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Jean-Philippe Toussaint

Author of The Bathroom

33+ Works 1,759 Members 56 Reviews 6 Favorited

About the Author

Series

Works by Jean-Philippe Toussaint

The Bathroom (1985) 294 copies
Television (1997) 270 copies
Running Away (2005) 195 copies
Camera (1988) 176 copies
Making Love (2002) 154 copies
The Truth About Marie (2009) 124 copies
Monsieur (1986) 95 copies
Naked (2013) 79 copies
Reticence (1991) 79 copies
Self-Portrait Abroad (2000) 72 copies
Urgency and Patience (2012) 46 copies
La clé usb (2019) 39 copies
Football (2015) 16 copies

Associated Works

Best European Fiction 2010 (2009) — Contributor — 166 copies
Péter Esterházy Dozentur für Weltliteratur (2013) — Contributor — 1 copy

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Reviews

I think this is one of those tedious psychological novels that Borges was warning about. Well, let's count some commas.
Eyes closed and standing still, I was listening to Marie's voice coming from thousands of kilometers away, her voice which I could hear despite the countless lands that separated us, despite the steppes and immeasurable other plains, despite the expanse of the night and its gradation of colors spread across the surface of the earth, despite the mauve light of a Siberian dusk and the first orange streaks left by a sun setting on the cities of Eastern Europe, I was listening to Marie speaking faintly in the early evening sunlight of Paris, her frail voice reaching me, sounding more or less the same as ever, in the late night of the train, literally transporting me, as thoughts, dreams, and books can do, when, releasing the mind from the body, the body remains still and the mind travels, swelling and expanding, while gradually, behind our closed eyes, images are born, and other memories, feelings, and states of being surge into view, pains and buried emotions are reawakened, as well as fears and joys and a multitude of sensations - of coldness, of heat, of being loved, of confusion - while blood pounds in our temples, our heartbeats accelerate, and we feel ourselves shaken, as if a fissure had cracked the sea of tears frozen in each of us.
Right, I count 28 commas in that sentence. I wonder if it's the most in a sentence of this book, or not.

This is what I was thinking as I finished the book. Not exactly gripping, then.
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lelandleslie | 5 other reviews | Feb 24, 2024 |
A dead cat floats in the harbor in the opening scene of this novella length parody/tribute to the noir genre. A black cat, naturally, as black clouds slowly move overhead, allowing pale moonlight to reveal the murder. For surely it was a deliberate killing, our narrator thinks, an act somehow connected to the fact that his old friend Biaggi, whom he has come to this village to see, though he is avoiding Biaggi now that he has arrived, has been stalking him through the village, keeping watch on him, even taking a room in the same little hotel.

Every minor event is drafted into the service of this suspenseful game of cat and mouse. Our narrator turns snoop, stealing Biaggi's mail, slipping into Biaggi's house
unseen. Or has Biaggi in fact been watching every one of these moves?

Perhaps all will become clear at the end, on a deserted beach in the pale moonlight, a lonely lighthouse flashing monotonously.
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lelandleslie | 4 other reviews | Feb 24, 2024 |
We cannot forget Toussaint, face expressionless, as he hurls that dart into our forehead with his full strength, distinctly grimacing; nor forgive the fact that he is always on the verge of playing tennis.
 
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Joe.Olipo | 6 other reviews | Sep 19, 2023 |
This is the fourth and last book in the series about an artist in the world of haute couture: Marie Madeleine Marguerite de Montalte. I have not read the previous three, but had no trouble with picking up the story in Nue. Thankfully the heroine is referred to as plain Marie in this book and her story is pieced together by the narrator the unnamed admirer and lover of Marie. The story is told in several set piece situations. The first is an outrageous fashion show in Japan where Marie has designed a dress that clings to the body of her model like a second skin and is the colour of honey. She arranges to have a swarm of bees follow the model down the catwalk. We then find the narrator alone in his Paris apartment after enjoying a holiday with Marie in Elba. He spends two months looking out of the window waiting for Marie to phone him. The narrator remembers an art exhibition celebrating Marie in Japan, to which he had not been invited and how he climbed onto the roof and peered down at the gathering through a porthole like window. Then he finally receives a phone call and meets Marie in a run down Paris cafe on a wet winters night in the city and then agrees that night to go back to Elba with her for a funeral.

These incidents are described in some detail with the author intent on providing an atmosphere which connects them to each other. I enjoyed the writing which has a dream-like quality to it. It has the feel of being written by a person in love who understands that he must play his part in the game of love, without fully understanding the rules. It is a waiting game and like the diaphanous honey coloured dress, nothing must be done to spoil the overall effect. I was carried away by the writing in this short novel which has a timely resolution. I need not read the preceding three to understand the story, but I would like to for the quality of the writing. 4 stars.
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baswood | 1 other review | Jul 2, 2023 |

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Works
33
Also by
2
Members
1,759
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Rating
½ 3.5
Reviews
56
ISBNs
156
Languages
20
Favorited
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