A child in Petain’s France

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34130, 17 April 1976, Page 10

A child in Petain’s France

Vichy Boyhood. By Pascol Jardin. Faber and Faber. 136 pp. N.Z. price $B.BO. (Reviewed by Margaret Quigley) Towards the end of this strange and absorbing account of life during the Petain regime. Pascal .Jardin writes, “From my earliest childhood I’ve been tossed about and beaten down by life; and each time I re-emerge more battered but also with a keener edge. 1 learned to read at fifteen Why shouldn’t I eventually learn to write at forty?” That .Jardin did learn to write eventually is made abundantly clear bv his book. He has become a distinguished film script writer, and "Vichy Boyhood" must add to his stillgrowing reputation. In some ways it resembles a film script, for it is more a series of vivid and memorable scenes than a smoothly flowing narrative of reminiscences. Also, in the manner of the flashback the author moves rapidly backwards and forwards from the past to rhe present, or to the time between. Frequently he indicates the date with a note at the beginning of a section; sometimes leaving the reader to work it out for himself. Most of the book is. in fact, concerned with Pascal .Jardin's childhood experiences from 1939 to 1943. when, as a boy of nine, he fled with his family from his native France to safety in Switzerland. His father

was a member of Pierre Laval s Cabinet for 18 months during one of the most crucial periods of the war The alert, rebellious child of these days has now set down an extra ordinary account of the men. their intrigues and the dramas of thrPetain regime in Vichy. It is. of course, difficult, even impossible to be sure how much of the book is strict historical fact, .lardin admits that he learned early "to reject reality as far as possible in favour of organized fantasy" In a perceptive epilogue Emmanuel Berl writes that, “memory is a process of perpetual fermentation in which recollections are transformed as wel as preserved. That's the case with al of us. But particularly with Pasca Jardin: he looks at everything with so much passion that he immediately alters what, for other people, the passage of time alters little by little." It is this very passion with which Jardin views and writes of people and events that makes his book so fascinating. His emotions and memory combine to give a vivid picture of Vichv France as seen through the eyes of a child, and bis frankness and wit give a revealing impression of the man that child has become. “Vichy Boyhood” is a memorab e reading experiences. It is patchily written, often immoderate and fierce; it is also incisive, tragic and engrossing.