The book's title, "'The Price' of Water in Finistère," is rolling iamb stuff, fun to say—but the author, Bodil Malmsten, was a stopper. BAW-dul? Boh-DIL? Boy? Girl? It matters. When I'm reading a good book the author is very much present, the recipient of robust commentary, insights such as "Right on!" ... "Oh my god, funny, funny" ... "Bravo, I knew you warn't no neocon." But you don't offer insights to an "it;" so, I checked the picture inside the jacket. Bodil's a she. And after I'd turned to Page 1 it took only a few paragraphs to know I needed to hurry home with Bodil's book "The Price" and start offering her my insights.
When I'm in the grip of a good book I don't have to finish it before I corner someone, anyone, and speak earnestly of my find. But "The Price" is different, it deserves a broader readership than a cornered pilgrim or two, so that's why I'm writing this review, my first unless somewhere along the line I had to do one to get my goodbye and good riddance certificate from Omaha Central High School in the Year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-two. If I did write one, it would have been a stilted, halting thing, probably on "Tess of Duberville" or "Silas Marner," a review written without a hint of ardor. Lucky for me, sometime during this extended period of required reading, pure serendipity put a copy of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" in my hands. What joy to find that a book could be written all the way through using everyday words, even one- and two-syllable words.
I have read many book reviews; I count on them, but that doesn't mean I know how to do one. For starters, I don't know what the plot is in "The Price." Possibly it's about gardens—Bodil moved from northern Sweden to Brittany so she could get down on her knees where "... all you need is some horse (manure) and a few seeds. A spade. A bit of warm soil ... " But I wouldn't stay with a book solely about gardens, and I suspect gardening is the hook on which she hangs the plot, whatever it is.
In addition to what I hope will prove to be latent book reviewer skills, it's possible I have a full-blown psychiatrist verging on emerging as well, because the easiest way to get going here is to imagine you stretched out on the couch in my just-opened Achieve a Healthy Head office. Being astute, I sense that you're worried about the piercing look with which I have you fixed, and I do my best to project warmth and concern.
Before we'd begin to touch on your buried memories, I'd hand you a copy of "The Price," have you turn to Page 113 and read the short chapter, "The Man from Moëlan." Before you finished, if you didn't let go with two or three raucous snorts I'd tell you straight out that "The Price" isn't for you, tell you that better you should buy a left-behind book or a psychotic killer thing. And I wouldn't put your name in my Rolodex.
Anyway, the plot didn't seem to concern Bodil either. The sole reason she wrote "The Price" came about as she "was on my knees rooting around in the soil, happy as a field-mouse, when Madame C. arrives in her purple Peugeot and stops by my fence."
Bodil casually remarks that it's so lovely there in the Finistère soil that one should write a book about it. And Madame C., "whose gentle manner conceals a strength without limit," turns this over-the-fence remark into a traumatizing commitment.
During the opening 211 pages, Bodil shares with us matters that either make us hoot those raucous snorts or that give us pause—giving us pause meaning dart-like thoughts that bore beneath our veneer layer that's good enough for navigating our daily Wal-Mart aisles—metaphorical Wal-Mart aisles if you're address ends 83353.
Not until the last line of the last page, Page 212, does Bodil begin to fulfill her accidental pledge with: "I live in Finistère because"
I didn't forget the period, that's Bodil.
About this book I truly can say one true thing, as the "For Whom the Bell Tolls" guy might have put it. When you close its cover and leave Bodil's neighborhood, it'll take a few blocks before you quit looking back over your shoulder.
Fellow pilgrims, here I can't help but ask: Is this a proper book review? Does it qualify? Don't bother e-mailing—you can use telepathy.
Betty Bell
