Un de mes passages préférés :
- Est-ce qu'elle reviendra? [...]
- Oui, oui.
Juliette sembla rassurée. Sans doute ignorait-elle cette spécificité linguistique : en mathématiques, plus par plus font plus, alors que le mot oui multiplié par deux équivaut toujours à une négation.
(p. 95)

http://www.complete-review.com/review...
translated to english as "Stranger next door" ( )

The Stranger Next Door is a short book about an older couple who've moved into their perfect home, and then realize they have a not so perfect neighbor, of a sort no one would expect. The book follows how the couple moves and changes around this beast, on to meeting his wife, and finally a series of events and a unique conclusion.

I read this coming of the high of reading Nothomb the first time with Fear & Trembling. As someone said, it's all downhill from there. I was disappointed in this book initially, not as much because the writing was not a durable and woven as that of Fear & Trembling, but because she has saturated the plot and story with excessive emotion and pain. Without spoiling it, perhaps later it becomes more obvious why she does this -- she needs it to pull off later events. However, it is sorrowful to read in the beginning and she does a good job of making the reader identify with the pain of the characters, in a derivative of a situation we all have to deal with at some time or another: someone around us breaking social norms in a big way and we have to decide to confront them on it or ignore it at our cost.

I would recommend this for Nothomb fans making sure they read all the books; perhaps for readers who like Steven King, for although this is not a horror book it is quirky like some King novellas; or someone interested in looking at dynamics of older couples who've been married a long time. ( )

Jemsa ! ( )

http://www.fivedollarcamera.com/blog/... ( )