'Sweet Days of Discipline' by Fleur Jaeggy
'Sweet Days of Discipline' by Fleur Jaeggy
'Was I perhaps punishing Frédérique for my love?'—Review #213
I had never heard of Fleur Jaeggy before I read Audrey Wollen’s brilliant piece about her in the New York Review of Books (subscription required). Please read it. It’s smart, informed and fun, and it instantly made me want to read all of Jaeggy’s short stories and novels, including ‘Sweet Days of Discipline.’ Shortly thereafter, I saw this edition while browsing McNally Jackson amid a book-buying ban. Ban or no ban, I had to have it.
Here’s the cover:
Eve, a teenager at a boarding school in postwar Switzerland, is fixated on the new girl, Frédérique. She wants to be besties with her beautiful, musically talented and reserved classmate, but there is a dark aspect to Eve’s desire. She vows to ‘conquer’ Frédérique, and works hard to get close to her like something out of ‘Single White Female.’ She studies up on art in hopes of impressing Frédérique. She lures her away from the other girls, daughters of European and international elites, by inviting her on hikes. She copies Frédérique’s handwriting, practicing until hers is an exact match. She mimics her loose-fitting style of dress in contrast to the other girls’ cinched-waist look. And she requests to move into Frédérique’s residence hall. We don’t get Frédérique’s perspective directly on all this, but I expected her to be like:
Soon enough, though, Eve becomes attracted to a more vivacious girl and pulls away from Frédérique. When the cast-aside girl’s father dies shortly thereafter, Frédérique leaves the school, never to return. Eve regrets how things ended with them, particularly after their awkwardly unemotional good-bye, and figures she’ll never see Frédérique again. But they cross paths over the years (Eve narrates her story looking back from an unclear point years later), and each time Frédérique’s situation is increasingly alarming to Eve. I was like:
‘Sweet Days of Discipline’ is a sharply written exploration of obsession and its consequences. It delves into the quiet miseries, loneliness and longings of young people, and shows how those feelings never really go away. And it reminds us that relationships, however brief, can have powerful and lasting effects on our lives. I won’t tell you the ending, except to say that it offers a bleak take on nostalgia. Audrey Wollen wrote that she has a hard time remembering how the book ends despite multiple rereads. But I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. Also, I am amazed that Jaeggy packed so much into only 101 pages. I love it when an author’s like:
‘Sweet Days of Discipline’ is a terrific novel, and I encourage you all to read it.
How it begins:
At fourteen I was a boarder in a school in the Appenzell. This was the area where Robert Walser used to take his many walks when he was in the mental hospital in Herisau, not far from our college. He died in the snow. Photographs show his footprints and the position of his body in the snow. We didn’t know the writer. And nor did our literature teacher. Sometimes I think it might be nice to die like that, after a walk, to let yourself drop into a natural grave in the snows of the Appenzell, after almost thirty years of mental hospital, in Herisau. It really is a shame we didn’t know of Walser’s existence, we would have picked a flower for him. Even Kant, shortly before his death, was moved when a woman he didn’t know offered him a rose. You can’t help but take walks in the Appenzell. If you look at the small white-framed windows and the busy, fiery flowers on the sills, you get this sense of tropical stagnation, a thwarted luxuriance, you have the feeling that inside something serenely gloomy and a little sick is going on. It’s an Arcadia of sickness. Inside, it seems, in the brightness in there, is the peace and perfection of death, a rejoicing of whitewash and flowers. Outside the windows, the landscape beckons; it isn’t a mirage, it’s a Zwang, as we used to say in school, a duty.
My rating:
‘Sweet Days of Discipline’ (I beati anni del castigo) was originally published in 1989 by Adelphi Edizioni. Translated from the Italian by Tim Parks and published by William Heinemann Ltd. in 1991. Paperback published by New Directions in 1993 and 2019. 101 pages. $12.97 at Bookshop.org.
What’s next:
Before you go:
ICYMI: Review #212
Read this: I was excited to see this feature about Simona Blat and her Williamsburg bookstore, Black Spring Books, in The New York Times. I had heard Blat read some of her work at Ditmas Lit a year ago, and follow the store on Instagram. It’s a wonderful story about how she found the location for the store and came to live above it. I also got a kick out of seeing, in the accompanying photo, that we organize our NYRB Classics, Penguin Classics and Ferrante books in a similar way.
Read this, too: I came across this post on Substack Notes one morning last week. It caught my eye not only because it claims to share ‘one of the greatest short stories of all time,’ but also because I just picked up a trade paperback edition of ‘The Stories of John Cheever’ over at Troubled Sleep Books. I wanted to give Cheever a try, and the story lives up to the billing. I got so caught up in the story, it made me late for work! No subscription required to access The New Yorker. Check it out:
If you enjoyed this review:
Thanks for reading, and thanks especially to Donna for editing this newsletter!
Until next time,
MPV
I read Jaggy's "the Water Statues" earlier this year andI couldn't make head nor tail of it to be honest. I know this one here is more famous and maybe more accessible. Love everything Lispector writes, so looking forward to reading your review
I just finished Boulder last night, so I’m excited to read your thoughts about it!