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A review by nini23
That Time of Year by Marie NDiaye
5.0
A perfect capsule of a story. I seldom read literary psychological horror but the premise and sample were so intriguing! In terms of story and execution, it brought to mind Kazuo Ishiguru's excellently rendered [b:The Unconsoled|40117|The Unconsoled|Kazuo Ishiguro|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1342193138l/40117._SY75_.jpg|6372970], with similarity of plot that a man is in an unfamiliar place with his wife and son wandering lost around the city. Surreal and dream-like, the protagonist struggles to make sense of the bizarre place and its disconcerting conventions.
Marie NDiaye tends to write from the perspective of the outsider, the excluded, the outcast such as with [b:Ladivine|26025503|Ladivine|Marie NDiaye|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1452099110l/26025503._SX50_.jpg|24338602] and [b:My Heart Hemmed In|32073144|My Heart Hemmed In|Marie NDiaye|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1481210014l/32073144._SY75_.jpg|2276393]. In That Time of Year, the outsiders are cosmopolitan Parisians summer holidaying at a French seaside village who have unwittingly overstayed from end of August to the first of September. Everything changes in that one day, flipping from touristy village to hunkering down for the harsh winter. Worse, the wife and child of Herman the Parisienne holidaymaker have disappeared and the locals including the gendarme are curiously sanguine and indifferent when he seeks their help.
Marie NDiaye did a masterful job with crafting this fable. From the description of the folksy outfit that all the female villagers wear to the clock-like busy hierarchy of the village town hall and the slow normalization of the lack of privacy for our protagonist as he sinks into "dulled larval inertia," the sinister process of conformation and assimilation creeps in. Individuality is devoured and apathy settles over Herman. We find out chillingly that he is not the first urbanite holiday-goer this has happened to. His ties to Paris are slowly severed, his determination to seek his missing family and his sense of self drained.
There are sly winks noting nepotism, misogyny and small town parochialism.
Marie NDiaye tends to write from the perspective of the outsider, the excluded, the outcast such as with [b:Ladivine|26025503|Ladivine|Marie NDiaye|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1452099110l/26025503._SX50_.jpg|24338602] and [b:My Heart Hemmed In|32073144|My Heart Hemmed In|Marie NDiaye|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1481210014l/32073144._SY75_.jpg|2276393]. In That Time of Year, the outsiders are cosmopolitan Parisians summer holidaying at a French seaside village who have unwittingly overstayed from end of August to the first of September. Everything changes in that one day, flipping from touristy village to hunkering down for the harsh winter. Worse, the wife and child of Herman the Parisienne holidaymaker have disappeared and the locals including the gendarme are curiously sanguine and indifferent when he seeks their help.
Marie NDiaye did a masterful job with crafting this fable. From the description of the folksy outfit that all the female villagers wear to the clock-like busy hierarchy of the village town hall and the slow normalization of the lack of privacy for our protagonist as he sinks into "dulled larval inertia," the sinister process of conformation and assimilation creeps in. Individuality is devoured and apathy settles over Herman. We find out chillingly that he is not the first urbanite holiday-goer this has happened to. His ties to Paris are slowly severed, his determination to seek his missing family and his sense of self drained.
There are sly winks noting nepotism, misogyny and small town parochialism.