Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question, Bloomsbury, Booker Prize 2010

This book is the Man Booker Prize of the Year ( 2010) and it is for the first time given to a comic, very funny book since Kingley Amis, which is something , but it is vastly deceiving because we deal with a very serious book about jewishness and what it means to be a jewish intellectual in a western City ( London) with the metaphysical angst pertaining to the feeling of failure. Apparently being jewish it is a problem as such ; it lies in the collective unconscious and is so pregnant in the very soul and character of all jews that long repetitive novels are inevitable : the reader is all the time irritated by the constant harping on the same themes as well as amused by the grotesque scenes enacted by all the caricature - charged characters.They are unbelievable, you want to kick them, but you don't dare because it would be openly anti semitic. Yes, Jacobson is a tough cookie.

« The Finkler Question » is like a Woody Allen movie, after a while you want to scream because the hero or heroes drive you nuts by their contradictions.There are basically three people, three old friends : Finkler , a sucessful jewish intellectual and media personality, Treslove a british BBC Has -been who wants to be jewish , finally their old wise college professor Libor Sevcik , a rather endearing man . They talk and argue all the time , enjoying themselves hugely till the crisis that sets the story in motion : the death of Finkler's and Tibor's wives, thus the sudden disappearance of love and stability in their lives. We meet head on the awful and relentless question haunting also Woody Allen's cinematic world : how to deal with women and wives and how to live without them ? .It is finally the Woman Question we are reading about in this book ,which becomes especially tragic with old Tibor's final and sinister suicide because he no longer can face the remaining of his old age without the presence of his adored wife.Let me point out here that all human lives find a taste of failure in old age, especially in non- religious societies. It is not a specific jewish stain.

There are long and unnecessary sub plots , weighing the tale down,notably the unbelievable love affair of poor Treslove, otherwise a cheap Don Juan type, who falls for the niece of Tibor a large breasted bewitching creature called Hephzibah , who turns out to be the ultimate jewish mother, but is also quite a courageous woman trying to run a Jewish- english museum in an elegant neighborhood of London, whose ouside walls are unfortunately victims of Muslim slurs, tags and insults in a terrorist plagued city.There are other worse crimes described and an ugly political problem adds itself to the existence of our jewish characters, and Finkler appears to be the best equipped to deal with this in the media and the associations he sponsors. It is all very funny , ironic, tremendously ambiguous, since Finkler claims to be anti Zionist and anti jewish himself, but it is also dramatic and infuriating to witness the effects of the real anti -semitic explosions rampant into immigrants- filled London . It is a horror ,quite as inescapable as XXI st century western urban problems, another dangerous pollution so to speak, that colors the Finkler's Question : what is a politically aware Jew to do in these circumstances ?

Yet the main theme of this book to me , is clear : failure . These interesting and gifted men ; so jewish yet so integrated into our cities cultural lives are unable in old age to wrap up their own personal lives : they failed in their own eyes with women, with their kids, in their chosen profession even , and finally in their own long friendship because of an unforgivable dumb sexual treason at the end . Where is Philip Roth finally ? not far away … Is Howard Jacobson really the «  Jewish Jane Austen »  as he claims to be ? Well, I am not so sure.

Colm TOIBIN , The empty Family,Viking, 2010

Here is a volume of short stories, some of which are haunting , concise and absolutely perfect in evoking the sense of familial ties so alive at the time of a parent's death, of returing home ( in Ireland in this case ) or the view of a familiar neighborhood of one's childhood and of an empty house…..What makes these stories so great ?  Moments of Time gone by and lived intensely appear all of a sudden in a memory as precise as an engraving , shining and lingering in the narrator's mind , often bathed in nostalgia .Toibin is the master of nostalgia . At his mother's death bed he knows that it is no longer possible to spend more time with her during the summer's holidays, he feels guilty : » …May be, I was not as good a son as my brother and sister were « nd then « .. she was always so dignified and calm .. » There are no tears and no outporing of grief . Just these simple sentences with everyday words, unadorned, functional even, which are marvelously coined and arouse the reader's emotions  in an oblique manner.It is a rare gift .

Proust and James both could achieve a poetic atmosphere and a peak of emotions in the intimate realm but with an impressive syntactic baggage : interminable sentences,cohorts of periphrases and triplicate adjectives in subordonate phrases …all of this required effort and linguistic talent, and a great deal of patience .Toibin here is different, he achieves perfection, a sort of Hemingway lesson of brevity and austerity ,in these very personal short stories, some of which are incredibly short but inscribe themselves in our own memory.

The first stories such as « One minus One », « Silence » and « The Empty Family « are small gems , unique and perfect in a genre : the intimate moments which remain discrete, understated even, but intense. Other stories which deal with gay sexual experiments or even prowesses of adolescence are strange and surprising in their expliciteness and crude descriptions as if the author revelled in his own boldness. But there are exceptions in this vein .One marvelous and tragic story deals with an impossible suffering  : an homosexual love affair between two Pakistani immigrants , illegals, who work like slaves in a horribly repressive country where not a moment of human happiness or dignity is possible, everything happens in the dark and in hiding.  Toibin manages to create a painful suspense in the slow, secretive, mute manner of asiatic cultures, with almost no speech and gestures alone, a moment of human closeness and consolation that elevates this awful tale of woe to an examplary level .

Another story in a totally different domain descibes a wealthy marriage of convenience between an old illustrious titled man and a young poor woman in the London of 1900 ; this is amusing and not dramatic but marvelously studied : in fact it is a small novel of manners with Henry James as a character , appearing naturally as a dinner Guest  and marvelouly entertaining We have here a variety of talents , literary genres , tones of the Narrator's voice , a palette of human experiences and tales which show us what a remarkable and accomplished writer Colm Toibin has become.

