The Mystery Guest by Grégoire Bouillier!

Synopsis: This book is not fictional. The events described took place in the life of author Grégoire Bouillier. This memoir was his attempt to "tell not the story of [his] life... but what [his] life had told [him] and what [he] thought [he'd] decoded of its language," and that's precisely what he does. The Mystery Guest tells the story of Bouillier's failed relationship with a woman (never named) who leaves him 5 years prior to the book's start without warning, explanation or any contact UNTIL she phones him an invite to a birthday party, at which he will be eponymous the mystery guest. Sad and honest hilarity ensues as Bouillier tries to piece together WHAT IT ALL MEANS.

WARNING:
This book may be at first frustrating for the active reader. Don't miss the forest for the (seemingly) gnarled trees. The Mystery Guest delivers on both a micro and macro level if given the chance to find its footing. There is the temptation to give up before the book wins you over, but the prize is well worth the journey.

Most of the more critical notes I'd taken about The Mystery Guest were irrelevant by the book's end. At first, Bouillier's memoir appears to be carelessly assembled - yet perceptive and insightful. The constant use of the phrase "as they say" to qualify assertions and justify the use of idioms tires the reader quickly, until it becomes evident that it's all to an end. Deferring to some imaginary "THEY" as if the speaker's own opinions aren't alone valid, reads as tentativeness, but what begins as an annoying tic becomes a purposeful style as it mimics the speaker's vacillation between unflappable certainty and unmitigated panic. When within the span of a sentence, images and tones contradict themselves, it's simplest to attribute the perceived fault to sloppy writing or translation, as I was too quick to do; when in the progression of a line, the speaker, who , because this is a memoir, is indistinguishable from the author, alternately describes his iron resolve and paralyzing insecurities, it's difficult not to appreciate the careful construction of what you're reading. It's not unlike marveling at people who spend lots of time and money to appear not to care about their appearance... a delicate art that can easily go wrong and is applauded when successful.

"No doubt this [the decision to wear only turtlenecks] was magical thinking on my part...; these turtleneck-undershirts erupted into my life without my noticing until it was too late and I was under their curse. You could even say they'd inflicted themselves on me..."

The speaker's decision to wear only turtlenecks (The Mystery Guest dedicates long passages to Bouillier's expressing his distaste for the kind of man who layers turtlenecks - before his admonition of becoming just that type of man) goes IN A SINGLE SENTENCE from being described as active and artful to something passively endured. But, a few lines later the speaker explains that when in pain we often "spend our lives... disappearing behind what negates us," just as each of his assertions on the previous page seem to cancel the other.


This illustrates The Mystery Guest's charming method of explaining away its chaos, which, only naturally, is also the speaker's aim throughout the story - to explain way the chaos in his life, to "' illuminate certain matters for [him]self at the same time as [he] makes them communicable to others'". Bouillier tries to rationalize the irrational, assign agenda to pain and chance, cope through logic, make sense of the injustices he doesn't understand. Every event, pertinent or irrelevant, is manipulated in Bouillier's mind to advise his predicament: the death of writer Michael Leiris, the launch of the solar shuttle Ulysses, characters literary and mythological - all in existence solely to lend themselves to Bouillier as needed, to be alluded to and used as foils against which the magnitude of his pain could be measured. All the while, the reader grapples to piece together how all of the disparate elements in The Mystery Guest could possibly work together congruently. Yet by the end of the book, absolutely everything is as it should be.

Just as, in his book, Bouillier can't always forgive the self-serving narcissism and tendency to project he possesses when recognized in others, I at first found it difficult to dismiss the book's mechanics in favor of seeing the big picture - until it was handed to be on a platter... in a bow.


Once I was able to zoom out and enjoy the book as it's intended, I found a lot to love in The Mystery Guest. Dark thoughts described as "grinning fiends" and "old familiars" threatening to "sully [Bouillier] with their banality" were reminiscent of Montaigne's "chimeras and imaginary monsters" brought on by idleness that he hoped to "record ... in writing... to make [his] mind ashamed of them." The way Bouillier attempts to capture every impression and emotion accurately recalls To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, who (incidentally?) plays an important part in Bouillier's memoir. The Mystery Guest's goal was to "record the atoms as they fall upon the mind... however disconnected and incoherent in appearance," and make sense of them - a goal Woolf defined as paramount in 'Modern Fiction'. I could relate to the speaker's self-doubt and imagine myself behaving similarly if in similar situations. I could sympathize with the perfect and pithy descriptions of the flawed logic of a lover scorned (who can't???) and the hyperbolic hilarity found in the most acute pain.

Before I'd finished it, I was prepared to rip into this book mercilessly - and more importantly - prematurely.... but whatever flaws you may THINK you've detected in The Mystery Guest turn out not to be flaws at all. They all lend themselves to the very human telling of Bouillier's imperfect dealings with the world around him.

LOVED THIS BOOK.



Kudos to Bouillier and Stein.

Macro vs. Micro Reading + why I can't read in French

This post can be considered The Mystery Guest part 1.5 because these thoughts were triggered by my frustration with the translation of the story from French.

In which I TRY to explain my reading style:

When I read a piece of fiction, it's being read in two ways at once. Of course, I'm forming an overall impression of the narrative and whether it leaves a good or bad taste in my mouth. But I'm also picking apart the minutiae, finding fault or excellence in the details; macro-reading vs. micro-reading.

What I can't decide is if the two are independent of one another or interdependent - because I can love the plot, characters, and themes of a story and think it clever while taking issue with its mechanics. Conversely, exemplary, deliberate writing can, for me, render nearly ANYTHING enjoyable.

