LaDivine by Marie NDiaye

Just completed reading LaDivine by Marie NDiaye, a book translated from the French. In beautiful, sparing diction, NDiaye manages to capture the discomfort between classes, and the painful process of growing up under the auspices of a social class with which you feel uncomfortable. What happens, though, when a child separates from her mother, "the servant" and selects to reinvent herself? The bottom line is there is no turning away from the self, as the protagonist discovers, and plagued with guilt and shame her whole life, the past continues to haunt not just her, but also her daughter. There is a saying, "run, but you can't hide" and this is evident in the novel. The detached voice is extraordinarily haunting, almost chilling, and the language is beautiful, passionate, unsettling. Also evident is the disparity between the internal workings of men and women. A real tour-de-force of a novel!