Contemporary writers

Three questions to Benoîte Groult

With a more lively style than ever, in La Touche étoile Benoîte Groult casts a humorous, often savage, eye on both the physical and moral realities of old age and the contempt shown by our youth-oriented culture ("Growing old is a crime"), on the disturbing gulf being created between the generations and the alarming return to sexism in the media and the playground. She lambasts the slide towards mediocrity ("Success is to have been on TV") and would rather be regarded as a bad grandmother than participate in the cult of little domestic tyrants.

Here she looks at three generations of women, reflecting on her passions and commitments, love, the sea, Ireland, feminism, the delicate balance in marriage, with some magnificent pages about the bond between sisters and the development of the mother-daughter relationship. The outcome of a life which chose freedom, La Touche étoile hides none of the risks and demands that go with it, revealing the honesty and courage of its author.

La Touche étoile, novel by Benoîte Groult, pub. Grasset, Paris, 2006.

Monique Perrot-Lanaud
journalist

"People dare not tell the truth about old age."

La Touche étoile was one of the biggest successes of early 2006. What do you think is the reason for this reception?

People dare not tell the truth about old age. I wanted to say things bluntly, with real words, and as I am really old now, eighty six, I know what I’m talking about - sixty, that’s nothing! I get lots of letters from women who are between seventy eight and eighty and who say to me: "At last someone is talking about us and you’re telling the truth!" They have love stories, they are romantic, the little girl in them is not dead, nor the adolescent, nor the young woman. They identify with characters who are like them, because the book leaps the generations.

It has also been a success in the media. You’ve been invited and interviewed everywhere.

Among the women editors-in-chief who have been keen to speak about me, many have said: "I might not be in this job today if I hadn’t read Ainsi soit-elle when I was twenty. I went back into education, or I got divorced, or I changed my life, I wanted to work," or: "My mother made me read your book because it had changed her life."

However, your assessment of feminism is rather bitter. You write: "Being a feminist brings neither recognition nor fame."

But it’s true! At present, feminism is dormant. I find this a great shame and it is dangerous. Men don’t really want this to change, girls have changed a lot, but men are grudging. There are still no women political leaders, the laws that have been passed are not properly implemented, for example those relating to abortion or equality of representation - the political parties would rather pay fines than give up seats to women!