Book Review: Therese and Isabelle is a story of adolescent love. The first love after infatuation that feels as if there will never be another love, all new in the whole of the world, a feeling never felt before, exhilarating, maddening, addicting, and overwhelming. Where lust and love are inextricably intertwined. Where dying together seems possible, yet every second of life not spent together was wasted and the fear of any future separation becomes obsession ("Her sleep had filled me with despair. 'Don't go! ... Why did I go to sleep? Why?'"). When the immense commitment of love creates the insecurity that it's all for nothing. When drama and tension are part of the emotion. A selfish love. Knowing that one's love of the other is so powerful, so extreme and complete, that any flaw, turn, or hesitation by the other seems to bring the whole crashing down because her love doesn't match in every particular. Violette Leduc writes of this love in Therese and Isabelle, captures it wholly, beautifully. Leduc recognizes the self we put on for the other, the "I" that we want the other to see: "revealing ourselves as actresses to the manner born." The secret mundanity: "Those in love are always standing on the platform of a railway station." When Therese kisses her love who lies asleep: "I was unfaithful to Isabelle with herself, I was depriving her of the kiss that I was giving her." Although most of the book is the fever plaguing the two girls, some story is supplied. After her mother's betrayal by remarrying, Therese "had become a boarder in a boarding school: I had no home." Even apart from the love story, there is always the keen perception of a true writer: "The professorial voices of the masters had lost their winter resonance now that all the classroom windows were open." This may not be erotica, but it's certainly quite sensual. Leduc's awesome success in Therese and Isabelle is to fully capture the feeling of such love and obsession in immense detail, vividly and viscerally. The reader is caught in the pages, in love, in lust, and every moment is real. The novel could be called a slice of life, a small piece, but perfect all the same. N.B. My copy was a small hardback with the author's initials on the cover published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1967, translated from the French by Derek Coltman. The author's biography at the end of the book notes that Therese and Isabelle was "originally intended as a section of La Batarde" (published in 1964), but "was actually first published separately and privately before that work." [5★]
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