La nostalgie heureuse by Amélie Nothomb (review)

flotté au-dessus d’eux sans jamais se dévoiler ni disparaître et qui avait fait de leur vie une vie factice” (345). Clarisse, in an effort to distance herself from her origins— specifically her mother to whom she refers as “la servante” and for whom she feels “une honte et une peur atroces” (30)—runs away, changing her name from Malinka to Clarisse, a “perfect” (59) forename that reveals nothing of her true identity. She marries Richard Rivière,takes his name,and,in an effort to be accepted unconditionally, subjugates herself, never stating an opinion. However, after 25 years, Richard can no longer tolerate this “femme impersonnelle, irréprochable et candide” (363) and divorces her. While she does regularly visit her mother, who eventually found her, she refuses to reveal anything about her personal life until she meets Freddy Moliger, an alcoholic loner. Clarisse’s daughter, Ladivine, is also strangely influenced by her origins, although she does not initially realize it. Most of the novel’s second half recounts a vacation she takes with her husband and two children to an unnamed tropical country, which, it is implied, may be her grandmother’s home country. Questions of race, which generally are not explicitly examined in NDiaye’s works, surface sporadically in this book.We know from one sentence that Clarisse’s mother is a“négresse”(50), a fact that Clarisse has successfully dissimulated. Nevertheless, Ladivine, who knows nothing of the woman after whom she was named, resembles the inhabitants of this faraway land. The family remains ill at ease, feeling that the locals are looking at them oddly and implying derision in their seemingly anodyne comments.Yet at the same time Ladivine feels protected, that these disdainful gazes that seem to judge the family as foreigners, members of a long line of colonists, are perhaps not directed at her, which in turn distances her from her family. These themes of feeling a stranger among your own and not recognizing yourself nor being recognized by others are common in NDiaye’s works. Add to this, objects that mysteriously disappear and reappear, characters who seem to return from the dead, and many dogs, who may be human reincarnations and who appear to protect the novel’s female protagonists, and you have the ingredients for a great NDiaye novel.Although occasionally long, especially in the latter half of the book as similar questions and uncertainties accumulate, as well as stylistically complex, with characters frequently contemplating several hypothetical options simultaneously, the novel is captivating. Ladivine offers an accessible and deeply fascinating glimpse into the mysterious, supernatural world of NDiaye’s fictions. Bradley University (IL) Alexander Hertich Nothomb,Amélie. La nostalgie heureuse. Paris: Albin Michel, 2013. ISBN 978-2-22624968 -5. Pp. 151. 16,50 a. Ce vingt-deuxième roman constitue une étape importante dans l’œuvre de Nothomb. Au premier abord le texte semble être un simple récit de voyage: le retour au Japon en mars–avril 2012, que l’auteure a entrepris dans le cadre d’un excellent documentaire 264 FRENCH REVIEW 87.4 Reviews 265 tourné par France 5, diffusé depuis sous le titre Amélie Nothomb: une vie entre deux eaux. Selon cette vision du texte, nous trouvons tous les éléments attendus du genre sur vingt chapitres non-numérotés: préparatifs du départ, enchaînement des lieux visités et personnes rencontrées, retour chez soi. Pourtant, un voyage est rarement la simple série de ces éléments et c’est alors que La nostalgie heureuse devient le versant intérieur, souvent poignant, des images extérieures captées dans le tournage. Sous cette lumière un tout autre roman apparaît: le récit autobiographique d’une narratrice amenée à douter de la réalité de ses expériences passées et d’elle-même, qui relate un voyage émotionnellement ardu à travers des temps et espaces lointains—parfois dévastés—pour se guérir de quelque chose d’indéfinissable. La première phrase du roman tombe comme une règle d’écriture et un problème de vie:“Tout ce qu’on aime devient une...