Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer's Reviews > Abécédaire

This book – which like much small press literary fiction rather blends the ideas of fiction and non-fiction, as well as essays and novels - is written by an artist, writer and until recently academic researcher into Freudian Analysis and research

Freud is an ever present influence on the book – firstly in providing much of the material around which the book is written (he and particularly his daughter Anna are key recurring characters) and secondly in consciously following his ideas of free association/train travel with a series of 256 one page chapters which (other than some concluding editing) were written five days a week for almost a year – each over 50 minutes (to mimic I think the analysis time in an hour session).

The title is from French alphabet primers – with the idea of a sequence of words or illustrations starting with the same letter. Here – the key is A – and in particular an effective sorority of women whose names begin with A (and even more ideally are variations on Anne).

So we start with Anna Freud (to avoid I assume paternalism second names are reduced to a letter – so in fact Anna F), but we also have at different times: Anna O (patient of Josef Breuer on whom ie developed the talking cure); Anna P(avolva) – the ballerina; Arachne and Ariande (from Greek mythology); Ariana R(eines) – the modern American poet; Anne S(erre) – the author; Annie E(rnaux) – Nobel Laureate; Anna K(avan) – British novelist and short story writer; Anne W(iazemsky) – actress and Robert Bresson muse; Ananda D(evi) – author of Eve Out Of Her Ruins; and even Ali S(mith) whose Seasonal Quarter provides a song for the last chapter (and whose partner Sarah Wood seems to have been a key encouragement for the novel).

A quick aside here – there is a lot of thematic overlap (if almost no character recurrence) with the Booker shortlisted “After Sappho” – but this book probably also has a little of the same issue of being rather lighter on intersectionality than it is on diversity (and in largely the same way).

Returning to this book - recurring themes include: storytelling and weaving; male patriarchal dominance (if not even abuse) – including and particularly in father-daughter, Uncle-niece or master-maid relationships – these are followed not just through historical characters but also through fictional works.

The writing is I think a lot easier to follow when you have some familiarity with the subjects – as the condensed daily format and deliberately neutral tone does not give much space for exposition (not assisted by the lack of patriarchal surnames so that even Googling takes some time). So for example – my familiarity with Anne S(erre)’s “The Governess” and even more so the plots and nuances of ballets such as “Giselle” and “The Nutcracker” and (slightly oddly) my knowledge of “The Sandman” less from Metallica and more from “Coppelia” meant that I really enjoyed the sections of the book dealing with these whereas many other chapters rather lost me and my rating reflects my ability to only really appreciate some of the novel.

One final comment – one of my issues with genre fiction is how books, even when trying to be different seem unable to shed certain genre conventions/constraints – for example Fantasy novels always have to be in a series of at least 3; Detective novels to stretch coincidence too far by having the main character a magnet for crimes. And this Sebaldian genre novel can also not escape the constrains with the obligatory black and white photos and with even a compulsory Suffolk Coast reference (with Anna Freud’s time in Walberswick).