Ann Tyler, Noah's Compass,Vintage, 2010

The latest book of the Prolific Tyler, a novelist and also a gifted sociologist , takes place in Baltimore as usual,but tackles the problem of old age on the one hand and of resignation to one's life in the world , on the other hand. It is a very interesting and a very unusual book.
The theme of acceptance is present in Tyler's work but the wisedom of forming an essential life with no frills is new. The hero Liam is the well known Tyler quirky type,or unreliable eccentric ,but a basically decent older man who finds himself automatically retired when he is fired from his teaching job at age sixty. He is certainly an educated man,but unambitious, a push over, who never involved himself in anything strongly enough to fight for it. So, he had two marriages and three daughters,a sister , one or two friends, but now he finds himself essentially alone in a creepy appartment. Yet,when he is burgled and mugged the day he moves in, and finds himself in the hospital with amnesia, he finds all these people at his bed side caring for him.
So, it is not the theme of loneliness which interests Tyler but the presence in a given american suburban society,of a group of carers or helpers.They are there always. There is thus a strong solidarity which is not so evident in european novels, which are replete with truly lonely characters who live on their own helped by no one.
This desertion does not happen in Tyler's world and it is amazing to see her novelistic families rooted in one place, Baltimore in this case), ignoring globalization , job's uprooting and other disintegrating factors of the modern sphere.It allows for a structural force in her work,reminiscent of nineteenth century's literature but also providing a strong emotional texture and revealing dialogues where her power of observation are evident. No one describes every day life and quotidian conversation as she does in american literature.
When you are entering your sixties, it is better to understand that your romantic life is over and that other values take pre eminence; this is what Liam does .Now, it is rare to see a main character refuse an easy form of narcissism and rise to a level of moral choice. Yes, he can find another job and work again, make himself useful. He does not take pride in this choice but finds natural happiness in a basic american virtue : to live a useful life on one's own. Few European advanced societies can boast of such an achievement in the problem of obliged retirement and subsequent psychological self destruction. .

Per Petterson, Out Stealing Horses,Picador, 2005

This Norwegian writer won several prizes in Scandinavia for this novel,which is both a memoir and an WWII epic , which curiously reminds one of The Odyssey by its lyrical evocation of an heroic and elusive father ,always gone away on a long voyage .. The narrator is an old man who, like an hermit, has retired in a cabin in the woods of northern Norway ; the unusual presence of a strange neighbor , who was the brother of his best childhood's friend brings to mind the last summer of his childhood. These summers with his father in the rough,happened during the German occupation , in the countryside of forest and lakes,up north , near the swedish border and they were unforgettable . The boy adored his father,who was an athletic, warm hearted, attractive heroic figure who taught him new skills everyday on horses, boats, forest survival etc and on top of that , led a mysterious erotic life with a neighbor blonde beauty . This summer life was also the antidote to the boy's city life in Oslo with his mother , who like Penelope was relegated in the domestic role, poor pathetic creature .But this paradise of Natural life was shattered by an accidental killing at the neighbor's family and also by the discovery of his father's dangerous activity of underground resistance to the Germans. He was nearly shot .

The narrator is like Telemachus who spent his youth looking for his formidable father always on the run,unseizable, unreachable as all heroes must be, who eventually returned home unannounced and left again probably .. in this case, the father at the end of this fatal summer, sent a final letter of adieux ,left the family in Oslo and disappeared for ever.. We surmise that life was hard and not easy nor glamorous for mother and kids in the city flat and we understand in a way the exile of an old man retiring in the woods looking for peace and simplicity , although we know nothing of his adult life.The tale is sober and unadorned

There are moments of capital importance in all human lives, which take place often in the early years and form our inner paradise : » Out stealing horses « meant riding in the rough the neighbor's horses who was a friend of his father , whom all admired in the small community of summer cabins ,in the gorgeous natural country .The boy was proud of his father and who does not wish really to have an heroic father , even if he abandons you ? Petterson knows however that the price to pay is the discovery of evil and the capacity of suffering brought along with what you could call call pseudo heroic deeds , even if they are immensely appealing. This is a wondeful book, a form of meditation on he power of the past .

Marc Dugain,L’insomnie des Etoiles, Gallimard ,2010

Depuis «  La Chambre des Officiers »et surtout « La Malédiction d'Edgar » livre fascinant sur le chef du FBI pendant 50  ans Edgar Hoover, on attend de Fugain un roman de complots, de secrets et de perversité politique ou autre bien rôdée. Ce livre-ci ne déroge pas à ces attentes quoique le sujet soit un théme éculé et dont on a vraiment s tout révélé : le nazisme et ses camps d'extermination. Au début on ne se doute de rien et on lit l'histoire incroyable de cette fille Maria, de 15 ans sauvage, abandonnée dans un ferme vide en Allemagne occupée et découverte par un bataillon français,qui va la sortir de ce taudis , la nourrir et la ramener à la santé. Cette première partie évoque la souffrance et le dénuement absolu du peuple allemand en 1944 quand les bombardements incessants des alliés leur tombent sur la tete et la pitié vous saisit. Du gain peint aussi les hommes et officiers français qui périssent d'ennui et tournent en rond dans cette ville dévastée et sans activité . La vie de caserne est terrifiante et leur chef un capitaine Louyre se cherche une énigme à résoudre dans cette Allemagne muette qui, ne parle pas du Führer ni de la Gestapo ni des prisonniers..qu'est devenue la mère, malade mentale enfermée de la petite Maria, et surtout qu'est devenu l'Hôpital de la ville ?

Une enquête mène au médecin chef du fameux hôpital maintenant à la retraite et on découvre toute la théorie nazie de l'élimination des malades mentaux,des handicapés, prisonniers malades etc qu'ils appelaient pudiquement des « morts par faveur « , car tous ces malheureux n'avaient qu'un envie : mourir. Ils furent déportés par trains entiers , et personne ne s'y opposât. La narration est sobre, claire , ressemble à un documentaire et Dugain réussit l'exploit de faire revivre sans ennuyer les lecteurs qui connaissent ces évènements, un passé dont les allemands survivants n'ont ni honte ni remords . le maire et le médecin de la ville admirent encore leur Führer et pour eux, la grande Allemagne victorieuse ne peut avoir été battue par les Alliés . Non ils ne croient pas encore à leur défaite.Elle est impossible et leur psychose continue.

Récit terrifiant et sans fioritures, le capitaine Louyre, après ces découvertes macabres, demande à être démobilisé et quittera l'Allemagne, tout comme le lecteur déboussolé préfère penser au salut de Maria, orpheline abandonnée qui part en France avec le capitaine vers une vie plus humaine  et un pays moins dévasté que l'Allemagne.

