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WORK TITLE: The Devil’s Reward
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1959
WEBSITE:
CITY: MIlan
STATE:
COUNTRY: Italy
NATIONALITY: French
http://www.vogue.it/en/people-are-talking-about/vogue-arts/2013/11/emmanuelle-de-villepin
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2015033150
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2015033150
HEADING: De Villepin, Emmanuelle, 1959-
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100 1_ |a De Villepin, Emmanuelle, |d 1959-
400 1_ |a Villepin, Emmanuelle de, |d 1959-
670 __ |a La vita che scorre, 2013: |b t.p. (Emmanuelle De Villepin) dust jacket (b. 1959, France; has lived in Italy (Milan) since 1988)
PERSONAL
Born 1959, in France; married Rodolfo de Benedetti (CEO of Compagnie Industriali Riunite); children: three daughters.
EDUCATION:Attended law school in Geneva, Switzerland.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Novelist. Fondazione Dynamo, vice president; Amici di TOG (Together to Go), president, 2011–.
AWARDS:Fenice Europa Prize, for La ragazza che non voleva morire; Rapallo Carige Prize, 2014, for La vita che scorre.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Emmanuelle de Villepin is an award-winning author, born in France and married to Rodolfo de Benedetti, the CEO of the holding company Compagnie Industriali Riunite. “She has lived in Milan with her husband and three daughters,” wrote the contributor of a biographical blurb to the author’s website, “since 1988.” Her daughter Neige de Benedetti is an artist and photographer who illustrated de Villepin’s book Le note di Mattia.
De Villepin received the Rapallo Carige Prize in 2014 for her novel La vita che scorre: romanzo. The story centers on Frenchman Antoine Rousseau, a victim of Nazi terrorism during World War II. Nine-year-old Antoine was absent from his village of Oradour-sur-Glane when Nazi troops massacred the entire population—men, women, and children—in retaliation for resistance operations against the German occupation of the area. Adding to his guilt, Antoine was missed by the massacre because he disobeyed his parents and left town for the day. Thirty years later Antoine’s wife dies suddenly, leaving him as the caretaker of their daughter Elisa, who suffers from spinal amyotrophic chiodato (a form of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) that will keep her confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of her life. Antoine comes to realize that his daughter’s life has meaning and becomes proud of her accomplishments.
Interviewers queried de Villepin about the ways she approached pain and illness in the novel. “To be honest, I write books for myself, not as a form of social commitment,” de Villepin said in an interview with Glaviano di Alessia in Vogue Italia. “The truth is that the experience I wished to depict is that of pain. In life you should try not to be a burden to others, and yet the truth is that each one of us has his/her own fair bundle of grief and sadness. In my books I employ scenarios which I feel somehow close to, or at least, close enough to be able to narrate them.” “I believe that pain is not of ‘interest’ to others and we all avoid people who spend their time complaining like the plague,” de Villepin continued in her conversation with di Alessia. “I don’t like self-pity but I’m in favour of understanding and establishing a net based on compassion and brotherhood around pain. An analytical, not a self-pitying, attitude helps understanding oneself and be more in tune with others.”
In La parte del diavolo: romanzo, which became de Villepin’s first novel to be translated into English under the title The Devil’s Reward, a French octogenarian matriarch introduces her daughter and granddaughter to bits and pieces of their family history. “My main protagonist, Christiane,” de Villepin stated on the Largehearted Boy website, “… is an anti-conformist, intelligent and creative old woman [of] witty and free character.” Christiane’s daughter Catherine, however, takes her life much more seriously. “Catherine sees marriage as an ironclad contract,” reported Stacy Shaw in Booklist, while “Christiane believes that a certain fluidity … can revive it.” A break in their relationship is avoided through the intervention of Catherine’s daughter Luna; “When Luna reveals that she is writing a thesis on Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner,” said a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “Christiane claims to know all about him.” Steiner was an acquaintance of her father and aunt, and the two of them followed Steiner’s philosophy. In the process Christiane’s father emerges as a powerful central character. “Christiane and her older brother, Gabriel, called their father Papyrus,” explained Sarah Rachel Egelman on the 20SomethingReads website. “He was a daring veteran of both WWI and WWII who married the young woman whose faithful gift he believed saved his life in battle. But the love of his life may have been his sister-in-law, Bette, a free-thinking and compelling woman.”
The story related in The Devil’s Reward bears some resemblance to de Villepin’s own family story. “For de Villepin, ‘the devil’s reward’ of the title involves finding a balance between goodness and evil,” stated Judith Rosen in a Publishers Weekly interview with the author. “The story that Christiane tells has parallels to de Villepin’s generation as well. Her uncle, Xavier de Villepin, was a French senator; his son Dominique de Villepin, served as prime minister of France from 2005-2007. But despite the many similarities between de Villepin’s life and the book—de Villepin’s own grandfather was known as ‘Papyrus’ and was heroic in war and cowardly in private—de Villepin is emphatic that the book is fiction. ‘A novel is a novel,’ she says.” De Villepin’s novel “has a lot to say about how family members struggle with each other when they are such different people,” stated a Bookish Type website reviewer. “Some of them follow strange philosophies, while others are very pious Catholics, and some are hedonists. Throughout the generations, the hedonists keep coming into conflict with the believers and traditionalists.” “By the end,” concluded a reviewer for Historical Novel Society website, “the reader feels left a bit dangling and, perhaps to the book’s credit, wanting to know more.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, April 1, 2018, Stacy Shaw, review of The Devil’s Reward, p. 57.
Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2018, review of The Devil’s Reward.
Publishers Weekly, March 12, 2018, review of The Devil’s Reward, p. 37; March 23, 2018, Judith Rosen, “Speak of the Devil: Emmanuelle de Villepin.”
ONLINE
20SomethingReads, https://www.20somethingreads.com/ (May 4, 2018), Sarah Rachel Egelman, review of The Devil’s Reward.
Bookish Type, https://abookishtype.wordpress.com/ (April 3, 2018), review of The Devil’s Reward.
Bookreporter.com, https://www.bookreporter.com/ (August 1, 2018), review of The Devil’s Reward; author profile.
Emmanuelle de Villepin website, https://emmanuelledevillepin.com (August 1, 2018), author profile.
Huffington Post, https://www.huffingtonpost.it/ (November 15, 2013), Laura Eduati, “‘La vita che scorre,’ Emmanuelle de Villepin sul suo nuovo romanzo: ‘Il dolore aiuta a comprendere i disabili.'”
Largehearted Boy, http://www.largeheartedboy.com/ (May 1, 2018), “Emmanuelle de Villepin’s Playlist for Her Novel ‘The Devil’s Reward.'”
Vogue Italia, https://www.vogue.it/ (November 7, 2013), Glaviano di Alessia, author interview.
About Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle de Villepin was born in France in 1959. As a child, she moved to Geneva (where she later attended law school) and then to New York. She has lived in Milan with her husband and three daughters since 1988. She is the vice-president of Fondazione Dynamo and has been president of the association Amici di TOG (Together to Go), a center for rehabilitation programs for children suffering from complex neurological diseases, since 2011.
De Villepin has written several novels, including Tempo di fuga (2006); La ragazza che non voleva morire (2008), which received the Fenice Europa Prize for spreading Italian novels in Europe; La notte di Mattia (2010), a tale illustrated by her daughter Neige De Benedetti; and La vita che scorre (2013), which received the Rapallo Carige Prize for women writers in 2014. Her most recent novel, La parte del diavolo (2016), was shortlisted for the Stresa Prize. De Villepin is fluent in French, Italian, and English.
Print Marked Items
de Villepin, Emmanuelle: THE DEVIL'S REWARD
Kirkus Reviews.
(Mar. 15, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
de Villepin, Emmanuelle THE DEVIL'S REWARD Other Press (Adult Fiction) $16.95 5, 1 ISBN: 978-1-59051-868-7
A Parisian grandmother trying to help her daughter through a marital crisis mines the rich history of the family's past in this first novel to be
translated into English by prizewinning French author de Villepin.
Eighty-six-year-old Christiane lives alone, missing her late husband. She feels little patience for her daughter Catherine's marital complaints but
is happy to have both Catherine and her daughter, Luna, take refuge with her. "I choose to be resolutely nonconformist and scandalous,"
Christiane tells us. "I hate those qualities in young people, but I find them charming among us oldsters." She chides Catherine for overvaluing the
marriage pact and delights her granddaughter, who's writing a thesis on pedagogical systems, with family stories about Rudolf Steiner. "I've had
plenty of time to measure what one owes to the sacred and what must not under any circumstances be denied to the profane." Born in 1929,
"spoiled and rather poorly raised" in a chateau, she recalls an adored and charming father with a motorcycle and side car and a prim, religious
mother who terrorized her inadvertently with late-night applications of holy water. As she reminisces, a complex family portrait emerges of
privilege and deprivation, anthroposophy and debauchery, suffering and grace. "One can't deny that old ladies like myself have tons of
experience. When things are going to hell, we at least have this advantage: we know the truth--everything always ends badly." Her beloved father
has a dark secret which causes a devastating rupture, and the idyllic childhood of hot air balloons and treasure hunts collapses into social
ostracism. "One should not retrace one's steps," she muses, "one quickly smells death and abandonment." Although romantic liaisons are the
putative theme here, the deepest relationships are the ones between parents and children. Christiane says, of her daughter, "My greatest love story
is her."
A sprightly tour through an old woman's family secrets reveals that loving someone often requires the ability to forgive and a certain "sleight of
hand."
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"de Villepin, Emmanuelle: THE DEVIL'S REWARD." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Mar. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A530650901/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1749bf04. Accessed 15 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A530650901
The Devil's Reward
Stacy Shaw
Booklist.
114.15 (Apr. 1, 2018): p57.
COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
The Devil's Reward. By Emmanuelle de Villepin. Tr. by C. Jon Delogu. May 2018. 256p. Other, paper, $16.95 (9781590518687).
Christiane, an energetic widow, is secretly ecstatic when her daughter's marital troubles force her to seek solace at chez Christiane. As soon as
they're together, though, Christiane and Catherine fall into old patterns, snipping at one another over their vastly different outlooks on life. While
Catherine sees marriage as an ironclad contract, Christiane believes that a certain fluidity within a marriage can revive it. They share, however, a
deep love for Catherine's daughter, Luna, who's writing a paper on the philosopher Rudolf Steiner, with whom Christiane's family had a history.
In retelling this story and the ways it shaped her, Christiane begins to bridge the chasm between herself- and her daughter. French-Italian novelist
De Villepins intimate family portrait, her first book to be translated into English, gracefully highlights the ways people of widely varying
temperaments learn to coexist. Though at times the dialogue feels a bit pedantic in its philosophical discussions, The Devil's Reward also features
gratifyingly in-depth character studies and a strong sense of place.--Stacy Shaw
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Shaw, Stacy. "The Devil's Reward." Booklist, 1 Apr. 2018, p. 57. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534956890/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9a555809. Accessed 15 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A534956890
The Devil's Reward
Publishers Weekly.
