4.5/5 ⭐️ e piantino assicurato

Se ho capito una cosa da subito è che il narratore mi è sgradevole.
Ma il narratore è Carrere che si racconta in prima persona, direte voi. Esatto.
4,5⭐️ perché questo genere di prosa mi coinvolge molto e ci sguazzo bene, non è che i protagonisti debbano per forza essere persone simpatiche, solo che di solito i protagonisti non coincidono con l’autore, e questa cosa un po’ mi spiazza, perché non credo che la sua volontà fosse trasparirne come io l’ho percepito, e cioè presuntuoso (magari il problema è mio eh).
E mi rendo conto di trovarmi in disaccordo con non pochi dei temi trattati nel libro, e infastidita da non poche frasi, e ne esco un po’ confusa, confusa da questo dualismo, perché il libro mi piace ma spesso non mi piace quello che c’è scritto. Ha senso?

The writing/translation and style was excellent and had moments of brilliance, but this was such an odd "memoir." The title better describes it--the author describes the unrelated tragedies of two families he really doesn't know, only inserting himself into the narrative as an observer and to comment upon how the events affected him.

The first tragedy, the death of a small child in a Sri Lankan tsunami, happens to a family he has just met on vacation but with whom he bonds in the aftermath of the event. The second is the death of his sister-in-law, whom he didn't know well, to cancer. The SIL was a judge, and the examination of her life/death is led much more by discussion with her male friend/colleague than with her husband, which is odd. It also leads the narrative to get bogged down in far more detail about French consumer credit law than is necessary or interesting.

I can't say I disliked it, I just can't understand why it was written or what I'm to take away from it. I did have high hopes for this book after excellent reviews, so I was disappointed.

This book left me fairly baffled. I didn't understand why Carrère had written it, or why he structured it the way he did. He took two unrelated events: on holiday in Sri Lanka he witnessed the effects of the tsunami, and met a French couple who lost their four-year-old daughter. Later, after he and his partner return home, his partner's sister, whom he barely knows, becomes ill and eventually dies of cancer at the age of 33. Well, there is a connection between these events I suppose: him. Why did he feel qualified to publish a book about them? There are some moving moments as you try to fathom how it must feel to lose your child in a moment, or what it's like to lie on a hospital bed with your dying wife. But mostly I just wondered where it was all going. At the end, he clumsily brings back the family of the tsunami victim -- they've kept in touch, but don't seem to have become close friends.

Juliette, his sister in law, was a magistrate in a local court, dealing with consumer issues and personal debt (curiously the dead child was also called Juliette). For some reason he includes a long section, fifty pages or so, in which he interviews her colleague Etienne and after telling you all about Etienne's life history recounts more than you ever wished to know about French law on surendettement. Etienne and Juliette are concerned not just with legal justice but social justice, and spend a lot of time figuring out ways to invalidate "revolving credit" contracts gullible people have signed, much to the disgust of the large financial companies involved (Incidentally they are also both disabled as a result of childhood cancers which is what first creates a bond between them). Eventually they get the European Court of Justice involved and are thrilled to gain a victory over the credit companies. Reflecting on it, perhaps the point of this section is to demonstrate that even people apparently in relatively dull, trivial jobs can gain enormous satisfaction from them, and do their bit to relieve human misery -- as a result of Juliette and Etienne's actions, many very poor people had their debts reduced or cancelled altogether. Its also perhaps a way of acknowledging his self-centredness: showing interest in "lives other than his own".

So I'm eager to find out what the French people in my book group think of it all. Maybe they can explain it!

powerful, emotional, vibrant...this book is incredibly written/translated, made me cry several times...carrère says several times that he does not think he should be writing these stories about the experiences of others because he is not directly by the things that happen to his subjects. but his distance allows him to create a powerful, emotional, and vibrant account of peoples' lives.

great book.

Adoré. J'ai rarement versé autant de larmes en lisant un livre. Le livre perd une étoile à cause de quelques longueurs juridiques... Mais quelle humanité dans ce roman. J'ai eu envie de serrer mon mari et mes enfants dans mes bras tout au long du livre.