Jailed Birds
RASMINSKY, JUDITH SKLAR
Jailed Birds ASTRAGAL By Albertine Sarrazin Grove. 172 pp. $4.50. THE RUNAWAY By Albertine Sarrazin Grove. 480 pp. $7.50. Reviewed by JUDITH SKLAR RASMINSKY Assistant Editor, Harper & Row;...
...There, however, the resemblances end...
...Anick believes that her plan to run away (her "runaway mare") preserves her sanity, will and spirit, and she thinks about it constantly...
...But the total effect is hard and clean because this book is honest...
...The pain, the sordidness and brutality, and the tenderness in it are real, like rocks...
...The sense of Anne's physical rigidity and dependence is superbly transmitted, as is her slowly opening state of mind...
...The foot is terribly painful, but both doctors and hospitals are out of the question for those wanted by the police...
...It is a fragile, illusory device which she quickly beats to death...
...From the very beginning there is a "complete and mysterious affinity" between them, the affinity of those who have "done time," the affinity of brothers...
...What actually sustains her is her writing: her letters to Zizi, to her lawyers, to her judges, to her wardens...
...She is found and cared for by a young man named Julien who arranges her hideouts, pays her way, and keeps her comfortable...
...Indeed, that is what prison is all about—and it is conveyed all too clearly, at incredible length...
...It does not matter much that one cannot believe in her lesbianism or conversion...
...One would have to go a long way to find a Genet character in Mme...
...and her short stories and poems...
...Sarrazin's world...
...she feels no guilt or vindictiveness to speak of...
...Anick is not interested in reliving the past, either to glorify it or to rectify errors...
...The successful escape is much more interesting for at least one very simple reason: its action takes place "outside...
...and she makes no plans for the future, except to escape...
...and it is also true that Mme...
...The Runaway is about the dream/plan of escape by means of which Anick, a young jewel thief, keeps herself alert and alive during a long prison term...
...The language and the action are elliptical, furtive, the motives vague...
...The biographical similarities between Anick and her creator (who wrote this novel in jail) inevitably lead one to the notion that The Runaway was excellent occupational therapy for its author...
...Astragal, the shorter and better of the two, is about the interlude between the escape and recapture of a young prostitute, Anne...
...it is true that in Astragal the protagonist is a lesbian...
...Sarrazin and Genet have resided in some of the same prisons at one time or another...
...Because of her broken ankle, Anne is totally dependent and a threat to everyone's safety...
...It is true that Albertine Sarrazin wrote these two novels, Astragal and The Runaway, in prison...
...And as she regains her physical mobility, she becomes free to love...
...when she no longer needs protection, she is most vulnerable...
...Unfortunately, its superficiality and monotony are not redeemed by its utility...
...The Runaway limits itself to the events of Anick's many months in three different jails...
...When she is able to walk, first with great difficulty (her ankle is locked in place), later with slight traces of a limp, she walks—and hustles—to earn money for Julien, to repay Mm, to make a life for them together...
...Although in that time she has three different living arrangements (tough dormitory, easy semi-dormitory, and individual cell) and therefore three sets of companions, matrons, wardens, etc., and although she is allowed to marry her lover, Zizi, the primary feature of her life is boredom...
...After creating such a character—a first-person narrator who dominates the book completely?the author has nothing left to write about but the details of prison life (and, of course, the supposed escape...
...Although Anne has been a lesbian, Julien turns her to men, that is, to himself, with his tender and undemanding attention...
...she is not self-analytical by nature...
...When Anne jumps over the Central Prison wall and escapes, she breaks her astragal—a bone in her ankle...
...She is boxed in, bound up, a heavy and difficult package only Julien can handle...
...and Julien is away most of the time, "working" and hiding...
...Astragal, on the other hand, is a substantial accomplishment for a 19-year-old...
...contributor, "Commonweal" Grove Press calls this young French writer "a female Genet...
...One believes them because they do not pretend or attempt to be anything else...
...Both books have to do with escapes from prison...
...He asks nothing in return...
...It is apparent, however, that this plan is not her saving grace...
Vol. 51 • June 1968 • No. 12