265.11 (Mar. 12, 2018): p37.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Devil's Reward
Emmanuelle de Villepin, trans, from the
French by C. Jon Delogu. Other Press, $16.95
trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-59051-868-7
De Villepin's flawed English-language debut begins when 86-year-old Christiane, widowed and living alone in Paris, receives a distraught call
from her daughter, Catherine, in Milan. Catherine confesses to her mother that her husband is having yet another affair. Christiane, slightly
amused at her daughter's histrionics, invites Catherine and her daughter Luna to come to Paris, delighted at the prospect of their company in her
lonely house. When Luna reveals that she is writing a thesis on Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, Christiane claims to know all about him.
Though Catherine expresses skepticism about the veracity of her mother's memories, the older woman launches in and out of a lively, possibly
unreliable, story of her father, Papyrus, his brothers, her elegant Aunt Bette, and their involvement with Steiner over the course of the two world
wars. There is much discussion of Steiner's idiosyncratic philosophies, but the strength and charm of this author's story--of bonding and healing
among three generations of women reveling in their shared history--is obscured by an overwrought translation: "my mother held a handkerchief
over her face to prevent any grains of dust from fouling her mouth, which was about to receive the body of Christ. Since we were still laughing,
she complained and ordered us to close our mouths with the aim of a similar Christian hygiene." Though the premise is intriguing, the prose
keeps readers at arm's length. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Devil's Reward." Publishers Weekly, 12 Mar. 2018, p. 37. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A531285076/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d6ac3d5d. Accessed 15 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A531285076
Emmanuelle de Villepin
An interview with Emmanuelle de Villepin for the launch of his new novel "La vita che scorre", that will be presented on November 12 at 6pm in Milan, at the Feltrinelli in Piazza Piemonte
LA VITA CHE SCORRE
“La vita che scorre” the new book by Emmanuelle de Villepin (born in France in 1959) is released today by publishing house Longanesi
De Villepin has never shied away from addressing complex and distressing topics and, in her previous works, she has written about the Shoah in “Tempo di Fuga” (Longanesi, 2006), the Chechen tragedy in “La ragazza che non voleva morire” (Longanesi, 2008) and love and death in “La notte di Mattia” (Skyra, 2010) a fairy-tale inspired by the premature loss of her brother.
“La vita che scorre” is the story of Antoine who, as an old man, reminisces about his life and the tragic events that have marked it, starting from becoming orphan at the age of nine during the summer of 1944 when the German Army destroyed the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane where Antoine used to live. Everyone was killed, women and children included: he managed to survive only because, disobeying his mother’s instructions, he had left the village right before the massacre took place in order to go and play with a friend. Antoine life continued filled with numerous people and vicissitudes until another tragic year - 1974, the year in which his wife died out of the blue and the daughter Elisa, who was only a few months old, was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a condition that would force her on a wheelchair for the rest of her life.
In view of the presentation of “La vita che scorre” which Emmanuelle de Villepin will hold next Tuesday 12th November at 6.30 pm at the Feltrinelli bookstore in Piazza Piemonte, Milan, a 3-way dialogue in which I’ll be taking part alongside Gad Lerner, I met Emmanuelle de Villepin and asked her a few questions.
What inspired your latest work "La vita che scorre"?
I felt like writing a book about feeling excluded, a common and painful feeling that often leads to reacting aggressively. It does not have always the same impact on people’s existence but, as an emotion, sooner or later everyone will come to experience it. Hence, the decision to choose an orphan as the protagonist. Elisa, instead, was inspired by a dear friend of mine, Lisa, who suffers from a condition which has forced her on a life on a wheelchair. What immediately amazes upon meeting Lisa is her extraordinary ability to charm. In a get-together among friends Lisa becomes immediately the focus of everyone’s attention and not as a form of sympathy for her condition but for her witty intelligence and sense of humour. I wanted to tell a story about feeling excluded, the deceit and the laceration it causes.
You always choose to deal with powerful topics in your books, such as the Shoah, the Chechnya war and now disability. Your commitment to social issues is evident, could you tell us about its roots?
To be honest, I write books for myself not as a form of social commitment. The truth is that the experience I wished to depict is that of pain. In life you should try not to be a burden to others, and yet the truth is that each one of us has his/her own fair bundle of grief and sadness. In my books I employ scenarios which I feel somehow close to, or at least, close enough to be able to narrate them.
Alongside suffering, love is another constant feature of your books: the love between a father and a daughter, family love or any other form of love; in what way do these two aspects of life – suffering and love - co-exist and feed on each other in your search?
I believe that the only remedy for the absurdities of life is love. Camus talked about solidarity as the only cure against the absurd. I’m ambitious and prefer love.
What is the relationship between yourself and your characters?
It may sound rhetorical but they gain some form of autonomy very quickly. There is a moment in which I lose control over them and the narrative becomes much more interesting because it’s like looking at them through a keyhole.
