Dieser Roman wurde bereits 1992 in Frankreich veröffentlich und stellt das Debüt von Anne Serre da. Es wird die Geschichte dreier jungen Frauen erzählt, die als Gouvernanten in einem abgelegenen Herrenhaus arbeiten. Diese Frauen brechen jedoch mit den Konventionen und Erwartungen ihrer Rolle und beginnen sexuelle Wünsche auszuleben.
Die Erzählweise oft surreal und poetisch. Serre spielt mit der Sprache und Symbolik und schafft so eine Welt, die sich gleichermaßen vertraut als auch seltsam anfühlt. Die Handlung selbst bleibt eher fragmentarisch und konzentriert sich mehr auf die Atmosphäre und die psychologischen Aspekte der Charaktere als auf eine traditionelle Erzählstruktur.
Mit Mittelpunkt steht die Dynamik zwischen Männern und Frauen. Sexuelle Anziehung und die unterdrückten Begierden der Charaktere werden auf subtile Art erforscht.
"Das Buch ist eine interessante Mischung aus Erotik, Märchen, Surrealismus und Psychodrama. Empfehlen würde ich das Buch allen, die sich auf ein unkonventionelles Leseerlebnis einlassen möchten und Lust auf einen eher experimentellen Ansatz haben.

Originally published in 1992, Anne Serre’s novella The Governesses has just been translated into English for the first time.

This quirky, dream-like tale is akin to an exotic and erotic fairy tale for adults. Strange and beguiling, it tells the story of three young governesses — Eléonore, Inès and Laura — who live in a grand country estate where they are employed to educate a bevy of little boys for Monsieur and Madame Austeur.

The day the governesses walked into the garden, Monsieur Austeur was standing behind the net curtains in the salon, keeping an eye out for their arrival. They advanced in single file: first Inès in a red dress, weighed down with hat boxes and bags, then Laura in a blue skirt, and, bringing up the rear, Eléonore, who was waving a long riding crop over the heads of a gaggle of little boys. He was amazed: it was life itself advancing. He rubbed his hands together and began jumping up and down in the salon. Into the garden they came, and with them a whole bundle of memories and desires, a throng of unfamiliar faces clutching at their dreams, their future children, their future sweethearts, the interminable cohort of their ancestors, the books they had read, the scents of flowers they had smelled, their blond legs and ankle boots, their gleaming teeth.

This trio of alluring young women swan about doing very little except to act on their wild sexual urges, flinging off their clothes and running about the grounds as if on fire. Often they pursue innocent would-be suitors, who have wandered through the golden gates of the secluded estate, and run them down as if they are prey to be devoured. Once caught, they are then used for the governesses’ carnal pleasure.

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This is a quick read, every once in a while it’s necessary to shake things up a bit and this translation of the French novel was great for me. Enjoyed this book of Anne Serre.

Interesting idea, to put fabled female characters into a short story that isn’t particularly bound by any conventional place, timeline (or plot). Occasionally sloppy in the expression of the idea, for example, a story that’s obviously emulating classical myths and fairy tales need not use those blunt terms in it’s descriptions: “Animals appear at the edge of the woods, like a scene from a fairy tale.” Another, “Laura, playing the role of a sort of Artemis...” assumes the reader can’t make the connection alone. Otherwise, the imagery is enjoyable. From my perspective it was more satisfying if read as a commentary on (or the mockery of) the societal expectations of women than as a novel.

Unfurls with the smooth uncanniness of a dream. Everything feels lucid & coherent—perhaps a bit heightened, but also vaguely familiar—until the moment something is just off enough that the glassy facade shatters, unveiling an abyss of nightmarish unreality.

Think Nightwood, think Two Serious Ladies, even if Serre never quite reaches those heights (who does?). But what it most brought to mind was Wedekind's Mine-Haha: or On the Bodily Education of Young Girls, a parable(?) similarly set in a boarding school that also queasily fuses sequestration in a lush eden with a subversive eroticism & uneasy sense of surveillance—& refuses easy interpretations at every turn.

The ostensible plain-spokeness & simplicity of the language (at least in Hutchinson's translation) places extra emphasis on individual words for meaning, & I became attuned to the slipperiness of signification in a way I don't encounter often outside poetry. The constant application of "devour" to the titular trio's behavior, for instance, had me convinced for a while this might be a vampire tale, perhaps a glimpse into the afterlives of Dracula's three brides. Is it? Most likely, no. But it also seems as possible as any other explanation...

But, little by little, they're overcome with lust. It's no longer enough that he turns up at night, they want him there in the daytime, too. They him all to themselves. They want him with no past and no other life than the love they feel for him.

Weird and dreamy and cool, like being gently drunk while watching a foreign art film written by a poet.