Astragal by Albertine Sarrazin.

I haven’t written anything for a while, so today I will try and make up for it by telling you about a book which I finished reading on Wednesday night. It is called Astragal by a French writer called Albertine Sarrazin. I suppose the first thing to explain is where Astragal comes from. Well, it is the French name for what is called in English the talus, a small bone in the ankle which transfers the entire weight of the body from the leg to the foot. The protagonist Anne breaks her astragal jumping 30 feet from the top of a prison wall in order to escape. I should also explain how I discovered the book. It is all thanks to Patti Smith. When you become a fan of Patti it is like walking into a library or an art gallery. She wants to share her enthusiasms with you. These days Patti is as well known as a writer as she is as a musician, and her books are littered with references to artists who have influenced her. Patti seems particularly drawn to French poets and writers such as Rimbaud, Verlaine, Baudelaire, and Jean Genet. The French have also taken Patti to their heart. She was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 2022. Patti discovered Astragal in a Greenwich Village bookshop in 1968. She was drawn to the cover which proclaimed Albertine as the ‘female Genet’.

Recently I was perusing Patti’s Book Of Days when on page 368 I came across a photo of Patti’s copy of Astragal and a picture of Albertine. With her short, cropped hair and elfin 1960s looks she reminded me slightly of a young Julie Driscoll. Also, in my mind’s eye I imagined her as Beatrice Dalle in the film Betty Blue. That was enough for me. I knew I had to buy the book. The copy I found on eBay published in 2013 said, ‘Introduction by Patti Smith’ which is why I chose that edition.  Patti’s intro is a great piece of writing. She says, ‘Perhaps it is wrong to speak of oneself while writing of another, but I truly wonder if I would have become as I am without her. Would I have carried myself with the same swagger, or faced adversity with such feminine resolve, without Albertine as my guide?’. The American translator Patsy Southgate also deserves a shout out for being a writer with a French soul, empathising with her subject.

Astragal is a fictionalised account of part of Albertine’s own life. Nothing happens to the protagonist Anne which didn’t also happen to Albertine, so I’ll just tell you briefly about her short life. She was born in Algiers in 1937 and abandoned by her Spanish teenage mother. At the age of two she was adopted by a French couple who took her to Aix-En-Provence. Aged 10 she was raped by a relative. Although she was a brilliant student and gifted musician, she constantly rebelled against her adoptive parents who tried to mould her into something she wasn’t. They revoked the adoption and sent her to a reform school in Marseille ironically called The Refuge of the Good Shepherd. She waited until easily passing all her exams before escaping to Paris where she reunited with Emmaline a love interest from school. They lived a precarious life of prostitution and crime before being arrested for a bungled armed robbery. Albertine received a seven-year sentence at Fresnes Prison. In prison Albertine kept a journal and wrote, and wrote, and wrote. In 1957 she escaped when transferred to Doullens reform school. Breaking her ankle during the escape she crawled to the roadside where purely by chance she was rescued by Julien Sarrazin who was also a habitual criminal. This is where the story of Astragal begins.

I won’t tell you any more about the book because hopefully you might read it for yourself, but it is an account of their life on the lam, moving from house to house of Julien’s criminal contacts, always with the knowledge of inevitable re-arrest.  I don’t think it is the greatest book I’ve ever read, but it gripped my attention throughout. I read it in three late night sessions. I couldn’t help but like Albertine despite her life outside the law. She shows no hint of remorse, but you can understand her rebellion against society and authority after her childhood experiences. 

In real life she and Julien were married in prison and Albertine was finally released in 1965. Astragale and La Cavale were published to best-selling great acclaim and she and Julien left their life of crime. In 1967 she had to have kidney surgery which should have been a routine operation, but it was botched, and she died from complications aged only 29. It was a tragic end to an eventful and promising life. Julien successfully sued the hospital for negligence. Her journals, poems and letters were published after her death. Thank you very much to Patti Smith for introducing me to Albertine Sarrazin who lived her short life like a shooting star.

John Prine 'Christmas In Prison'

Film Review: Small Things Like These.

I don’t go to the cinema very often these days. I think the last film I saw before last night was The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry starring Jim Broadbent. However, when I saw that Small Things Like These was showing at the Odeon in Trowbridge I knew I should make the effort to go. This was because a friend of mine spoke highly of the film after seeing it recently. Also, you may recall that I wrote a review of the original novella by Claire Keegan which was published in 2021, so I was keen to see if the film was faithful to the book. The film is directed by Tim Mielants who I haven’t heard of before. He doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry which suggests to me that this is his directorial debut. If that is the case, then I think he has done an excellent job in portraying Ireland during a difficult economic period of the 1980s. He brilliantly captures the bleak rainy pre-Christmas mood of the book, even down to little details like the ominous crows on the roofs. The book is adapted for the screen by Irish playwright Enda Walsh who largely sticks to the plot of Claire’s original story. Cillian Murphy who takes the lead role of the coal merchant Bill Furlong also produced the film. Cillian deserves an award in my opinion for his brilliant performance. 

The protagonist Bill Furlong is a man of few words who largely lives in his own thoughts. He is going through a kind of mid-life crisis, struggling with what Eckhart Tolle would call the pain-body, and brooding on childhood trauma, such as being bullied by other kids and witnessing the death of his mother, also wondering where his father is. Because he is such an introverted, quiet, but kindly character it takes a great actor to portray him. The performance isn’t in the dialogue so much, but all in the eyes and facial expressions, even washing the coal off his hands is an expression of what is going on in his mind. It is a wonderful, understated performance. Another actor worthy of an award is Emily Watson as the Mother Superior Sister Mary. Even when she is speaking politely you can tell by the look in her eye that she is as hard as flint.

I can’t say much more for fear of giving the story away in case you see the film yourself, but Bill makes a discovery which brings matters to a head, leaving him with a moral dilemma. He must make a decision. The film ends abruptly which took the audience by surprise, but that didn’t matter because the film had made its point. I can see why Claire Keegan called her book Small Things Like These. One small courageous action can play a big part in ending a long-standing evil. I was reminded of Rosa Parks when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white person, or when Greta Thunberg refused to go to school until something was done about climate change. Small things like these can have big results.

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