You are quite “tranchant” in your book: Elisa’s life is worthy of living and I agree with you, also because I know Lisa and I must admit that I was also shaken in my convictions after meeting her. Lisa is truly special but she is not the norm. Especially because Lisa is cognitively unimpaired; she is able to choose autonomously. I would never judge negatively someone who, for the most varied reasons, decides not to have a baby following a diagnosis of severe brain disorders in the foetus. What, in your opinion, persuades somebody, after such diagnosis, to decide to still have a baby who suffers from a serious neurological disorder, a baby who has no cognitive ability? Don’t you think there could be not entirely commendable, let’s say egoistic reasons behind this? Suffering can be edifying, it often leads to the discovery of oneself and others, to the ability to live life intensely and fully but, I suspect this is true only for those people who have an awareness of one own’s and others’ suffering: at times, certain choices risk appearing “too much like a list of good deeds to show to God in order to convince yourself of the validity of all”.
I didn’t mean to be “tranchant” with the cousin and I really don’t feel like judging those who want to keep the baby, those who opt to have an abortion, those who wish to know beforehand and those who don’t...What I tried to describe through Antoine’s and even through Elisa’s anger towards the cousin is the feeling of humiliation every time her disability comes between Elisa and the rest of her emotional sphere. Therefore, I understand their reaction and I don’t feel I can criticize them for that. With regard to keeping a baby with a disability, there are no set rules: there are parents who feel able to devote all their energy to ensure the wellbeing of a child with problems and are commendable for that. At Tog (“Together to Go” Charity) we see extraordinary people who are happy in their being totally dedicated. Of course you are not a monster if you feel that you don’t have it in you; it is a colossal commitment, everyone feels a need to give in his/her own way. Remember that I describe the point of a view of a father.
“The score of a person’s destiny changes according to whether it starts in C-major or C-minor. Pain cannot be expressed and concerns only the sufferer, the only thing that one can hope to share is the mathematical consequence of pain, the impact of events on the soul in order to attempt to trace the elements that make the experience of pain universal”. Could you talk to me about such elements?
I believe that pain is not of “interest” to others and we all avoid people who spend their time complaining like the plague. I don’t like self-pity but I’m in favour of understanding and establishing a net based on compassion and brotherhood around pain. An analytical, not a self-pitying, attitude helps understanding oneself and be more in tune with others.
"She, the little one, was born with her disability and is not afraid; she goes through the various stages of our pain with grace and sweetness. She smiles, tries to grab life with her little plump hands, she is frustrated at only being able to stretch her arms towards what she wants. She smiles, nonetheless". How much do you think our labelling of certain conditions impact the real limiting consequences – especially psychological – of a disability?
Well, labels, prejudices and suspicion towards alterity are a monstrous plague for the humankind. Earlier on you hinted at a certain phoney do-good attitude and I find everything that hides behind that term despicable. But what I find even more cringing is the cultural tendency towards egoism. The “nimby syndrome” is even more appalling than politically correct because, at least, there is a sense of shame behind the politically correct culture.
"
The “verticality” of the relations with Elisa hangs in the balance between the awareness and the sudden forgetfulness of her disability. Only few people manage that". It is extremely difficult to engage with a disable person without falling into pietism, but it is also very human to feel staggered, at times embarrassed, at someone’s disability: would it be a little hypocritical, at least upon a first encounter, not to consider that? A different thing is, instead, to linger on a pitying attitude which is as deplorable as self-pity after all.
That’s right. The truth is that to find the right degree of compassion, and not pitying, is possible if, in Elisa, you see simply Elisa with her need for help but nothing more. And not her disability with Elisa playing the part of the disability’s voice. Am I making myself clear? Elisa needs taking care of and you should not deny that to her, but Elisa is no “rare breed”: she is simply Elisa, a marvellous person who is not able to walk by herself. If your mother has a temperature, you take care of her but, how do you see her? You still see your mother with a temperature, not the fiver disguised as your mother!
"Freedom is gained only by way of the most profound disenchantment, when life packs up and takes away the privilege of the sun warming up your body. […] I feel free only today having nothing to wait for and nothing awaiting for me. Perhaps it’s right when it falls off the tree and all leads, inescapably, to its ending that the leaf, eventually, gains its freedom”. Very true and beautiful, at times, however, you can achieve such freedom much before coming off the free by letting go of the prejudices, the ego, and the desire to please and by embracing the experience of the wise elderly we have come across along our path, by engaging in an analytical work upon oneself. What do you think?
Certainly. But it is so difficult to opt out of people’s approval, of the alluring patterns that give you the illusion of being protected...You see, you mentioned the wise “elderly” because, instinctively, you also associate freedom with the detachment from all passions. I think, personally, wise youth would scare me...
di Alessia Glaviano
Published: 11/07/2013 - 07:00
Speak of the Devil: Emmanuelle de Villepin
French writer Emmanuelle de Villepin mines her aristocratic Catholic family’s history in The Devil’s Reward, her first book in English translation
By Judith Rosen | Mar 23, 2018
Photo by Neige De Benedetti
In her first book to be translated into English, French-born writer Emmanuelle de Villepin, who moved to Italy three decades ago, offers her most personal novel to date, The Devil’s Reward (Other Press, May). Translated from the French by C. Jon Delogu, the story is based on the life of de Villepin’s mother and family—and their disappeared aristocratic Catholic way of life.
“The way my grandparents lived is not possible today. They lived like kings,” de Villepin says over coffee at Winter Institute 13 in Memphis, Tenn., earlier this year. “I remember my grandmother’s tailor wanting to be paid. She gave him the money, but told [the tailor] that she would never let him dress her again.” The tailor was expected to appreciate the honor of having de Villepin’s grandmother wear his clothes.
