The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Last Vanities by Fleur Jaeggy
Irving Malin

Untitled document

Fleur Jaeggy. Last Vanities. Trans. Tim Parks. New Directions, 1998. 95 pp. Paper: $11.95.

Jaeggy’s novel, Sweet Days of Discipline, which was published by New Directions in 1993, still haunts me. Although it is about the “sweetness” of “bondage” in a convent school, it rises above its perverse themes; it becomes a philosophical meditation on the limits of the codes of love. It is oddly religious.

The seven stories of Last Vanities confirm Jaeggy’s artistry. She offers eerie, menacing relationships—of parents and children, of siblings, of husbands and wives—and she refuses to hide the ambiguous nature of these relationships. Her characters seem to walk through a dreamscape, an environment in which unexpected motives and actions occur. Even nature is strange: “The Föhn is dangerous, sweet and dangerous. It makes people a bit crazy. There are even murders. For nothing. When the west wind blows. The filth of sweetness, that’s the Föhn.”

The title story is especially shocking. An old married couple is bound by obscure needs. They balance each other for almost fifty years; they do not want to change—nor can they. The husband begins to see his wife as ill and even though she is not, his view unsettles their disciplined, usual “roles” (Jaeggy regards them as “actors”). Does he fear for her life? Is he afraid that he will be alone? We are told that “Kurt leans his hands on the windowsill. The bird seems to be dancing, tracing out an ellipse. He has already thrown one leg over the sill, and now he lifts the other over too. His body is lighter than a thought.” Why does Kurt, the husband, kill himself? Does he recognize that he can never regain the happiness of his long marriage? Does he want to “kill” his wife by radically changing her condition as wife? The questions become as “thoughtful” as his falling body (Jaeggy assumes that mind and matter are balanced in a secretive way). The story ends on an ambiguous note: “Verena is happy. Now she too stares at the sky, as her husband did before her. One day perhaps, to be even nearer the sky, she too will throw herself down.” Does she want to find Kurt and renew vows?

I have probably lingered on this last story because it violates the norms of old age, of marriage; but this story seems to be the ambiguous end of the other six stories. All of them employ paradox, oxymoron, and irony as they “sweetly” violate our perceptions of “normal” behavior. [Irving Malin]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Last Vanities by Fleur Jaeggy Irving Malin Untitled document Fleur Jaeggy. Last Vanities. Trans. Tim Parks. New Directions, 1998. 95 pp. Paper: $11.95. Jaeggy’s novel, Sweet Days of Discipline, which was published by New Directions in 1993, still haunts me. Although it is about the “sweetness” of “bondage” in a convent school, it rises above its perverse themes; it becomes a philosophical meditation on the limits of the codes of love. It is oddly religious. The seven stories of Last Vanities confirm Jaeggy’s artistry. She offers eerie, menacing relationships—of parents and children, of siblings, of husbands and wives—and she refuses to hide the ambiguous nature of these relationships. Her characters seem to walk through a dreamscape, an environment in which unexpected motives and actions occur. Even nature is strange: “The Föhn is dangerous, sweet and dangerous. It makes people a bit crazy. There are even murders. For nothing. When the west wind blows. The filth of sweetness, that’s the Föhn.” The title story is especially shocking. An old married couple is bound by obscure needs. They balance each other for almost fifty years; they do not want to change—nor can they. The husband begins to see his wife as ill and even though she is not, his view unsettles their disciplined, usual “roles” (Jaeggy regards them as “actors”). Does he fear for her life? Is he afraid that he will be alone? We are told that “Kurt leans his hands on the windowsill. The bird seems to be dancing, tracing out an ellipse. He has already thrown one leg over the sill, and now he lifts the other over too. His body is lighter than a thought.” Why does Kurt, the husband, kill himself? Does he recognize that he can never regain the happiness of his long marriage? Does he want to “kill” his wife by radically changing her condition as wife? The questions become as “thoughtful” as his falling body (Jaeggy assumes that mind and matter are balanced in a secretive way). The story ends on an ambiguous note: “Verena is happy. Now she too stares at the sky, as her husband did before her. One day perhaps, to be even nearer the sky, she too will throw herself down.” Does she want to find Kurt and renew vows? I have probably lingered on this last story because it violates the norms of old age, of marriage; but this story seems to be the ambiguous end of the other six stories. All of them employ paradox, oxymoron, and irony as they “sweetly” violate our perceptions of “normal” behavior. [Irving Malin]

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