Customer Reviews

Atonement: A Novel

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After reading Gaetan Soucy's incredible THE LITTLE GIRL WHO WAS TOO FOND OF MATCHES, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this earlier novel -- and I was not disappointed. Soucy is one of my favorite discoveries in literature.

This slim volume (104 pages) drew me quickly into the author's created world, weaving the story with a sense of mystery unlike anything I've ever read. There is a sense of starkly-drawn, detailed images combined with an eerie sense of unreality at work here -- there were times when I didn't know which was which. The feelings that torment the main character, organist-composer Louis Bapaume, come alive within these pages -- his pain and loss, his guilt, his love of his music, all become real within us as we experience the strange events depicted here. Bapaume has journeyed from his home in Montreal to the small, remote village of Saint-Aldor -- but for what purpose? The mystery of this unfolds slowly, like a delicate flower, in Soucy's hands -- we learn a little more of Bapaume's mission as we learn a little more about him, and we are left 'hanging' until the final pages.

I was so taken with the story and the author's style that I re-read the book immediately upon finishing it. The overall effect is not unlike viewing a painting -- every painstakingly worked detail is even more beautiful upon re-examination. I only wish there were more works available in English by this author.

This book is wonderful in its conveying of a dreamy feeling of winterland lostness. Other than that, I'm not exactly sure what to make of it. And perhaps this is the point. The novelette is filtered through the mind of a protagonist who, aside from an abiding interest in music, admits that he is losing his memory and, ergo, his mind. One finishes the book in the sort of way one, oddly, finishes an Emily Dickinson poem, deeply touched, but not exactly sure of the meaning-Or, in this case, if, truth be known, there is one.

I find myself returning to the Wittgenstein citation that prefaces Soucy's book. To paraphrase: How do we know that what we are remembering is the past?.....Or, one would like to add, that what we are reading has meaning?

On the back cover, under the title "Praise for the French edition of Atonement," a quote from Voir states: "... takes you through a thick fog and finishes by immersing you in it fully." Then realize that you are going to read that book in translation. Easy to read, but difficult to understand. The blending of fantasy and reality is so complete I could not distinguish between them. May require a few rereadings, but is it worth it?

WOW, ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING NOVELS I'VE READ IN A LONG TIME. POWERFULLY SPIRITUAL, AND FULL OF AMAZING IMAGERY! A MUST READ!