Hygiène de l'assassin (1992)

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/nothomba/hygiene.htm ( )

Clever first novel — more like a play, really, the whole thing done in dialogue and set in a single room. Splendidly intense and claustrophobic: it's a book that you're in a hurry to finish just to get out into the open air again, and it will leave you with a delightfully unpleasant taste in your mouth. But I'm not altogether sure that it does very much more than that.

As in l'Attentat, Nothomb takes a splendidly repulsive character as the central figure of the story, and uses him to explore many of her favourite themes: alimentary processes; the relation between narrative and life; gender politics. Prétextat Tach is one of the best character names I've come across in some time: it's almost worth reading the book just for this. ( )

Ho apprezzato molto il modo in cui è scritto: tutti dialoghi u_u

E il personaggio principale è talmente irritante che alla fine (alla fine inteso come modo di dire, non come fine del romanzo, di cui dirò tra poco) fa il giro e il libro risulta rapente u_u

Ero propenso a dare quattro stelle ma la fine non mi è piaciuta tanto quindi una l'ho fatta collassare u_u ( )

Uno scrittore Una malattia mortale rarissima Le ultime interviste Un'estetica molto personale (e come tale discutibile) La Nothomb riesce sempre a sorprendermi con la sua abilità di utilizzare un'ironia irresistibile per affrontare temi dai contenuti decisamente pesanti. ( )

Really, this hovers somewhere between four and five stars for me, but, what the hell, I'll round up this time. It's been a long time since I've been so engaged by a book. I could barely set it down to shower and stayed up much later than I should have to finish it. But it's probably not most people's cuppa; I expect it's one of those love-it-or-hate-it kind of books. It's almost entirely dialogue, so if you're a reader who prefers description, you might want to skip this. Although, if anything will make you appreciate good dialogue, it's this book. It could be adapted into quite an interesting play, I think.

PLUS! In Googling to figure out how to pronounce the main character's name (I don't do well with French), I found this song, which was apparently written about the book and is awesome. ( )