As if you had to go through a lot to be credible in a novel.

Tuesday's books - Anaïs Sierro

The promise of a love encounter between a Western woman and a Japanese masseur, who «reconciles her with her body, with herself», was enough to intrigue me. But it was my love for Japanese modesty when it comes to feelings, and for their mastery of poetry, that enabled me to go beyond this admittedly beautiful title (Unspoken love letter), but very risky. Risky, because talking about love can very quickly become flowery, «et vas-yque-je-m'ennuie». After some hesitation, I dared to take the risk. Unfortunately, I would have been better off leaving with one of those good classics that rarely disappoint...

But it had everything. A young mother who looks young, but in fact isn't. A romance between two people from different cultures: the European and the Japanese. A character uncomfortable with her female body and desires, despite her maturity. A willingness to encounter the other's culture, and to do so with passion. A marvellous pen, with striking poetic potential. And that title, that title! This sequence of words that promises us a journey through Japanese modesty, mixed with the exquisiteness of their poetry. It had everything. And then I was disillusioned, page after page. Disenchantment reached its climax when this woman begins to talk about her past in this - far too long - letter.

I don't want to dwell on the book's story itself, this romance that so richly deserved a little more poetry. Instead, I feel the need to lash out at the liabilities of this female character. This woman is at odds with her body and her desires. If it stopped there, this mature and touching woman could have been the mirror of each and every one of us in our difficulty to accept our bodies. But author Amanda Sthers has decided otherwise. She confronts us with a father who openly fondles the neighbor's breasts, a rape and a submissive relationship from which a child is born, the family's rejection of this child, a second rape by the drunken, soft-spoken neighbor... «you're actually a pretty bitch»... only to discover yet more sexual touching by a grandfather.

So yes, all these acts disgust and revolt me. But what was the idea? To take all the worst miscellaneous events and bring them together in a single novel, in a single experience, in the life of a single woman? And why? For the victimize? To take his difficult existence seriously? To excuse one's past and present? What's the idea behind this unpacking horrors? I simply had the impression that, through this list of events, all the women who hadn't lived through all that, or at least a little, found themselves discredited in their difficulty to live. And all men, for that matter.

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As if you had to go through a lot to be credible in a novel. As if everyone's life wasn't just a story. recoverable. I was afraid of reading a gnarly, flowery novel. In the end, this book completely failed its reader, because «shock feminism» is like the neighbor who's always complaining: the more it is, the less credible it becomes.

Write to the author: anais.sierro@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: Anemone123 from Pixabay