Erri De Luca, Le Jour avant le Bonheur,Gallimard , 2009

Un écrivain qui est aussi ouvrier et poète, et a mené pendant 12 ans une activité révolutionnaire intense en Italie, ne se trouve qu'à Naples . Il a obtenu le prix Femina étranger en 2002 pour «  Montedidio » qui est le quartier miséreux où il a grandi et il écrit surtout des romans autobiographiques basés sur cette enfance solitaire parmi les pauvres . Son lyrisme et sa sobriété sont telles que cette histoire d'un orphelin , vivant dans une petite cave d'un immeuble pauvre , sous la protection d'un concierge protecteur devient un hymne à l'extraordinaire ville de Naples, splendide et violente ,d'une vitalité inouïe. Ville qui survit à l'occupation allemande et accueille les Américains libérateurs dans un même élan de joie et de roublardise retorse de voleurs incontournables.. on connait tous la phrase typique des mères d'enfants délinquants de Naples : « si non lavora, va a rubare.. !  »On connait moins bien la Camorra des rues de pauvres qui va causer la fuite de notre héros en Argentine, pour échapper à la vengeance maffieuse inexpiable en 1945 , et revenir à l'âge adulte dans sa ville adorée,qui lui a servi de mère et de père.

Le jeune héros a adoré l'école et la lecture et il est devenu poète comme l'auteur de luca lui-même par une bibliothèque qui lui a donné le goût de la transmission et le besoin de participer à l'héritage centenaire de cette ville antique,espagnole,italienne , s'étendant au pied du volcan menaçant et superbe dans son silence. Un très beau livre, plein d'espoir ,de sagesse et de vision humaniste curieusement : grandir tout seul dans un sombre réduit n'est pas un malheur absolu si on sait regarder et si on a un protecteur ...

Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon , Atlantic books, 2008

This Swiss- German writer is in fact a university Professor of Philosophy in Berlin, but his third novel has become a best seller and righfully so ; it is an excellent novel , totally engrossing ,long and somewhat hard to read. The hero , Raymond Gregorius, resembles the author : he is a old professor of ancient languages who one day, rescues by chance an unknown woman from throwing herself down a bridge . She holds a portuguese book in her hand which will fascinate Gregorius no end and cause him to leave Bern, his home town , to travel by train to Lisbon and start a new life . What does an unexpexted travel to an unexpected city , not knowing the language or the history of the land , does to a poetic mind ? A sort of slow revelation occurs and this interior voyage is a profond expérience ,a discovery of a colorful southern and recluse culture which drives relentlessly the the reader along .

An obscure but talented portuguese writer Amadeo de Prado, now dead , is our guide : Gregorius reads him constantly and tries to find his old surviving friends all over lisbon, a city which he discovers on his own. These essays on love, friendship, death and his own biography are somewhat reminiscent of Montaigne or even Camus : how to live one's life, achieve a sort of Virtue and survive hard times . We are thus invited on a fascinating spiritual and to a certain level political, quest of Amadeo and what he represented to Gregorius curious mind  ; an isolated genius,like a Renaissance man, born in a traditional, old fashioned culture ( Portugal) steeped into the past , who endured the dictatorship of Salazar, a cruel and terrible regime not at all as well known as Franco or Mussolini's were

It is an extraordinary quest , requiring a great deal of courage and perseverance ,with the knowledge of an ultimately failed life of Amadeo and his tragic demise at the end ; we learn a great deal and are nourrished .It is a great and unforgettable book,and also a magnificent ode ot Lisbon, a wondeful and mysterious city , full of old neighborhoods and gardens, far on the other side of Europe.

Michel Houellebecq, La Carte et le Territoire, Flammarion, Prix Goncourt 2010

Le dernier livre de Houellebeck est une étude sociologique de la France actuelle en même temps qu'un portrait de l'artiste contemporain, collant à son époque , faisant de la pub ou promotion télévisuelle et médiatique de son œuvre au fur et à mesure de sa création, ainsi que citant des célébrités ( ou les » people » ) sans arrêt pour en assurer la diffusion ; C'est stupéfiant, on se croirait au festival de Cannes, et c'est tordant : on assiste donc, dès la première page à la mise en scène de Fréderic Beigbeder,Jean Pierre Pernault de TF1, de Julien Lepers, de Patrick lelay etc , tous des personnages connus , assez nuls d'après l'auteur, sauf Beigbeder qu'il aime beaucoup. De grandes marques comme les cartes Michelin , les Super marché Casino , les compagnies low Cost telles Ryan Air abondent ,avec mots anglais et informatiques pèle mêle ; bref, on se sent aussi comfy que chez le coiffeur avec pizza et fast food , même si les portrait peints par un des héros du livre ( Jed Martin), de Steve Jobs et Bill Gates , de Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons etc . comme les représentants ultimes de notre civilisation occidentale ne nous atterraient pas un max. C'est hilarant,d'une ironie sinistre et implacable, pleine de fausse bienveillance qui va loin ; ces critiques acerbes, sinistrement ironiques, et franchement terrifiantes de la dévastation du XXI e siécle , sonnent juste et sont irréfutables, accablantes , quoique drôlissimes. Il y manque Johnny Halliday, et encore je ne suis pas sûre qu'il n'y soit pas,le roman étant très touffu. Le lecteur est maqué.

Houellebeck a dû s'amuser énormément, d'ailleurs il se met en scène lui même comme écrivain connu et décrié, asocial, sale et plutôt repoussant (puant) ,l'anti héros non lavé, déprimé célèbre, ne mangeant que saucissons en rondelles et buvant du gros rouge et bon vin en pagaille… Assez bien rendu par un auteur prônant comme mode de vie, la désillusion , le contentement minimum, l'ennui pérenne ,et la lucidité absolue en toute simplicité . Je sais qu'on le critique abondamment pour son «  devoir d'être abject », sa « provocation permanente », et son plagiarisme même ; on l'appelle plaisamment « le Baudelaire des supermarchés » ( assez drôle d'ailleurs ), mais le ton incroyable de sincérité absolue et de culot tranquille , infernal, se fichant de tout et de tous , ne trompe pas : cet homme- là sait de quoi il parle . Notre civilisation est bien finie, il ne reste que de vivre à la campagne , peinard et sans douleur avec un bon petit computer,un petit revenu sûr .. et vogue la galére ! Le sexe ,c'est bien fini,Dieu merci, la famille et les enfants, n'en parlons pas, la création artistique , grotesque, «  it is a joke » ( car il parle anglais tout le temps ici ),la société libérale est une cata évidente … Les grands Présidents démocrates américains eux-mêmes comme Bill Clinton, John Kennedy et Obama apparaissant comme «  des botoxés lubriques «  en sont de bons exemples.. quelle misère ! Dans l'ensemble,il faut s'arranger pour voir le moins de cons possibles, la solitude existentielle étant parfaitement assimilée ; c'est la moindre des choses : saine vision des choses finalement. On ne peut s'empêcher de voir qu'il a diablement raison, ce héros , de s'extraire de la société de consommation et de vivre sans ambition, sans soucis , sans créer quoique ce soit de plus.

