The Book of Proper Names

by Amélie Nothomb

If I didn’t spell it out before, I think now it’s about time: I can’t stand classical ballet. Like foot binding, it is a form of violence against women disguised as “culture”. The difference is, foot binding is prohibited now, while the ballet is alive and, dare I say, kicking.

Reading The Book of Proper Names did not improve my opinion of this perverted art form. The novel, just like Loving Sabotage, is too outrageous to be untruthful. What I did not quite expect was that it turned out to be a biography of a real person, French chanteuse RoBERT. (Of course, the French title Robert des noms propres is a wordplay.) Once again Nothomb takes us on a seriously head-spinning ride through one girl’s childhood. And if it ends a bit too abruptly, well, this is all part of the game.

Being ten years old is the best thing that can happen to a human being. Especially a little dancer with all her art at her disposal. Ten is the most sunlit point in childhood. There is no sign of adolescence visible on the horizon: nothing but mature childhood, already rich in long experience, without that feeling of loss that assaults you from the first hints of puberty onwards. At ten, you aren’t necessarily happy, but you are certainly alive, more alive than anyone else.

The Character of Rain

by Amélie Nothomb

How does it feel, to be born a god; to acquire the memory at two and a half years; to fall from grace at the age of three? Read The Character of Rain and you’ll know. This is a prequel to Loving Sabotage, every bit as brilliant and enjoyable as the latter. Kudos to the translator, Timothy Bent. Isn’t it great that he gave the English version its own beautiful name rather than literal translation of the French title, Métaphysique des tubes? The character in question, 雨, appears at the beginning of each chapter. (In Japanese, 雨 is pronounced ame — the only reference in the book to the heroine’s name, which is, of course, Amélie.)

There has always been a large group of imbeciles opposing sensuality to intelligence. They inhabit a vicious circle: they deny themselves any extravagance to exalt their intellect, and the result is they diminish their intellect. They grow more and more dull, which leads them to become more and more convinced they are brilliant. There is no greater purpose for stupidity than to believe itself brilliant. There are people who boast of having done without some luxury for twenty-five years. There are fools who glory in never having listened to music, or read a book, or seen a movie. There are those who seek praise for their chastity. Such vanity is necessary. It provides them with the only pleasure they get from being alive.

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

Loving Sabotage

by Amélie Nothomb

Far too many books about childhood are sentimental, sweet and politically correct. Not this novel by Amélie Nothomb. The protagonist, a seven-year old girl (“I”, otherwise unnamed), is in fact Amélie herself and the book is a true story. (That’s what the author says in the afterword and I totally believe it. No one can invent all this crazy stuff; one has to live it.) I was reading Loving Sabotage on the train in Italy and was so immersed that I almost missed my stop. Nobody ever wrote about war and first love like that.

Take a crowd of children of various nationalities, enclose them in a restricted space built of concrete, and then let them loose, without supervision. Anyone who thinks the kids will extend the hand of friendship to each other is an idiot. Later in life, when I had achieved either martyrdom or a Nobel Prize in medicine, I would accept these slightly shopworn honors without too much disappointment. For I could always remind myself that while the noblest part of my existence was behind me, it was mine forever. Till my death, I would be able to awe people with the simple sentence: “During the war, I was a pathfinder in Peking.”