Making Love

by Jean-Philippe Toussaint

Book Overview

An immediate bestseller in France, Making Love is an original and daring retelling of a classic theme: the end of an affair. As much an exploration of setting and place as it is of the affair that... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565848535
• ISBN13: 9781565848535
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: New Press
• Length: 116 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

End of an affair

In Jean-Phillippe Toussaint's world, the details matter. The author of _Monsieur_ as well as _The Bathroom_, Toussaint excels when cleverly describing situations in agonizing detail, with all the skill of an artful rendering or a classic oil painting. There are no whirlwhinds of action, barroom brawls or car chases. The action in _Making Love_ occurs in scenes involving dropped umbrellas, inconvenient faxes, and missed taxis. A couple has drifted apart, and their relationship will apparently end in Japan. An ultramodern Tokyo provides the sterile spaces against which the drama is played out. The narrator carries a bottle of hydrochloric acid with him at all times. What will he do? Will he toss it in the face of a stranger? His girlfriend? The female protagonist, a prickly conundrum, cries and sulks. As their worlds seem to crumble around them, the couple tumbles through a landscape of outer calm and inner turmoil. As the reader comes to finish the novel, he realizes that Toussaint has made himself a hero of sorts, simply through the molding of his bleakly wonderful creation. What a marvelous novel. While _Making Love_ has none of the humor of _The Bathroom_ or _Monsieur_ (both are recommended), it remains a worthwhile read for Toussaint's gifted description of lives coming apart.