I will not serve

by Eveline Mahyère

Sylvie is a rebellious and impetuous schoolgirl of seventeen. Three months before she is due to take her Baccalaureate the convent of Sainte-Thérèse expels her -- because she has fallen passionately in love with her teacher, the nun Julienne. So Sylvie retreats to the demi-monde of Paris in the 1950s: a world of bars, jazz and bohemianism. But she refuses to forget Julienne, bombarding her with letters, forcing her to confront a love which has for Sylvie the revelatory force of a religious experience. Sometimes she is in ecstasy, often in the depths of despair, always she is fervent, obsessed - until, driven by Julienne's ambivalence and the unyelding bourgeois world, she commits the rashest act of all...

Genres: Fiction, LGBT

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up
This is Eveline Mahyere’s only novel and shortly after she wrote it, she committed suicide at the age of 32 in 1957. Information about Mahyere is limited; there is no all singing all dancing wiki page. The virago edition has biographical information and is the Antonia White translation. It is certainly autobiographical and tells the story of Sylvie, a seventeen year old who has been expelled from her convent school three months before her Baccalaureate for falling passionately in love with her teacher Julienne, a 25 year old nun.
Mahyere’s education took a similar path, being expelled from her Lycee and being sent to a convent school (although the Lycee eventually took her back as the nuns could not cope with her nonconformity). Although born in Geneva, Mahyere spent much of her time in Paris and in the novel Sylvie throws herself into the bohemianism of demi-monde Paris of the 1950s. Mahyere experienced ongoing mental health problems, identified at the time as depression and she had spoken about suicide to her brother and said “If I feel desperate enough to do it, I mustn’t fail”. She didn’t. An excerpt from her suicide note is telling;
“…at last I’ve managed to smile again (it’s true my death amuses me!). It’s marvellous to die as if one were doing something entertaining”
On the surface this may appear to be a novel of teenage angst and unrequited passion, and, of course, it is that, but it is much more. Compared to A Catcher in the Rye and Bonjour Tristesse, this is far better. The language is poetic and the characters well developed and Mahyere addresses profound themes.
“Why, up to now, have I never been able to love people unless I substituted them for God? Where did I get this mania? Doubtless from my craving that God would at last reply. Exhausted by my monologue, I created God on earth and launched frantically into a dialogue. Is it surprising that so much sublimity soon became ridiculous?”
A good deal of the novel is epistolary, as Sylvie writes to Julienne, who sometimes writes back. The secondary characters, Sylvie’s friends Claude and Albine are well drawn and even the beloved object Julienne is not a cardboard cut-out as she wrestles with her feelings for Sylvie, and whether to finally commit to her novitiate. It is important to remember Julienne is only 25 and fairly new to the convent, having trained as an architect.
Inevitably, given that Sylvie has been attending a Convent School and has fallen in love with a nun, there is a certain amount of religion present. It is possible to speculate whether there is any correlation between Julienne and the Virgin Mary; both of whom are unattainable. One can also ask whether it is the idea of love and passion which drives Sylvie rather than its actuality. There are moments in the book where one feels that Sylvie takes a step back from trying to make her love more physical. At a couple of their meetings one feels that if Sylvie had been more decisive Julienne would have responded; but would that have broken the spell. There is nothing salacious here, but there is intensity and passion and a good deal of irreverence; Sylvie towards the end of the book gets drunk on whisky;
““I’m spewing up God,” enunciated Sylvie, bent double over the wash-basin.”
This is a haunting novel and I suspect Sylvie will stay with me for a long time. I really don’t understand why this doesn’t rank with the other great coming of age novels of the time; it’s much better. Again thanks to virago for publishing this. It is out of print in English and French, but I think it is available for download.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1957 Eveline Mahyère died by her own hand. The was thirty-two and she he left behind this, her only novel.

It is an extraordinarily vivid piece of work.

Sylvie is seventeen years old. She is bright, but she is also rebellious and impetuous. And she has been expelled from her convent school just three months before she is due to take her Baccalaureate.

Why? Because Sylvie has fallen passionately and obsessively in love with Julienne. A nun, and her teacher.

