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Delicacy by David Foenkinos – The Real Readers Experience!

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Real Readers is a scheme set up by AMS Digital Publishing, who also run the popular review sites Book Dagger, Book Geeks, Book Hugger and the newsletter Book Breeze. Real Readers was set up in order to allow bloggers and people who just really like reading to review books before their release and review them across the web, on Amazon, GoodReads, Shelfari and their own blogs. Well-written and prompt reviews get ‘Karma’ points, and the reviewer gets more books sent to them. Win-win! In the case of French novel Delicacy by David Foenkinos, this also meant reviewing the new film adaptation of the book, as well as the book itself.

So, I received a very pretty copy of Delicacy in the post last week, and on Friday 10th attended a private screening of the film at the Soho Screening Rooms. Having spent four hours lounging about in the 5th floor cafe of Waterstones Piccadilly (highly recommended), drinking hot chocolate and finishing reading Delicacy, I was eager to see how it had been adapted to film. One of Real Readers’ organisers, Simon Appleby, was there to greet us, and once everyone had arrived we filed in to the teeny screening room. Having finished the book an hour or two before, I was immersed in Foenkinos’ imaginary Paris, and had much of the book fresh in my mind as I watched the film.

2011 English language paperback edition

The premise of Delicacy is deceptively simple. Natalie is having coffee one day when a handsome young man comes up to talk to her. This is Francois. One thing leads to another, and, soon, they are married. One Sunday, Natalie is reading and on the sofa and Francois goes out for a run and gets hit by a car. He dies. For three years Natalie throws herself into work, fending off her boss’ flirtations and waiting to become an old maid. Then, on a particularly daydream-y afternoon, she impulsively kisses her average-looking colleague Markus. He is head-over-heels; she forgets it even happened. The rest of the book is the story of what happened next – the story of Natalie and Markus. Not always easy or fun, but always unexpected.

At only 250 pages this is a short and sweet book. There are 115 chapters, all of which are pleasingly short and sweet too. Every now and then an entire chapter is taken up with lists and facts, which serve as a charming diversion from the main story that suggest the wealth of life behind the fraction of it we are seeing in these pages.

The underlying sadness of the story adds a depth not usually present in novels with such pretty covers – a depth that Foenkinos demonstrates through deliberate prose and the short chapters that often end on a poignant or thought-provoking moment.

At times the story lapses into ‘standard’ relationship drama, but Foenkinos always brings us back with moments of literary excellence: ‘Every day near her had been the huge but surreptitious conquest of a veritable empire of the heart.’ No words are wasted in this novel and there are several small and beautiful moments that really make you stop, put down the book for a moment, and think about what you have just read.

2011 English language film poster

The film is beautiful too. I was eager to see what changes had been made to the original story and how these would affect the overall work. Happily the changes made did not ruin the tone of the story nor the personalities or relationships of the characters. My only complaint about the changes was that they did not include Markus’ fantastic line from page 95: ‘But that moment was the realest of my life.’ After reading it, I stopped and had a ‘moment’. It was wonderful.

The use of music is subtle and effective, really evoking an atmosphere and helping to create mood. Along with the music, the gentle humour (often visual) worked very well with the sadder elements of the story, as it does in the novel. Audrey Tautou was as charming and subtle in her performance as ever, and managed to have good chemistry with every other character. The addition of her best friend (not present in the novel) worked surprisingly well – it added another dimension to her character and allowed her to speak the feelings that Foenkinos only describes in the book.

Look out for office secretary Ingrid. She is not in the novel but here is an obvious visual reference to the character of Joan Holloway from ‘Mad Men’ – red hair, large bust, gold pen on a gold chain around her neck, a red v-neck sweater paired with a purple pencil skirt. She is the French Joan!

Author David Foenkinos

Delicacy has won every literary award in France, apparently the first novel ever to do this, and the film adaptation has been highly successful too. Audrey Tautou is a major attraction for many cinema-goers, and she is brilliant, but there are many more reasons to see the film, and read the book too.

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Delicacy was originally published as La Delicatesse in France in 2009 by Gallimard. It was published in the UK in English in 2011 by Bloomsbury. My copy was kindly provided by Real Readers and Bloomsbury for review.

‘La Delicatesse’ was released in France in 2011, and as ‘Delicacy’ in the UK, also in 2011.

