A
Literary Saloon
&
Site of Review.

Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs.

Contents:

Main

the Best

the Rest

Review Index

Links

to e-mail us:


support the site

the complete review - fiction

Maleficium

by
Martine Desjardins

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

- Return to top of the page -

Our Assessment:

B : enjoyable bit of fin de siècle decadence

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "Martine Desjardins a écrit un livre qui semble tout droit sorti du XIXe siècle, à l'âge d'or du symbolisme décadent, offrant ainsi une oeuvre comme on ne croyait plus qu'il s'en écrivait aujourd'hui." - Caroline Montpetit, Le Devoir
  
  
• "What begins as a rich and original story, however, begins to feel formulaic when it becomes clear that every monologue follows the same pattern. All seven men are similar, their voices largely indistinct. Despite the repetitiveness, Maleficium’s momentum is saved by the suspense surrounding each sinner’s obscure (and unique) fate." - Allison MacLachlan, Quill & Quire

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

- Return to top of the page -

The complete review's Review:

       Set around the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth centuries, Maleficium is steeped in fin de siècle decadence, its tales largely set in what was then still considered the 'exotic Orient' (stretching from Ethiopia to India to Zanzibar); it comes complete with femme fatale, too.
       The book opens with a 'Cautionary Note for Readers', explaining that this is the: "scandalously notorious Maleficium by Vicar Jérôme Savoie". The Canadian Vicar lived 1877 to 1913, and in this volume he collected transcriptions of "depraved confessions" he heard (an entirely inappropriate thing to do, of course, since confessions are only meant for the ear of the confessor, and the almighty); the work is described as having long been suppressed by the archdiocese, but now is finally made available in an unexpurgated form.
       The book consists of eight confessions. It begins with a man who had traded in spices giving his confession -- and explaining how he came to (literally) lose his nose. It happened because he stuck it somewhere that he shouldn't have, and it involves a young woman -- just seventeen or so -- he came across in Srinagar whose distinguishing feature was a harelip (well, and also some pretty impressive stigmata). This mysterious, seductive young woman is the unifying thread of the confessions, as the others who appear before Jérôme Savoie also report their encounters with her in a variety of places in the course of their travels -- she always with the harelip, but also a variety of other remarkable features that vary from encounter to encounter. She turns out not just to be decadence personified, but also marks each of these men, in a variety of creative and terrible ways; Desjardins' inventions here would have made the authors of the French decadent movement proud.
       Already in the second confession a sense of some urgency also stirs in the background, as the second man to confess reveals that he has seen the young woman, just the day before, in the Montreal parish where Jérôme Savoie is taking these confessions. He warns the confessor:

She will come to tempt you, for you, as do I, appreciate the beauty of a female rump. Do not deny it. Just now I saw you watching the ladies leaving the church. Heed my advice: when a girl with a split lip kneels before you, close your eyes before she turns her back to you.

- M.A.Orthofer, 7 May 2012

- Return to top of the page -

Links:

• Talon Books publicity page
• Éditions Alto publicity page

• L'actualité (French)
• Le Devoir (French)
• Entre vous et ... Elles (French)
• ma mère était hipster (French)
• Le Passe Mot (French)
• La Presse (French)
• Quill & Quire

• See Index of Canadian literature
• See Index of French literature

- Return to top of the page -

About the Author:

       Canadian author Martine Desjardins was born in 1957.

- Return to top of the page -

© 2012-2021 the complete review

Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links