Stephanie Jane recenzis French rhapsody de Antoine Laurain
Not as good as I had hoped
3 steloj
On spotting French Rhapsody at a campsite book exchange I remembered how much I had enjoyed reading Antoine Laurain's previous novel, The Red Notebook, so eagerly picked it out. Unfortunately French Rhapsody didn't appeal to me anywhere near as much, actually leaving me more feeling like I did after reading A Long Blue Monday by Erhard von Buren. There are similarities to The Red Notebook in that Laurain explores ideas of what might have been and the narrative is again driven by a lost object, but Laurain didn't seem to employ the same light whimsy touch that I previously appreciated. There are humorous moments, but also a lot of slow scenes where aging men bemoan how the success they achieved isn't the success they wanted. I could have done without several pages of a far right extremist's speech as well. Initially Laurain seems to ridicule this character's bigotry, but by …
On spotting French Rhapsody at a campsite book exchange I remembered how much I had enjoyed reading Antoine Laurain's previous novel, The Red Notebook, so eagerly picked it out. Unfortunately French Rhapsody didn't appeal to me anywhere near as much, actually leaving me more feeling like I did after reading A Long Blue Monday by Erhard von Buren. There are similarities to The Red Notebook in that Laurain explores ideas of what might have been and the narrative is again driven by a lost object, but Laurain didn't seem to employ the same light whimsy touch that I previously appreciated. There are humorous moments, but also a lot of slow scenes where aging men bemoan how the success they achieved isn't the success they wanted. I could have done without several pages of a far right extremist's speech as well. Initially Laurain seems to ridicule this character's bigotry, but by the end of the novel I had a suspicion that we readers might actually be being asked to sympathise with it.