Sweet Days of Discipline (Ndp) [Paperback]

Fleur Jaeggy (Author), Tim Parks (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Ndp | Publication Date: May 1993

Set in post-war Switzerland, in the strict, repressive world of an institution for young girls, this novel tells the story of an idyll enjoyed in captivity and an adolescent friendship that becomes perverse and exploitative. The novel was awarded the Bagutto and Rapallo prizes in Italy.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jaeggy, a Swiss-born writer living in Italy, gives her narrator an abundance of memorable lines describing a boarding school set in idyllic Switzerland. Recalling the constant machinations and undercurrents there, she comments, "A boarding school is like a harem." And she seems to be right: less time is spent studying than courting favored friends. The narrator is particularly intrigued by Frederique, a disdainful girl who claims that she has "an old woman's hands," which the narrator hears as a compliment. But then a frivolous new student named Micheline--she has red hair and looks "a bit like Gilda"--causes the narrator to abandon Frederique by promising that she will give a huge ball at which all the students will dance with her charming father. Tim Parks does an admirable job of keeping the ice-cold language flowing. But the novel leaves a sense that its story line is a metaphor for something else, although it is never completely clear what, and after a while this vague profundity starts to get tiring; the ambiguous ending does not improve matters.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This novel is like a walk down an unlit alley at night, alone, in the rain. The narrator is a girl at a boarding school in postwar Switzerland. Through her heightened senses we become aware of the awakening sexuality of the young girls far away from the familiarities of home and the impending doom and madness that lurk at the gate. Imprisoned in an artificial reality, she portrays the other inmates in a sardonic light. The narrator's friendship and obsession with the ideal new girl, Frederique, bring to mind lines from Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil : "Moment by moment, Time envelops me/ like a stiffening body buried in the snow.../ I contemplate the infinitesimal globe,/ and I no longer seek asylum there" ("Craving for Oblivion"). This is an excellent purchase for any library collecting experimental fiction.
- Peggie Partello, Keene State Coll., N.H.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 101 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation (May 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811212351
• ISBN-13: 978-0811212359
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,340,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting exploration of emotional landscape, June 12, 2001

By 

M. J. Smith (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sweet Days of Discipline (Ndp) (Paperback)

Sweet Days of Discipline is narrated by a boarding school student who has attended several such schools, who has been defiant, who is a disinterested student, who becomes nearly obsessed with a new student - disciplined, independent, nihilistic. The tension in the narrative derives from emotional states rather than plot events - yet the tension builds as clearly as in a thriller. This is achieved by the author's excellent understanding of her narrator's point of view and the use of landscape, daily events and memories to express that view. Examples: the description of the landscape on the narrator's early morning walk; the destruction of letters from her mother; the memory of her roommate's dance dress but not her name ...

Not a perfect book but well worth the two or three hours it takes to read.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable prose., July 14, 1998

By 

Egrain (California) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Sweet Days of Discipline (Ndp) (Paperback)

It is a terrible thing that only two of Jaeggy's odd, spare, and brilliant works are presently available in English. This novella is striking in its stylistic genius and restrained but intense emotional world. I eagerly await the translation of more of Jaeggy's work.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gem, July 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Sweet Days of Discipline (Ndp) (Paperback)

One of the all too rare examples of literature as art rather than entertainment, this book deserves to be much better known. Jeaggy is a master of style and has a purity and preciseness of language that makes this book an utter joy. A future classic.