Taking It to Heart [Paperback]

Marie Desplechin (Author), Will Hobson (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2002

At once wickedly funny and unexpectedly touching, Marie Desplechin's debut collection of stories explores life and love in contemporary Paris. Here are the trials and tribulations of sex in the city, as - with alarming frequency - her heroines' affairs fail to measure up to their expectations. They're not asking for much: but how much is too much? How long should they wait? And what should they do in the meantime? Sweet, sharp and unsentimental, Desplechin's stories capture eight unlikely moments of truth.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This disarming and often witty debut collection of stories by Desplechin (Sans Moi) is set in a Paris of lonely hearts and ill-fated friendships. Heroines wave a common banner of resigned romanticism on the march through frequently doomed relationships, and the blackly comic one-liners fly thick and fast: "You only escape from loneliness in fits and starts. I love friendship. It's like the gulp of air torturers allow their victims before they push their heads back underwater." Hobson's translation renders Desplechin's wry humor effortlessly from the original French no small feat. Some of the stories seem unfinished: there are missing details, inconclusive scenes, unexplored characters. But in the best of these tragicomic tales of sex and love and dinner parties, a meditative emotional wisdom is at work. "Joy," the life story of a gynecologist told in the first person, is a satiric delight; "Something's Wrong," about a woman who moves in with her boyfriend, is more tense and meditative; "At Sea," which chronicles a woman's various boating mishaps, is funny and observant. The title story may suggest Desplechin's true range: when city siblings B‚n‚dicte and Th‚o visit ailing and lonely Granny in their hometown outside of Paris, a bitter childhood nostalgia blinds them to their own grandmother's toughness and resilience, borne of a terrifying youth in Nazi-occupied France. In these stories, no one admits they're looking for love, but everyone is and their eyes may be too sharp ever to find it.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

What would you give up for love? What is more important, love or friendship? Passion or security? How much of yourself should you give away, and how much should you expect from your beloved? What does it mean to live with someone, to cheat on someone, or to marry? Desplechin poses many such questions in these stories that make a sophisticated examination of modern relationships that meander from love to lust and from abandonment to ennui. Some she answers, some she leaves for readers to answer. One female character finds revelation in a one-time fling, another rediscovers freedom when she leaves her unfaithful lover, a third becomes depressed after deciding to move in with her boyfriend, a fourth reconciles with her lover after seeing him interact with her son. Dealing with issues of sexual awakening, boredom, and frustration, Desplechin's characters question their expectations for relationships and often redefine love and sexuality personally. Their stories are witty, sad, detached, exuberant, and delightful to read. Bonnie Johnston
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 170 pages
• Publisher: Granta Books; First Edition edition (April 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1862074070
• ISBN-13: 978-1862074071
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,698,130 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Little Too Much of the Same, May 26, 2002

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Taking It to Heart (Paperback)

I first came across French writer Desplechin in the XCités anthology of new French writing, which had an excerpt from her story "Haiku" (which appears in full in this collection). One gets the sense that the eight stories here are all intensely personal, as each features a Parisian female protagonist of the late 20s to late 30s persuasion, and most are written from a first-person perspective. The characters and stories get a little repetitive when read all in one go, I would suggest reading perhaps one a week or so to really do them justice. The women (some married, most single) are all looking for love, but not in that fun and frantic Nick Hornby way, but with a more quiet and aimless approach that underlines their inability to identify what or who it is that will make them happy-or at least keep them from becoming bored. These women don't lack for men, rather they can't really determine which they prefer, however, it's worth nothing that the two best stories deviate from this template.

In "Haiku", Christiane has plenty of men in her environs, but despairs at how to meet them. When her friend Anne-Marie gets her interested in haiku, she discovers a world that she can truly love and understand. This leads to a hilarious dinner party, and the one truly conventional happy ending of the book. The story "Joy" is a chatty first-person account of a young girl's genesis as a writer, culminating in a confessional memoir. It's the most self-conscious and witty of the bunch, and perhaps the most enjoyable. The six other stories are all well-written, but failed to move me, however perhaps young urban female readers may find some level of connection in these tales of their Parisian counterparts. In any event, if you enjoy the stories, she also has a novel, Sans Moi, in translation, which I have not read.