J.-P. Toussaint’s Naked at The Complete Review

October 10th, 2016 § 0 comments

Naked

Michael Orthofer, at his site The Complete Review, a source for international lit, has these nice words for Naked, the latest from “Belgian Nicholson Baker”  Jean-Philippe Toussaint, and the final book in his Marie tetralogy:

This isn’t a novel with a simple story-arc, traced simply from a beginning to an end. The relationship with Marie, more off than on, with the narrator always captivated by the flighty figure, similarly doesn’t have a neat beginning and end, and the story easily is spread out over three other novels, too, making for a richer picture, but not, ultimately, a complete one.

This is a lovely novel, even if it doesn’t necessarily offer the satisfactions of a fully-formed story — and yet Toussaint rounds it off satisfyingly too, But even in this simple, almost conventional end, of protagonists finding each other, it closes on with a question, making any finality deceptive: Marie seems to ask the obvious — yet her need to ask, and her surprise, suggest she still hasn’t entirely understood, all along.
A very nice piece of work, both together with the others Marie-novels, and on its own.

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