Thursday, May 03, 2012

Book Review -- Underground Time

On Tuesday I posted the introduction to a book I had started and was loving. Well, I've finished it and please, let me warn you that you should not read it unless you are feeling so, so happy that you need something to make you feel miserable. As a matter of fact, you may feel guilty about being so happy and you immediately need to pick up this book to bring you down so strangers can stand to be around you again. Otherwise, skip the pretty language and the hopeful blurb on the back.
I know. What was I thinking? It's French. Even their comedies are depressing. But the book jacket said Mathilde and Thibault were two lonely people in Paris. And we get to see that loneliness, that misery building block by block. Have things taken a turn for Mathilde? No. Back down again. Maybe Thibault will meet her in the subway. No, they missed each other. The psychic promised her life would change on the day the entire book takes place. But the blurb on the book jacket left the reader hopeful when it said, "a lonesome city... But what if these two could save each other?"
It does say "what if..." which apparently in France means, they can't and they won't. So if you got your hopes up like I did, well, perhaps you skipped the part about it being French.
Most of the book has a great languid quality about it. Yet, it made me anxious. Nothing much happens except lots of angst from both characters. And (SPOILER ALERT) in the end, they do see each other on the subway, look at each other, and when he looks up again, she has exited. He exits at the next stop and the book ends.
I kept reading because I thought something in their lives might actually get better. Who wants the characters to walk away miserable? Apparently, the French do.
So if you're incredibly happy, read this book. Or, if you're already feeling miserable and you want to feel like you have company, read this book.

2 comments:

Lucia said...

those are they kind of books that make me whip it across the subway car! lol...where I do most of my reading!

Paulita said...

Lucia, This book would be perfect for you then because so much of it takes place in the Metro or in the RER in Paris. I can hear the "bum-ba-dum" chimes before the woman's voice announcing the next train.

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