Sunday 25 April 2010

Sulphuric Acid

by Amélie Nothomb

In contrast to her autobiographical Loving Sabotage, this novel, set in not so far future, is pure fiction. Or is it? We all know how low “reality TV” might sink; many suspect it can sink even lower.

No, I am not going to tell you what it is all about. I’d prefer you to read this (short and shocking) book. And have no fear.

Pannonique thought of those novelists who go on endlessly about the book they’ve written: what’s the point? Wouldn’t they have served their books better if they had, at the moment of its creation, injected it with all the love it needed? And if they had failed to give it that support at the appropriate moment, wouldn’t they have done their text more good by loving it anyway, with that true love expressed not in logorrhoea but in silence punctuated by a few fine words? Creation wasn’t so hard, because it was intoxicating: only once it was over did the divine task became complicated.
Acide sulfurique

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