La matière de l’absence par Patrick Chamoiseau (review)

his mind. Poirier’s job is his lifeline, a confirmation of the relevance of his existence in society, despite its substantial demands on his time and energy. His professional obligations also enable the inspector to avoid spending time with his passive-aggressive wife, for whose depressive state he feels responsible, and their neglected household of two teenage children. Inspector Poirier’s latest murder case, however, does not provide the effective shield he hoped it would. As the casework intensifies, Poirier’s emotional distress, punctuated by bouts of inexplicable physical pain, forces him to reconsider his personal state of affairs. The people he interviews become projections of idealized life experiences that he lacks, and their crises parallel his own. It becomes evident in Julien’s investigation that at the heart of the crime, and of a number of the characters he encounters, lies the hidden anguish indicated in the title of the novel. They, like Poirier, are in a continuous state of distress, where moments of happiness are so rare that the characters do not know how to enjoy them. Unfortunately, the repeated tendency of the protagonists to blame their problems on their childhood and modern society becomes tiresome. The violent manifestations of these characters’mental pain, which could move the reader if presented through further character development, fail to do so. Likewise, the novel’s generic urban sprawl of undefined locales and stereotypical descriptive terms (such as the beignes the cops are eating) undermines the social message. Poirier’s warmth, courage, and generosity, which are repeatedly mentioned in the novel, beg for illustration. The inspector’s unorthodox methods and capacity of imagination, of which the reader is told, should be demonstrated as Poirier works toward the crime’s solution. If at each step another facet of his private existence were to progressively come to light, the strength of the connection the reader establishes with the novel and its socially-relevant themes would be more convincing and compelling . The plotline itself is straightforward and easy to follow and entertains in its readability. However, the success of a detective novel relies on the presence of at least one of two qualities: a plot whose complexity is devious in its creativity, and a style whose craft and skill in language are beautiful in their own right. Perhaps with more work, this novel might aspire toward one of these goals. Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Nathalie G. Cornelius Chamoiseau, Patrick. La matière de l’absence. Paris: Seuil, 2016. ISBN 978-2-02110588 -9. Pp. 370. This work honors the memory of Man Ninotte, the author’s mother who passed away in 2000. In both personal and philosophical meditations, Chamoiseau moves between the philosophical themes of absence and the créolité of his island of Martinique. He uses the character of his older sister, la Baronne, as a sympathetic foil who helps him come to terms with both their mother’s absence and the turmoil of 248 FRENCH REVIEW 91.2 Reviews 249 colonial history. The organization of the work speaks to the both personal and metaphysical nature of the book, divided into three sections (Impact, Éjectats, and Cratère) portraying absence through the stages of a cataclysmic event. In the first section, Chamoiseau recounts the initial reaction to losing his mother, a loss that provoked reflection on his childhood and his understanding of both individual and corporate identity in Martinican society. In the second section, he focuses on the effects (éjectats being the pieces of rock hurled into the air in a volcanic eruption) of losing his mother. In the third section, he meditates on what is left after losing his mother— a crater, a void, an unfillable absence. Chamoiseau also employs a similar structure within each section, beginning with concrete narratives of what happened with his mother and then moving into extended reflections on Martinique that in some way parallel what he, his sister, and their relatives experienced through the death and absence of Man Ninotte. The impact of the first section is, concretely, the knowledge of an intimate loss. Chamoiseau relates this to the loss of the civilization that the slaves arriving in the Caribbean centuries ago had to reckon with, a...