https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3770233.html

I hugely enjoyed this collection of short stories, located somewhere in the space between de Maupassant and Philip K. Dick, all published and largely set in Nazi-occupied France of 1943. In the title story, a mid-ranking but frustrated bureaucrat discovers that he can walk through walls, which brings him both petty triumph and personal disaster. I liked most of them, especially "The Seven-League Boots" / "Les bottes de sept lieues" which combines social commentary with magical realism. This deserves to be much better known. ( )

There is a statue in Paris of Marcel Aymé, the writer of this wonderful collection of short stories which was first published in 1943 when Paris was under German occupation and the war seemed as though it would go on forever. In the title story, a lowly clerk discovers that he can walk through walls, so he suspends himself on the wall of boss's office like a hunting trophy, and tells the boss what he thinks of him. It's sympathetic, ironic and sad, and very funny.

In Tickets on Time it is decreed that people will be allocated life according to their usefulness. As a writer, the narrator is allocated two weeks of life a month. On the fifteenth of the month life stops, and it resumes on the fist of the next month. In the meantime, workers continue their lives, but they are often poor and unable to pay for fuel and food, so they sell some of their days. It all seems quite reasonable according to Aymé's logic, and is a brilliant example of the arbitrariness of rulers and the impotence of the citizens.

Aymé's sympathies are with the poor and the powerless. With wit and charm he pushes the possible beyond the ridiculous and creates little philosophical masterpieces. ( )

I really enjoyed this set of stories. Well-written and well-plotted, the characters were believeable and very much enjoyable to read. I really enjoyed the oddness of the collection: the one man who could walk through walls, but was otherwise utterly normal; the story where it was decided that, since daylight savings was a thing, why not just skip 17 years ahead?
The only gripe I have is the deeply misogynistic theme in the second story (and somewhat less so in 'The Wife Collector') - partly explained by being written in 1940s France, to be sure, but disturbing to a modern audience anyway. ( )

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2014/08/24/the-view-from-the-occupi... ( )

Exquisitely mordant. ( )