Mais il y a quelque chose qui cloche dans ce beau petit scénario : le dédoublement du héros de l'histoire est bizarre, peu crédible : pourquoi avoir crée Jed Martin et Michel Houellebeck aussi, qui se ressemblent et sont assez amis d'ailleurs , et pourquoi avoir imaginé la mort atroce et sanglante de Houellebeck qui a la tête coupée et le cadavre déchiqueté par un inconnu pervers ? C'est vrai que dans les romans précédents , il y a aussi des morts violentes , et que notre époque est violente et souvent criminelle, mais ce développement de l'intrigue affaiblit quelque peu le roman qui jusque là, était étonnamment crédible, valable et cohérent.Mais Houellebeck croit par ailleurs qu'une vie humaine doit aller jusqu'à sa fin naturelle , que la mort fait partie intégrante de la vie et en quelque sorte la couronne de signification. Une mort violente ne devrait pas tomber sur un individu plutôt doux et sans prétention car il ya une sorte d'humilité dans son retrait du monde, qui se veut bouddhique mais reste malgré tout hyper célèbre, un de ces «  people «  abhorré … quel sort cruel que d'être le prochain inévitable Goncourt !

Amelie Nothomb, Une forme de Vie , Albin Michel, 2010.

Le dernier opus d'Amélie Nothomb est excellent, particulièrement réussi ; récit bref de forme épistolaire , style concis assez comminatoire , ton ironique mâtiné d'auto- dérision du plus bel effet sur un sujet difficile , douloureux et même grotesque : l'obésité . Pas n'importe quelle obésité, mais celle d'un soldat américain au combat en Irak , qui vers la quarantaine s'est trouvé une parade à la peur du combat et la terreur ambiante face au terrorisme de rue comme d'autres de ses congénères d'ailleurs . Il y aurait pas mal d'obèses dans l'armée US en Irak paraît-il , et ce militaire, se met un jour à écrire à Amélie Nothomb . Cette dernière entretient une correspondance fameuse avec de nombreux fans et parle ouvertement du » vertige d'un courrier partagé » qui apporte évidemment l'illusion d'apporter du sens à toute vie. Le soldat Melvin de son coté est transporté par ce courrier et peu à peu révèle le secret de son obésité. Nothomb comprend très bien ce que cette révélation signifie et le montre clairement et sobrement ; il y a en elle quelque part ,un prof de Philo de style lapidaire : ce soldat est exemplaire d'un mal social .

Voilà un mal social de nos sociétés qui à l'instar de l'alcoolisme est un terrible résultat de la dépression profonde qui afflige ceux qu'appelle les inadaptés sociaux , exclus ou autres psychopathes : le futur obèse se baffre par compensation orale , ici pour combattre la peur du combat, et en général pour combattre isolement ,sentiment de rejet et malheur. C'est un fléau social grandissant, une pathologie qui règne partout en Occident et même en Chine désormais à laquelle notre auteur a raison de s'intéresser. Un mal qui est lié évidemment à la sédentarité, une solitude de repli et donc particulièrement à une nouvelle forme d'addiction moderne : Internet . Melvin est naturellement un internaute professionnel depuis longtemps et cela permet une bonne petite critique de l'Amérique vue comme miroir de l'Europe ,assez peu originale faut-il le dire , critique donc de ses mœurs et vices variés ( que Nothomb abhore) . »L'obésité précise-t-elle , est insupportable, mais on la supporte. Tout s'accepte . » D'un autre coté, vivre accroché à internet pendant des heures rend la vie irréelle, et un courrier signifiant apparait alors comme une planche de salut. Un écrivain peut donc sauver son prochain ?

Ecrire à un écrivain connu qui a la gentillesse de vous répondre et de s'intéresser à vous, donne de la dignité, qualité inconnue , désespérément désirée de tout être souffrant , c'est vrai. Melvin nous dit qu' Amélie d'une certaine manière le cautionne ( donc lui donne un statut) en lui proposant, un peu légèrement peut être d'étudier et d'écrire sur sa propre obésité.Ce roman est fascinant d'invention. Elle lui dégotte même un éditeur américain potentiel…

Maintenant, n 'allez pas tous écrire à Amélie Nothomb, la pauvre a déjà trop de correspondants comme cela …Mais elle fait ici une critique social étonnante et pleine de compassion , parfaitement consciente de ses propres prétentions et illusions . Elle est trop intelligente pour se tromper sur elle-même.

 

 

Jonathan Coe,The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, 2010

Jonathan Coe has been known since the seventies as a political satirist and a very funny writer in Britain,remember the huge success of " The House of Sleep and " What a Carve up") but now he is has switched to a more serious and grave tone as middle age sets in for him and for his heroes. We are in the suburbs and Max had been severely depressed for a year, out of work and divorced; The pits, as they say . What can be done except finding out what went wrong and going back on painful events ,lost opportunities and ordinary failures in the absolutely plain life of this looser of a guy who manage somehow to win our sympathies. A difficult task but the ironic tone and still very acerbic pen of Jonathan Coe helps to unfurl the melodrama as we go along this pilgrimage, since a year of therapy has achieved nothing much : Max travels to Australia to visit his estranged father to no avail because they do not talk, returns to England having only noticed a Chinese woman playing nicely with her kid in a restaurant,then visits his ex wife and kid and nothing changes, visits an old flame whom he beds in a drunken state.. all of this in a décor of British ,Post Blair style of consumer's paradise which is hilariously critical : Corporate meaningless jobs, Driving on Motor ways, awful Chain restaurants, atmospheric Bars, Barbe Cues,TV shows etc.. a scene very much like middle class America in an Updike novel , but funnier thank God! Coe describes the bliss of the car GPS and its lovely Voice as no one else does, and his description of menus to be found in Welcome Breaks of the road are priceless: Pizzas," Coffee Primo","Prosciutto and salad Panini " are our hero's favorites. He likes them and eats them everyday ; this is the sort of place where he belongs." A little oasis of urban ordinariness"as Coe describes it . He even likes the rustic chairs and tables and feels comfy and reassured by them.

So what is the crux of this failed life ? The terrible loneliness of Max who knows nothing about himself : he is in a fog but step by step and painfully, he finds out capital facts that have shaped his life: his father is an homosexual never out of the closet, his own marriage died because there was no sex and no talk between spouses since the child's birth ( 7 years) and finally he is a secret homosexual himself… curiously the all important fact of an interesting work is not dealt with, but he does find a job again and will resume his life.Coe tells a story of survival in the modern Hi Tech world, it is simple and at the same time terribly difficult ; the web and its social Sites are evidently not the answer.

