Whore

I told myself for years that I should read Nelly Arcan, but I hesitated. I told myself that I didn't like long sentences without a period, that sounded like a stream of thoughts, that I needed "real sentences," "researched sentences." Oh, I didn't know what I was talking about.

Put simply, it is the story of a prostitute who talks about her condition. She tells why and how she started at 20, what she feels like when she waits for her clients in her soulless hotel room, her relationship with women, her rivals, and with men, those beasts she can't help but want to please, and her therapy sessions with her psychoanalyst. It is written like an adult diary, without dates and without "Dear Diary". Each sentence lasts at least a page, and when the sentence stops, a new paragraph begins. A small biography before the text warns that the author committed suicide a few years after the publication of this book, that sets the tone.

The sentences are constructed so that you read without stopping, very quickly. I tend to read aloud, but with this one I couldn't. One, because I felt like I was running out of air with only commas at my disposal, and two, because I felt that by reading out loud such harsh words written in "I", I was identifying with the narrator, which I didn't want to do at all, and was betraying her at the same time.

And then it's dark, very dark. I find it hard to talk about atrocities out loud, whether it's a sordid murder in the newspaper or a torture scene in a novel, in my head it's already at the limit of what I can bear. It doesn't quite go that far in Nelly Arcan's novels, but it is violent, it is brutally anatomical, and it is tinged with death in every sentence.

" [... I think I've said it before, I have my mother on my back and on my arms, hanging around my neck and curled up in a ball at my feet, I have her in every way and everywhere at the same time, that's why I should have my head cut off, my skin ripped off, I should destroy everything she marked with her bitchy bite when I was still in the cradle, I would have to be butchered until there were only bones left, and by the time I no longer offered a surface where she could deposit her load, I would become someone who would not be her, I would be dead without a doubt, but I would have accomplished a feat, that of being nobody's daughter [... ] "

Putain, p. 139, Points (free translation)

What I found particularly fascinating about this novel was the dichotomy between the narrator's cold lucidity and her inability to get out of it. She is obviously brilliant, her thoughts are scarily accurate, and yet she allows herself to sink into an abyss of suffering. It's also crazy how you can manage to take away all the mystery and excitement of sex while talking about it non-stop, I even came to wonder how we all came to be excited about such a silly thing.

I took a Quebec literature course a year and a half ago, and we talked a bit about Nelly Arcan, and the teacher insisted on the separation between the author and the character. Yes, Nelly Arcan was an escort, but it's a bit of a stretch to assume that she lived through everything she writes about. It's hard to make the distinction with a writing style like hers, but the narrator remains a character.

This can be better understood by looking at her interview on Tout le monde en parle, given in 2007 (two years before her death). The author insists that she exaggerates a lot in her writing and that she has lots of friends unlike her character. Unfortunately, everyone in the room, including the hosts and guests, seem to not care very much, and it's really hard to see. There are people who have gone down in my esteem. Nelly Arcan experienced it as a humiliationand I understand her.

I just finished the book, and it feels like a punch in the stomach. I am transfixed, my view of the world has changed, I have rarely read anything so cruelly human. It's not an easy read, but it's a must-read.