De Villepin also recalls her grandmother’s rigid Catholicism, which bordered on superstition. When they would walk to church, her grandmother would warn de Villepin to be careful not to swallow any dust for fear de Villepin wouldn’t be allowed to take communion, her mouth wouldn’t be pure enough to receive the host. When de Villepin went to the bathroom, her grandmother advised her to be quick, so that the devil wouldn’t have a chance to see her.
The novel, which is set between the First and Second World Wars, is recounted primarily in the voice of vibrant 86-year-old Christiane, who shares the same name and many of the characteristics of de Villepin’s mother, whom de Villepin regards as a rebel. And it explores a previously hidden piece of family history: Christiane’s father Papyrus’s heroism during WWI, his subsequent drug addiction, and the effects of one great love affair, which reverberated in future generations. The time period, with the sense of a coming new age, is evoked by the real life Austrian philosopher and architect Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925), who along with his wife Marie von Sivers, is a character in the book.
Steiner’s philosophy inspired visual artists like Kandinsky, and Steiner created a form of drama known as eurythmy. But he is perhaps best known in the U.S. today for both his biodynamic approach to agriculture and his educational philosophy embodied in the Waldorf Schools. Although the story dates back nearly 100 years, The Devil’s Reward opens in present-day in Paris with Christiane’s daughter, Catherine, calling to tell her that she and her daughter, Luna, a grad student, are coming to visit. Catherine is distraught and needs a break after discovering that her Milanese husband is cheating on her, again. Christiane advises her daughter, whom she finds rigid and stiff, not to “overvalue” the marriage pact. “Goodness and wellness and appropriateness is as dangerous,” Christiane says in the novel, “as their opposites.”
When Luna, who is working on a thesis about Steiner, asks her grandmother about him, both she and Catherine are surprised to learn that Christiane’s father knew Steiner. And Papyrus’s story, which even Catherine didn’t know, comes tumbling out like the items stored in his military trunk—a hussar’s coat, books, notepads, a silver ball for storing opium, and a saint’s medal pierced by a bullet.
For de Villepin, “the devil’s reward” of the title involves finding a balance between goodness and evil. It’s a balance that Christiane in the novel seeks to remind her daughter is essential to enjoying life. The story that Christiane tells has parallels to de Villepin’s generation as well. Her uncle, Xavier de Villepin, was a French senator; his son Dominique de Villepin, served as prime minister of France from 2005-2007. But despite the many similarities between de Villepin’s life and the book—de Villepin’s own grandfather was known as “Papyrus” and was heroic in war and cowardly in private—de Villepin is emphatic that the book is fiction. “A novel is a novel,” she says.
While de Villepin borrows liberally from her family history and bends it in the service of her story—Papyrus only served in World War I; in the novel he is also drafted to serve in World War II—she is careful about other types of borrowing. To describe the devastating effects on Papyrus and other soldiers who took part in the Battle of the Somme in World War I, which lasted from July 1 to November 18, 1916, de Villepin used the entire three-and-a-half-page Wikipedia entry, with full credit, as the novel’s chapter 7. “I didn’t want to cut and paste,” she says. “I didn’t want to [retell] the Battle of the Somme. It was honesty.”
The Devil’s Reward was originally written in French. And her American publisher, Judith Gurewich, whom she met through a bit of matchmaking by Cristina Foschini, rights and acquisitions director of Gruppo Editoriale Mauri Spagnol in Milan, Italy, helped edit the French manuscript. It was “fantastic,” de Villepin says. “Because she [grew up speaking] French, she knows exactly what I mean. I’m not totally betrayed by translation.” De Villepin says that she is more comfortable writing in French, because it is her mother tongue.
When she finishes a book, de Villepin says that she is always “very sad,” even after five books. “I miss my characters,” she says. “There is something totally out of control with the characters. They were born from the writer’s imagination, but then they become autonomous and their independency is striking for the author. For example, when Dostoyevsky sent the first part of The Idiot, he wrote to his publisher that he still doesn’t know if Myshkin was a saint or a manipulator.”
In addition to her fiction, de Villepin is known in Italy for her reporting from refugee camps in Lebanon and the Syrian/Lebanese border, along with her photo-journalist daughter, Neige De Benedetti. De Villepin is v.p. of Fondazione Dynamo, the Paul Newman charity in Italy, and president of the association Amici di TOG (Together to Go), a center for rehabilitation programs for children suffering from complex neurological diseases.
For her part, it is de Villepin’s family history and her “extraordinary” philanthropic work that attracted Gurewich. “I really think she has a soul and has suffered. Her soul is very much reflected in the book.” But before she purchased the novel, Gurewich asked a conservative friend who heads Weleda, a company founded by Steiner that makes holistic, natural, organic cosmetics and pharmaceuticals for anthroposophic therapy, in France, to read the manuscript. When he told her that he “hated” it, Gurewich says with a laugh, “I thought it would work.”
Biography
Emmanuelle de Villepin
Emmanuelle de Villepin was born in France in 1959. As a child, she moved to Geneva (where she later attended law school) and then to New York. She has lived in Milan with her husband and three daughters since 1988. She is the vice-president of Fondazione Dynamo and has been president of the association Amici di TOG (Together to Go), a center for rehabilitation programs for children suffering from complex neurological diseases, since 2011. De Villepin has written several novels, inlcuding TEMPO DI FUGA (2006); LA RAGAZZA CHE NON VOLEVA MORIRE (2008), which received the Fenice Europa Prize for spreading Italian novels in Europe; LA NOTTE DI MATTIA (2010), a tale illustrated by her daughter Neige De Benedetti; and LA VITA CHE SCORRE (2013), which received the Rapallo Carige Prize for women writers in 2014. Her most recent novel, LA PARTE DEL DIAVOLO (2016), was shortlisted for the Stresa Prize. De Villepin is fluent in French, Italian and English.