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The Pleasures of Men, by Kate Williams

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Another great book by a graduate of and now lecturer at Royal Holloway (where I went). Must be something in the water…

I’d been eyeing this book for a while on Amazon and GoodReads, and finally bought a copy in Waterstones on Saturday whilst visiting the bf in lovely Milton Keynes. As a huge fan of Sarah Waters and a good unreliable narrator, this is just my sort of thing. Plus there’s a haughty, faceless Victorian lady on the cover holding a bloody knife. And that title… it just screams of scandal and a bit of sex ‘n’ violence in Victorian London… all very intriguing, if unpleasant.

2012 Penguin paperback edition

First of all, Kate Williams is amazing. She is one of those super-duper amazing overqualified people that have spent their life at university and are highly respected and praised and revered… and to boot, she’s also a great writer. This is her first foray into fiction, having previously worked on historical biographies (I particularly want to read England’s Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton, and only partly because I first heard of Hamilton in Blackadder the Third) and academic hoohah. She has a DPhil and two MAs and now teaches an MA, as well as all her writing and researching and appearing on the BBC looking amazing and knowledgeable. Jealous, moi?

Kate Williams

Now, to the book. The Pleasures of Men is set in 1840s London and centres around Catherine, an orphan living with her mysterious uncle on Princes Street near Spitalfields, one of the most dangerous parts of a very dangerous city. 1840s London was not a nice place to be. An economic crash left the city’s inhabitants with little money and even less hope, meaning that the entire place was uncared for and desperate. Catherine has a mysterious past and her uncle pays her little attention. The house is ‘rambling’ and covered with African masks and various other souvenirs from her uncle’s youthful travels to Africa and the Far East. Catherine has few possessions and her only friend (if you can call her that) is the maid, Jane. She tells the reader early on that she grew up in affluent Richmond, and we wonder how she ended up where she is, and what happened to her family.

Satisfyingly, a lot of questions about Catherine’s past are answered for the reader, but she remains mysterious in herself and hard to pinpoint. It becomes clear she has spent some time in some sort of psychiatric hospital, and, as they say, the plot thickens. Keepsakes were taken away from her there, and she has never got them back. Left alone and an outsider, Catherine lives with her uncle – a last vestige of family, of somewhere to go; but she is lonely and lives in a bare room. The reader feels sorry for her, but also wonders why she is her current situation and whether it is best for her or not – could she lead a normal life with the ladies of society and one day marry? Or is she destined to remain alone in a rambling house in a bad part of town?

London, near Spitalfields, 1840

A series of murders capture the attention of the London press. The murderer is dubbed The Man of Crows after the plural noun – a group of crows is a murder of crows. He picks on young working class girls, and leaves them mutilated, their chests open and their limbs splayed to make them look like birds. Everyone is scandalised and fascinated by the gossip, Catherine included. Her past has convinced her that she is evil and bad (for reasons the reader will discover), and she decides that by taking an interest in The Man of Crows and trying to discover his motives and who he is, she might be rid of her own evil. She convinces herself that her past sins will protect her from him. As she hears about the murders through newspapers and gossip, she begins to imagine the story of each girl and how they felt as they were stalked and cornered by The Man. She writes her ideas down, as if it is a novel, and becomes more and more fixated on the mysterious killer.

Catherine is a brilliant creation. With her family gone and her blaming herself for all her misfortune, she is tormented by her ‘dark thoughts’ and bad dreams and is fascinated by the pain and suffering of others. Her uncle is creepy and strange, his house dark and full of odd objects. Even Catherine’s room has African masks staring out from the walls. Catherine is at times afraid of him, at others bored by his talk and his nagging her to try with visitors. Early on the Janissers visit with their son Constantine, hoping to make a match between him and Catherine. Suffice to say it does not go well. Everyone in society thinks Catherine is strange and though they pay her attention you get the feeling they shake their heads and laugh at her after she is gone.

Spending almost all her time alone, Catherine is swept away by her own imaginings. She becomes obsessed with the dead girls, picturing their faces and their hands, the blood on their clothes and in their hair. She imagines The Man of Crows as he plans which girl to choose, watching groups of them on the street. They are prostitutes, shop girls, maids, and he hates them. Catherine tries to get inside his head, and she gets lost inside her own.

Romola Garai as Victorian prostitute Sugar in the BBC adaptation of Michael Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White

Williams’ writing really is brilliant. Catherine is so vivid, so real, that the reader feels as she does and gets so wrapped up in her thoughts that there is no time to feel emotion for her plight other than her own sadness. The sections that are extracted from Catherine’s manuscript on the girls and The Man of Crows are just as vivid and at times really rather frightening and unnerving. Williams knows just how to make her readers uneasy and nervous, roping them in to the scenarios and putting them right there with the frightened girls and the deadly Man.

