my version of elizabeth was written by a man named Gilbert Cordier and published by Gallimard in 1946. This novel did not take off much and eventually disappeared from circulation. Sixty years later Gallimard reissued it under an altered title. La maison d’élisabeth. Now, almost eighty years after its initial publication in France, it has been translated into English by Aaron Kerner for McNally Editions under its original title. elizabeth.
Article continues after ad
However, its author was never Gilbert Cordier. Cordier never existed. Cordier is the surname of the famous French film director Eric Rohmer (1920–2010), who gave us. my night in maud, claire’s knee, green ray, a summer story, Pauline on the beach, a good marriage, chloe in the afternoonAnd many other classics of Nouvelle Vague. In fact, Eric Romer, who was once the editor of Cahiers du Cinema And François Truffaut, repeatedly eclipsed by such notable directors as Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Louis Malle and Jacques Rivette, is now perhaps the most visible of them all, and his films are regularly shown, sometimes independently, sometimes in mixed compilations with other Eric Rohmer films. Many, but not all, of his films are grouped: six moral stories, humor and proverbsAnd stories of four seasons. He wrote all this.
Surprisingly, Eric Rohmer was never his real name. Sometimes honest Wikipedia is unable to determine whether his real name is Jean-Marie Maurice Scherrer or Maurice Henri Joseph Scherrer, in both cases the surname is probably derived from German. sharer Or sherrrWhich means cloth or sheep shearer. His pseudonym is a combination of two names: actor-director Erich von Stroheim, grand illusion And Sunset Boulevard fame, and author Sax Rohmer, who created Dr. Fu Manchu.
Ironically, Stroheim was born Erich Oswald Stroheim (“von,” an aristocratic designation, was entirely fictitious); And as far as Sax Rohmer is concerned, his real name was Arthur Ward. Therefore the name Eric Rohmer is none other than a pseudonym made up of two pseudonyms. If this were not enough, Rohmer sometimes gave different dates for his birth, and it is still unclear whether he was born in Toul or Nancy. Thus, we do not know his birthplace, his date of birth, or his full real name. What we do know is that he was a very observant Catholic.
That World War II was only a month away was the furthest thing from his thoughts. This is their summer idyll; They are on time off and they want to enjoy it.
Full disclosure, Roemer’s daughter-in-law is my second cousin. Eric Rohmer always kept to himself and was so private that even his parents never knew he was a famous filmmaker. He also decided to distance himself from the life around him. As he writes in his onstage interview elizabeth Published in this volume, “When the bullets were still flying… right in front of my window” In 1944 Paris and while clashes were taking place throughout the city, young Rohmer was busy writing his novel elizabeth. As he asks a few words later, “‘Is it possible to write about what is unfolding in the present?’ My answer was: ‘No, it’s not—you need to take a step back.’ And on that point, my opinion hasn’t changed at all.”
Indeed, his opinion never wavered. If one can single out one characteristic of elizabeth Later it was featured in many of Rohmer’s films, it is put on all time-out. Unlike abused children, their characters have not crossed the line, and may never do so, but the desire to misbehave has come into their minds, and there is nothing they can do to mitigate it. We see them struggling not with others, but with themselves. We see them come up with justifications, but we are not noticed or acknowledged. They want someone but it’s never clear whether it’s their body or just their naughty mind that wants that other person. They don’t know. We don’t know.
Rohmer’s world is largely real, but the one he portrays is always somehow detached and removed from everyday concerns. Most, but not all, do not have financial or professional concerns. They are well established and anything that might upset them proves incidental, except, perhaps, for their bizarre drives. We get the overall atmosphere of their life but we never get their domestic life. The same applies to the towns or cities in which they live. We get the broad atmosphere of the setting, but the place is rarely more than a background.
In Paris, people take trains, bump into each other, walk in parks, travel on buses, enter or exit buildings, sit in cafés, buy things, and live completely uneventful lives, but nothing external influences them. In elizabethPeople drive cars, ride bicycles, and are more likely to be involved in a collision or bicycle accident; And due to the heat they may even fall for a moment. But like many of Rohmer’s films, his characters are young and on vacation, free to enjoy the beach or the countryside. As Huguette, a character in the novel, says, it is a world where “everything turns into a flirtation.” That World War II was only a month away was the furthest thing from his thoughts. This is their summer idyll; They are on time off and they want to enjoy it. The closing scene of the book shows us Claire relaxing on her folding chair next to a linden tree in the garden, completely immersed in the book she is reading and trying to avoid too much sunlight. World War II never happened, and never will, and despite Rohmer’s claims, bullets will never fly past his window.