Photo Credit: © Neige De Benedetti
Emmanuelle de Villepin
Website: https://emmanuelledevillepin.com/
Books by Emmanuelle de Villepin
The Devil's Reward
written by Emmanuelle de Villepin, translated by C. Jon Delogu - Fiction, Women's Fiction
Christiane, 86 years old with a vibrant sense of humor, lives alone in a large apartment in the heart of Paris. Her daughter, Catherine, is her total opposite: sullen and uptight, filled with resentment toward her unfaithful Milanese husband. After discovering yet another affair, Catherine takes refuge in Paris at her mother’s home, accompanied by her own daughter, Luna. Christiane --- who, in spite of occasional dalliances on both sides, lived a beautiful love story with her late husband --- uses all of her freethinking charm in an effort to change Catherine’s rigid, self-pitying attitude.
May 1, 2018
Emmanuelle de Villepin's Playlist for Her Novel "The Devil's Reward"
The Devil's Reward
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, Lauren Groff, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.
Emmanuelle de Villepin's The Devil's Reward is her first novel to be translated into English.
Booklist wrote of the book:
"De Villepin’s intimate family portrait…gracefully highlights the ways people of widely varying temperaments learn to coexist…[and] features gratifyingly in-depth character studies and a strong sense of place.”"
In her own words, here is Emmanuelle de Villepin's Book Notes music playlist for her novel The Devil's Reward:
The playlist I use when I write is called “writing list” because the music I choose to accompany me in the meanderings of writing is a real support. Sometimes it can be quite tricky when I read out loud what I just put on paper, and it seems rich with the music and totally flat when I switch it off. I don’t differentiate between classic and contemporary music, as long as it’s inspiring and helps me to stay inside my imagination’s world.
David Bowie, "Rebel, Rebel": This is not the kind of music I appreciate when I write because too much energy doesn’t induce to reflexion, but my main protagonist, Christiane, who is an anti-conformist, intelligent and creative old woman, would appreciate this song. It may sound anachronistic but it perfectly illustrates her witty and free character.
Johan Schubert, "Die Winterreise": Schubert is my best friend. Die Wintereise puts me in the mood I need to write. It’s like a delicate and caring presence. I like the version sung by Thomas Quasthoff and played by Daniel Barenboim. Writing is a solitary exercise and I like to feel them behind my shoulders like two supportive angels.
Johan Christian Bach, “Requiem": Requiem are always very inspiring, and they have the capability to give me a new perspective to look at the events I describe. They were composed for death and maybe this is the reason why they give a certain distance from what you feel and the meaning of all this messy and chaotic adventure we call life. I have a predilection for the requiems of Bach and Mozart.
Leonard Cohen, everything: I was a young girl when my father introduced me to Leonard Cohen’s music. I still remember my emotions listening to ‘Suzanne’ or to ‘Marianne.’ Since then, I’ve always been faithful and devoted to everything he composed. His texts are beautiful and even when I don’t really listen, they take me away, exactly where I need to be.
Brahms, “Hungarian Dances”: The story I tell occurs in the last century, and between France, Germany, and Switzerland. It has nothing to do with Hungary but nevertheless “The Hungarian dances” would perfectly suit Aunt Bette: refined, sophisticated and nostalgic. I imagine her riding horses or dancing on the notes of this music.
Dire Straits, “Where Do You Think You’re Going”: I was 20 years old when “communiqué” came out. We listened to it all day and all night long. I never get fed up with this music. Mark Knopfler’s final guitar solo is amazing even after the billion time I have listened to it. It seems to me that it helps the words come out, and run and run like a flowing river.
Johan Sebastian Bach, “The Goldberg Variations”: The 1955 Goldberg variations by Glenn Gould is an incredible support when you write. You can listen without listening. It’s gives fluidity and grace to your ideas but it never really interferes with your work.
Ezio Bosso “Following a Bird”: A friend of mine introduced me to the music of this Italian composer when I started to write “The Devil’s Reward”. The very title can explain my enthusiasm: following a bird or following a story is the same: You have to stay focused and careful. The magic of the flight and the precision of the trajectory is exactly what you would like to get writing a book.
Emmanuelle de Villepin and The Devil's Reward links:
the author's Wikipedia page
Kirkus review
Publishers Weekly profile of the author
"La vita che scorre", Emmanuelle de Villepin sul suo nuovo romanzo: "Il dolore aiuta a comprendere i disabili"
"The life that flows", Emmanuelle de Villepin on his new novel: "Pain helps to understand the disabled"
11/15/2013 8:58 pm CET | Updated 15/11/2013 20:58 CET
"The life that flows", Emmanuelle de Villepin on his new novel: "Pain helps to understand the disabled"
Laura Eduati, The Huffington Post
HANDLE
Growing up with a major disability such as spinal amyotrophic nailing on the wheelchair. Equally becoming great surrounded by family and friends, take a degree in Law in spite of the insurmountable encumbrance of architectural barriers and fly to the United States for the exam bar, the exam by lawyer. And finally become the character of the third novel by Emmanuelle de Villepin, "The life that flows" (Longanesi, 224 pp, 14.90 euros) inspired by the meeting between the author and Elisa Noja, in the pages and in the talented childish life to which doctors suddenly diagnose the inability to walk and the impossibility of remaining alone even for one day only.
