“Death is like a dog that hangs constantly at our feet, but we do not notice it until the day it bites us. Or worse, when it bites a loved one.”
From Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin
I have a friend who always recommends meaningful books to me. Often I don’t even read the announcement of the story itself, or the author, I completely trust her judgment and so far I have never been wrong.
Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin was another recommendation of hers that just took me away as if I was positioned in another universe, that of Violette, caretaker of the cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne.
Raised in foster families without knowing her parents, with a past that doesn’t bring much light, Violette can’t read or write, only count.
One day, in 1985, the now grown-up girl met Phillipe. They meet in the bar where she works with forged documents because she is not yet of legal age.
“He had the face of an angel. Sort of like Michel Berget in color. Long blonde curls, blue eyes, fair skin, aquiline nose, red lips reminiscent of a ripe July strawberry. He was wearing jeans, a white t-shirt and a black leather jacket. He was tall, well built, perfect. As soon as I saw it, my heart skipped a beat…”
This meeting turns Violette‘ life around, and as the author herself writes in the novel: “We never meet people by chance. They were destined to cross our path for some reason.”
Now comes the moment when I want to tell the smallest details about this love, about this relationship, and at the same time I want to keep silent and keep everything to myself, in an attempt not to lose the magic of what I read. The truth is that the relationship between Violette and Phillipe is shocking, dramatic and painfully real. Perhaps one of the best described loves I’ve read about recently, with all its ups and downs. And the best thing is that Valérie Perrin does not let the story revolve only around these two main characters, she manages to interweave several more strong love stories in her novel.
Fresh Water for Flowers is a light and pleasant read, despite the tragic undercurrent of death that haunts the pages throughout (even each chapter begins with a short quote taken as if from someone’s tombstone). The only thing I had a slight difficulty with were the French names, which I had a hard time pronouncing even in my head, and all those famous French people I didn’t know and didn’t engage me more in the story.
Although there is no visible resolution until about the middle of the novel, the reader does not feel bored in the least. The author so beautifully turns the attention constantly through different points of view that you feel as if you are looking through a kaleidoscope – the characters change, the pictures change, the plot begins to make sense and the novel becomes more and more impressive and magnificent.
Why does Violette decide to become a cemetery caretaker?
“There is a funeral tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. Nob inhabitant of my graveyard. A fifty-five-year-old man who died from smoking too much. Well, at least that’s what the doctors said. They never say that a man at fifty-five can die because he wasn’t loved, wasn’t listened to, got too many bills, took out too many consumer loans, saw his kids grow up and then leave home without really saying goodbye. In a word, from a life full of reproaches and discontents, so that he has grown fond of cigarettes and the cup to quell the fear.”
Why does the garden behind the house she lives there become her haven and salvation?
“How much I loved it the first time – hands in the dirt and nose in the sky, to make the connection between the two and learn that one cannot exist without the other. You come back two weeks after the first planting and see the change, approach the seasons differently and appreciate the power of life.”
How will a mysterious man come to seek information about a stranger whose mother wished to be buried with him instead of his father? How will the paths of the past and the present intertwine and where will this new common path lead? Which is stronger – memory or death? And why is death thought to be an absence, when in fact it is a secret presence?
I couldn’t recommend this life-changing book better without using the specific words from the work itself:
“Why do we treat books like people? Why are we drawn to some covers like a sight, like a voice that seems familiar, heard before, a voice that takes us off our path, makes us look up, grabs our attention and maybe will change the course of life us?”
But if I still haven’t convinced you enough that Fresh Water for Flowers is an extraordinary and wonderful novel that must be read, I will casually add that the novel is an international bestseller, having sold more than a million copies worldwide. The book has been awarded with numerous awards, including the prestigious “Maison de la Presse” from 2018, entered the “Figaro Literaire” ranking of the 10 best-selling authors in France in 2019, and in 2020 it became the best-selling book in Italy.
Fresh Water for Flowers is a treasure novel. I would re-read it again and again because the characters are delightful, the atmosphere is absorbing, and the poignant story of hope, humility, and love is lastingly memorable and touches those depths of the human soul that affirm life in its full splendor and meaning.
And now comes the even better part, this is not Perrin’s debut novel. The author actually published Sunday’s Forgotten first, which won 13 awards, so anyone who liked her style has something to reach for after the end of Fresh Water for Flowers. I certainly will.
(c) Milena Tseneva
Order your copy online here.
