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Book Review Editor's Note: We are pleased to publish the following English translation of a review that originally appeared in a Paris weekly news magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur (February 9, 1999; Number 1817). The subject book is a French novel that has not yet been translated into English. The review has been translated and appears here by permission of Le Nouvel Observateur.
From frequent encounters with psychoanalysts, this author has stolen their stories, and in her writing they become parables.
“Talk to me. Why don't you ever talk to me. Talk. What are you thinking about? What? I never know what you're thinking about.” These are the exact words that his father said that day: that is the gist of what Marc tells Simon Scop, his psychoanalyst. Marc is furious each time he thinks again about this scene. His father had taken him out for ice cream, something he rarely does. “I still see him with his tweed jacket, his bow tie and handkerchief in his vest pocket; I still have the smell of his English eau de toilette in my nose …. I opened my mouth to start to talk to him and then he said to me, ‘Aren't they beautiful, these verses?’” And the words went back down Marc's throat. His father recited a poem—it was all over. Marc's words remained within him; he was forever disappointed by this father who didn't want to listen to him. And then,