Sebastien's Reviews > The Stain

Wow. What a phenomenal writer. Has the elements of a grotesque fairy tale, and so lovingly written. As I was reading the story, I kept thinking the writing and imagery are unbelievable, and the precision of language is ridiculously good. Poetic. Turns out Ducornet is also a poet (and an artist). Which makes perfect sense given her writing style, which is very visual, finely crafted, and precise.

The story is bizarro-world, taking place in 1880s rural France (I think 1880s). A fantastic mix of the profane, the arcane, and the sacrosanct. The "bad" characters are wonderfully hateable (like Dickens, Ducornet makes fabulously caricatured villains).

Charlotte is the protagonist, a young girl with a “stain,” a rabbit-like marking on her face. We see her adventures as she goes to a convent, along with her various friendships and experiences that culminate in a bloody finale. Hints of Red-Riding Hood, except way weirder, way more #$%#’d up. Coming of age story? Kinda? The sweet and the vicious are juxtaposed consistently throughout the story.

I love the creativity of the writing, the story was honestly quite good, bizarre and clever, but it’s the writing itself that stands out.

I laughed so hard at this phrase, never heard of someone’s bunghole referred to as a “cyclopean nether-eye.” Which tbh is a hilariously good description.

A few passages and quotes I enjoyed:

“Two months have passed and the winds of November howl around St.-Gemmes like packs of famished wolves, as in the forest the scattered beasts themselves, lean survivors of a happier epoch, ululate beneath the racing moon.”

“Her pain--cyclical in the early hours--grew constant towards night, a raging moon orbiting within her, a drumming heart bristling with thorns.”

“How many times throughout the long months of her convalescence has she seen the walls buckle and tear as the Mother of God swims into her room as quietly as an undulating jellyfish to show her the globe of the world in miniature, its lapis lazuli oceans and chalcedony continents spinning in the billowing folds of her mantle as upon clouds?”

“But as she stood impotent with fear, a match was struck from within the room, a kerosene lamp lit and a face bloomed forth like a moon in the darkness.”

“In a flash the train dissolved as with unutterable grace the hare vaulted and bounded alongside the tracks in electrifying leaps--arcs of raw energy crackling like hoops of fire as they struck the air.”

Can’t wait to read more of Ducornet’s work, this was my first book of hers.

Random observation.
Nacreous (def: mother of pearl color): Nabokov abuses the hell out of this word (as he does a lot of other French words which he jams into his writing). But it’s in reading Nabokov that I got tuned into how much certain writers with French knowledge weave French rooted words into their English. Ducornet only uses nacreous once at the end of the book, but she is obviously well-versed in French and French culture which can be noticed in some of her word choices.