Harm's Way, By Celia Walden
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.A "womb of comfort" has sheltered 18-year-old Anna from pain and loss. Through nepotism, a job is secured for her at a Paris museum where she hopes for an éducation sentimentale. A friend of a friend, Beth, takes Anna under her attractive 40-year-old wing, and they thereafter gorge themselves on huge slices of tarte tatin.
Sexual appetites are just as insatiable. Morally unscrupulous Anna begins an affair with Beth's French boyfriend, Christian. Her ignorance of real suffering is exposed in nauseating sentences such as: "Christian and I were a static island, shadows frozen like Hiroshima victims."
"La vie est mal faite" – "life is badly made" – is the French saying with which Anna attempts to excuse her proclivities. Fiction is not always perfectly made, either, and by the end no authentic pain has been evoked, although Anna admires her own "new depth of experience". Walden fascinatingly reveals, however, the extraordinary levels of selfishness pervading a world in which wallets and libido are larger than hearts and minds.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments