Someone I Loved (Je l'aimais) (English and French Edition) [Paperback]

Anna Gavalda (Author), Catherine Evans (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1594480419 | ISBN-13: 978-1594480416 | Publication Date: April 5, 2005 | Edition: Bilingual

Anna Gavalda has been hailed as an author "graced with the Gallic virtues of dry wit and almost involuntary elegance" (Vogue). Now, the prize-winning author of I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere returns with a novel of an abandoned wife, and the profound relationship that unfolds between her and her father-in-law.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Anna Gavalda's Someone I Loved is a hauntingly intimate look at the intolerably painful, yet occasionally valuable consequences that adultery can have on a marriage and the individuals involved. Readers familiar with I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere, Gavalda's stunning collection of short stories, will once again be charmed by her deceptively simple prose, while new fans will quickly fall under the spell of this enchanting literary voice.

Once he discovers that his son Adrien has left his wife Chloe, along with their two adorable daughters, the normally removed Pierre Dippel steps in to rescue the girls, driving them from Paris to his rustic country house for some much needed rest and reflection. While the girls watch cartoons and run around in "You're a Barbie Girl" sneakers, Chloe and Pierre discover a bond they never knew existed. As Chloe comes to terms with her abandonment, Pierre confesses his own adulterous affair, years earlier, with a translator living in Hong Kong. In the shadow of the story is Suzanne, Pierre's status-conscious wife who pardoned his actions in order to live a socially-acceptable life. As the days go on and the hours get later, it becomes apparent that Pierre is filled with regret over losing the one woman he ever truly loved ("Every day you have to fight a bit. A little bit each day, with the courage to be yourself, to decide to be happ--..."), while Chloe is forced to confront the raw anger she feels over losing the life she had grown to love.

Short in length, yet long in substance, Someone I Loved ends like most great love affairs, forever leaving you wanting just one more moment. --Gisele Toueg

From Publishers Weekly

Gavalda's slim second novel, published here in back-to-back English and French versions, tells a spare, dialogue-based tale of a young, abandoned wife. Chloé, mother of two, is in shock after her husband, Adrien, leaves her for another woman. In an improbable move, her laconic father-in-law, Pierre, rescues her, driving Chloé and her daughters to his country house, where they spend a few surprisingly therapeutic days together. While in the country, Pierre gives Chloé an extended account of an extramarital affair of his own. His dalliance was based on real love, and this, ironically, comforts Chloé. Gavalda's prose style is refreshingly elliptical, though often the reader longs for more than a scrap of exposition. At the book's best moments, mundane details mingle with Chloé's despair to create an even deeper sadness: while cooking dinner with Pierre, Chloé reflects, "I cried, thinking occasionally about how the spaghetti was going to be inedible if I didn't add some oil." But Gavalda's prose can also lurch clumsily between triteness and sarcasm: "Go to the ends of the earth, clamber over thickets, hedges, ditches, get a stuffy nose, cross old Marcel's courtyard, and watch Teletoons while eating strawberry-flavored marshmallows. Sometimes, life is wonderful...." Such awkward pathos weighs down Gavalda's airy tale. (Apr. 5)
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Product Details

• Paperback: 325 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Trade; Bilingual edition (April 5, 2005)
• Language: English, French
• ISBN-10: 1594480419
• ISBN-13: 978-1594480416
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #220,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written, unsatisfying ending, June 22, 2005

By 

Bearette24 (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Someone I Loved (Je l'aimais) (English and French Edition) (Paperback)

This is the story of a woman who's just been abandoned by her husband, and you think it will be about that betrayal, but no. She ends up taking a trip with her father-in-law and her own daughter (who is young, and only appears once or twice) and they have a long, fascinating conversation about all the father-in-law's buried emotion for a woman he fell in love with while he was married to someone else.

The book is mostly dialogue, without tags, which sometimes bothers me, but didn't here. I loved Gavalda's short story collection, "I Wish Someone Were Waiting For Me Somewhere," and this novel displays the same gifts. She cuts to the emotional heart of the matter without sentimentality, and paints beautiful word-pictures.

That said, I thought the book ended on a flat note. After thinking about it, I knew what Gavalda was trying to express, but it just wasn't satisfying. It didn't resolve anything and it didn't make as vivid an impression as the other images and emotions in the book.

Still, it is worth reading, especially if you liked her short-story collection.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Devastating, May 15, 2005

By 

Nathaniel Horn (Northern California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Someone I Loved (Je l'aimais) (English and French Edition) (Paperback)

What a wonderful, piercing book. It is basically a conversation between the daughter-in-law and her father-in-law, first starting with the pain she is experiencing from the betrayal of his son. Then he unexpectedly begins to open up, revealing a most astonishing relationship that he had in his younger years. It is all the more startling because the author used the "Old Bastard" as the vehicle for this beautiful tale. There are many cautionary lessons in the narrative but, in the end, it was the emotional impact that I was left with. Very creative. Gavalda, a French woman, has such a lovely way of imbuing men with undeserved humanity. It turned out to be different than I expected. I don't think that I'll ever again mutter under my breath "Damned French". It was short. When I got half way through it, it started over again, in French! It was hard to get into at first, then it caught on. If I had not luckily first read the flaps I would not have even understood the context of the narrative. It moved me deeply. By the time I finished it I was in disarray and all choked up. I am anxiously looking forward to reading her other novels.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Forever Leaving You Wanting Just One More Moment, February 19, 2006

By 

prisrob "pris," (New England USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Someone I Loved (Je l'aimais) (English and French Edition) (Paperback)

"So love is just bullshit" That's it? It never works out?"
"Of course it works out. But you have to fight.."
"Fight how?"
"Every day you have to fight a bit. A little bit each day, with the courage to be yourself, to decide just to be happy"
Pierre is explaining to Chole that you need to work to make love happen.

Anna Gavalda at the age of thirty six and after a failed marriage has written her first novel. This is a beautifully crafted story of the search for happiness. The gut wrenching courage it sometimes takes to find that little bit of love and truth.
She said in an interview :
"Je l'aimais [Someone I Loved], was a story about the courage it takes to be happy. I seem to like characters who are fragile, wounded, adrift. I think most people are like that. The ones that aren't are either hiding it or are utter fools. I think our sensitive side is the essence of being human. Between those who never doubt their situation on this planet and those who ask themselves every day why they're here and how it all makes sense, of course I prefer the questioners."

Chloe is dumbstruck. Her husband, Adrien, has left her and their two daughters for another woman. He was not happy. She is bereft. Her father-in-law, whom she called "the old bastard", comes to her aid, and insists that she and the girls accompany him to his mother's country home. There she makes several discoveries. Pierre is not the man she thinks he is,and maybe, just maybe this terrible tragedy might have a silver lining.She learns over the days that Pierre is an unhappy man, that he has allowed his happiness to slip through his fingers. He has allowed this to happen, understands why it happened, and that he was powerless to move on. Pierre had met the love of his life after he was married with children. He lived the secret life of an adulterer, and was too weak to change his circumstances. This he examines with several bottles of good wine through out a night when Chole was at her most miserable. "Regrets he has a few, a few too small to mention", but that has changed the direction of his life. The years he spent in happiness that he gave away; that he did not try and change. Yes, we all have regrets, we are all looking for that happiness, and we may find it but for a small moment. Anna Gavalda reminds us that life is too short, we must search for what eludes us.
And as Scott Peck tells us:
"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."

'Someone I Loved' ends like most great love affairs, forever leaving you wanting just one more moment. --Gisele Tough " Highly Recommended, prisrob
2-19-06