The Tender Complaints , Yoko Ogawa, Actes Sud, 2010, Japanese translation by Rose-Marie Makino and Yukari Kometan
Dear readers, dear readers, today
I must tell you about these writers that I like it a little masochistic, these writers I revere, even though they annoy me.
Yes! There is a special category of writers who have this dual capability.
These authors do not even bother me. I do not blame them for good reason: Every time I immerse myself as deeply as possible in their styles, I go through their buildings according to the current that create feathers and in the wake of recent, let me drift to achieve unknown continents where the verb, the proposal, the adverb and the name out of the waves, had naturally such scholars trees to reach the brightest light and plunge the world into shadow the thickest ...
course, given the title of my article you'll say "you'll see, he will talk about Yoko Ogawa and add to this very personal list of famous authors who bore him! What enquiquineur! It would rather talk about the book, it has already lost nine hundred thirty nine characters! It's not very eco-logical-lite! "Do not worry. I come, I come here.
So there are precisely three authors that I think that fall in this list. Three authors who have a common way to write than to write so at once so subtle and so just a simple sentence, a mere succession of words reveal the depths of the human soul.
Three authors
by cons who manage to get bored from time to time, for some unknown reason, probably a stroke of genius?
But who are we talking about?
Well there Yoko Ogawa - Paf! I knew it! - Paul Auster and Amélie Nothomb. All three managed to catch my attention, to lull me to write their sweet time for me to end up swinging into a wall with violence.
There he must still like me clarify something. How can I assess the quality of writing two of the three knowing they do not write in French?
Well for Paul Auster it's not complicated, I get to read books in English and these original versions are sublime. Given its success I imagine that the translations are good ... By
cons for Yoko Ogawa is a bit more complicated because if I "chitchat" in Japanese, I do not read. I also feel obliged to go through translations, French or English in order to taste the nectar of his style. So I have to trust the translators ...
To finish with my idea and thus reaching the two thousand and two hundred and sixth character, these three authors have also the ability to immerse myself into trouble.
Often - not always happily - their stories do not interest me as their words. It is terribly painful and frustrating.
For example, I struggled with New York Trilogy Auster even though I've literally loved The Music of Chance and In the scriptorium.
What about Amelie Nothomb? I melt literally every sentence, but when I go out an antenna to see what it is, well I'm sometimes quite surprised. For example, his last book left me with marble ( A form of life) even while I devoured Sulfuric Acid .
Regarding these "Tender Complaints" Mrs. Ogawa, well it's a bit like that.
The Tender Complaints is the story of Ruriko, calligrapher who decides to leave her husband who deceives and struggling to find shelter in a family cottage. There, she met a factor of harpsichord and his assistant. The latter, a former pianist, no longer plays in public, disabled for life by a phobia. Ruriko falls for him but will not receive a physical relationship and friendly as her assistant, she will hear it play ... Follows the story of an ambiguous relationship between the three protagonists, followed by blind dog old assistant.
This work, which dates from 1996 and just translated for me is a double mystery. Firstly, I do not find the cold side, surgical human relationships that I like from Ogawa. Then the love story is a bit plane-plane.
I know, I'm not nice. But really there's nothing to beat an old blind dog!
Nothing like a perfect sickroom, Pregnancy much less Hotel Iris . Besides the impressive, the sublissime, the essential Ring.
I finally arrive the conclusion of my article.
I am both a reader and a victim of these amazing authors. And although I have not read everything, and even though I know I really want to read everything, and even though I know the risk that I might throw myself body and soul into their world, well I am happy to read them.
I am pleased that these authors stumble from time to time.
Because it is in their mistakes, in this return to the human condition that I become aware of their genius.
Above all, remember dear readers, dear readers, especially remember not that you just simply read a very subjective opinion on these authors. This review certainly seem strange, inappropriate, in bad faith for many. Others recognize it.
In any case, if it was to stay only three ...
The Tender Complaints a joke by the translator or a lack of tolerance on my part, by Yoko Ogawa.
François Nicaise
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