Saucier, Nothomb

I finished two books in the last weeks. Neither of them were long to read, I just picked them up and read them both in a couple of hours, sitting in my backyard, in the last of the warm summer days we had. It feels surreal how cold it is right now, when I think of the heat of the last weeks. This is Abitibi for you: you can never plan temperature in advance and changes of temperature, made in super short lenght of time, happen randomly and drastically.

So I give you "Il pleuvait des oiseaux" (lit. it was raining birds) by Jacqueline Saucier.

The story follows the lives of elderly people who decided to start their lives anew in the forest, with the fewest of modern facilities, and living up their old age considering Death a creepy friend of theirs. Comes along an elderly angel of a lady, whom they called Marie-Desneige, that changes their little daily routine. Marie-Desneige was brought to them about at the same time as a photographer came into their lives to take pictures of the survivors of the Great Fires that had had killed the people of many villages in Canada more than a couple decades ago. 

Mrs. Saucier's writing is slow paced, making it easy to slide in the story and you come to the end of it fairly quickly. After reading it, I stayed in a strange feeling of awe a trace of melancholy fading slowly away...

It is one of those books that makes you both at peace of mind and lost in thoughts at the same time. It brought me tears to the eyes, but not so much tears of sadness as tears of relief. You follow all those people "shedding layers of their own skin, their lives, until only what really matters remains" as would say my sister. Not so much a sad story, but the story of making peace with everything that was, and is no more.

"Tuer le père"(lit. Kill the father) by Amélie Nothomb is a completely different kind of read. The story is the story of three people: a couple and a boy, who evolve in the wicked environment of Burning Man in the states with the odd art that magic is. Two magicians, a master, a pupil. Two different background and two different perspectives on what things really are, the book has this quality to it that makes everything flow and seem peaceful, while the story, if one actually think much into it, is intense and almost creepy. Mrs. Nothomb has this talent, as I saw in Stupeur et Tremblement for example, of telling really twisted stories and making them seem light and happy. The end was a surprise, and I found myself dumbfounded: do I like the story, or not?

What I like about her writing, is that it is clever enough not to be boring, but simple and clear enough, so you can stop reading for a long time, then start again and know exactly where you left, and remember everything that matters to keep reading.