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with longing for a distant, lost Jewish community. As the preparations for Esther’s wedding day progress, more family history is revealed, much of it darkly romantic and linked to an anachronistic belief in ancient magical arts. Each of the numerous characters also provides opportunities for broader historical considerations . Narrative continuity is provided by the Sephardi “secret” repeatedly alluded to, which is finally revealed to the main character toward the end of the novel, and which will transform her life. Unfortunately, by constantly breaking up her vivid storytelling in order to delve into lengthy historical and philosophical issues, Abécassis ends up wearying her reader through an accumulation of digressions . Tighter editing would have benefited a novel that starts out as very well written but eventually comes to seem overly long. Western Washington University Edward Ousselin BALDWIN-BENEICH, DENIS. Le Sérieux des nuages. Paris: Actes Sud, 2010. ISBN 978-27427 -8817-0. Pp. 264. 20 a. Denis Baldwin-Beneich, co-author of a 1984 bestseller, Softwar, has since published six novels on his own, the most recent being this first-person account of a French expatriate coming to terms with his past. Not at all comfortable with the approach of his fiftieth birthday, Maxime Odradek accepts an invitation to a party in Valmondois, in honor of a former professor. The occasion requires a return to places and old comrades that Maxime, now living in the United States, thinks he long ago relegated to the past. It has been twenty years since he cavorted with this merry band whose “abhôminââble jeunesse,” as his hostess says with some affection , was marked mostly by hedonistic excess (46). Time has not improved his fellow revelers: their smug cynicism no longer becomes these bodies in early stages of decay. And they barely mention the young woman whose suicide, twenty years earlier, should haunt them as much as it does him. The narrator is keen on convincing us that there’s not a naive bone in his middle-aged skeleton. After all, his circle considered love as “un piège à cons pour les cons” and spelled it “l’Hâmour” (20). But this is what makes phrases such as “la figure de l’éternel amour” (58), proffered with no trace of irony, all the more striking. For Le Sérieux des nuages is largely the story of a cynic surprised by love. Just how Marthe, a former student and conquest, came to be at the reception remains a mystery, as she belonged to a separate episode of Maxime’s past. Regardless, he is instantly obsessed with her, though whether he seeks a pardon for jilting her or a renewal of the liaison is not initially clear to him, let alone to readers. Maturity, instead of leading from sentiment to cynicism, takes Maxime in the opposite direction. His former friends, the “franc-maçonnerie libidineuse” of Valmondois, thus furnish a contrasting case of arrested development (217). With the idealized (and elusive) Marthe as catalyst, we come to realize, as does the narrator, that in fact “abh ôminââble” aptly describes their past and the “monster” he had been (122). Odradek wears his culture on his sleeve. Céline, Spinoza, Maupassant, and especially Stendhal and Proust share space here with the much less distinguished cast of his own drama, but also with Casablanca and Eddy Mitchell. His references sometimes amount to nothing more than a passing wink for the “happy few,” but typically he is more explicit: our most important thoughts and experiences, it would seem, all have literary precedents, and he invokes them sans complexe. The 844 FRENCH REVIEW 84.4 interest of the plot alone might be reduced to the question: “Will the narrator get a second chance with Marthe?” But this is no roman de gare. From that slender premise Baldwin-Beneich sets us on a zigzag itinerary veering from dialogue to narration to reminiscence to essay, in flights which are by turns comic, philosophic , and elegiac. He has apparently made unpredictability a tenet of his aesthetics . The incidents, accidents, and characters that hinder Maxime’s quest lend the story an Alice in Wonderland quality at times. And the prose, like the...

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