Middle age is accepting life as it is, failures and irretrievable losses as well as good points which were neglected, the human lot in a known world, no rhyme to flee to Australia or the other side of the world as if paradise was waiting there. There is no paradise, only the Real ( or Reality ) which is our given destiny: "proceed on the current motorway", says the lovely voice of" Emma" on the GPS . Just don't fall in love with Emma, she does not exist.

Kathryn Stockett, the Help,Penguin, 2010

We are in Jackson, Mississippi in the sixties, just before the civil rights movement, and there are still well to do white families keeping Negro maids practically in bondage, as if the slave mentality had not been erased by the Civil war. It is truly amazing and personally I would not believe this, had I not lived in the South myself at that period and seen the remaining images of the old Southern aristocracy quite alive still in the young matrons of a lovely small town just like Jackson. Both races were ensconced in rigid rules: physical segregation ( one did not eat together etc..), Blacks serving Whites, and worse, unredeemable economic domination (a maid could be accused of theft ,fired on the spot and never find another job..). So there was not only fear at the basis of this society but deep-seated hatred and distrust in the Negroes heart for the unjust and often cruel white masters and their class solidarity ; that hatred was inescapable.

Stockett had a family maid while growing up in Mississippi and loved her, she was family for her especially that her own divorced mother disappeared from her life ; yet she realized dimly that there was a toughness , a cruelty and a lack of freedom in the maid's lot which was sad.She also realized that a great deal of love existed between the white children and their black maid who had raised them, cuddled them, and taught them their first rhymes and games . An enduring love that lasted through their life and was a undying bond. This" mother- child " love is very evident in her wonderful book; furthermore Stockett felt that no one ever talked about this love , and constantly stressed the hatred between the races only. She shows young white mothers not taking care of their children and certainly not raising them ,being society ladies at the Club or entertaining their friends , just like in colonial times or in India for the British.She also talks of the frequent brutality and drunkenness of black husbands who beat their wives and kids, and how those black women ( the maids in fact ) helped each other survive and keep their families together at all costs. Her book is an vibrant homage to these wonderful , generous and courageous women.

The book created an uproar in the States last year because readers claimed that no white woman could have written it and understood what a black maid really thought of their" white families ". It seems precisely that only an artist, intuitive and sensitive ( whether white or black ) woman raised in that system and knowing it from the inside, could fathom the complexities of feeling, gratefulness, fury and revenge which arise in the souls of the actors of such a racial and social drama. Here it happens to be a white young woman, born in a traditional family , who gets the idea of writing such a book I; she is of course a marginal girl, named "Skeetter "who does not want to get married , wishes only to become a writer and journalist in New York City and leave the suffocating South for ever . The southern society slowly dying in front of our eyes,is indeed a rigid , unforgiving, hyper-conformist society who tolerates no deviation ,no originality and no change : you shape up or you die. The black maids in the book got to say what they thought of their employers in their own language, very colorful and alive, and were given a whiff of feminism in the process; so we have several view points during the suspense created by the New York editors hesitating to print the work or not.The famed gracious way of life of the old Aristocratic South receives quite a blow here ; years after the civil rights battles of the sixties , it is still a powerful American myth.

 

Jane Smiley, Private Life, Knopf , 2010

This remarkable novel spans the period of 1880 to 1947, in which the end of the civil war in still felt and the new century opens up a new amazing life to most Americans and especially modern women. Marriage in a sense was a must in those days.The heroine ,Margaret Mansfield is a Missouri girl of a good farming well to do family, who is raised to marry properly ,almost becomes an old maid but finally marries in the nick of time the genius of the town. Marriage and family was then the purpose of women's lives but few authors bother to analyse , except Virginia Woolf how a marriage survives over a long period of time , especially if there are no children . Smiley here observes at length how a smart , ordinary and well meaning woman married to to an eccentric brainy character , unlivable and highly neurotic ( here Captain Andrew Early) can survive in a modicum of satisfaction over 40 years of marriage. Because the name of the game is survival here , particularly when the wife is unable to fully understand what happened to her and how she is supposed to deal with raving paranoia. Margaret Mansfield is indeed a tragic woman and an exceptional fictional character; Smiley has drawn a very powerful figure who will strike an unforgettable note in many readers mind.

What happens in this difficult marriage? The first appearance of Andrew as a genius whiz kid in St Louis, although anti social ,awkward and afraid of women is deceptive ; everyone thinks that he a true scientific genius and he is certainly unusually bright, but already he seems an obnoxious ego maniac , despising everybody else. But no one sees that ,Margaret neither , but she is impressed by him , bows to his superiority and agrees to marry him. We know nothing of their sex life, which would be revealing but Smiley avoids that subject entirely. We simply learn that they move to California ,on an isle near San Francisco ,where Andrew works as an astronomer . A strange life of constant research ,writing innumerable articles and books starts, but soon shoddy research and plagiarism plague the Genius work and results naturally in heavy criticism and rejection by the scientific community. Recognition is not there, fury and depression sets in ,the hapless wife caught in the grip of a suffocating union with no life of her own , does not allow herself to question her husband's greatness with unfortunately no children to console her ( 2 babies die one after the other). Awful situation which today would evidently end up in a divorce, but then no wife walked out of a prison called marriage.even if the husband was psychotic . Margaret's life is a thus low descent in fear and desperation at first unconsciously, but she realizes eventually that her husband is paranoid, a dangerous ego maniac n and more and more aggressive . Nevertheless, she still is overwhelmed by his amazing capacity to manipulate and twist reality and his arguing talent . His constant presence up stairs in his study and his commanding voice terrify her literally and soon she can't stand him anymore and flees the house . She finally acknowledges to herself that she has married a sort of monster but she feels morally obliged to protect him from himself as well as from the scorn of others .This moral tale , full of pain and suffering , ends almost humorously , now that Andrew has become the weirdo of the town, living in the midst of his delusions, wandering around all of San Francisco and collaring strangers, she arranges with the police to watch over him and not arrest him… "L'idiot du village", the mate has become an object of matrimonial loyalty and pity .

