Chanson douce

Abstract

Combined with rigid dialogue, The Ninety-Ninth Floor becomes hard to bear at times. Whether it is the translation, the original text, or a combination, the lack of vernacular intervenes with the dizzying nonlinear narrative, while excessive allegory creates a limited scope for literary exploration . As a result, the recurring themes of lost identity, alienation, and displacement become redundant. The best thing about literature is that you can write about anything. As potent as Elhassan’s subject is, The Ninety-Ninth Floor fails to evoke an emotional response beyond existing works on the same subject. Sherif Dhaimish London Martin Felipe Castagnet. Bodies of Summer. Trans. Frances Riddle. Victoria, Texas. Dalkey Archive Press. 2017. 105 pages. The central concept of Bodies of Summer is a good one: what if, after death, your consciousness uploaded to the Internet, where you could either float around with other disembodied souls or choose to “burn” yourself into a new body? The possibilities seem endless. For the first third of Martin Felipe Castagnet ’s debut novel, the author delights in the prospects of a world where the afterlife has become a tangible reality. Of course, some people are killing themselves en masse, but of course others aren’t. The ability to place your consciousness into a new body, a new sex, a new race is ripe for investigation, and Castagnet writes through those rabbit holes with deft, spare prose that borders on the laconic. Ramiro has been dead for some time. He eventually uploads himself into a new body, that of a middle-aged woman, in the interest of confronting an old friend. He sees his son, now senile on his deathbed. He bonds with his fully grown grandchildren . He looks into the lives of his ex-wife’s second family. He follows a man who uploaded himself back into his own body. He swelters in the heat. Throughout the book, that sense of oppression looms. Strange for a book so light to feel so crushing and heavy. That, in itself, is quite an accomplishment. Then, somewhere halfway through, the narrative seems to lose interest, which is, in itself, also a remarkable occurrence for such a short book. The novel raises questions on every page, questions of race and gender and sexuality and propriety. It moves quickly, and it’s very well written, but under all that pressure and heat there seems to be something of a shrug. Maybe that’s for the best; maybe simply presenting these weird what-ifs is enough in itself. J. David Osborne Tigard, Oregon Leïla Slimani. Chanson douce. Paris. Gallimard. 2016. 226 pages. The novel that won the prestigious Goncourt Prize in 2016 begins on a grim note: “The baby is dead.” Most of the ensuing narrative is recounted in the form of an extended flashback, with occasional tangents devoted to minor characters. The grimness of the opening section is quickly relieved by relatively bland descriptive passages about a typical French middle-class couple, Myriam and Paul, who are trying to balance the pressures and time constraints of their respective careers while raising their two young children. They decide to hire a nanny and quickly choose the middle-aged and recently widowed Louise who, despite being estranged from her own daughter, has an uncanny ability to interact with children. While Myriam and Paul are busy at work, Louise not only takes up most of the activities linked to raising their children but also starts to manage their household, rearranging and cleaning their apartment, taking care of the shopping and cooking, etc. Myriam and Paul are delighted: Louise is not only able to soothe their children and make them behave; she also relieves the couple of most of the burden of household chores. Louise, who seems to have no life of her own, becomes an essential part of the family, even accompanying them during their summer vacation. However, she never really loses her status as an unknown outsider. While Louise remains active and essential to the functioning of the family unit, she seems to be invisible, to have no desires or needs of her own. In this sense, the class distinction between the upwardly mobile family and the impoverished servant...