French author Marie Ndiaye's bewitching but ultimately befuddling novel, "The Witch" was on this year's shortlist for the Int'l Booker Prize. All the women in our heroine Lucie's family tree inherit the gene for witchery. The gift was inherited by Lucie from her mother whose power outshone Lucie's but whose powers fell short of her granddaughters; Lucie's pre-teen, twin girls. The telltale sign for when magic has been utilized is the blood tinged, telltale tears that befall after its use. For Lucie, this power was limited to an ability to see the past/future or present of an individual she chooses to focus on; a talent to be coveted by covens to be sure. However, the tween-twins' prowess is potent. It manifest in flight quite literally. The girls use their powers to transform into crows and fly far from home, bonding their doting mother's nest. This follows soon after Lucie's husband flees the family abode with a sizable inheritance that was owed to Lucie. Lucie uses her tracking skill to find the feckless fiend who found himself a new wife and family. The men in this bewitching novel are all shady, lazy or secondary at best. Ndiaye's writing is beguiling, depicting characters with warts and all and her descriptive prose sets the scenes for the frenetic pace of Paris and for doldrums outside Paris in torpid small towns. Magic is manifested as an aside to the ambiguous plot. There are no predictable paths and the plot meanders with a melancholy atmosphere with dreamlike frustrations. Lucie's nosey, domineering neighbor is a side character that plays a major unexpected role in her life. "The Witch" is for readers looking for something out of the ordinary even though the story itself is less than extraordinary. I was whisked away in a nebulous cloud while looking for meaning in this surrealistic novel that I found unique and utterly mystifying.
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