Book Review: “Fresh Water for Flowers” by Valérie Perrin
Death has many strong opponents; love is one of them
Title: Fresh Water for Flowers. First Published: 2020. Genre: Romance. Publisher: Europa Editions. Pages: 476. Translated by: Hildegarde Serle.
I had never heard of the French writer Valérie Perrin before picking up this book. So, I trust those sources that state she is a popular and beloved best-selling author. Perrin has written three books, one short-story collection, and three screenplays.
“Fresh Water for Flowers” got her two prestige French literary awards and was translated into many languages, making Perrin loved worldwide for her unique style, complex characters, and tangled structure that leads the reader all the way to the end without the slightest guess as to what turn the story will take in the next chapter. It is not a simple romance novel, not “he loved her and she loved him.” It is the story of interesting people with hard luck who, at some point, happened to fall in love.
Before spilling out my thoughts about the book, I would like to ask you to think of places that come to mind when you hear the word “flowers.” I am sure “cemetery” is not among the first options, but the novel is actually about the flowers on the graves.
The main character, Violette Toussaint, accepts a strange job offer. Now she is the caretaker of the cemetery. But if you read about Violetta’s life, then such a decision seems not only logical but also very accurate. She is not one of those people who likes to walk through cemeteries, stroke cold marble, and scare everyone with her gloomy makeup and attitude. No, Violette is much more complicated.
Although her story may not be the most unusual, she is told by Perrin in such a way that with each new chapter, you think, “Wow.” This is the main advantage of the book; this is how I discovered the storytelling talent of the author. She constructed the plot by mixing elements of the timeline, making it tangled and mysterious.
The novel is like a dark room with light bulbs hanging in it. These bulbs light up only some parts of the room. Some things become more visible; their outlines are clearer, but it also becomes evident that a lot remains hidden. If you’re an aspiring writer, consider Perrin’s work from this perspective, the narrative perspective.
As you can guess, there will be a lot of death and many talks about death in the novel. But as with any topic, it has an antithesis: if there is black, then there will definitely be white. For death, in fact, you can find more than one antonym. It is not only “life” but also “love.” This is exactly the dichotomy chosen in “Fresh Water for Flowers”: death — love. In the end, the flowers need fresh water so that they stop withering and begin to raise their heads again.
The book is quite voluminous, but it is easy to read just because the light bulbs are constantly lit. They either revive Violette’s past, highlight one of the minor characters, or change the brightness, and then even what already seemed obvious reveals its other side.
Don’t let the cemetery theme scare you away. “Fresh Water for Flowers” is exactly the book you need if, by the end of winter, you are completely fed up with it. After all, another antonym for “death” can be “spring.”