And yet "The life that flows" is the painful one of the protagonist Antoine Rousseau, Elisa's father, orphaned at the age of nine for a Nazi retaliation against the French village Oradour-sur-Glane, adopted by a noble family and suddenly widowed in 70s with three young children and the feeling of being just a survivor: "Any pain brings me back to my mother, it is the eternity she has chosen". "Having experienced many tragedies helps Antoine better understand his daughter's disability and this is a general principle that can be extended to life," he says at the Huffington Post Emmanuelle de Villepin: "I could not choose Elisa's point of view because I can not fully understand what it means to live a disability, but what I can do is understand her and interpret her life through my grief".
De Villepin met Noja through the realization of Together to go, a Milanese rehabilitation center for children suffering from serious neurological deficits that - unique in Italy - follows the methodology of the Israeli neurologist Reuven Feuerstein. "A bright and cheerful place", says De Villepin during the double interview, "which also helps families in accepting their child's disability".
A profound friendship then arose from professional cooperation. "In the book by Emmanuelle I found my conviction, that in life the pain comes without choosing it but what we can choose is how to take it," says Noja, thirty-nine in law and in reality as in the novel, where little Elisa clashes with a principal insensitive to his needs and janitors who refuse to transport it from one place to another in the school. "I could not attend the State because I could not overcome architectural barriers," he says. But these exclusions, De Villepin assures, are only urbanistic: "Many people in his place would have settled and would have chosen self-pity. Lisa has always wanted to go to the extreme limit of her possibilities.
In the novel Antoine feels a very tender love for his daughter, yet he does not give in to pietism. Instead, it is the anger that rises when the world hurts Elisa and a few weeks pregnant cousin mentions the possibility of an abortion if she finds out that the future child is the bearer of her own illness. But the anger subsides when he regains the family affection thanks to a woman, Célestine, who will act as surrogate mum and housekeeper until something new and totally unexpected happens in the life of the protagonist, now no longer young, and proud of a daughter that despite the practical difficulty of the daily has managed to establish itself professionally. "Family ties are fundamental especially in the presence of disabilities", concludes the author: "Despite the pain and jokes of fate,
Suggest a correction
Laura Eduati, The Huffington Post
OTHER:
culture de villepin Emmanuelle de Villepin Life that flows new book de villpein people novel de villepin life that flows novel de villepin
Review
The Devil's Reward
written by Emmanuelle de Villepin, translated by C. Jon Delogu
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Towards the end of Emmanuelle de Villepin’s latest novel, THE DEVIL’S REWARD, 86-year-old Christiane describes a charming and elegant gentleman, the kind to be found in certain books “filled with strong-willed characters and heroes who don’t age.” De Villepin could be describing the men and women of her own story. In it, Christiane, prompted by her granddaughter Luna’s research on Rudolf Steiner, begins to reminisce about her parents, aunts and uncles as they explore questions about love and spirituality during the war years in France and across Europe.
Christiane’s daughter, Catherine, frustrates her, to say the least. The feisty Christiane wishes that Catherine was bolder, more adventurous, and more willing to question and contradict. The steady Catherine is too much like Christiane’s rigid and religious mother Marguerite, a woman of whom Christiane has few positive memories. When Catherine’s husband, a dashing Italian named Lorenzo, cheats on her once again, she and Luna come to stay with Christiane in Paris. Christiane, encouraged by Luna’s curiosity as well as the grief she has lived with since the death of her husband, starts sharing with the two women she loves the most stories about her beloved father and the passions and ideas that drove him.
"An exploration of secrets and the bonds of family and love, THE DEVIL’S REWARD is a contemplative, thoughtful and honest look at essential relationships."
Christiane and her older brother, Gabriel, called their father Papyrus. He was a daring veteran of both WWI and WWII who married the young woman whose faithful gift he believed saved his life in battle. But the love of his life may have been his sister-in-law, Bette, a free-thinking and compelling woman. It is Bette who creates all the bridges in the story: sister-in-law first to Christiane’s mother and then to her father, she introduces Papyrus and his friends and relations to the trendy metaphysical practices of anthroposophy. Bette, more so perhaps than Marguerite, is the other defining figure in Christiane’s youth; she balanced out the increasingly unhealthy and distant Papyrus as he struggled with injuries and the traumatic after-effects of the war. And when Christiane’s future is at stake, it is Aunt Bette who steps in to save her.
Christiane is a conversational narrator, almost casual. But de Villepin’s style (and C. Jon Delogu’s translation) is elegant and formal. Not much happens, plot-wise, in THE DEVIL’S REWARD, but there is plenty of introspection and emotional work happening. Christiane thinks back to the adults who shaped her and the relationship with the adult who she, in turn, shaped. The story of Papyrus and the women who loved him, including Christiane herself, mirrors that of Catherine and Lorenzo in some ways, and it seems that sharing the truths of her parents’ marriage frees Christiane to see how Catherine is importantly different from Marguerite.
De Villepin sets her novel not only in the difficult war and interwar years in France, but introduces the ideas of Steiner, giving her characters a set of interesting beliefs to respond and react to. Luna, in the present time, is fascinated by those ideas as well, though they seem to her far less relevant than they did to Bette. This is yet another subtle contrast de Villepin achieves.
An exploration of secrets and the bonds of family and love, THE DEVIL’S REWARD is a contemplative, thoughtful and honest look at essential relationships.
Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman on May 4, 2018
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The Devil's Reward
written by Emmanuelle de Villepin, translated by C. Jon Delogu
Publication Date: May 1, 2018
Genres: Fiction, Women's Fiction
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Other Press
ISBN-10: 1590518683
ISBN-13: 9781590518687
3
APR
2018
The Devil’s Reward, by Emmanuelle de Villepin
Christiane’s family might never have managed to reconnect if it weren’t for Rudolf Steiner and an affair. When The Devil’s Reward, by Emmanuelle de Villepin and translated by C. Jon Delogu, opens, Christiane extends an invitation to her daughter and granddaughter to come and stay with her in Paris. After her daughter, Catherine, and granddaughter, Luna, Christiane starts to spin stories about her own childhood, their extended family—all of which provides plenty of opportunities to meditate on maternal-child relationships, the ethics of cheating, and the possibility of reconciliation.
The first evening that the women gather is more than a little awkward. Christiane is over the moon at having her family around her again. She grew up with family around her and has been lonely since her husband died. But Catherine is heartbroken about her husband’s cheating and does not share Christiane’s more liberal attitudes to cheating. If Luna hadn’t been working on a thesis about philosopher Rudolf Steiner, the family reunion might have gone completely off the rails. Partway through that first evening, Luna tells her grandmother what she’s writing about and Christiane reveals that one of her aunts was one of Steiner’s followers.
220px-Steiner_um_1905
Rudolf Steiner (Image via Wikicommons, edited by me)
There isn’t a lot of plot in The Devil’s Reward. Instead, there are long stories about Christiane’s father and mother, Aunt Bette (the Steiner follower), and the twilight years of the Picardy aristocracy. Christiane portrays herself as a worldly woman, open to the fact that married people might stray and a huge advocate of enjoying the little pleasures of life. Catherine is much more conventional. She is frequently irritated with her mother because Christiane isn’t as sympathetic as Catherine wants. Luna is their point of connection, but she’s ready to go off and live her own life. By the end of the book, Christiane and Catherine are forced to either make peace or agree to probably never speak again.
As a slow collection of stories, essentially, about mothers and daughters, The Devil’s Reward has a lot to say about how family members struggle with each other when they are such different people. Some of them follow strange philosophies, while others are very pious Catholics, and some are hedonists. Throughout the generations, the hedonists keep coming into conflict with the believers and traditionalists. They’re all stubborn and finding common ground often seems impossible. Characters stay true to themselves, instead of swerving to create a glowing happy ending. The reconciliations that do happen are hard won. As such, I found this book to be a much more honest and realistic portrayal of generational conflict.
A note about the translation: One of the things that bothered me most about this novel was the occasionally clumsy translation. There were phrases that I thought were literally translated from the French when they ought to have been rendered in more natural sounding English. The translation was mostly fine, but the overly literal translations were jarring.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration. It will be released 1 May 2018.
An Evening with Emmanuelle de Villepin
In The Devil’s Reward, three generations of women untangle a complex family history that spans both world wars and reveals unexpected insights about marriage and fidelity.
In English. Free and open to the public. No RSVP necessary.
Emmanuelle de Villepin was born in France in 1959. As a child, she moved to Geneva (where she later attended law school) and then to New York. She has lived in Milan with her husband and three daughters since 1988. She is the vice-president of Fondazione Dynamo and has been president of the association Amici di TOG (Together to Go), a center for rehabilitation programs for children suffering from complex neurological diseases, since 2011. De Villepin has written several novels, including Tempo di fuga (2006); La ragazza che non voleva morire (2008), which received the Fenice Europa Prize for spreading Italian novels in Europe; La notte di Mattia (2010), a tale illustrated by her daughter Neige De Benedetti; and La vita che scorre (2013), which received the Rapallo Carige Prize for women writers in 2014. Her most recent novel, La parte del diavolo (2016), was shortlisted for the Stresa Prize. De Villepin is fluent in French, Italian, and English.
Historical Novel Society
The Devil’s Reward
BY CHRISTOPHER JON DELOGU (TRANS.), EMMANUELLE DE VILLEPIN
Evocative is the best description of this short novel spanning two world wars to the present day, and which, despite its often superfluous layers of breezy dialog and nested narrative, manages to keep the reader engaged through three generations of family saga.
Christiane is the 86-year-old matriarch of a Parisian family delighting in the opportunity to share time and close-held stories with her daughter and granddaughter. She is a consummate storyteller whose spunky dialog overlays an almost young-adult appeal to content ranging from mundane travelogue to spiritual humanist philosophy. Her daughter Catherine, long distraught over her husband’s infidelities, and her granddaughter Luna closely echo Christiane’s literary voice.
There are many teasers, the most fascinating of which include the family’s personal relationship to Rudolf Steiner, contemporary of Mme. Blatovsky who applied a derivative of Theosophical principals to childhood education. Despite numerous buildups and reveals across two world wars, more is suggested, however, than delivered, and by the end the reader feels left a bit dangling and, perhaps to the book’s credit, wanting to know more.
Readable and authentic for fans of the period.
PUBLISHED
2018
GENRE
Literary
PERIOD
Multi-Period
CENTURY
20th Century
PRICE
(US) $16.95
(CA) $22.95
ISBN
(US) 9781590518687
FORMAT
Paperback
PAGES
231
Review
APPEARED IN
HNR Issue 84 (May 2018)
REVIEWED BY
Jackie Drohan