Re: A French Book Reading Resource
Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2019 12:49 am
Dans le jardin de l’ogre by Leïla Slimani
Slimani is a recent Prix Goncourt winner and appears on many tv shows in France right now. Since she is so high profile maybe a couple of words are in order re her earlier book Dans le jardin de l’ogre.
All artists and authors borrow from others and Slimani certainly does her fair share of borrowing in the writing of this book. From the beginning and throughout the similarities between the main character of Adèle and Thérèse Desqueyroux of Francois Mauriac are striking. The alienation, the ennui, the malaise, the desire for freedom, being footloose and fancy free with nowhere to go, et al.
The fact is that the book never goes anywhere other than Adèle just finding sex with different people in different situations. I mean I am totally for sex in literature but it has to be done well. Slimani never seems to execute on the quality of her sex scenes. They are all just perfunctory trysts, one after another, which is part of the point.
But Adèle never seems to get to a point of resolving her inner anguish. She starts in anguish and ends in anguish.
If Slimani wants us to feel that the journey has been a worthwhile one we need to find some insights or beauty or something along the way. I am on my second read through this book and I am not finding much. If I do I will definitely revise my comments here.
It is my understanding of the French people and their zeitgeist that they find a certain degree of anomie, alienation or malaise to be respectable and a sign of depth of thought and character. At least that is what they tell me. Michel Houellebecq also a Prix Goncourt winner probably exemplifies these attributes most clearly in today’s French literature.
If people wish to review their French readings,old or new, in this thread or comment on my review by all means do so. I love my French literature and feel responsible to say when I think a book is good or bad. And since the French are absolutely dedicated to debating all things I feel my comments very much uphold the French standard of the need to disagree.
Slimani is a recent Prix Goncourt winner and appears on many tv shows in France right now. Since she is so high profile maybe a couple of words are in order re her earlier book Dans le jardin de l’ogre.
All artists and authors borrow from others and Slimani certainly does her fair share of borrowing in the writing of this book. From the beginning and throughout the similarities between the main character of Adèle and Thérèse Desqueyroux of Francois Mauriac are striking. The alienation, the ennui, the malaise, the desire for freedom, being footloose and fancy free with nowhere to go, et al.
The fact is that the book never goes anywhere other than Adèle just finding sex with different people in different situations. I mean I am totally for sex in literature but it has to be done well. Slimani never seems to execute on the quality of her sex scenes. They are all just perfunctory trysts, one after another, which is part of the point.
But Adèle never seems to get to a point of resolving her inner anguish. She starts in anguish and ends in anguish.
If Slimani wants us to feel that the journey has been a worthwhile one we need to find some insights or beauty or something along the way. I am on my second read through this book and I am not finding much. If I do I will definitely revise my comments here.
It is my understanding of the French people and their zeitgeist that they find a certain degree of anomie, alienation or malaise to be respectable and a sign of depth of thought and character. At least that is what they tell me. Michel Houellebecq also a Prix Goncourt winner probably exemplifies these attributes most clearly in today’s French literature.
If people wish to review their French readings,old or new, in this thread or comment on my review by all means do so. I love my French literature and feel responsible to say when I think a book is good or bad. And since the French are absolutely dedicated to debating all things I feel my comments very much uphold the French standard of the need to disagree.