Sunday, October 24, 2010

The Mystery Guest by Grégoire Bouillier

“My hand shook as I set down the receiver. The room was silent, the air livid, and the telephone sat chuckling on the bed until in my rage I lobbed it across the room; but it didn’t even come apart, and for long seconds I lay there listening to the dial tone in the dark. And that was even worse than before…”

This short, dense & richly worded translation of a mini-memoire by Grégoire Bouillier is a pleasure to read. Not a bad choice for between longer reads. Also not at all a bad choice if you enjoy a complex inner dialogue pulling together a multi-faceted mix of emotion, humor, references to literature and the pathos of mystery that often surrounds the breakup of a relationship & subsequent healing.

“I have no memory of what we said, none at all, since in that moment all I could listen to was her face.”

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