Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories, or The Paris Trilogy, title depending on whether you sport a British accent or an American one, is a long overdue English translation of three of French author Colombe Schneck’s short novels. Schneck is an award-winning writer, journalist and documentary film director, who encapsulates the rarely spoken aspects of life for female members of the upper French classes in her writing; painting pictures of the gender inequalities that are still suffered even in a privileged existence, as well as the subtle markers of coming from old or new money in France. 

While the tone she takes is often animus or self-effacing when discussing class or gender issues, the real charm of her writing comes through in her beautiful ability to write descriptively, and to express the difficult emotions surrounding grief. A devotee of Annie Ernaux, who won the Nobel Prize “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory,”¹ Schneck writes with a similarly frank pen as she fictionalises her own life.

'Seventeen', title translated verbatim from the original novel, Dix-sept ans, depicts Schneck’s teenage encounter with abortion, something she never shared before writing this story. Reading 'Seventeen' is a particularly challenging ordeal. The narrative voice is depicted (likely deliberately) as an entitled young woman who expects everything in her upper-class life to follow her own rules, never being subjected to any limitations. This leads her to viewing her body’s ability to get pregnant as a “betrayal,” and calling her body “incomplete, banal.”² The protagonist’s anger at her unwanted pregnancy is, of course, understandable. Yet her reflections intermixing the limitations put on women by society with womanhood itself, as well as casting the ability to get pregnant as something inherently negative, renders the text discomfiting.

What is done exceptionally well, however, is the way she reflects a side of abortion that is rarely spoken of. She addresses concerns of right-wing politicians regarding abortion, as they believed it would become easy or banal, and the arguments of left-wing politicians, who insisted it would be an incredibly difficult decision to make, entirely out of necessity. Her experience is neither of these. She recalls both being irritated that she had to miss a party while recovering and also the decades-long shame she carried with herself for going through with it. She expertly mixes the trivial with weighty fetters of experience, painting a nuanced and candid picture of abortion as she looks back at her teenagehood with older and wiser eyes.

'Friendship', with the title furthest from its original Deux petites bourgeoises (Two Little Bourgeoisie Girls), is a tribute to “the only life Colombe has been able to observe in its entirety,” her close friend, whom she has known since childhood, who dies an untimely death in her 50s, after suffering from a terminal illness.³ The original novel followed two girls, Héloïse and Esther. In Swimming in Paris, Esther becomes Colombe, reaffirming the autofiction aspect of the narrative, while being perhaps a touch jarring to have the author repeatedly refer to herself in the third person. The story continues with the Ernaux-inspired frankness, beautifully capturing the intermingling of their lives as they grow up together, fall apart, then come back together again. 

Schneck doesn’t shy away from depicting unbecoming emotions in Colombe, as she is consistently jealous of Héloïse, who belongs to a higher Bourgeoisie class than Colombe: with a St. Tropez summer house, vintage Chanel jackets in her closet, and more practiced, studied skills in most activities. The first half of the story is a commentary on the French upper class, making some intriguing points that are overshadowed by some extreme choices of wording, such as claiming that the two young girls should be “locked up…humiliated, belittled,”⁴ because of their privileged upbringing. The language carries so much guilt and shame that it becomes self-loathing. On the other hand, the second half is an incredibly moving tribute: an emotionally stabbing rumination on the unfairness of death and the grief that is felt whilst watching a loved one visibly fade. 

As a reader, you know that Héloïse will die from the beginning of the story. It is not a surprise. You then listen to Colombe’s lifelong jealousy towards her friend, who is more put together, healthier, richer, and fitter, yet you take in that it is Héloïse who is undone by illness as Colombe lives on. As Lin-Manuel Miranda once wrote, “death doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints, it takes, and it takes, and it takes.”⁵ As Héloïse comes to terms with the fact that her own life is ending and faces it bravely, Colombe too tries to cope with the loss as it’s happening. There is a resonant scene where both Héloïse and Colombe individually stay up late searching for details of Héloïse’s illness online. Neither of them admits this search to one another. 

'Swimming', originally titled La Tendresse du crawl (or the tenderness of freestyle swimming), is the least memorable of the three stories. Following a romance that is quite familiar and formulaic, complete with its proclamation of love, “I don’t need any riches, just you,” and subsequent breaking up despite endless assurances of its impossibility. It is made original by the fact that the protagonist is in her 50s; older women in fiction are rarely given the chance to be free to love, to experience heartbreak, often being boxed into the roles of wife, mother or mentor. It is a refreshing reminder that women can freely experience life and love at any age. It is a strongly tactile, bodily story, as the narrator, who bears so much anger and shame around her body, grows to finally love it, first due to a man’s touch, and later, thankfully, from a newfound love for swimming.

The internalised misogyny of the collection is never directly addressed, but present in many a turn of the page. The flaws of the narrator’s mother, and the psychological damage caused by her inability to show love, are examined and critiqued through all three of the stories. Whereas the father’s mistakes are presented in a more reportorial manner, without similar reflection in their potential to cause trauma, he instead receives continued admiration. In 'Seventeen', she expands on her upbringing in a so-called liberated, left-wing family. Her upbringing includes her father being openly unfaithful, living in his own apartment during the week with his mistresses and returning home on the weekends, while her mother remains lonely and struggling. The narrator believes her father “has the right idea” and that she wishes her mother would stop “shying away from life.”⁶ She does not note how, even in a “liberated” experience, there is still a gendered imbalance in her home, that it is still the man who makes the rules, and the woman who performs womanhood as society has taught her to do. 

She admires men for their ability to be detached, to have sex without fearing pregnancy. Reflecting on how she judged her mother for not exercising her freedom, she concludes that biological “limitations” undermine the very possibility of female freedom. In “Swimming,” she admits to marrying her husband because he promises he will never leave her, but will likely cheat on her.⁷ She loves this, as she is reminded of her adored father. When speaking about her childhood fascination with ballet, she problematises her mother, who didn’t speak on it at all, but not her father who told her, “if you’re going to be average, it’s not worth it,” essentially discouraging her.⁸ It is difficult to read the way she heavily criticises the women in her life as well as herself; finding limitations in the female body simply because she cannot help but objectify herself, until she finally finds freedom in her body: by swimming. 

It is wonderful she finds this freedom, yet some of the abrasive and severe language directed at herself feels cautionary, particularly for younger female readers who may come away with the sense that womanhood itself carries shackles, rather than seeing how these shackles are placed by an internalised gaze. Schneck is an incredibly gifted writer; placing the reader in Parisienne apartments with bathroom tiles picked up during trips to Morocco, or breathing in the salty air of St. Tropez. When the stories are explored in more depth, however, an undercurrent of corrosive shame runs through each one.