It's a book group book, but I'm abandoning it barely 100 pages in. Cercas is a very successful writer in Spain, and this is the first book of his I'veIt's a book group book, but I'm abandoning it barely 100 pages in. Cercas is a very successful writer in Spain, and this is the first book of his I've tried. Unutterable tedium. Cercas has been considering for some years writing a book about the life of his great-uncle Manuel, dead at 19 fighting for Franco at the Battle of the Ebro.
First he meditates on whether to write the book. Then he has lunch with a friend and they discuss whether he should write it. Then they decide to travel to the village in Extremadura where Cercas was born, to interview one of the few people who remember Manuel. There follows a detailed account of their journey -- the route they took, dropping children off at dance class and football, the cafe where they had lunch ... during lunch they discuss whether Cercas should write the book.
I was already pissed off that my French book group chose this book, because I joined the group to read books that were written in, well, French. And nI was already pissed off that my French book group chose this book, because I joined the group to read books that were written in, well, French. And now I'm doubly annoyed that I wasted precious hours on it. I did start to skim-read from about 40% in.
My short take on it: Owens is good at nature writing. Believable dialogue, characters, and plot -- not so much. In fact not at all. It just is not believable that as a result of Tate teaching her to read, seemingly in a matter of weeks, Kya ends up as a wildly successful published author who reads and understands Einstein for fun. Pretty high functioning for someone who had one day of school, lived on her own in the marsh from the age of about eight, and was never socialised. It would already have been a considerable achievement just to survive without getting sick, poisoned, starved to death, or dying in an accident. But apart from curing herself of a rusty nail in the foot using swamp mud, none of this happens to her.
Tate: equally unbelievable. Is a 15-year-old boy, brought up by his fisherman dad, really going to patiently teach her to read, and thoughtfully and kindly explain to her what periods are all about when she has her first one?
I guess you have to take this whole thing as a fantasy/fairytale set in a parallel universe. And certainly not in North Carolina, as this entertaining review points out. That said, I wouldn't have slated the book just for those inaccuracies, if it had been much better written and more convincing. I can imagine a much better writer coming up with something much more compelling around the tale of a wild girl in tune with nature, confronted with the modern world.
I guess the twist at the end is quite well set up by using the courtroom scenes to set out a plausible scenario. But I disliked the swift gallop through the last 40 years of Kya's life and the cheesy ending. It didn't fit with the glacial, repetitive pace of the first half of the book. Read on for a bit of a strange but spoilery aftermath ...
(view spoiler)[Owens spent two decades in Africa, mainly Zambia, with her husband, both devoting themselves to wildlife conservation. At some point her husband and stepson were members of a scouting party involved in the fatal shooting of an elephant poacher, whose body was then disposed of. Shortly afterwards the couple left Zambia for the US and never returned. No-one was ever charged and the case is still open. It does seem rather strange for her, years later, to write this novel which culminates in a "morally justified" murder which is never elucidated. Article here. (hide spoiler)]...more
A short but tough read; at only just over 100 pages it can be read in a few hours. Seurat based this short novel on a real-life case of child abuse thA short but tough read; at only just over 100 pages it can be read in a few hours. Seurat based this short novel on a real-life case of child abuse that resulted in the death of an eight-year-old girl (Marina Sabatier, if you want to look it up). The language is simple and stark. He chooses to tell it through the first-person accounts of people who knew Diana and her family -- her aunt, grandmother, teachers, social workers, doctors and police. Diana never has a voice. In life, she is either silent or obediently repeats the lies her parents have schooled her in, only the scars and odd behaviour providing clues to the reality of her life. I felt this format worked very well.
Above all, this is a story of how people and state machinery fail Diana. Some of the people she encounters simply accept the explanations of her parents, given that their other children are healthy and apparently happy. Others are convinced there is abuse but are hidebound by rules and procedures, passing the problem on to other agencies who similarly refuse to go beyond what is explicitly permitted, even when Diana is hospitalised with severe burns on her feet ("running in bare feet on rough concrete"). Most heartbreaking are the teachers who know in their hearts that Diana is being abused but are powerless to do anything as long as Diana herself does not speak.