A life of avoidance and separate lives is may be inevitable the outcome of long marriages where the individual seeks breathing space and a form of freedom? The question of freedom is crucial here, look at the difficulties of retired couples to live together harmoniously without the pretext of children and work load to attend to. The test of humanity and care is a fascinating theme, very rarely analysed in fiction, and the period in time does not matter really; the same issues face contemporary couples who choose as pilgrims , to progress together forward till the end.

Jane Smiley, Private Life , A .Knopf, 2010

William Boyd, 0rdinary Thunderstorms, HarperCollins, 2009

This extraordinary intelligent British author always surprises one by his skill : he writes a thriller and a novel of manners at the same time, keeps a tight suspense and also piques your intellect with his keen cultural knowledge of the contemporary scene. His hero, Adam Kindred is certainly one of a kind, and also well named, judge for yourself. This man is a climatologist, an academic who studies clouds, nothing more impractical, who comes to London for a fancy job interview. What does he do? He goes to lunch and meets by chance an immunologist , Dr Wang, who leaves his file on the table upon departing … Adam goes to Wang's office to bring it vback and finds him brutally murdered on the floor…he flees horrified .From there, comes a series of accidents which ruin poor Adam's life in a whiff and throws him out of society as fast as a missile .What happens ? He flees in the city ,does'nt call the police ,wanting above all freedom ; naturally he is mugged and robbed , and practically naked hides in an small bushy isle in the middle of the Thames… It sounds incredible but it isn't, things like that happen all the time except sleeping on an inlet . Having been recently robbed in Athens of my papers and money, I can testify that being without identity is astounding : you are all of a sudden nobody and must prove that you are a citizen if you want to go home. The novel is thus an interesting study of Identity in the eyes of others as a major aspect of our personality ;it is impossible to live in the margins of society more than a few months ( as a game as it were )and your social self needs to exist even if it includes your financial self in the process. What can you do without money?

Boyd shows this very well , his hero invents a sort of derelict way of life by camping out, stealing a bit, begging, escaping a killer's hit (a giant pharmaceutical needs this witness of Wang's murder out of the way) and even joining a crazy pseudo church who feeds the poor.All the aspects of the homeless life in our modern cities are exposed and found absolutely tragic, full of fear, unbearable, sinister and without hope.. how can these poor people survive is a mystery, and Adam sees that , often wondering if his quest of freedom at all cost was worth it. This is what makes the novel fascinating, this quest which is fundamental to him : freedom to act .Otherwise it would be just a cultural thriller even a very good one.

As a moral tale," Ordinary Clouds " is pretty satisfying but a bit weak and scabrous : the villain is a disgusting and arrogant pharmaceutical giant, the hero is saved by having coldly usurped not only the identity of a dead homeless companion but by throwing over the bridge a repulsive black mailer… The new Adam simply kills a man without a back glance, this is what homeless life does to you : you become a sort of monster.At the end, Boyd makes a mistake in my mind: Adam saved from annihilation, so to speak , falls in love with a policewoman who has been more or less mixed up in his case and they plan a cosy little life with an adopted nitwit, in a cottage along the Thames… Can you believe it ? That is a bit Hollywoodish , a romantic twist that sounds like Leonardo di Caprio in an otherwise superb novel.

 

Catherine Cusset, Un brillant Avenir, Gallimard, 2008, prix Goncourt des lycéens en 2010

Voici un intéressant roman d'une romancière française vivant à Manhattan, qui écrit beaucoup sur le couple, la sexualité, le désir, et aussi les conflits de la vie moderne déracinée. Ce dernier livre est son plus grand succès de librairie depuis « Le Problème avec Jane «  paru en 1999 qui aussi parlait des tribulations conjugales et professionnelles d'une prof de fac ( ce que Cusset fut longtemps elle-même à Yale),et se démarque par un rythme saccadé, heurté, presque frénétique causé par l'urgence de ces Roumains absolument résolus à quitter par tous les moyens leur terrible pays au temps de Ceausescu. On voit donc cette odyssée terrible se dérouler, les affres du départ, les vieux parents à quitter,le mari juif discriminé, le manque d'argent, l'attente des visas, la première émigration en Israël en pleine guerre comme d'habitude , la fuite d'Israël et finalement le départ aux USA , terre d'asile rêvée ou la vraie vie va commencer  pour des quarantenaires épuisés , ne parlant pas anglais… Comme si le paradis existait !

L'horreur vécue et le courage héroïque de ces trois vies, la triade initiale ( père, mère, fils) est exemplaire : ils vont qui atterrir en Amérique, dans cette culture extraordinaire pleine de promesses mais la plus dure sur terre ( à part la Chine peut etre ?) , dont ils ne connaissent rien. Récit ravageur et tuant . Lire ce roman est épuisant , écrit en chronologie alternative : un chapître maintenant en Amérique dans la vieillesse , un chapître dans le passé européen au milieu de la bataille pour la survie… sans répit, style saccadé, incisif, dialogues brefs et brutaux . Ce qui domine est l'affreuse présence castratrice de la mère, Elena, une hystérique infernale jamais satisfaite ,manipulatrice de première et qui pousse à la réussite coûte que coûte . Quelle femme terrible , quel portrait incroyable du monstre familial , le père en meurt avec un Alzheimer bien senti  et le fils se terre dans un mariage balançoire avec une française rétive et rebelle à cette belle mère terrifiante. Quelle lecture, j'en suis encore pétrifiée. Cusset a donné ici un roman- coup de point sensationnel.

Evidemment le fils, Alexandru, le héros malgré lui se trouve après un diplôme brillant décroché à Harvard, jeté dans la bataille du business life de Manhattan. Le pauvre n'est pas un tueur ni un dur ,il n'y arrive pas vraiment ; il ne fait que travailler, se tue à l'effort , ne trouve pas à se loger , ne devient pas du tout «  a big success »comme Elena l'avait rêvé . N'est pas un » American businessman « pur et dur qui veut, dans cette lutte des requins, dont les Européens n'ont aucune idée d'ailleurs et c'est bien le point le plus intéressant du livre : la vraie compétition existe et est absolument implacable et personne en Europe n'est en fait équipé pour y faire face : les codes sont à apprendre depuis l'enfance.La société dite « ultra libérale » , vous voulez rire, personne ne l'a jamais vue en Europe et encore moins en France .Voyez l'Odyssée de Steve Jobs à Apple , voilà un roman en soi, bien américain.

