what we understand by \u201cbeast\u201d. The word appears in various contexts, and the perspectives on monstrosity are extremely clever: I got entirely the wrong idea about who was going to do what to whom, and so as the events developed I found myself spellbound by a story I hadn\u2019t anticipated at all. Most of all, each time I put this book down I really looked forward to getting back to it. A Beast in Paradise <\/em>is one of those books that reminds you that you don\u2019t have to \u201crelate\u201d to characters \u2013 they can be completely different from you, and still draw you in. In particular, the build-up to the final revelation is outstanding, and after I\u2019d finished reading I was left thinking about it for days. This is a story of ordinary lives and extraordinary pain, and a superb English-language debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Translated from French by Tina Kover (Europa Editions, 2021) A Beast in Paradise is the English-language debut of C\u00e9cile Coulon, and deals with the tragedy and determination of a farming family in rural France. The opening is a scene of bucolic tranquillity: \u201cOn either side of the narrow road snaking through rich green field, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[39,191,319,365,991],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nREVIEW: C\u00e9cile Coulon, A Beast in Paradise - Translating Women<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"REVIEW: C\u00e9cile Coulon, A Beast in Paradise - Translating Women\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Translated from French by Tina Kover (Europa Editions, 2021) A Beast in Paradise is the English-language debut of C\u00e9cile Coulon, and deals with the tragedy and determination of a farming family in rural France. The opening is a scene of bucolic tranquillity: \u201cOn either side of the narrow road snaking through rich green field, the […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Translating Women\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-02-10T14:00:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/files\/2021\/02\/Beast-in-Paradise.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/\",\"name\":\"REVIEW: C\u00e9cile Coulon, A Beast in Paradise - Translating Women\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2021\/02\/Beast-in-Paradise.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-02-10T14:00:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-02-10T14:00:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#\/schema\/person\/f55c794873afd5892e3c96ddf775f5b2\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2021\/02\/Beast-in-Paradise.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2021\/02\/Beast-in-Paradise.jpg\",\"width\":240,\"height\":373},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"REVIEW: C\u00e9cile Coulon, A Beast in Paradise\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/\",\"name\":\"Translating Women\",\"description\":\"INTERNATIONAL | INTERSECTIONAL | ACTIVIST | FEMINIST\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#\/schema\/person\/f55c794873afd5892e3c96ddf775f5b2\",\"name\":\"Mark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c8bc2e4b4cd54966c634a0cda0b58382?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c8bc2e4b4cd54966c634a0cda0b58382?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Mark\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/university-of-exeter-new.onyx-sites.io\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/author\/rxizfitwrt\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"REVIEW: C\u00e9cile Coulon, A Beast in Paradise - Translating Women","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"REVIEW: C\u00e9cile Coulon, A Beast in Paradise - Translating Women","og_description":"Translated from French by Tina Kover (Europa Editions, 2021) A Beast in Paradise is the English-language debut of C\u00e9cile Coulon, and deals with the tragedy and determination of a farming family in rural France. The opening is a scene of bucolic tranquillity: \u201cOn either side of the narrow road snaking through rich green field, the […]","og_url":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/","og_site_name":"Translating Women","article_published_time":"2021-02-10T14:00:42+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/files\/2021\/02\/Beast-in-Paradise.jpg"}],"author":"Mark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mark","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/","url":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/","name":"REVIEW: C\u00e9cile Coulon, A Beast in Paradise - Translating Women","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2021\/02\/Beast-in-Paradise.jpg","datePublished":"2021-02-10T14:00:42+00:00","dateModified":"2021-02-10T14:00:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#\/schema\/person\/f55c794873afd5892e3c96ddf775f5b2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2021\/02\/Beast-in-Paradise.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2021\/02\/Beast-in-Paradise.jpg","width":240,"height":373},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/02\/10\/review-cecile-coulon-a-beast-in-paradise\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"REVIEW: C\u00e9cile Coulon, A Beast in Paradise"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#website","url":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/","name":"Translating Women","description":"INTERNATIONAL | INTERSECTIONAL | ACTIVIST | FEMINIST","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#\/schema\/person\/f55c794873afd5892e3c96ddf775f5b2","name":"Mark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c8bc2e4b4cd54966c634a0cda0b58382?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c8bc2e4b4cd54966c634a0cda0b58382?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Mark"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/university-of-exeter-new.onyx-sites.io"],"url":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/author\/rxizfitwrt\/"}]}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}