I was interested to note that in the real life case the French state was later condemned by the ECHR for not protecting Marina. The case, brought by child protection charities, dragged on for years, only concluding in 2020, but I can only hope it resulted in changes to practice....more
Writing stories about the Holocaust for young adults is a dangerous business -- you could end up with The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Grumberg doesn'tWriting stories about the Holocaust for young adults is a dangerous business -- you could end up with The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Grumberg doesn't fall into that trap. The story is very short and cleaves perfectly to fairy tale tropes without trivialising the horror or trying to provide any kind of happy ending. Skilfully done so that your reading can be as deep or as shallow as you like. I see that this book is used in French schools -- a good choice....more
A book group read ... I tried, but kept putting it aside for more diverting material and gave up halfway through. Life's too short.
Almost everyone elsA book group read ... I tried, but kept putting it aside for more diverting material and gave up halfway through. Life's too short.
Almost everyone else in the group (8 out of 11) loved it. "Belle écriture !" they cried. I found the style archaic and unengaging, perhaps partly due to it being written 40 years ago. I was able to appreciate the reasons they gave for liking it -- it explores the state of mind of a far from perfect man becoming a Cathar parfait as a means of escaping the consequences of murdering someone. So it's about religious fundamentalism, the state of doubt, feelings of inadequacy and guilt. If that floats your boat, you might like it. It also conveys the huge difference in worldviews between the 13th century and now. But I found Emmanuel Leroy Ladurie's historical tome Montaillou, based on inquisition records, read decades ago, more involving. The intimate details of daily life and village gossip made the people feel far more real than the characters in this novel....more
Reading this reminded me of an article I read in the New York Times a few months back about the cosy corruption surrounding French literary prizes. ToReading this reminded me of an article I read in the New York Times a few months back about the cosy corruption surrounding French literary prizes. To those asking "How on earth did this win the Goncourt?": French literary jurors are appointed for life, replacement jurors are selected by the members of the jury, many of them work for the top publishers submitting novels, and/or are related to or friends of the listed novelists. That's how.
That said, Dubois is a prolific and competent writer with some good turns of phrase. I've read one previous book by him, Une vie française and it was ... not brilliant, but OK as an "airport novel" read. This one frankly left me baffled as to why he had written it, and more so, why he chose to set it in Québec. You only need to read a few reviews by Québecois on Goodreads to see how wrong he got it. This one is fairly typical. Even I, quite ignorant of Québec, could tell that Paul's cellmate Patrick talks like a Toulousain.
Another beef: the invisibility of women in this story. There are only two female characters (if you don't count the dog): Paul's wife, and his mother. He's married to Winona for 11 years, she's "the love of his life", yet we learn almost nothing about her. Largely because she doesn't get to speak, apart from a few words. Paul meets her, has sex with her, and promptly marries her (includes terrible clichés about American "Indians"). The end of the book tends to suggest Paul's dog is more important to him.
I found the most interesting character in the story to be Paul's dad, the Danish Protestant pastor doubting his faith and acting inappropriately. Sadly he gets bumped off halfway through (not a spoiler). The other deaths and Paul's crime were rather predictable. (view spoiler)[Winona's a pilot? Obviously she's going to die in a plane crash. And as soon as the Excelsior villain is introduced, we know what role he's going to play. (hide spoiler)] Other than that, Paul's life is not interesting or remarkable except in that his first-person telling is remarkably literary for someone barely educated. The only other character to add interest was Kieran, his loss-adjuster neighbour with his tales of the way capitalism allocates value to human lives. It made a nice counterpoint to the pastor's story.
I kept reading because it was a book group read and luckily not overlong like Une vie française. As I mentioned above, Dubois can write well, and has a nice sense of irony and black humour. That is, if you ignore the numerous examples of "humour" in the form of a man repeatedly having a crap. Guess that's what it takes to win the Goncourt :)...more
A book group read ... I got to page 24 and it just wasn't engaging me at all. Yet another long French novel with no dialogue. I've got lots of other bA book group read ... I got to page 24 and it just wasn't engaging me at all. Yet another long French novel with no dialogue. I've got lots of other books to read, so I gave up....more
I started this for my book group, but the meeting was cancelled because of Covid lockdown, so I was happy to toss it aside. It's not a novel but a phiI started this for my book group, but the meeting was cancelled because of Covid lockdown, so I was happy to toss it aside. It's not a novel but a philosophical disquisition, and not a terribly original one at that. I'm not giving it a rating as I haven't finished it....more
This was a book group choice and I think if it hadn't been I might well have abandoned it after 100 pages. I found it hard to get on with at first, coThis was a book group choice and I think if it hadn't been I might well have abandoned it after 100 pages. I found it hard to get on with at first, confusing me with its constant leaps back and forth in time and confusing multigenerational cast of characters. I'm glad I didn't though. It was worth persevering. I finally understood why she'd chosen this fragmented structure. The book opens with Iranian exile Kimiâ in the waiting room of an IVF clinic and then spins through her memories of her family history and her own life in a sort of free association.
