Review: Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster by Alison Weir.Review: Wind, Sand, and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.3.5 out of 5 starsĮnter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Gavalda might not tell the stories that I want to read, but she tells them in the way I want to read them. Heavy on punctuation, on labelling feelings, on fragmenting thoughts.īut this pathetic attempt at imitation shows how much her words tumbled and scattered in my brain. Petite novelettes are perfect for her character-centric writing this novel of nearly 600 pages was vast and vacant, the winds of disinterest blew through its empty and tired intrigues. I’ve only previously read Gavalda’s slam-dunk short story collection, I Wish Someone Were Waiting For Me Somewhere, which hides this weakness of hers.
The four characters–a ragtag team beaten by the world who will find happiness in their shared ruins and slowly rebuild each other–are terrific sketches, but what they do is nowhere near as passionate as Gavalda’s prose. Nothing much occurs and what does occur does not surprise. We have a nearly plotless novel here all that happens is outlined in the blurb, apparent from the initial chapters, and fated by the gods of storytelling.
Less compelling, however, is the story behind the words. Myself and others may be tempted to label this short, direct style as cutesy and simplistic, but it’s gosh darn compelling, if we’re being frank. If, as many authors have proclaimed, the goal of a writer is to get the reader to read the next sentence, and the next, and the next, Anna Gavalda is nothing short of a genius. Her writing is more alive than most, an especially impressive feat since I’ve read her work in French, not English, and I lose myself and die a thousand readerly deaths much more often when reading in French. Making your heart bat harder with each revelation. Anna Gavalda has a wonderfully infuriating way of writing like so…
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