Review of Lili is Crying by Hélène Bessette

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

This blog post is interesting to me because lately, I’ve been struggling to get in my reading time. I was working for the longest time as a freelancer and contractor, but recently pivoted to an 8-5 job where I’m in an office. It’s not hybrid, so I’m always at home trying to put the puzzle pieces together of how I’ll get my reading done. I also continue working on this blog when I’m not at work, so the Instagram reels I’m fed about a 5-9 feel too real right now.

Anyways, I am trying to find that time to read here and there. Somehow I’m still on track for my Goodreads goal, even though I’ve been slowly giving up on the notion of reading goals in life. I think they can be a little too much pressure and takes the fun off of reading at the end of the day, and I want to read because I want to stay in touch with literature while also pursuing my side career as a writer.

When I’m looking for inspiration sometimes I tend to just wander my local library in search of something new to read. I haven’t been doing it as much lately because of my job lately, but I was wandering my library when I spotted a copy of Lili is Crying in the new fiction section. It wasn’t really new at the time, but it seemed interesting, so I picked it up after reading the synopsis.

I ended up reading it while housesitting for someone, and because it is a short novel, I got through it fairly quickly. Let’s get into the review before I start rambling too much!

For one young woman, named Lili, her mother remains a shadow in her life and decisions.

For some context before we get deeper into this review: this novel was published in 1953, it was highly experimental. In some ways I would say that it is still pretty experimental for the modern age, as Bessette implements a writing style that is largely blurring the line and making it unclear between what is dialogue and what is narrative, poetic prose setting up some exposition. We do so more poetic novels nowadays though, which makes this not uncommon, but I say the structure is what makes it different.

That said, this is a novel that also takes place across a sustained period of time. Its main character is the titular Lili, who, at the beginning of the novel, is a young woman. She lives with her mother Charlotte in France in the middle of the 1900s. Lili is having her coming of age moment and starting to have her eye on boys—and the general world around her that goes beyond her mother.

However Charlotte is someone who isn’t going to let her daughter go off into the world so easily. As Lili explores her prospects and attempts to find a potential partner, Charlotte continues to interfere and influence her daughter as much as possible.

This creates some tension between Lili and her, but because Lili is devoted to her mother, she often listens to what she thinks—even if she likes the guy that her mother despises. Time isn’t entirely clearly defined here, but we do know that by the time World War II starts, Lili has found a husband and they’ve started a business together.

Her mother end sup having much different feelings about all of this though, as we expect from previous events in the novel. How this defines and shapes Lili’s life can be tragic in some ways, although everyone shows a bit of cruelty and anger at some point in the narrative.

Overall Thoughts

I wanted to enjoy this novel, but I thought the form and structure hindered my experience. I’m all for experimenting with how we write these kinds of stories, but I personally would have found it more impactful if it were more straightforward.

That’s not to say this novel isn’t impactful. I think it shows an interesting side of these women and their lives during a turbulent time, and it’s not something I’ve often read from a female author during this period. These perspectives offer an interesting story that often isn’t told.

I think pick this one up if it interests you narratively, or if you want to examine its writing style. There’s a lot to learn from books like these.

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