FAMILY STRIFE
By Isabelle Liber, translated by Sinéad Crowe
Töchter. Daughters in Englisch, hijas in Spanish. In French: filles. “What’s the problem?” I hear you ask. The problem (though perhaps I’m the only one who has this problem) is that as a title on a cover, Filles evokes very different associations from its German counterpart.
My own mock-up of the book cover.
The problem is family relationships – or the lack thereof. The one-word German title encompasses all the family and quasi-family relationships that structure the novel and are at its heart. First and foremost, of course, the word Tochter (like its English translation) evokes the parent-daughter relationship. The plural form (Töchter), meanwhile, brings to mind another, equally important relationship: the one that exists between girls, sisters and female friends – in other words, the bond between Martha and Betty.
But in French, fille does not necessarily refer to someone’s female child; it can also simply mean “girl” or “young woman”. The girl walking past right now is a fille, as is the young woman you’ve arranged to meet for a drink tonight. And this makes things tricky when choosing the novel’s title. I’ve been racking my brains trying to find a candidate; I can’t help thinking of the old ad for The Laughing Cow cheese:
The famous ad for The Laughing Cow (1986) about a contest to find the right cow to represent the cheese.
So what should Lucy Fricke’s novel be called in French? Filles? No, that doesn’t work for the reasons described above.1 Pères et filles? “Fathers and Daughters” is a bit dull. Pères, filles, perhaps? It’s not bad; I like the rhythm. There’s something unexpected about the comma. What does the internet have to say?
An avalanche of daughter-father book covers.
I hit upon masses of book titles, and by the time I click on Not Without My Daughter, I realise I’ve completely lost the thread (I’ve certainly lost the father).
What’s the novel about? I like the idea of the forty-something protagonists still being filles. Could we call it Les Grandes Filles?2 But that would still neglect the father-daughter relationship. Leurs Grandes Filles?3 That would switch the perspective, foregrounding the older generation. Betty and Martha would no longer be sitting in the front driving a dying father across Europe. They would be relegated to the back seat while their sick or vanished fathers would be at the wheel.4 No way. How about Nos pères? It’s certainly an improvement; we’re getting closer. Our Father, Our Fathers – it has a nice ring to it.
But then, where are the daughter, girls and women in this title? They’re not visible enough, in my opinion. Où sont les filles (where are the girls) – it reminds me of a song. No, wait, it was Où sont les femmes (Where Are the Women?). But Oh les filles was definitely a song. Hey, that’s actually not bad. The “oh” in the title lends the female figures something dynamic and ambivalent. It might be an “oh” of admiration for our bold modern heroines, or it could be more like an “oh” of exasperation. 5
But the daughters have totally disappeared from this potential title. The phrase fille 6 pops into my head. Whose daughter? Nobody’s daughter? Daughter of nothing? Daughter of the air? In French, the expression jouer les filles de l’air (literally, play daughters of the air) means to disappear, to vanish into thin air. And this, of course, is one of the novel’s central themes. Filles de l’air, daughters/girls/women of the air – why not?
And what title did we go for in the end? Visit the publisher’s website to find out.