The Best of Intentions
If you picked up this slim volume after viewing the much-praised French movie 'Amelie', you could be forgiven for assuming from the jaunty cover that they were connected. However 'Good Intentions' is a more philosophical exposition of life in a Parisian apartment-block. The author, Agnes Desarthe, presents the heroine, Sonia, with a series of moral dilemmas, and then allows us to examine her responses.
Sonia is a dreamer. She is a recent mother who lives with her husband Julien in a beautiful apartment. When she attends a tenant meeting in their new block and describes her fellow tenants, she admires the earthy building manager Simone and her impressively large bosom, yet fails to understand how the Petronie family can contain such a pretty wife as well as an ugly tic-ridden husband. Her observations are deadly accurate - 'Monsieur Moldo starts each of his sentences with 'listen', and you know straight away that you have lost'. I found it hard to see beyond the characters' physical appearance at first as Sonia's descriptions are essentially shallow despite their humour.
She describes, as if to a diary or close friend, how their area of Paris was run-down and occupied by poorer families and immigrants when she arrived. She styles herself a liberal hero at the barricades when she leaves her groceries in a heap on the counter due to a shopkeeper's racist comment. The protest is valid but her terror of confrontation is clear. She fears voicing her opinions in case it draws down a violent or oppressive response from the authorities.
Shortly after this event the narrative takes a sudden jump of three years. Sonia is now a mother of two boys and is working from home as a translator. The area has experienced a trendy renaissance thanks to an influx of younger inhabitants but the change does not spread as far as the apartment block. Events there do, however, force a change in Sonia's insular life. Her quiet neighbour Mr. Dupotier is bereaved of his dog and his wife in quick succession so his absent daughter arranges for Simone, the caretaker, and her burly arrogant brother, Simono to look after him.
Sonia gradually realises that Mr Dupotier is being starved and oppressed by the caretakers and she begins feeding him and without realising it, gets involved in his life despite her desire to be an observer of life rather than a participant. From this point onwards I found it easier to enjoy the story as initially the character of Sonia was so detached that she seemed cold and was hard to identify with, which is a downside because the book is written from her viewpoint.
Agnes Desarthe shows real skill (the novel was short-listed for The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, 2002, in the UK) in the way she persuades the reader in small steps and through sharp one-liners to start rooting for Sonia as she begins her involvement in Dupotier's cause. By the time of a hilarious confrontation between Sonia and her nemesis the repulsively self-important bigoted Simono I found myself cheering her on in her fight.
My favourite section, apart from the opening caustic comments on the other tenants, was a moment when she dreams of making the caretaker bring Dupotier his food placed on her head up a ladder while reciting poetry. It is a typically 'Sonia moment' and epitomises her reluctance to sacrifice her individually in the face of humdrum existence or difficulties.
This book is funny, but it not the 'laugh-aloud on the bus and frighten old ladies beside you' humour that I expected after viewing the version of good intentions depicted in 'Amelie'. This is a story of one shy woman standing up for what is right. It is not a grand story of war, battles, and romance but it reminds us all that the minor victories are worth fighting for too.
Title : 'Good Intentions'
Author : Agnes Desarthe
Publishing Info : Flamingo 2002, previously published in French, translated by Adriana Hunter. ISBN : 0 00 710095 7
Would you like to add your comment on this story ? Contact me
Copyright Grace Tierney, 2003