A Tale of Aquitaine

Synopsis

Jude Cameron is summoned to Marmande Hospital, south west France, by his wife, Arabella, because their daughter, Clelia, is gravely ill. On the way there from his apartment in the city of Bordeaux, he reflects on the circumstances which have brought his family to this point.

When he arrives, he finds Arabella in deep discussion with Dr. Ghorbani, a paediatrician who first recognised that something was wrong with Clelia¿s development ¿ they had taken him there on the advice of a local GP, expecting to have their worries assured ¿ and are who now says they will have to transfer Clelia to the children¿s hospital in Bordeaux as she is dangerously ill. Jude and Arabella are terrified when they overhear the ambulance driver¿s remark ¿ he, presuming that they do not understand French ¿ that she might not make it.

Losing sight of the ambulance as they follow from Marmande to Bordeaux, the parents¿ anxiety increases, and when they finally find Clelia in the intensive care unit, they can only wait for the doctors to do their work.

It¿s Jude¿s turn first to keep vigil at Clelia¿s bedside. Eventually he succumbs to tiredness and falls asleep in his chair. He begins to dream, seeing Clelia awake and talking ¿ something she has never been able to do before. When he is awoken by the nurses, for Clelia, the dream carries on, and she is transported into a land of her own subconscious.

There, among the fields and farms and dilapidated houses, she encounters and befriends a deer, and then a hawk, which act as totemic guides on her simple odyssey to find her home.

She discovers country life in all its splendour and brutality, and historical figures such as the Buddha, Carl Linnaeus, and Adolf Hitler, characters fighting for the soul of humanity. But it is the simple creatures she comes to understand and belong.

Dettagli