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Description
The tale of a man's obsession with a woman, or is it two women? Justine has a twin sister, and the narrator is increasingly unsure as to the real identity of the woman he desires. Alluding to the Marquis de Sade's work of the same name, the novel explores the line between imagination and reality.Tags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
This small book may be 227 pages, but it has short chapters and very spare writing. Yet despite the spare writing it is very...moody and descriptive. Gothic horror? Mystery? Opium-induced hallucination?
The unnamed narrator has fallen in love with Justine, whose portrait hangs in his home. Then he sees her at his mother's funeral. Finally finding her, the story gets creepier and odder, with hints of Oscar Wilde and (apparently) Marquis de Sade, who's book Justine is mentioned.
Who is Justine? And--is she even real?
The unnamed narrator has fallen in love with Justine, whose portrait hangs in his home. Then he sees her at his mother's funeral. Finally finding her, the story gets creepier and odder, with hints of Oscar Wilde and (apparently) Marquis de Sade, who's book Justine is mentioned.
Who is Justine? And--is she even real?
A strange little book, really a novella. A man is obsessed. Justine is the object of his obsession. What will he do to satisfy his obsession? I bought this book a number of years ago, I think in 1998, and lost it in my various moves. I thought I had read it but realized the book had never been opened.
I liked it. An easy read. Pretty weird. I'm not sure what genre this belongs in.
I liked it. An easy read. Pretty weird. I'm not sure what genre this belongs in.
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Author Information
7 Works 370 Members
Awards and Honors
Awards
Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Justine
- Original title
- Justine
- Original publication date
- 1996
- Dedication
- To Stephen
- First words
- The style in which my flat is decorated gives everything away about me. A gift to you which includes the fact that there is something about me that will never be given away, let alone sold for a price. The inner recesses of m... (show all)y flat's interior, the darkened niches velveted burgundy over, and the paintings with their faces set to the walls, hint at an enigmatic character with a taste more perverse than is entirely natural. These rooms are stuffed full of objets d'art but the space in which I live also requires the rigour of interpretation. -Chapter One
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)When I hold up their pages to the light, the paper of many of them is so thin that the words on the other side shine backwards, through.
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 823.914
- Canonical LCC
- PR6070.H6578
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 66
- Popularity
- 472,002
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.40)
- Languages
- 5 — Danish, Dutch, English, French, German
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 11
- ASINs
- 1
