Albert Cohen was a Jewish Swiss novelist who wrote in french. His novels took the form of autobiography and this one deals with his relationship with his mother. The novel was published in its current form in 1954 and collects together texts written under the title of Chants de mort. His mother died in Marseilles in 1943. The book takes the form of an hommage to his mother, he speaks of his love and his admiration for the woman who seems to have shaped his life. She is ever present in his thoughts after her death and becomes a ghost like figure that haunts him while he is writing his book.

Cohen starts by introducing himself as a lonely figure who is punctilious in his preparations for writing his texts. He imagines his pen asking him what he is doing "who sleeps" it asks and the author replies it is his mother who sleeps in the cemetery and who is the subject of his pain. He describes his parents early life in France as Jews fleeing to Marseilles, struggling to fit in with a new culture and having to work hard to earn a living. He says his mother never really fitted in, devoting herself to looking after her husband and her children. He sketches in this early life with a series of flashbacks which are memories of his special relations with his mother. He tells of them going to a fashionable cafe where his mother would be unable or unwilling to speak to the other customers, her attention and conversation solely concerned with her son. She stressed his jewish upbringing and wanted to see him remain faithful to the religion. She became a lonely figure, more so when her husband died and her family moved away. She seemed to worship her son Albert, sacrificing herself for him; selling her jewellery when his expensive lifestyle needed to be supported by more money. In return Cohen paints an idealistic portrait of his mother, but it is tinged with guilt.

He talks of his mothers yearly visits when he was following his career in the diplomatic service in Geneva. How her whole year was centred on the two or three weeks that she stayed with him. How she dressed to please him, how she saved her money to buy him small presents, how she never interfered in his lifestyle. The guilt shines through when he tells how he had arranged to meet her in the local park, but dallied with his latest girlfriend (a blond woman) and arrived three hours late to find his mother shivering with cold, but so pleased to see him and not a word of reproach. The memories start to peter out as the book progresses and becomes an agonised calling to his mother beyond the grave, he never actually asks for her forgiveness, but this is clearly his intent as he has become a lonely solitary figure just like her. He imagines her in her grave, he imagines her next to him while he is writing. He keeps reminding himself and his readers that his mother, his saintly mother is dead. The book becomes a paean to mothers everywhere.

Cohen's writing is intense, almost a plea. There is much repetition, maybe because of the origins of the book as previous texts, but the repetition has a cumulative effect. In many ways this is an extraordinary book, it will not be to everyones taste, but I found it powerful enough. This is written by a man who feels that he should have dedicated more of his life to his mother as she had dedicated hers to him, all that is left for him to do is write a panegyric and bemoan her absence and confess his love. One wonders if he ever escaped her presence. A five star read. ( )

D'Albert Cohen, j'avais lu Mangeclous et surtout le plus que célèbre Belle du Seigneur. Ce dernier est un grand (dans tous les sens du terme) roman d'amour.

Le livre de ma mère, à teneur autobiographique, est jugé par nombre de critiques comme une belle histoire d'amour (filial) ou un chant d'amour.
Comme l'écrit lui-même A Cohen , c'est plutôt un "chant de mort" : la mort de sa mère évidemment, dans la logique des choses de la vie mais absurde pour ce fils aimant qui réalise que quoi qu'il fasse sa mère ne le voit plus, ne l'entend plus, ne l'aime plus. Mais aussi et peut-être surtout l'incompréhension de la mort en général ("Dieu, que tout cela est absurde.") et la projection de sa propre mort et des angoisses à y penser.
Alors A Cohen nous raconte sa mère, avec ses défauts mais aussi sa gentillesse, son abnégation, son amour, son idolâtrie du fils prodige. Il nous dit combien et comment elle l'a aimé, comment il lui a rendu. Et combien il réalise qu'elle lui manque, qu'il pense à elle, qu'il l'imagine dans sa tombe, "silencieuse sous la terre, enfermée dans la geôle terreuse avec interdiction d'en sortir, prisonnière dans la solitude de la terre".

Un chant de mort bien triste.

Je laisse conclure A Cohen : " Dieu merci les pêcheurs vivant deviennent vite des morts offensés". ( )

> Par Le Figaroscope : Le Livre de ma mère de Albert Cohen
Evocation d'une femme à la fois "quotidienne" et sublime, une mère, aujourd'hui morte, qui n'a vécu que pour son fils et par son fils, ce livre d'un fils est aussi le livre de tous les fils. Et tout fils pleurant sa mère disparue y retrouvera les reproches qu'il s'adresse à lui-même lorsqu'il pense à telle circonstance où il s'est montré ingrat, indifférent ou incompréhensif.

Aangrijpende lijkzang en mooie ode aan de moeder. Leve mama! ( )

Un incontestable chef d'œuvre d'amour, de reconnaissance et de désespoir. Un longue prière adressé au lecteur. ( )