In the Iranian part there are stories within stories, a kind of Arabian Nights, while the modern story reads like the popular French trend of inward-looking "autofiction". The novel is clearly largely autobiographical, but she's also anxious to inform Western readers about 20th-century Iranian history, even resorting to footnotes to explain it. Early on, Kimiâ refers to "the EVENT" which change her life, but repeatedly hesitates to approach it, swerving to other subjects. One reason for the fragmented narrative. When she finally does address it, it happens in a few brief, shocking lines.
It might sound like hard going, and it certainly requires concentration. But what saves it are the vividly drawn, rounded characters from four generations of the family; in the end I had no difficulty remembering who was who. There's also her exploration of how it feels to be forcibly ejected from your home, never to return, and to try to make sense of life in another country. Kimiâ and the author herself were educated at a French lycée in Teheran, so you'd think that would make France less of a culture shock. But an idealistic view of French values is bruised by an encounter in the French embassy in Istanbul, and further damaged by life in Paris. The title of the novel, as well as being a play on words in terms of leaving the East for the West, is also a reference to Djavani's thesis that in order to integrate in a new country you first have to "dis" integrate from your own culture.
Apparently the English translation is excellent, so I would recommend this book....more
This book group choice reminded me irresistibly of Dolores Redondo's novels set in the Baztan Valley: a very similar rural, mountainous setting, with This book group choice reminded me irresistibly of Dolores Redondo's novels set in the Baztan Valley: a very similar rural, mountainous setting, with a great sense of place (again it helps that I know the area) ,and a constant almost supernatural sense of menace and foreboding.
It's slow to get going after a dramatic opening, and generally it's a bit wordy (give over with describing women's clothes -- usually involving leather -- every time they appear). I was getting a bit bored with it at one point, but in the last quarter the pace picks up and it becomes quite gripping and worth the wait. Minier has a good set of characters -- maybe Servaz is a bit of a stereotypical middle-aged grumpy divorced cop, but I really liked Irene Ziegler as a character and would like to see her developed more. Diane Berg, on the other hand, despite parts of the story being told from her point of view, seemed flat and unconvincing; just what is she doing there? Finally, the ending is a bit too reliant on the trope of "long exposition by baddy telling his/her intended victim all about his/her actions and motivations, giving victim time to escape/be rescued". But overall I enjoyed it and I think I'd read the others in the series (Minier having left a convenient loose end to allow for one). Good for long train/plane journeys I should think....more
The main interest of this book for me was the fact that it's about the Algerian conflict of 1962 and its repercussions, told through the stories of thThe main interest of this book for me was the fact that it's about the Algerian conflict of 1962 and its repercussions, told through the stories of three generations of a family of harkis (indigenous Algerians considered to have collaborated with the French colonisers). While I'm obviously aware of this part of French history I didn't know about it in detail.
Ali, the father, leaves in 1962 with his family, out of fear for his life (his collaboration consists of having fought in the French army in WWII, and subsequently accepting a war pension). The family first ends up in one of the camps harkis were confined to in metropolitan France (a fate not visited upon the wealthier pieds noirs who by and large had some resources and families to fall back on even if they had lost everything in Algeria) before ending up living in a remote harki settlement in a forest where Ali works as a woodcutter. Later they move to a drab housing estate in Normandy.
Ali's son Hamid is promising at school, urged by Ali to better himself, becomes a civil servant, and marries a French woman. His story of gradual integration takes up the second section of the book. Finally, Naima, his daughter, is the subject of the third part. I found myself absorbed by the first two parts despite some longueurs, but Naima's section was considerably less compelling.
The novel is clearly based on Zeniter's own background, giving her story considerable force and personal feeling. I found her narrative technique a little odd at times. In the first two parts, as well as straightforward third-person narration, we sometimes get Naima remembering things or recounting stories she's been told. But who is the narrative "je" who occasionally intervenes the rest of the time?
