The book traces her last trip to Japan with a photographer friend. The work is in a more personal and introspective style, addressing memory, the figure of the father, and nostalgia for the author’s childhood. While some of our reviewers praised its charm and humor, others found the book to be bland and repetitive, lamenting the lack of depth and substance.
A surprising literary sidestep according to Laurent Chalumeau
For the critic, this travel diary marks a real small step aside from the author. He enjoyed reading it, even comparing it to sake “at the right temperature”: “I was ready to let myself be carried away by one of these novelistic devices thanks to which Amélie Nothomb gives pleasure to hundreds of thousands of readers every year. And ultimately it’s not a novel, it’s a travel diary which, in my opinion, is worth many others. It’s not a novel, it’s a small step aside, as the authors sometimes agree and which reads very well. To say bad things about Amélie Nothomb is, from my point of view, stupidity, and it’s the wrong enemy..”
Blandine Rinkel regrets a lack of nostalgia and depth
She did not rediscover the essence of the author’s previous works that she read in her youth. It is a book that she finds devoid of this effective narration which characterized her previous novels set in Japan: “I have always read Amélie Nothomb, because she has always been able to unfold a world independently, cut off from the emergencies of the world. I expected to find it where I had left it when I read it as a teenager, to find a book full of effective dramatic ideas, like in “Stupors and Tremors”, which she evokes elsewhere, I was ready to let myself be caught up in an effective narration, and ultimately it’s quite the opposite. If it is a childish complaint that I found very touching, it seemed to me that to adhere to this book, more material would have been needed, despite a slight start in the last pages with a melancholic tone, but I left me hungry.”
Arnaud Viviant seduces with melancholic beauty and subtle humor
The reviewer describes the novel as a ballad in Japan. He himself is part of the same literary jury as Amélie Nothomb, whom he knows very well, so much so that his first instinct, each time he starts writing, is to read her: “This time, she returns with a ballad in the musical sense and in the sense of a walk in Japan, which she tells us was the last time she went there. This country which reminds him of his father, and at the same time such a funny novel by this character of Pep, his friend who is as brilliant as he is unbearable. At the same time, the book has a kind of blandness, but accompanied by a great beauty around this fantasized journey.”
A book that Elisabeth Philippe found bland and lazy
She is particularly critical of the novel, criticizing Amélie Nothomb for using her usual commonplaces and transforming her book into a simple tourist guide without much interest: “I think I must have not drunk enough sake to appreciate all the flavors. If certainly, it is the impossible return, it is not the impossible repetition because we find all the common places of Amélie Nothomb, like writing at 4 a.m.; champagne and Japan, which has already served as a backdrop. He’s a tourist guide, but without the right addresses, accompanied in addition by an unbearable photographer. Also, placing yourself under the aegis of two masterpieces “À rebours” by Joris-Karl Huysmans and “Le Pavillon d’or” by Yukio Mishima, it’s still inflated when you write a book of such laziness and such blandness“.
► At Éditions Albin Michel
► Every Sunday, find reviews of The Mask and the Feather gathered around Rebecca Manzoni to talk about cinema, literature or theater. The reviews can be listened to again on the Radio France app and website.
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