If last weekend was melancholy, this weekend is positively heartbreaking. At least last weekend, while I had to go back to work, it was still August and there was this long Labour Day weekend to look forward to. But now it’s Monday, and we’ll be right back in the swing of things tomorrow morning, and it will see like this summer never happened… hmmm… that reminds me of a book by Peter Robinson’s, The Summer That Never Was, which may have been the first book I’d ever read of his and the one that hooked me so completely. Maybe I should reread that, as it seems so appropriate.
Anyway, I have a cup of coffee and a big bowl of local fruit to fuel me for a fun-filled day that starts with a short post about the book I read last week. I finished Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness, but I will write about it after the book club meeting next weekend. After reaching the end of that book, I picked up one that I borrowed from the library by French author Hervé Le Tellier, Enough About Love. If you recall, I recently read another fabulous book by this same author, Anomaly, and wanted to see what else I could get from my library. Unfortunately, there was only one other book listed, but I might try to source his books from somewhere else, as he seems to be an author worth really delving into. Despite the title, this recent novel is actually all about love, its many moods and facets, what it is, what makes it happen and what makes it last. It is a novel about Louise and Thomas and Romain and Anna and Yves and Stanislas. Louise and Romain are married with children, but then Louise falls in love with psychoanalyst Thomas. Anna is married to Stanislas, and they also have children, but then is struck by a “thunderbolt” of passion for writer Yves. These two women are in their forties and have fairly happy marriages, but the arrival of the opportunity for a passionate affair catches them off-guard and turns their worlds upside down. But can the excitement and passion of these new relationships be sustained, and if so, at what cost? This book was completely different from Anomaly and yet it was so obviously written by the same author. Le Tellier has a way of taking even the most mundane of events or interactions and turning it inside out to explore its most philosophical aspects. I particularly appreciated the seriousness of a speech made by Louise, a lawyer who was participating in a mock debate at one point in what could have been a light, breezy romantic novel, elevating it to become so much more. This was just one example, but the one that really stuck. Since the story focuses on all of the characters, and is told in chapters featuring various points of view, I think it could be read and appreciated by just about anyone, so if you’re in the mood for a book that’s all about love, I would definitely recommend Enough About Love.
That’s all for today. Get outside and enjoy the sunshine, but stay cool on this hot, hot, hot day!
Bye for now…Julie
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