The book group discussion was made more interesting by one of our members being a pied noir who had left in 1962 when she was 12. The book aroused vivid childhood memories and tears. So on that basis I'd say this is an even-handed and powerful account of the damage that colonisation and decolonisation does to individual lives ... and also of how people survive and change....more
This is a very unusual book. It started with Evelyne Pisier writing a novelised version of her life. Caroline Laurent was assigned as her editor by thThis is a very unusual book. It started with Evelyne Pisier writing a novelised version of her life. Caroline Laurent was assigned as her editor by the publishing company. She loved Evelyne's work and when they met to discuss it, they had a kind of coup de foudre and became fast friends, despite the almost 50-year age difference. They worked on the book together with joy.
Six months later, Evelyne was dead, the book unfinished. Caroline had promised to produce the book Evelyne would have wanted. She took to the task, and the result is a "novel" in which the fictionalised account of the life of Evelyne's mother and Evelyne herself is interspersed with Caroline's recollections of Evelyne, and reflections on her work on the book and her own life.
The book serves as a potted history of advances in women's rights during the 20th century. Evelyne's mother ("Mona" in the book) is married to an ultra-traditional colonial administrator, "André", posted in Vietnam and Nouméa. She is completely subsumed, a wife and mother with no rights to opinions of her own, in thrall to André's masculine aura. By the end of the book she is divorced (twice, from the same man), a militant for women's rights and has even overcome her disgust for homosexuality. She encourages her daughter to succeed where she failed, through academic achievement, while saving her from her worst excesses (Evelyne's idea of moving to Cuba to have a baby with Fidel Castro, for example).
A number of people in my book group seemed to have a huge problem with the fact that Laurent freely admits making some things up (the character of Marthe the librarian for example), and that Evelyne herself chose not to make any mention of her more famous sister, actress Marie-France. I had no problem with this; Evelyne specifically wanted to write "auto-fiction", and it was her right to shape the story as she saw fit. A sister was not necessary to the story, and Evelyne had taken her death (a possible suicide) very hard, so she wasn't included. I did think the way that Laurent disposed of Marthe when she was no longer necessary to the story was a little extreme though.
Perhaps inevitably, the part about Evelyne's childhood is more interesting than the later parts. And I would really have liked to know more about Mona's transition from dutiful colonial wife to family planning activist. It can't only have been about reading de Beauvoir and being forced into an abortion by her allegedly Catholic husband. She is the most interesting character in the book.
Overall, original and really well written if a bit romantically overwrought at times....more
Too exasperated to continue. Vuillard has one idea: lists, and he uses them endlessly. Just can't be bothered to write more about this tedious book --Too exasperated to continue. Vuillard has one idea: lists, and he uses them endlessly. Just can't be bothered to write more about this tedious book -- I made it halfway through over a period of a month, and it's not a long book....more
N'est pas Zola qui veut, I thought after a hundred pages or so. It's clearly intended as a massive social novel in the tradition of Germinal, but MordN'est pas Zola qui veut, I thought after a hundred pages or so. It's clearly intended as a massive social novel in the tradition of Germinal, but Mordillat is not Zola. It reads like a script for a TV series (which it effectively is -- Mordillat made a series from it later, and I'm sure it was always his intention). A lot of dialogue, short scenes with single-word titles mostly indicating the location. Sketchily drawn characters, a pedestrian writing style.
It's clear that the novel is intended as a critique of modern global capitalism -- just as Au Bonheur des dames is a critique of consumerism -- and Mordillat positions himself clearly on the side of the workers; he supported Mélenchon's La France Insoumise at the last election. He uses one particular character, Lorquin, to represent what I suspect are his own views. However, he is not Zola.
After a couple of hundred pages I was quite bored with it. But what was really making me spit feathers was his portrayal of the female characters. No way would this novel pass the Bechdel test. With very few exceptions, all of their conversations are about sex or babies. Meanwhile the men are the ones who talk about politics and stand up for workers' rights. And it's so blatant that it can't just be Mordillat's way of depicting a society in which traditional roles are enforced. The women think and talk about sex All. The. Time (when they're not dandling babies or discussing pregnancy). With rare exceptions all interactions between men and women boil down to sex. There's even one character, Mickie, whose only role is to provide clandestine sex to other characters.
The only female character who breaks this mould is the journalist Florence, who has a career but neither man nor babies. But hey, it turns out she's gay, because what other possible reason could there be for her refusing to sleep with a married man twice her age? (view spoiler)[And even she ends up getting pregnant and having a baby. (hide spoiler)] Mickie can think of nothing better to recommend to a friend whose husband has committed suicide but to go out and find a man to have sex with. Oh, and the wages of childless Mickie's no-strings sexual activities? Terminal ovarian cancer. Of course. Even when the women do engage in political activity it's to defend their men.
