Sylvie Germain

Les personnages is a book length essay about the coming into being of characters in works of fiction. Particularly the author's opening descriptions, of shades whose faces she cannot, who lurk around is very pervasive. Not all ideas are equally coherent and convincing, but still Les personnages contains a number of interesting ideas and observations about the creation of prose characters.

Les personnages consists of two short works, a long essay entitled "Deambulations" followed by "Esquisses en marge", which itself consist of two fragments.… (more)

I picked up this book expecting it to be something absolutely different than what I got. However, I'm glad I picked it up.

The story revolves around a child named Lucie and the world around her. The chapters where things are shown to us from the perspective of the light, or the objects, are absolutely delicious in the way they are written. I also love how we can dive inside the characters mind, and understand what they're going through. The passages where the world is seen through the innocent, childlike eyes of Lucie in the beginning was marvelous and imaginative (and somewhat humorous too. Like the explanation of fairy electricity). It also has a portrait of human consciousness that I really liked. That's part of what kept me glued to this book - the humanity of the characters in it.

I'm not sure how to describe this book, in all honesty, because it's such a different read than what I usually choose. It is dark, shocking, sad, moving, beautiful, honest and haunting. But it certainly is a very good book.
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“A breeze of voices, a polyphony of whisperings.”

It is the ice of one heart turning not into water but air.
It is the life of another heart turning not into death but hibernation.
A song of love dying again and again.
A song of lies, betrayals, and infidelities.
A song of flaming death, falling death, diseased death, crushing death.
It is the song of the tragedy of humanity.

“An exaltation of silence.”

The bombing of Hamburg near the end of World War II. Gomorrah. Nothing is left but parts of walls still standing, rubble, and bodies. A woman crouches with dancing flames attached to her back. They continue their wild waltz until the woman falls, the flames totally consume her, and the short macabre opera is finally over. A small child, until just recently holding her hand, now mindless with shock, continues walking. To where, he does not know.

This is the story of a child growing up in the aftermath of war, discovering the truths of his past, listening to the whisperings of ghosts, and as a young man, finding and losing love.

This novel is the closest thing to perfection that I have read in quite some time. It is Tolstoy stripped bare. It is Shakespeare put to prose. It is to observe every human emotion from within and from without. Beautiful, poetic, sad, and unique in the canon of this type of literature.

“War, or the delirium of crime raised to the level of a sacred mission.”… (more)