Comment va la douleur? - Pascal Garnier

Comment va la douleur?, the most celebrated of Pascal Garnier's books, is an exquisite example of literary crime fiction. Every chapter, particularly the first two chapters before you really know where it's going, are like perfect little short stories on their own. They combine however and connect in unexpected ways.

The first chapter introduces us to Simon Marechall and Bernard Ferrand, without it being clear what the relationship is between the two men. We subsequently discover that they have met by chance at Vals-les-bains, a spa town not far from Lyon. Marechall is on a journey to complete a business arrangement in "pest control", but his health is suffering. Bernard, a young man with two missing fingers who lives with his mother there, seems an ideal and somewhat naive companion to drive him to his destination at the seaside resort Cap d'Adge on the south coast, for which he will be well paid. With the promise of seeing the sea, Bernard is happy to be chauffeur.

Simon's business is to deliver a bunch of 13 roses and a bullet for the recipient. It's to be his last contract in a long career that has lived all over the world, and he carries out his commission, but not before picking up some unexpected passengers on the way and getting caught up in some subsequent developments. The hit is almost a side event of little consequence to the main part of the book which is the curious relationship between the two men, two distinct personalities, two different views of the world that coincide.

Garnier's writing is wonderful and literary. The chapters describing the various shops and businesses that Bernard's mother Anaïs has been through are an absolute delight. Her Baby Jane-like dressing up to meet the man who wants to borrow her son for a while - and ensure that he is not a homosexual (although you get the impression that with the 500 Euros being offered, she probably still wouldn't have any serious objections) - are also just wonderfully amusing and slightly tragic.

There is a melancholy undertow throughout (Comment va la douleur? How is the pain? is a greeting Simon recalls hearing in some African country). Simon sees himself like a miscast actor in an absurd drama, a drowning man. Bernard is an innocent trying to reconcile a sheltered and simplistic view of the world with the more dangerous one that his eyes have been opened up to. In reality, the two men, and all the people they seem to meet similarly feel like they are searching for a role, fulfilment, a sense of purpose, something that life doesn't seem to offer in their experiences of families. But what else do they have?

On fait ce qu'on peut! Bernard says when mocked by Simon for his simple ambitions to have a wife and a job. You do what you can, you take what is offered. The choices aren't straightforward, life turns out to be filled with and end up in disappointments, old age, illness and death. The differing perspectives and viewpoints of the two men, alongside Garnier's poetic and amusing prose, provide a broad outlook, but the right path is one that every person has to choose for themselves.

Reading notes: French pocket paperback edition published by Zulma