“I shall only discover my life through you Julienne, and thanks to you. It’s been said only too often that love is the main preoccupation of women. But, for me, love is you.”

Set adrift, Sylvies’ feelings for Julienne grow. The love of God that was encouraged in the convent has come to life in Sylvie. Not though as love for God. As love for Julienne. Sylvie veers between ecstacy and despair.

“What could a passer-by do – come to her aid, take her to hospital? No charitable sould could have understood the absence of Julienne. People pity a man who falls from scaffolding, a woman who loses her husband. Because they suffer? No, because they have the right to suffer.”

And Julienne? How does she respond? First she follows the counsel of herconvent and remains silent. But as Sylvie persists she reaches out to her and tries to help. But does she really understand? Can she really help Sylvie?

It seems not.

Sylvie’s story is evocative and oh so moving. It is told by omniscient narrator and brought to life by interjections from Sylvie. Her journal. Her letters – to Julienne and to her cousin Claude.

So much is said to about love, religion, obsession, compassion and understanding.

It works wonderfully. Because the writing is lovely and Sylvie’s voice is so true.

I suspect that she will continue to haunt me.

[Domenico Francesco · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Suicidio di E.: un’enorme voragine si apre nel mio passato. Ne escono mille ricordi deliziosi e strazianti. Lei amava tanto il decadimento! Eppure si è uccisa per evitarlo."

Questo è ciò che il filosofo rumeno Emil Cioran scrisse in uno dei suoi Quaderni nell'agosto del 1958 in riferimento ad una sua cara amica appena scomparsa. Quella amica era una giovane che aveva pubblicato due mesi prima un romanzo autobiografico, questo Je jure de m'éblouir prontamente tradotto in italiano dalla Mondadori quello stesso anno.
Questo libro per me è stata davvero una piccola grande scoperta, scoperta di cui ringrazio la pagina FB "Emil Cioran Antiprofeta" per il suggerimento.
Procurato e letto in un battibaleno, nonostante sia ormai fuori stampa dalla sua pubblicazione originale, il romanzo delle Mahyere è forse uno dei romanzi di formazione più potenti e insoliti di sempre. Pur essendo molto breve (150 pagine) è infatti scritto divinamente; spesso inframmezzato da lettere e frammenti di diario, racconta della vicenda autobiografica di una diciottenne innamorata persa di una suora di non molti anni più grande di lei e come fa presagire il titolo, lo spettro della morte, o meglio del suicidio, è onnipresente, intrinseco ma palpabile. Mi ha colpito molto per la profonda sincerità espressa, semplice e limpida. Una vera e propria dichiarazione al mondo, uno sfogo urlato liberamente a pieni polmoni. Come una lunga confessione lasciata prima che Evelyne stessa si suicidasse poco dopo la pubblicazione del libro, a 32 anni, coerentemente con le sue parole e col suo spirito.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swiss-born Parisian writer and translator Eveline Mahyère's sole, highly autobiographical, novel was in turn translated by Antonia White, whose Frost In May it somewhat resembles. A rebellious teenage girl gets kicked out of school and lands in a convent in an attempt by her family to complete her education. Though White's younger protagonist aspires to be religious but is conflicted by the call of art, Mahyère's Sylvie (17) is totally consumed by her passion for her 25-year old teacher, Julienne Blessner. Julienne herself is turning away from the world and her architecture degree in favor of first teaching in the convent, then becoming cloistered. She is something of a tabula rasa on to which Sylvie projects all her late-adolescent angst and despite what must have been, at the time, a rather bold lesbian theme, in the climactic scene between them Sylvie hardly has any physical contact with the reluctant Julienne, instead throwing herself at her feet and mentally swathing her with the lineaments of the Virgin Mary.
If this all sounds too much like The Well of Loneliness, there are shades of that, but it is sparely written with occasional metaphoric flash and some funny scenes where Sylvie interacts with her best friend and her cousin in a manner that seems much truer to the ways of intelligent, cynical cosmopolitan teenagers.

[Scott Givens · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book of unrequited love in a variety of forms. Ultimately, the author was more passionate than this reader, which made me feel a bit disconnected from the events.