I may criticize elements of a book severely, and finish it with a positive impression - which brings me again to The Mystery Guest and why (micro and macro) reading in French seems a Herculean task. I'll outline my individual charges in my next post on the book, but the English translation is becoming a larger and larger issue by the page.



Because I know just how finite my grasp of my native language (English) is, I can't possibly be satisfied with reading in French. Even if I understand each French word I read (and I'm not there yet - I don't dare read even in English without a dictionary at my side) there are still nuances and intentions that elude me completely. French syntax, pronouns when used as objects/direct objects especially, is another beast I have yet to conquer - and it clouds my comprehension.

So I'm stuck with an unsatisfactory English translation and what I can LITERALLY garner from the original text. In my next post, I'll have specific examples of what I mean - outside of the idioms with which I've already taken issue.

Micro-reading in French is out of the question for me at this point, and will be a long time coming...

But I shall soldier on and finish this book (that I LIKE so far, though it may be hard to tell).

The Mystery Guest by Grégoire Bouillier Part 1

EDIT: Finished the Book. HOW WRONG COULD I HAVE BEEN????



I'm just starting a new book, The Mystery Guest by Grégoire Bouillier, and I've already some qualms.

So far, what I know of the plot seems promising and the rhythm is pleasant, but there's something ELSE going on....

The Mystery Guest reads like a story being recounted aloud and I read French well enough to have garnered upon comparison that it's the not the fault the English translation. I was afraid that this would be another 'On The Road' - written incidentally as a continuous stream of consciousness with a lax, free-association influenced story structure, each thought or memory triggering the next, the reader frequently taken on amusing tangents along the way (and the tangents are abundant, as are idioms and colloquialisms "as they say"). Boullier's narrative has also in common with Kerouac's its basis in reality; both books blur the line that separates memoir from fiction. But this story has among it's draws, a lyrical rhythm - whereas 'On The Road' bares the telltale mark of certain American fiction: a jumpy cadence.

The rhythm was never the source of my hesitance though. My issue is more with the careless use of tiring and inappropriate idioms:

"...I was fast asleep and at my most vulnerable, my least up to answering the phone, when IN A WORD I was completely incapable of appreciating this miracle for what it was..."

"in a word" <--- This phrase makes no sense here because the following description of the speaker's state of mind is 10 words, rather than 1 word, long. Because this is a translation, there were three possibilities for this lackadaisical error:

1. It was the doing of the author.
2. It was the doing of the translator.
3. It's a device to characterize the emotionally distressed and neurotic narrator.

I was hoping for the third, but unfortunately, it's the translator's fault.

The original reads: "...j'ètais le plus dèmuni et le moins susceptible de rèpondre à son appel et même dans l'incapacitè la plus totale d'en èprouver la miracle." Nowhere does the literal or colloquial equivalent of "in a word" (en un mot/parole) appear. Literally the phrase in question would translate to "yet in the most total inability to experience the miracle."


I'm hesitant to read on from this point because I'm experiencing this book through the lens of someone else's understanding and interpretation of the original text. Audio books, for the same reason, don't appeal to me (being burdened and imposed upon by a stranger's inflections and intonations is no fun). Unfortunately, I can't read French well enough to fully digest, decode, interpret, and analyze an entire book the way I'd like... So I'm forced into a purgatory between languages and will refer to both versions as necessary.

I'll post a full review when I'm done with the book.

Onward I tread.

book guilt and frustration

I feel bad when I don't finish a book; it's a terrible feeling - like leaving your dog outside in the cold overnight (WHICH I'D NEVER DO!) and not coming back to get her - EVER.

So excruciating was the decision not to finish Awesome: a novel by Jack Pendarvis. I love urban fantasy movies and literature, so when I read reviews about the humourous tale of fabled giant making his way across the country to win back his true love, I thought, HEY - THIS IS RIGHT UP MY ALLEY!

Unfortunately, that was not the case. I can imagine that this book would be very funny for some people. I am not one of those people - and it's not the fault of the author and the book is not a poor(ly written) one. Awesome is written in a voice and style that I can appreciate, but can't relate to on any level.

The protagonist is a megalomaniacal giant, the eponymous Awesome, that I couldn't force myself to like or care about. His world of obligation was limited solely to himself, which made it difficult to invest my interest as a reader in his interactions with the other characters.

It also didn't help that the reviews I read were completely inaccurate. The book was described as 'cute' several times; while whimsical, cute, the book was definitely not. If I had to label it - I might call the genre Adult Whimsy (which, if you think about it, doesn't make sense because only adults are aware of the concept of 'whimsy' anyway. Children express, and if I remember correctly, sometimes perceive the mundane and the whimsical interchangeably and with equal conviction - which must be nice - so there's no suspension of disbelief required for them to become lost in fantasy. But I digress.) - or maybe Adult-THEMED Whimsy.

There's lot of talk of ejaculation and bodily fluids, which isn't what I was expecting. I'm not opposed to toilet humor but it didn't seem to serve a purpose in Awesome. There were some parts so ridiculous that I couldn't help but laugh - but they were few and far between for me. That said, I DO think Pendarvis has succeeded in creating challenging prose; I think it was too unconventional for my taste, which is difficult for me to swallow.

I felt like I was a slave to the book and was only continuing to read it because I had began it.... so I stopped (the only other books I can remember not finishing are Marley & Me - because I only starting reading it to waste time at the laundromat and was reading another book at the same time - and The Maytrees by Annie Dillard - which I was conned into returning to the library. I went in to renew it and someone else had it on hold so they took it from me. I have it on hold again now). The book just wasn't for me. I have a feeling it's more of a cult-following thing.


Anywho - I'm reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac now - which I'm enjoying so far. I had wanted to read it for a while. Next I'm on to The Mystery Guest by Grégoire Bouillier.... which has a trailer. I love creative marketing.