- Paperback: 188 pages
- Publisher: LIVRE DE POCHE (LGF) (Oct 8 2004)
- Language: French
- ISBN-10: 2253109592
- ISBN-13: 978-2253109594
- Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 10.9 x 1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 100 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,412,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
French playwright and novelist Reza (Desolation) wryly channels the thoughts of the titular depressed, unhappily married 47-year-old writer: he has just been diagnosed by his optometrist with partial thrombosis and probable glaucoma, while his wife, Irene, an engineer, seems to no longer love or care for him. With obsessions about his mortality, marriage, and failed book crashing about his head, Adam finds himself watching the ostriches in Paris's Jardin des Plantes, periodically cell-phoning his contentedly-coupled friend Albert. Recognizing Adam in the park, Marie-Thérèse Lyoc, with her bags full of the merchandise she sells to zoos and amusement parks, is energetic and talkative; in lycée, she was the invisible, faceless slave to another girl Adam loved. Out of grim resignation, Adam agrees to drive back with this open, talkative "nauseatingly robust ghost from the past" to her apartment in the suburbs while Marie-Thérèse cooks dinner for him, and eventually shares with him a letter that reveals how she once pined for him. This revelation, 30-years-ripe, paralyzes him. In her penetrating, repetitive monologue, Reza collapses Adam's entire sense of himself, and renders his ordinariness touching, even majestic.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Reza's second novel is as taut and cutting as her first, Desolation (2002), and even funnier in its disclosures of human foibles. The award-winning French playwright brings to fiction her gift for crafting a fuming inner monologue in counterpoint with spiky dialogue as a man faces a crisis primarily of his own construction. Adam, a 47-year-old writer, has eye trouble and consequently is full of fear of disability, age, and death. But he is also sulking on a rainy day in the Jardin des Plantes because his newest book and his marriage are utter disasters. Enter a doggedly upbeat former classmate, Marie-Therese. Adam agrees to dinner at her place, and as Marie-Therese summons up awkward memories and raves about electrical appliances, his mordant thoughts turn to vanity, mortality, and the shocking pleasure he experienced anonymously writing a work of pulp fiction. As Reza conducts this wry duet of delusion and compromise, she questions our belief in the transcendence of art, reminds us that we're our own worst enemies, and balances existential blues with compassion and humor. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Steer Clear of this train wreck.., Feb 17 2008
By M. C. Horn - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Adam Haberberg (Hardcover)
This could be possibly the most tiresome, tritely drawn up drivel I have yet to read.. Her understanding of men is so foreign, so incomplete, so vacuous.. There were no comical elements to be found.. How come the rating system can't display negative stars... I want my time refunded I spent on this book!
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
strange disjointed story, July 10 2007
By weekly reader "cc" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Adam Haberberg (Hardcover)
The writing style is hard to follow at first but I was able to get through the book. The story line jumped around and it was hard to tell when Adam was talking out loud and when he was thinking. this short book is about a few hours of the day in the miserable life of Adam with no start or finish to the story. will not be passing this one along to anyone with my blessing.
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