Student in Catholic girls school is in love (probably platonic) with one of her teachers—who had left her professional life to return to the church & teach. Various friends with various problems.

Too French for me, but actually a good book if that makes any sense. :-)

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

A charming novel. Time well spent.
See Friend Paul's excellent review ::
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

But do avoid it if you dislike annoying teenage protags.

14 Ratings · 3 Reviews --> BURIED
Virago'd.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sylvia has been forced to leave her convent school, just months before she finishes, because she has fallen in love with one of her teachers, would-be nun Julienne. This book is entertaining, and full of overwrought emotions and the intensity of adolescence. I appreciate it as a window on a vivid and emotional time in a young woman's life, but I found that the characters are not very believable, and it's hard to understand what makes them tick. Still, it's definitely worth reading, and it's sad that this is the author's only book, due to her early death by suicide.

[JimZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was written shortly before the author’s suicide. She suffered from depression. The novel is semi-autobiographical. The book got very positive reviews when published, The book, originally written in French, was translated by Antonia White (she is an author and wrote among other books ‘Frost in May’ which I loved) and published in 1959.

Synopsis (from back cover of the re-issue by Virago Modern Classics):
• Sylvie is a rebellious and impetuous schoolgirl of seventeen. Three months before she is due to take her Baccalaureate the convent of Sainte-Therese expels her — because she has fallen passionately in love with her teacher, the nun Julienne. So Sylvie retreats to the demi-monde of Parsi in the 1950s: a world of bars, jazz, and bohemianism. But she refuses to forget Julienne, bombarding her with letters, forcing her to confront a love which has for Sylvie the revelatory force of a religious experience. Sometimes she is in ecstasy, often in the depths of despair, always she is fervent, obsessed — until driven by Julienne’s ambivalence and the unyielding bourgeois world, she commits the rashest act of all....

Actually I don’t think she was a full-fledged nun yet. She was considering the next steps to becoming a nun, I think she was a novitiate....

It was a slight book, some 164 pages (Virago Modern Classics). It was an OK read to me. Nothing to wrote home about. Actually I did like this line a lot:
• ‘There is no greater happiness than the anticipation of happiness.’
Truer words were never spoken in my humble opinion.

Reviews:
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/tag/e...
• https://fleurinherworld.com/2009/12/2...

Notes:
• In my past life I did research on psychoactive drugs, and so was interested in Sylvie’s use of CORYDRANE when studying for her baccalaureate exams (and getting very little sleep and eating very little). CORYDRANE is a mix of amphetamine and aspirin ‘then fashionable among Parisian students, intellectuals, and artists (and legal in France until 1971, when it was declared toxic and taken off the market)’.
• I have to include this....it made me laugh out loud... But perhaps the most notable case of amphetamine-fueled intellectual activity is Paul Erdös, one of the most brilliant and prolific mathematicians of the 20th century. As Paul Hoffman documents in The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, Erdös was a fanatic workaholic who routinely put in 19-hour days, sleeping only a few hours a night. He owed his phenomenal stamina to espresso shots, caffeine tablets, and amphetamines—he took 10 to 20 milligrams of Benzedrine or Ritalin daily. Worried about his drug use, a friend once bet Erdös that he wouldn’t be able to give up amphetamines for a month. Erdös took the bet, and succeeded in going cold turkey for 30 days. When he came to collect his money, he told his friend, “You’ve showed me I’m not an addict. But I didn’t get any work done. I’d get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I’d have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You’ve set mathematics back a month.” After the bet, Erdös promptly resumed his amphetamine habit. 😂 (https://slate.com/culture/2013/04/aud... )

[Bethany Everett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adolescent unrequited love is timeless! This story, published in 1958, follows the angst of a young woman who falls in love with a teacher who is deciding on whether she should become a nun or not. Out of print, but found a copy easily enough on etsy.

[Kilian Joao · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perla nascosta
Peccato sia l'unico romanzo dell'autrice

[Porsha Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good to know that lesbian situationships ending feel as heartbreaking 66 years ago as they feel today.