*
elizabeth Addresses the two main characters. There’s Michel, who is basically debating whether he should end his relationship with the aging and widowed Irene. The situation is tense and more than once Irene will break down and start crying. She gives Michel the freedom to do as he pleases, and her attitude towards him is one of complete submission and devotion. She won’t fight him. Meanwhile, she begins to suspect that he hates her altogether. She doesn’t know that he would choose to break up with her, although her tears show that she is well aware that their relationship is at a crossroads.
He may hate her but he also loves her. “I know her so well that I can’t even see her, I love her so much…” “Love is a habit you stumble into, never something you choose.” Irene, on the other hand, also hates him, and can’t bring herself to tell him, because in the end she still wants to love him, even if she doesn’t really believe it anymore.
These sharp insights into the contradictory nature of the human psyche may seem a little raw, if not airy, but that is what makes him distinctly Romerian. Rohmer is still very young, certainly, perhaps somewhat precocious, but these highly sensible insights into conflicting emotions and human psychology would eventually appear in all his films.
In another scene, Michel pretends to be his cousin Bernard. In fact, he tells Jacqueline in such a blunt and insistent manner that he is Bernard that it becomes clear to the reader that he cannot be Bernard. Mitchell is holding Jacqueline in his car but she struggles and manages to free herself. Shortly after Bernard’s failed attempt, she tells him that he might prefer an older woman – which reminds us that she is presumably not Bernard at all, but Michel, who is still wondering whether to end his relationship with Irene.
This interchange of identities between two individuals who are cousins is not entirely clear; In fact, it is mentioned so calmly as to remind one that Rohmer was writing his novel at a time when the famous nouveau roman It was already being born at the hands of writers like Nathalie Sarraute and Alain Robbe-Grillet. Rohmer’s fiction is often elliptical and mysterious, especially when he is reluctant to tell us who some characters are in relation to others. As a result, many readers may become confused. But who wouldn’t be confused by the last scene? my night in maudWhen does Jean-Louis Trintignant finally discover – and he reveals without any evidence to the contrary – that the woman he married was the one who separated Maude from her husband?
Despite his embarrassment, he retains a touch of eloquence in his speech…In this sense, formality does not impair desire; This forces him to expose himself.
Then comes another character, Bernard, who is also young and who one day while bathing comes across a girl named Huguette. He may still hold affectionate places for his cousin Claire, but Huguette knows exactly what she wants and gets out of her car in time, although, unlike Michel, Bernard is not going to misbehave with her. When it begins to rain, the conversation begins as both Bernard and Huguette take shelter under the trees. The scene is reminiscent of Rohmer’s 1970 film claire’s kneeWhen both Claire and Jerome are forced to find shelter from a sudden heavy rain. In the closeness of the moment, their seeming friendship allows Jerome to tell Claire that her boyfriend may be cheating on her. Upon hearing the news, Claire begins to cry and, to soothe her, Jerome rubs her knee once, twice, which, in her own words, is everything she ever wanted from him: her knee. Of course, the knee is a metaphor for sex. When he rubs her knee she may be aware of what he is doing or she may be completely unaware of it. The scene is a little dramatic, almost ridiculous, but it is not without mystery. Jerome can speak about his growing desire for her, or he can let the silence speak for itself. For Rohmer, sleeping together is always a far simpler maneuver than verbalizing one’s desires. This is why giving a candid but overly explicit speech about desire, especially to the very person you desire, proves to be unbearably intense. Nothing in Rohmer is more powerful than those moments when two people stare at each other.
They know, or think they know, what the other is thinking, and the smile on their faces unavoidably reminds us – reader and viewer alike – that silence is rarely a silly moment between two individuals.
Rohmer’s dialogues are never short, they are often literary and highly experienced, and yet they allow his characters to appear to the very person with whom they have every reason to connect. It is his candor that disarms, just as it is his candor that continues to draw us to Rohmer. His characters are always But are realism and practical speech any more realistic? I don’t think so. And I am not alone.
Romer’s people can be embarrassingly intimate. Yet, despite his shyness, he retains a touch of eloquence in his speech that makes it sound overly formal and at the same time extremely insecure. In that sense, formality does not impair desire; This forces him to expose himself. This is also how intimacy turns into art.
Rohmer’s characters may be on vacation, and they may speak in bookish terms, and their values may be the furthest from our values and seem completely artificial; They could all be on time-out and exist on a completely different planet where there is no world war and where no bullets ever pass through windows. But be under no illusions; It’s still our world, just a little askew and more opaque.
____________________________
From elizabeth By Eric Rohmer, translated from the French by Aaron Kerner. Introduction Copyright © 2026 by Andre Aciman. Available from McNally Editions.
