The November Boy

Synopsis

La traduction anglaise de Lo gojat de noveme de Bernat Manciet.

There was one youth, however – we’ve forgotten his name, or perhaps never knew it – and every year that the good Lord sent, he would stay with us for a few days. He arrived by bus, at night, setting off again during the week, on foot, along the road to Arengosse. I believe our cousin Hazà, the doctor, had brought him one evening to the Barralh, I don’t know when – our house the Barralh, which is now sold due to the inheritance. This boy was tall and pale, with sunken eyes deep inside their sockets. He wore a raglan coat and a lavallière knot or ascot tie. I only ever knew him wear the one. What’s more, he spoke only French and was one of those blonds that you rarely saw here back then, except perhaps Lafitòi and me, and a few girls. He barely looked at me, ever.
Upon arrival he took off his grey buckskin gloves, apologized for coming so late, paid my mother numerous compliments and then stood with his back against the chimney, not saying a word. Because of him we all had to speak in French, so the dinner was pretty silent and our old cousin who lived at the Barralh smiled more daintily and modestly than usual, by the light of the candlesticks she always kept nearby. There were a few more airs and graces between us and as soon as she nodded her head we understood that the meal was over.

Who is the November Boy ?
A taciturn young stranger arrives each year at the family estate from who knows where, before disappearing once again into the unknown.
The story follows the relationship of the narrator, Bernat of the Barralh, with this enigmatic figure.
With the passing of each season and the slow decline of the family fortunes, the invalid Bernat’s obsessive search for meaning leads him to further transformative encounters – with Polish emigrée Maria Doloriska, his distant cousin Denisa and ‘the machiner’.
Manciet’s spare, harrowing, yet profoundly lyrical tale of sickness, selfhood and longing, set on the desolate heath of the Grande Landes in 1920s south-west France, is a masterpiece of modern Occitan literature. It has been translated here for the first time into English by James Thomas.