So, pretty exasperating for a book published in 2005 by someone clearly on the left. But I've given it two stars because it did improve in the last third (despite a pretty terrible ending revolving around, um, sex), and while you can't countenance the actions of some characters, Mordillat does make you think about what is justified in this situation, and what can be excused. He does a good, albeit long-winded, job of developing the views of the various unions with their different political stances. It's a clever move to make the owners of the factory remote holding companies passing the company between them, whose owners never appear. The workers are literally fighting a void....more
I gave up at page 28. I might have continued further, but I was going on holiday, and this is definitely not light holiday reading. A couple of other I gave up at page 28. I might have continued further, but I was going on holiday, and this is definitely not light holiday reading. A couple of other members of my book group liked it, so I suppose I might pick it up again one day. A bit fed up of these "beautifully written" French novels with no plot, dialogue, or paragraphs....more
It's a shame this is Margaret Atwood's best-known book, because in my opinion it's by no means her best -- that's a toss-up between Booker-winning TheIt's a shame this is Margaret Atwood's best-known book, because in my opinion it's by no means her best -- that's a toss-up between Booker-winning The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace. If this had been the first of hers I'd read I might not have bothered reading any more, which would have been a great loss.
I remember seeing the Volker Schlöndorff film back in the 1990s -- it gave me nightmares and put me off reading the book. It is clever the way she uses only actual trends and practices that already existed in the 1980s to create her dystopia, pushed to extremes. It helps to make the idea that people accepted these changes more plausible. And she's also right to depict some women (especially the Aunts) colluding with this. And the fact that Offred's husband Luke swiftly accepts her loss of independence, saying he'll "look after her" is a telling detail.Although it was still hard to believe that the hold of the theocracy over people's minds would be so complete after only a few years (my impression is that Offred has only been captive for about five years).
In general the characters are rather thin, especially (as usual with Atwood ...) the men. The Commander is hardly a commanding figure, coming across as a henpecked husband. Offred is weak, going along with what she's told, but of course this is part of the point.
Now, of course, things like this seem more plausible. In an article (worth reading), Atwood comments:
Stories about the future always have a "what-if" premise, and The Handmaid's Tale has several. For instance: if you wanted to seize power in the US, abolish liberal democracy and set up a dictatorship, how would you go about it? What would be your cover story? It would not resemble any form of communism or socialism: those would be too unpopular. It might use the name of democracy as an excuse for abolishing liberal democracy: that's not out of the question, though I didn't consider it possible in 1985.
This now looks ominous.
The biggest problem with the book nowadays is one that I only really recognised after I finished it, and which is discussed in relation to both the book and the recent TV series (which I haven't seen) by Angelica Jade Bastien: race. In the book, a throwaway sentence mentions that all black people were simply removed to some far-off territory. This is really implausible. When you look at the history of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 70s, how likely is it that black activists would just pack up and go? It's more jarring given that a) the USA was a nation founded on slavery and b) the way the handmaids are treated bears many similarities to the treatment of slaves. I'd venture to say that if Atwood were writing this book now, she'd never get away with this. Bastien:
But the history that The Handmaid’s Tale trades in to the most profound degree is America’s greatest sin: slavery. Black women were brutalized, raped, separated from their children and family, forced into servitude, and not allowed to enact the cultural practices that reminded them of the homes they were stolen from solely for the profit of white people. Watching The Handmaid’s Tale, which ends its first season on Wednesday, I can’t help but think about the voices of enslaved black women, given how this narrative so closely aligns with theirs.
Well, Binet evidently has a bone to pick with certain French philosophers and literary theorists, with Sollers and BHL bearing the brunt of his pique.Well, Binet evidently has a bone to pick with certain French philosophers and literary theorists, with Sollers and BHL bearing the brunt of his pique. This is a challenging read if, unlike Binet, you are not intimately acquainted with the big names of French semiotics ... have Wikipedia to hand. He's so brutal with these real-life characters (some of them still alive) that I couldn't help thinking his publishers must have really good lawyers.
I read this with my French book group, and everyone else really enjoyed it. I did too, although I'll admit to skimming/skipping some of the lengthy theoretical debates. I'm sure it was stuffed with references and in-jokes I didn't get -- although I was delighted with a cameo appearance from David Lodge's Morris Zapp, roaring up (of course) in a Lotus Esprit. When it was funny, it was very funny, and I also liked the Holmes/Watson duo of Inspector Bayard and PhD student Simon Herzog, who uses his semiotic knowledge of signifiers and signified to make amazing deductions, as well as using the power of language to impressive effect. It's modernist metafiction as well, with some characters eventually realising they are in a novel. Aspects of it reminded me of both Jonathan Coe and Kate Atkinson.