Two chapters are narrated by Catherine’s now-missing maid, Grace, while she was at her previous job with the Belle-Smyths, whom Catherine knows. She and Catherine each describe their first meeting at the Belle-Smyths’ house. Catherine is enchanted with her, a pretty girl and so skilled and graceful. Grace is likewise intrigued by Catherine, and soon comes to work for her. Initially, from Catherine’s narration, it seems that her relationship with Grace was a very significant part of her life, but as the story progresses it fades and is placed amongst Catherine’s other memories and the fears of her current existence. Grace is interesting. Even though she narrates, we discover little about her and her motives, only that she is manipulative and Catherine thought her better than she was. In the end, her role is more as part of Catherine’s psyche, another lost girl for her to obsess over. Towards the end of the book Catherine convinces herself that The Man of Crows has killed Grace and insists on telling everyone this, but she actually seems to think about her less as a person, more as an image of a girl murdered in her youth, with so much more life to live.

More than anything this is Catherine’s story. We find out about her family and the evil thing she is convinced she has done at stages throughout the novel, and her character takes shape. Her obsession with the dead girls at least means that she begins to think about someone other than herself and her own misfortune. She has suffered greatly, but not like these poor girls who were murdered in alleyways. Her experiences in the novel are a harsh reconnection with the world outside her family and the psychiatric hospital, but in the end it does her good. She is a troubled girl, but her obsession with evil forces her to look at and analyse the supposed evil within herself.

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The Pleasures of Men was published by Penguin in January 2012.

Have you read this or anything else by Kate Williams? What did you think? Comment below…

Fiction Uncovered Announce their Best of British for 2012

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Fiction Uncovered are hard to pinpoint at first. I use/view their site as a news source, a book review site and a blog. They describe themselves as:

Fiction Uncovered is a promotion which celebrates our best British fiction writers. The promotion is supported by Arts Council England and funded by the National Lottery.  In 2012, retailers including Waterstone’s, Foyles, iBookstore, Amazon and The Book Depository will support the promotion. We also work in partnership with The Reading Agency to reach libraries and reading groups, and with Lovereading UK to reach dedicated readers. You can see a full list of the Fiction Uncovered partners here.

Fiction Uncovered creates the opportunity for eight British fiction writers (novels, short stories, graphic novels) to be part of a major promotion supported by retailers, and a major publicity and marketing campaign.The eight titles for the Fiction Uncovered 2012 will be selected by a judging panel. (Text taken from the Fiction Uncovered website)

Now in its second year, the 2012 list of eight British authors has some truly great stuff on it, one of which is This is Life by Dan Rhodes, which was reviewed on the blog earlier this year. See the review here.

Personally, I love promotions like this. Fiction Uncovered do not present an award, and they are not telling you that YOU MUST READ THIS OR EVERYONE WILL THINK YOU’RE UNCOOL, they are simply helping to promote some genuinely good British writing. It is also fantastic that they work with the Arts Council England, a credible and highly respected organisation that reminds us that writing is an art form and should be paid attention to, and, frankly, yes, revered. Richard & Judy’s Book Club, this ain’t.

I am also thoroughly pleased by the retailers’ involvement. Physical book sales are suffering, and shops like Foyles and Waterstones may be big brands but they are championing the printed word in a sea of ebooks. Yes, they promote ebooks too (see Waterstone’s recent Kindle deal with Amazon) but they have not simply given up and conceded defeat to the digitalisation of information. I personally do not own an ereader, and though I do not object to them per se, I think it is vitally important to maintain the industry of printed books. Obviously. Printing is only a cornerstone of modern civilisation for goodness’ sake.

While not all the books on the Fiction Uncovered 2012 list grab me immediately, I like that they are varied – something for everyone and all that. When Nights Were Cold by Susanna Jones particularly appeals, as does Lucky Bunny by Jill Dawson. I have put them on my To Be Read list and hopefully will get around to reviewing them soon…

The variety of the list is important. It means that different types of readers are included, but it’s lack of in-your-face promotion means that the recommendations are not patronising, nor do they claim to be the be-all-and-end-all of good fiction in 2012. There are probably loads of other good fiction books out this year, this is just a selection.

Which books on the list appeal to you? Find out more about them here and let me know!

Lizzi Thomasson