(courtesy Penguin Books Australia)
Positioning a novel right at the heart of supernatural whimsicality can either work an absolute treat or come across as a little twee and a tad syrupy and corny.
Thankfully, The Little French Village of Book Lovers by Nina George (The Little Paris Bookshop) hits just the right note, casting a deliciously warm-and-cosy but emotionally meaningful spell with its story of one highly perceptive and spiritually sensitive young woman, Marie-Jeanne, who can literally see the marks of Love on other people.
These golden glowing marks are left by a being called Love who along with companions such as Fate and Curiosity and a host of others, is the one who makes people fall in love with one another, forging connections and belonging where previously there was none.
Love in intrigued by the fact that Marie-Jeanne who has a sweetly happy then tragic start to her life – for all that she remains exuberantly upbeat bringing joy to her foster parents Francis and Elsa – can see what she can see and even they cannot understand how she has come by this most unique of gifts.
The key to Marie-Jeanne’s perceptive gift is that she can see who it is the person with the mark of Love is meant to be with; the imprint glows visibly brighter in the presence of the person who will have their heart and vice versa and it becomes palpably clear to this gifted young woman who is meant to be with who.
That’s when Marie-Jeanne noticed that the fingers of Madame Colette’s right hand were glowing as if she had a little lamp on her fingers.
Satisfied, Colette turned the piece of paper over before Marie-Jeanne could see what she’d written. What she would remember forever, however, were the calligrapher’s words to her foster father.
‘My dear Francis, books are not for cowards.’
Herein lies the magical whimsicality of The Little French Village of Book Lovers.
It’s an intriguing idea that thankfully isn’t allowed by George to become some sort of cutesy part of the narrative with not a lot of emotional impact to show for it; in fact, because the author goes to such lengths to establish Marie-Jeanne’s backstory and to set the scene with her life with warm-and-welcoming Francis and mean-mouthed though goodhearted Elsa, their daughter’s gift is left a cute affectation and more something carrying real emotional weight.
This doesn’t take away from the mystical wonder of this element of The Little French Village of Book Lovers, and it, along with the protagonist’s ability to talk to the village’s olive tree – again, quirky though they may be, these exchanges actually make some real emotional impact – give this novel a magically wondrous and lighthearted feel that sits really nicely alongside its more grounded and darker moments.
The key to any good premise is not that its intriguing, though it needs to be or you may not pick up the book, but how well it is executed and in that respect, The Little French Village of Book Lovers delivers and handsomely so.
It takes this genuinely offbeat idea and parlays it into an, at times, quite affecting exploration of what it means to be emotionally alone, even in a loving marriage or a closeknit village and how much it matters to have meaningful connection with others, especially that special someone.
(courtesy official author site)
Because it keeps its focus on how much we need community, with just one other or many others (but principally the former), The Little French Village of Book Lovers is a really accessible novel that will appeal not just to those who love their stories with a liberal dose of whimsicality or quirk, but to anyone who has ever wondered how it is that people find each other and why it matter so much that they do.
By going this deep into our need to have the someone special in our lives and the importance, when we do find them, of being open and vulnerable with them if true intimacy is to develop, The Little French Village of Book Lovers really feels like it has something deeply important to say.
Far from being just an idiosyncratic pan-village romantic comedy, though it is very much rewardingly that, the novel is really a love letter to the power of love to transform tired and broken and isolated hearts from flames burning all alone to a fire burning to the power of two.
And if you’re groaning at the idea that this yet another cutesy fairytale love story where reality is defied and love makes everything instantly and completely better with no rough patches or obstacles along the way, rest assured that The Little French Village of Book Lovers really makes an impact on your heart because who of us hasn’t been alone or adrift and needed the assurance that that wouldn’t always be the case?
Marie-Jeanne slowly leaned forward and pulled the blanket over her head. Now she cradled the southern light in both hands—a droplet of eternity in the chalice of her fingers. She closed her eyes and listened to it.
There is one big lingering question at the heart of The Little French Village of Book Lovers which sees Francis and Marie-Jeanne establish and run a mobile library service in the rural Nyons region of France, which introduces people to books they might not otherwise have read – and even to the idea of reading itself which many of the hardy rural farmer folk sees as fripperous and not of any practical benefit -and in turn brings Marie-Jeanne into contact with people whom she quickly sees need to meet each other.
That question is why when so many people are finding love that Marie-Jeanne can’t find for herself.
She is happily, exuberantly upbeat and only slightly troubled by the fact that Love’s golden mark hasn’t found a place on her, but being the selflessly giving person she is, she is more concerned with others finding their happy-ever-after than whether the same will ever happen to her.
Of course, you hope Marie-Jeanne will find her special someone, and recognise them when they come along, but what really powers The Little French Village of Book Lovers is how a whole host of villagers find love with each other, how they fall in love with reading and learning and how this transform the region as a whole.
It’s a seductive idea that reading and connection can move many a lonely mountain and while it could be dismissed as whimsical pipedreaming, in The Little French Village of Book Lovers it feels real and honest and true, a comforting reminder that while isolation is all too common in society, it doesn’t have to be the end state for people and that Love can come along and change everything in one wonderful,, beautiful, golden-filled instant (or a lifetime).