by Agnes Desarthe
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Each chapter of this excellent book beguiles and enchants with its subtle ideas, bewitching metaphors and comic descriptions, lulling the reader into a false calm - for when the moral message finally hits home, the impact leaves one reeling. Gradually the author introduces Sonia, the narrator, and Julien, her architect husband. The story meanders through their purchase of a Paris flat, the fuddy-duddy neighbours, the eccentric concierge and the surrounding boulevards. They create for themselves a tranquil and beautiful place to live; one baby boy is born and then another. Sonia is delightful - well-meaning but painfully honest about her failure to be as good and generous as she would like to be. People, for her, are divided between those who love justice and those who cause misery. She never manages to see the world through rose-coloured spectacles: every small hint of ugliness, each spiteful word or racist snub that she witnesses causes her anguish. Julien urges her to be calmer but for clear-eyed Sonia nothing is fudged: the cleaner has 'flinty knees and dirty toes sticking out of the end of her orthopaedic sandals', the concierge's fascist brother is huge, 'slumped in a chair looking all bottom heavy, like a child's wobbly toy, dragging on a roll-up and stroking his great flabby stomach'. Gradually, Sonia's need to be good embroils them all in an exhausting moral crusade, a battle with what one can only call the forces of evil. A book to read again and again for its wit, its beautiful style and its humanity. The author of several books both for children and adults, including the well-reviewed Five Photos of my Wife, Desarthe is a writer to know and cherish. (Kirkus UK)
from the reviews for Five Photos of My Wife: A rare tribute to the love of a wife Desarthe's gentle novel, lucidly translated by Adriana Hunter, is the kind of mood piece at which the French excel. While many kinds of art are evoked (acrylic, oils, collage and video), her own prose suggests a watercolour - delicate, subtle and full of charm.' Michael Arditti, Daily Mail 'From the memories of an old man, Agn?s Desarthe has carved out a novel of irresistible charm. It is sober, tender, moving, underpinned by the disorienting wit of the hero Max, and haunted by his unforgettable wife Telma. Desarthe is a master at expressing the unspeakable truths of daily life and of time passing.' Madame Figaro 'Well told, elegantly conceived and constructed' Dominic Bradbury, The Times
Product Description
With her husband Julien away on business much of the time, and now a second child on the way, Sonia finds herself drawn into the darker corners of life in her block. She finds herself sucked speedily into the maelstrom of two neighbours' sordid lethargy and ordinary cruelty.
See all Editorial Reviews
Each chapter of this excellent book beguiles and enchants with its subtle ideas, bewitching metaphors and comic descriptions, lulling the reader into a false calm - for when the moral message finally hits home, the impact leaves one reeling. Gradually the author introduces Sonia, the narrator, and Julien, her architect husband. The story meanders through their purchase of a Paris flat, the fuddy-duddy neighbours, the eccentric concierge and the surrounding boulevards. They create for themselves a tranquil and beautiful place to live; one baby boy is born and then another. Sonia is delightful - well-meaning but painfully honest about her failure to be as good and generous as she would like to be. People, for her, are divided between those who love justice and those who cause misery. She never manages to see the world through rose-coloured spectacles: every small hint of ugliness, each spiteful word or racist snub that she witnesses causes her anguish. Julien urges her to be calmer but for clear-eyed Sonia nothing is fudged: the cleaner has 'flinty knees and dirty toes sticking out of the end of her orthopaedic sandals', the concierge's fascist brother is huge, 'slumped in a chair looking all bottom heavy, like a child's wobbly toy, dragging on a roll-up and stroking his great flabby stomach'. Gradually, Sonia's need to be good embroils them all in an exhausting moral crusade, a battle with what one can only call the forces of evil. A book to read again and again for its wit, its beautiful style and its humanity. The author of several books both for children and adults, including the well-reviewed Five Photos of my Wife, Desarthe is a writer to know and cherish. (Kirkus UK)
from the reviews for Five Photos of My Wife: A rare tribute to the love of a wife Desarthe's gentle novel, lucidly translated by Adriana Hunter, is the kind of mood piece at which the French excel. While many kinds of art are evoked (acrylic, oils, collage and video), her own prose suggests a watercolour - delicate, subtle and full of charm.' Michael Arditti, Daily Mail 'From the memories of an old man, Agn?s Desarthe has carved out a novel of irresistible charm. It is sober, tender, moving, underpinned by the disorienting wit of the hero Max, and haunted by his unforgettable wife Telma. Desarthe is a master at expressing the unspeakable truths of daily life and of time passing.' Madame Figaro 'Well told, elegantly conceived and constructed' Dominic Bradbury, The Times
Product Description
With her husband Julien away on business much of the time, and now a second child on the way, Sonia finds herself drawn into the darker corners of life in her block. She finds herself sucked speedily into the maelstrom of two neighbours' sordid lethargy and ordinary cruelty.
See all Editorial Reviews
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14
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- The Roots of Japan's Environmental Policies (East Asia (New York, N.Y.).) by Anny Wong on page 193
- Humor for a Woman's Heart 2 in Back Matter
- The Quakers in America (Columbia Contemporary American Religion Series) by Professor Thomas D. Hamm in Back Matter
- How Much Is Enough?: Everything You Need to Know to Steer Clear of Overindulgence and Raise Likeable, Responsible and Respectful Ch by Ph.D. Jean Illsley Clarke on page 117
- Negotiating Religious Faith in the Composition Classroom by Elizabeth Vander Lei on page 133
See all 14 books citing this book
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