Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... The Book of Proper Names (original 2002; edition 2005)by Amélie Nothomb (Author)
Work InformationThe Book of Proper Names by Amélie Nothomb (Author) (2002)
french letters (15) Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. It was a fairly strange little book, but I really enjoyed it a lot. I like the author's writing style, although as its a translation maybe I should be wary about being completely certain in case things have been added or lost in the process. The story itself rolled along well, it was almost dreamlike & a little unreal. The only thing that disappointed me was the ending. Whilst it did fit in with the story very well, it seemed far too rushed - almost like the author had got bored with the story & wanted to wrap it up in half a page. It really let the rest of the book down. Gothic Nirvana! Each novella I read by Nothomb makes my skin go all bumpy. She oozes such beautiful, dark, twisted and elegant writing. This story follows the tragic story of Plectrude, an orphan taken in by her Aunt. The background of this girl is tragic and what happens throughout the story is deeply tragic. TRAGEDY! Oh, how I love thee. For some reason I'm pulled in when a story contains anything twisted, dark and tragic. I believe it must be due to the fact that this makes something unusual, and unusual things make interesting things. Nothomb not only knows how to turn a mundane story into something so much more, but she can also play with some of the best Authors in the Gothic genre. I must devour more of her novellas... more I say! A chaque livre, Amélie Nothomb parvient à m'entraîner en quelques pages dans son univers sans que je sache encore pourquoi. Sans doute la part d'imagination, d'absurdité qui fait son style. Le Robert des noms propres ne déroge pas à la règle. Il n'y a que la conclusion qui m'a laissé sur ma faim: certes originale, elle m'a paru nuire à la continuité et à la logique du récit. Et Plectrude, quel prénom! Les deux plus belles trouvailles de l'écrivain: L'assassinat a ceci de comparable avec l'acte sexuel qu'il est souvent suivi de la même question: que faire du corps? En l'espace d'une heure, Plectrude passa du statut de simplette à celui de génie. (...) Ce changement de terminologie comportait des avantages, comme ne tarda pas à le remarquer la petite. (...) A présent, quand elle ne venait pas à bout d'une opération simple, la maîtresse la contemplait comme l'albatros de Baudelaire, que son intelligence de géante empêchait de calculer, et ses condisciples avaient honte d'en trouver sottement la solution. 'I gave myself to the snow in the garden, I lay down beneath it and built a cathedral around me, I saw it slowly raising the walls, then the vaults, I was the recumbent figure with the cathedral all to myself, then the doors closed again and death came in search of me, white and gentle at first, then black and violent, it was going to take me away when my guardian angel came to save me at the very last minute.' I read this odd but extremely entertaining 126 page novella in two sittings and less than two hours. Born in tragic circumstances, Plectrude is adopted as a baby by her loving aunt and uncle and raised as their third child. She is an eccentric child, unpopular at school but a star in her dance classes, imaginative and driven, cursed by her off-putting name and the allure of her dancer's eyes. The end of this strange story is surreal but effective.
Smaller isn't always better, but sometimes power is best contained in miniature. "The Book of Proper Names" is a slim volume packed with wit, imagination and cleverly spun characters. Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb, once deemed France's "literary lioness," captivates with her sharp description and delicate control over the story of Plectrude, a fairy-tale name for an otherworldly girl who doesn't quite belong. Nothomb's portrait of the freedom of childhood and the haunting confusion of adolescence is at once charming and brutal. Plectrude's life is marked by changes in body, soul, connections to friends and parents, and her place in the world, and though she may be unlike us, she struggles and suffers for what is at the core of each of our lives. Nothomb's darkly satirical novellas, most of them unashamedly semi-autobiographical, are bestsellers in France, and this is a disturbing, fantastical moral tale for our times. Plectrude's adolescent years as an anorexic in a brutal ballet school, where the girls exercise until they ache and are encouraged to starve themselves, are extraordinarily vivid. "Here there was no tenderness in the eyes of the adults," Nothomb writes, "merely a scalpel to slice away the last slice of childhood." With the loss of weight, Plectrude also loses feeling, until she starves herself of so much calcium that she breaks her leg and is told by the doctors that she can never dance again. There is a poetic, elliptical quality to Nothomb's sparse, precise prose. She captures the crucial aspects of growing up with a light yet darkly comic touch; first crushes, fascination with death, the need for a destiny, the disillusionment with parents - it's all here. But so, too, is the troubled symbiosis between childhood and adolescence, and the acute agony for both mother and daughter when the child who was raised as a princess becomes an ugly disappointment as a teenager. She has 12 novels in print around the world, so it is astonishing that British publishers haven't discovered Nothomb's perverse, wacky wit and fertile imagination before now. But for me it is her astute understanding of growing up and the damage done by mothers who see their daughters merely as extensions of themselves that has left its mark. Distinctions
From France's 'literary lioness' (Elle), The Book of Proper Names is the story of the hapless orphan girl, Plectrude. Raised by her aunt, and unaware of the dark secret behind her past, she is a troubled but dreamy child who is both blessed and cursed by her intoxicating eyes. Discovered to have enormous gifts as a dancer, she is accepted at Paris's most prestigious ballet school where she devotes herself to artistic perfection, until her body can take no more. In a brilliantly succinct story of haunted adolescence and lost mothers, Nothomb propels the narrative forward until Plectrude is forced to take command of her own fate. Vintage Nothomb, The Book of Proper Names marks the UK debut of one of the most brilliant, ambitious, and idiosyncratic voices to have emerged in years. 'Slyly outrageous. [Nothomb] both disturbs and amuses.' New York Times 'Readers who have yet to discover the feather-ruffling pleasures of reading popular Belgian author Nothomb, winner of the Prix du Roman de l'Acad#65533;mie Fran#65533;aise and other prizes, should jump at the chance.' Kirkus Reviews No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)843.914Literature French French fiction Modern Period 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
Plectrude doesn't do well at school but is accepted by école des rats to study ballet - not that ballet worked out any better. Nevertheless, Nothomb touches on some profound topics. The ending, where the author appears to have run out of ideas, is fittingly weird.
Anyone who enjoys absurd humour might appreciate this book. ( )