Customer Reviews

The Character of Rain: A Novel

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"In the beginning was nothing, and this nothing had neither form not substance -it was nothing other than what it was." I read the opening sentence of Amélie Nothomb's, The Character of Rain (Métaphysique des Tubes), and was hooked. I was not disappointed. Using a Japanese belief that children are gods until age 3, at which time they fall and become human Nothomb constructs a brilliant study of infancy. Deeply autobiographical, like all her work, and deeply philosophical, like all her work, what amazed me most was how completely she captured or imagined the self-preoccupation that is early childhood. Any child will believe it is the center of the universe (and why not an infant must be watched and waited on), and yet the same child will experience "the fall," the recognition that he or she is not a god, is not the center of the universe. Nothomb's ability to recognize this essential problem of being a child and tease out of her own experience the joys and pains of existence in a way that is as imminently and entertainingly readable as it is philosophical is where her genius lies. I've never read anything like it.

In the beginning before there is an Amélie, God exists as a tube eating, breathing, and excreting. However, the creators are a bit unhappy that this baby behaves more like a vegetable so these parents nickname the tube "la Plante". However, two years later la Plante abruptly moves and cries. Then the Tube's Belgium grandma arrives with the most devastating poison known in the universe, white chocolate. The Tube tastes the sweetness and a new conscience has metamorphosed. Life in the tube has turned quite sweetly though the awakening of Amelie makes her realize that paradise will be lost.

This unusual autobiographical tale first is told in the third person until the pivotal moment in history, the infamous chocolate incident, when the plot is written as a first person narrative. Not everyone will want to read this metaphysical story, but those who do will find a clever, witty, and intelligent tale that even makes the earliest of days come across realistically. Except for the title, fans will appreciate Amelie Nothomb's work that does not miss a beat in the translation from the original French MÉTAPHYSIQUE DES TUBES.

Harriet Klausner

I have to believe that it was the publisher, and not the translator, who took the wonderful (and easily translatable)title of the French edition and turned it into something that sounds like the title of a police procedural (set in Seattle starring Andy Garcia, that you would avoid if you were to stumble past it on HBO), rather than the original and beautiful thing it is.

This is one of my favorite books. No summary will do it justice.

I went back to the re-read the French edition (currently known in America as "the freedom edition") and found that the important chapter about the character of rain appears two thirds of the way through the book and it is NOT central. The discussion of tubes at the beginning and end of the book (as related to the godlike infant/narrator and to her pet koi) are the meat of the story.

This is a pet peeve of mine (or more correctly, a black beast [bete noire] of mine). Why the prejudgement among American publishers that their readers will react violently against philosophy? Thank god they didn't spot the Kierkegaardian echoes in her "Stupeur et Tremblements" or they would have found something different than "Fear and Trembling" for the American edition. It's not just here and with Scholastic's change of the Philospher's Stone to the Sorcerer's Stone either; there is a general dumbing down of titles when they cross the Atlantic.

This wonderful book deserves its real title.

The translation of this book into English has been done extraordinarily well and there is seemingly no loss of nuance and feeling in the strangely compelling storyline.

The child protagonist is a mere tot when she starts to tell her story but in the beginning we are treated to her creation when she was a "tube" "a plant" "a vegetable" bought into life by sweet white chocolate and her Belgian Grandmother's hand. Now we all know the best chocolate comes from Belgian and whether the author meant us to realise this (somehow I think she did) we are drawn into the strange world of a child who has the mind of a little God but has the body of a baby girl. She can talk before she is two years old but for a long time she hides it from her family, but fluently speaks Japanese to her favourite Nanny Nishio-San whose simple outlook on life lets her accept without real question this anomaly.

At first the characters in the book are one dimensional, the "little God's" parents and older siblings nothing more than card-board cut-outs but slowly with the turning of each page, everyone gradually comes to life, the two Japanese Nanny's are my favourite characters, one good and loving toward the "little God", the other arrogant and contemptuous of her European ward, all in all a complex relationship between various people and various levels of the mind.

The book ends with the "little God" making a serious attempt to take her own life, she wants to die, and she wants to leave the world before she looses all her "Godhead," but she is saved and in being saved she is lost.

This is a kind of Paradise Lost for the modern world and I would highly recommend it but only for those readers who like to read strange books like myself.

Some books we can't read until we're ready to read them. Fortunately they wait for us, which can't be said of much in life. They seem to understand our inability to pick them up. "It's fine," this small book said to me, the months clicking by. "When you're ready. I understand."

This week I was finally ready. I wish I'd been ready sooner.

The Character of Rain: A Novel is really funny--laugh-out-loud funny--and tender; serious, too--philosophically serious; and on occasion it's mournful, even heartbroken. Some of that heartbrokenness might have been mine, what I brought to it; but some of it wasn't. It's about the awestruck arrogance of childhood, and the ways our awe and our arrogance die.

It's a happy sad book, or a sad happy book. Whatever: real happiness (being doomed) is always a bit sad; and deep sadness never loses the sweet savor of what we've lost.

A favorite quote:

"When the subway comes out of a tunnel, when the black curtains are thrown open, when asphyxia stops, when the only eyes we need to see us look at us anew, the lid of death lifts, and the tomb of our brain stands open to the endless sky."

The actual title of the book is "Metaphysics of the Tubes," which is a far stranger--and far better--title than "The Character of Rain."

I'll be reading all of her books now.

I've always liked the idea of language - and how it must have started. What man's earliest words would have been - this book is a study in early awareness and the choosing of words.

I thought I'd figured out that the first word that Rain would speak would be "Nothing" ("Vacuum" her third word was a close runner-up). She was a blend of King Lear and Emily (from HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA). And the early hammering home of Nothing in TCOR made me sure this was likely to be her first spoken word.

I was struck by the clean shift in gears from the early open tube writing to the awakened child. The first line that stuck with me was p. 28: "Memory is one of luxury's most indispensible allies." The quick etymology of "infant" - "incapable of speech" (57). Rain's 7th word "Sea" and the Emily's earthquake-like description of Saturn & its ring (58). Rain's first rescue from drowning. The related knowledge that it might be "better to let someone die than to deprive him of his freedom" (63). The terror brought on by carp (and boys). Her father's involvement in Noh. Rain's affinity for water. The similarities in description to Rain's early "tube" state or no longer needing a tube or the fish as tubes (58 & 115).

Another kicker: "Tell me what disgusts you and I will tell you who you are" (116).

But the core of this story is the entire cascading series of falls that Rain must go through to become merely human.

I have read this book in its original French version, and I hope the translator did a great job with it.
It is a wonderful book.............the story is quite amazing, with an even more amazing ending......I read it in 2 hours, couldn't stop myself from turning page after page.
I have read all the books written by A. Nothomb, and in my opinion, this is her masterpiece!

The authors use of diction in juxtaposition with his syntax creates a linguistic reality all religious people should worship. Amelie shines with luminous beauty creating a colorful rainbow in her novel, The Character of Rain, as the stunning end becomes more rewardfull than any pot of gold. I recommend all fall to their primitive desire to make sense of this world, and worship the rain, because it can be incredibly refreshing after many a dry book.