 

Don De Lillo, Point Omega, Scribner, 2010

The latest book of America's greatest metaphysical writer is difficult, challenging and voluntarily obscure since what we are attending in a sense, isthe last confession of a great mind towards the end of his life.Let us remind ourselves here that De lillo is also a political writer constantly aware of the impact of the main events in American life such as the assassination of Kennedy,the Cold war, Terrorism and Nine Eleven in Manhattan etc..The subject in this latest book is topical : a scholar and an academic outsider, named Elster ,who has definite theories about the obligations of being a great Power , has been contacted by the Government to be in the War room during the Irak War .Elster believes quite strongly that the earth has become a place of danger and anger,is a notable thinker and naturally , he fascinates a young film maker who plans to make a film on him. Elster eventually agrees to it, if the filmmaker Jim, will join him in the desert. So far, nothing insanely difficult, except that Jim is obsessed by the famous film" Psycho " by Hitchkock and views it incessantly at the Moma in New York ; we know that films and TV series fascinate de Lillo anyway ; I think that the point of this secondary plot is to insure us that reality is better apprehended by film than by any other means of perception since De Lillo constantly questions the relevance of our personal perceptions .

Now we are transported in a desert of the South West, in a remote and extraordinary wild landscape of mountains and strange noises, no cities, no villages,just an old house falling apart : a metaphysical non place.This fantatic landscape is of utmost importance . The monologue starts and focuses on reality,time, terror: " It is different here, time is enormous, that's what I feel here palpably…" says Elster , who blabbers on unaware of his listener. A third person arrives suddenly, Jessie, his adult daughter whom Elster adores; she is a shadow, gliding along the walls, eating and sleeping silently , even more remote than the old man, not quite autistic. Nothing happens much except that the Omega Point is mentioned and it is a metaphysical notion of Teilhard de Chardin,a French paleontologist and philosopher. The omega point a transcendental concept : the pole of convergence of evolution, where cosmic consciousness reigns.This is what this terribly remote desert has inspired to all thinkers throughout time and history : here thought can stop, cosmic consciousness takes over in a Heideggerian way.That is evidently the toughness of this book: the ultimate truth being alluded to in a fragmentary monologue with no counterpoint of any other speaker..

An awful tragedy however takes place in the tale : Jesse disappears, she cannot be found . She must have walked away silently in the desert. They look all over for her, call the state police and Rangers but in vain . Gone and lost, she has to be left behind ... An atrocious end who terrifies them both. The horrified Jim is obliged to take the poor haggard Elster away and escort him to New York to his ex Wife's care.. End of the main story,no conclusion offered; Jim returns to the MoMa to view another time with total strangers, the slow motion of "Psycho" with Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins.Formal Movies like this one, are less dangerous than real people who live and suffer and want to die.Read

Katarina HAGENA , Le Gout des Pépins de Pomme,Köln, 2008

Ce premier roman d'une inconnue a fait un tabac en Allemagne, et on comprend immédiatement que l'histoire de trois générations de femmes dans une maison familiale dans une campagne traditionnelle ayant connu la guerre et le nazisme, frappe une corde très sensible dans ce pays. » Roman domestique » ou saga familiale, on y retrouve tous les ingrédients du roman populaire bien écrit, bucolique et un brin intellectuel, la narratrice étant une bibliothécaire universitaire qui a hérité de cette maison pleine de secrets avec un jardin plein de pommiers. L'ancêtre qu'on a enterrée s'appelle Bertha et était devenue amnésique oubliant sa propre identité , les tantes et les cousines ne parlent pas beaucoup , donc Iris va se souvenir avec l'aide de son jeune notaire de tous les événements marquants de sa famille, à savoir l'emprisonnement de grand père Nazi après la guerre, les adultères variés et la mort accidentelle , terrible d'une jeune fille. Et elle va faire un certain bilan

Ce genre de roman se lit avec plaisir et facilement car les problèmes et les drames ne se posent plus directement : ils ont déjà eu lieu et ont été résolus bien ou mal ; maintenant ils sont effacés et font partie d'une chronique historique acceptée et irréversible. D'une certaine manière, tout est déjà pardonné, ce qui est commode finalement pour tous et peut être particulièrement pour un lectorat allemand si sensible à son passé nazi.L'auteur est intelligente et analyse finement ce qu'une bibliothécaire, Iris dans le récit, peut faire de la vérité révélée par les textes : l'oublier ou l'intégrer dans une connaissances plus complète des faits et des gens . Car le grand père nazi Hinnerk, était aussi un poète, un autodidacte et un notable du village, qui aimait sa famille et lui était fidèle.

La vie urbaine contemporaine allemande est aussi dépeinte avec verve, à Brème, Hambourg et Freiburg où certaines de ces dames travaillent, mais c'est la campagne mythifiée aujourd'hui , qui compte vraiment. Aussi, c'est le passé de cette Allemagne morale, traditionnelle et puissante dans ses qualités familiales héritées du 19 e siècle si admiré , qui forme le terreau fortement lyrique de cette œuvre qui a soulevé l'enthousiasme de milliers de lecteurs outre Rhin. C'est un très beau roman qui chez nous aussi, touche la corde de l'origine paysanne et agricole de tellement de familles françaises , italiennes ou belges qui se rêvent en héritières de traditions anciennes et inattaquables car bonnes. La corruption est dans les villes, a très bien dit Rousseau. Les écologistes en savent quelque chose : mangez des pommes et crachez les pépins !

Elizabeth Strout, Abide with me, Random House, 2006

Here we find again , after the amazing "Olive Kittenridge", a small New England community bathed in an austere Calvinistic atmosphere, which is severe, pious, vengefully conformist and eventually oriented towards the good .It is the locus of Elizabeth Strout as a writer.In the middle of this social puritan nest arrives a character almost sprung out of Hawthorne: a charismatic minister intent to impart the presence of God to all,so profound is his faith and so serene is his belief in the goodness of his flock .Such a man is unfit for social life and could only live in a monastery, but Reverend Tyler Caskey obtains amazingly a beautiful and sexy wife who astonishes his parish no end and, like Eva , will sow sin and evil in this little paradise. This classic puritan story a little reminiscent of " The Scarlet Letter" appears as haunting and heart breaking as this seminal novel was .It is a dramatic story who verges on the tragic, not only because of the complete psychical collapse of the pastor but also because Innocents cannot survive in any society , and certainly not in a puritan one.