You'll find a more knowledgeable review here....more
At first I found this book quite irritating in its cynicism. The narrator Paul casts a weary eye over every aspect of the world around him and finds iAt first I found this book quite irritating in its cynicism. The narrator Paul casts a weary eye over every aspect of the world around him and finds it wanting. Everyone is corrupt, lazy, venal. Women are just there for the purpose of sex. The idea of building a novel about social change through the life of a single individual is hardly new, and it's been done a lot better. There's very little dialogue; Dubois simply tells you about the state of mind of the characters. Reading about Paul's wife Anna swiftly grasping the point of neoliberal capitalism and making herself rich flogging jacuzzis made me think of how much better Tim Lott did this in Rumours of a Hurricane. Paul's adolescent and young adult dilemmas and soul-searching have been done by Jonathan Coe many times to vastly better effect. The humour is a bit too French for me.
So I was going to give it two stars. But I felt it was redeemed by the last hundred pages where Paul begins to realise where a life of isolation, estrangement, and inability to connect with other people except on a superficial level has left him. So, three stars....more
This book left me fairly baffled. I didn't understand why Carrère had written it, or why he structured it the way he did. He took two unrelated eventsThis book left me fairly baffled. I didn't understand why Carrère had written it, or why he structured it the way he did. He took two unrelated events: on holiday in Sri Lanka he witnessed the effects of the tsunami, and met a French couple who lost their four-year-old daughter. Later, after he and his partner return home, his partner's sister, whom he barely knows, becomes ill and eventually dies of cancer at the age of 33. Well, there is a connection between these events I suppose: him. Why did he feel qualified to publish a book about them? There are some moving moments as you try to fathom how it must feel to lose your child in a moment, or what it's like to lie on a hospital bed with your dying wife. But mostly I just wondered where it was all going. At the end, he clumsily brings back the family of the tsunami victim -- they've kept in touch, but don't seem to have become close friends.
Juliette, his sister in law, was a magistrate in a local court, dealing with consumer issues and personal debt (curiously the dead child was also called Juliette). For some reason he includes a long section, fifty pages or so, in which he interviews her colleague Etienne and after telling you all about Etienne's life history recounts more than you ever wished to know about French law on surendettement. Etienne and Juliette are concerned not just with legal justice but social justice, and spend a lot of time figuring out ways to invalidate "revolving credit" contracts gullible people have signed, much to the disgust of the large financial companies involved (Incidentally they are also both disabled as a result of childhood cancers which is what first creates a bond between them). Eventually they get the European Court of Justice involved and are thrilled to gain a victory over the credit companies. Reflecting on it, perhaps the point of this section is to demonstrate that even people apparently in relatively dull, trivial jobs can gain enormous satisfaction from them, and do their bit to relieve human misery -- as a result of Juliette and Etienne's actions, many very poor people had their debts reduced or cancelled altogether. Its also perhaps a way of acknowledging his self-centredness: showing interest in "lives other than his own".
So I'm eager to find out what the French people in my book group think of it all. Maybe they can explain it!
I'm not going to write a review of this or give it any stars, because a) I didn't finish it (by about 50 pages) and b) it can't be appreciated unless I'm not going to write a review of this or give it any stars, because a) I didn't finish it (by about 50 pages) and b) it can't be appreciated unless you studied Racine extensively at school, which I didn't -- although I did read his Wikipedia entry before I started, and I can vaguely remember reading a few of his alexandrines in French lessons.
I will say that the jacket blurb is incredibly misleading. It makes it seem as if it's "about" a modern-day failed romance, in which the jilted woman uses Racine to come to terms with her feelings. It's not. It is basically a fictionalised biography of Racine, bookended by a couple of pages of our modern heroine bemoaning her loss, and a short section in the middle where she visits (or not) her dying ex-lover.
The account of Racine does dwell on passion and separation, starting with Dido and Aeneas and moving on to Titus and Berenice (yes, a classical education helps, and at least my A-Level Latin stood me in good stead). And I liked some of Racine's musings on language early on in the novel, but this just didn't float my boat. Other members of my book group did enjoy it, but they said that it was precisely because they'd studied Racine and Corneille at school....more
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