Elizabeth Strout writes a moving but precise, almost dry prose when decribing people,and is luminous , lovely and poetic in the painting of the natural world so present in New England , but mainly she delivers a moral tale. Who is this dangerous Innocent who presents this ordinary town with his unfit presence, naiveté and irresponsible piousness, and with his" glamour broad "of a wife ? Does he not understand that humans have codes, that social fabric is fragile , that ministers and their wife represent a higher semi divine presence , and that house maids are to be kept in their place ? No, he is obtuse and hypocritical, he hides behind God's supposed presence and his own do- goodness ; naturally catastrophe ensues. After the dreadful death of his wife, unable to grasp his loss, he does not see the infantile depression of his small daughter ,lets his terrible mother run his life, and stuck dumb by evil gossip, finally breaks down pitifully in front of his congregation .What a catastrophe!

But apart from the fascinating story and its plot, we wonder what keeps the poor man going if it is not the love of his congregation who forgives him and asks to keep him as a minister ; he loves an hymn often played in church , whose lovely verses console him ' Abide with Me " . .. We feel curiously that we also must enter this congregation and abide with the suffering souls in this world, help them and love them enough to restore them. Strout is able in this profoundly religious novel to open a hidden and perhaps vanishing inner world , a world that she intelligently places in archetypal New England , Maine in this case.

Regis Debray, A un ami Israélien, Flammarion, 2010

On connait les thèses politiques de Régis Debray : il n'y a pas de société sans transcendance ( ou valeurs sacrées ), d'où la République laïque se doit d'avoir des obligations morales qui sont nécessaires à la cohésion sociale. Naturellement, c'est le manque de symbolique dans la France actuelle et encore plus dans l'Union Européenne qui sont à la base de leur échec respectif. L'Europe ne marche pas en tant que projet social , c'est absolument clair et Debray semble bien avoir mis le doigt sur le point sensible : le manque de symbolique. Quand cela se produit, le religieux revient en force ainsi que le nationalisme.

Son essai sur Israël adressé à Elie Barnavi, est brillant et pointu, démontre l'admiration ou même la fascination de l'auteur pour un peuple aussi emblématique que celui-ci ,qui regorge de symbolique et en est presque empêché d'agir rationnellement . Donc c'est une lettre de semonce ou plutôt de remontrances anxieuses vis à vis d'un peuple menacé de suicide politique comme le dernier scandale militaire de la Flottille de Gaza le montre amplement. L'essai n'est pas à mon sens, un coup fourré ou quelque bombe faussement amicale qui serait insidieusement anti-sémite , comme on a semblé l'insinuer dans la presse française.

Les points saillants développés et illustrés ici sont le Sionisme ( et le sionisme » Palestinien » ), le Colonialisme et la Colonisation, l'anti -Sémitisme ( en France et ailleurs) ,la Shoa et ses usages ( ainsi que le négationisme ) et finalement l'Autisme politique. Debray a cette phrase lapidaire : il y a deux Israël :Laïcs et Religieux, Colons et anti-Colons,Tel- Aviv et Jerusalem. … une ambiguité et une ambivalence qui menace d'exploseret d'anéantir le pays. . Comment faire vivre un Etat juif et démocratique ? L'ONU stipulait un partage et Israël en fait une confiscation.Il parle très peu du terrible terrorisme Palestinien, si souvent aveugle, qui a tant fait pour durcir à l'extrème le positionnement intraitable de l'Etat juif.

Les Palestiniens comme les Juifs doivent avoir une terre et un Etat à eux, tout le monde le sait ; un peuple sans Etat n'existe pas , tout individu ayant un besoin identitaire veut se sentir relié à un lieu ou une terre , c'est bien là, la tragédie Palestinienne qui n'a obtenu jusqu'à présent qu'une poussière de communautés locales, privée de frontières et d'espace aérien et de port . D'autre part ,les dangers ou effets pervers qui sont le résultat du culte de la SHOA sont triples : la glaciation de l'histoire, l'auto absolution,l'auto-enfermement, ce dernier amenant la sacralisation de l'Armée. On voit bien qu'Israël est tombé dans une impasse fatale et que probablement le seul être capable de l'aider au point où nous en sommes est l'ami Américain. Régis Debray le montre finement, avec tact, et Elie Barnavi est entièrement d'accord avec lui. Ce dernier écarte l'Europe du processus de paix à venir car pour lui , « L »Europe n'existe pas » malheureusement. Nous en sommes tous bien conscients.

Henning Mankell,The Man fromBeijing, Harville Secker, London,2010

A crime novel is really not considered serious literature, but this writer is singular, gifted, and resembles Simenon in portraying modern despondency, depression and hopelessness in everyday life; the solving of crimes becomes almost secondary to the portrayal of a given character who observes the situation . No one to my mind has described modern Sweden as he has; a northern European city plagued by urban development, massive immigration, rising delinquency and crime amongst the ruin of traditional life and family ties.The same disaster everywhere brought by globalization and the disintegration of European civilization , which is felt by everyone but rarely expressed in novels of action ( only in learned essays ) . Mankell has created a character, Detective Wallander ,who is not particularly successful, thinks and broods and despairs alone, fails with women , feels inadequate, drinks too much, and is getting fat..he does like his work but hates routine. Now , does that sound like anyone you know ? This is why we love Wallander because of his apparent failure but also because he sees what needs to be seen : impotence in front of social disaster which is nothing next to personal disaster. Hence Mankell books are metaphysical: their meaning is hidden and capital.

The novels on Sweden are without question his best ; the novels on Africa( where the author lives actually) seem less good and this latest one, although fascinating, is also a mixed bag because the plot happens half in Sweden and half in China. The Chinese part is quite terrifying because the criminal is a psychopath Chinese Mafia boss who sits in top governmental circles: It is a bit tall, almost grotesque, and turns practically to caricature since China has now become everyone's favorite mythological beast if prey. Certainly China and its imperialism is monstrous , but can we believe that it desires and plans seriously to colonize Mozambique and export there 6 millions of its poor peasants, even if we know that the politburo at the head of the State fears hysterically the revolt of its impoverished masses?

So, this book is still very good, especially the portrayal of Birgitta Roslin, an honest provincial judge who tries to be fair ,is baffled by a non- communicative husband,and encounters all the troubles of age and its disillusions, becomes sick and afraid of death… but naturally her life being bowled over by some horrific murders in a remote village, becomes suddenly more interesting and quite dangerous . It is the first time that Mankell, I think, tries his hand at a female heroine , furthermore one who is not sexy, nor young, nor particularly brilliant, and it is a great success. We are hooked ; the plot is vast and encompasses generations of Swedes , Americans and Chinese . This writer knows that the average human being, one reasonably intelligent and reflective , is what attracts precisely intelligent readers, especially when this average human is confronted with a major crisis