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Today, “Our foreign bodies” by Carine Joaquim, published on January 5, 2021 by La Manufacture des livres editions.
Ju lit les Mots, blogger and contributor to the
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Our Foreign Bodies
by Carine Joaquim, published on January 5, 2021 by La Manufacture des livres.
Her favorite quote:
“After Stéphane returned home a few years earlier, they tacitly agreed on the role assigned to each, and everyone had played it to perfection. The nice husband. The worthy wife. The pretty, well-dressed little girl who told her school days, convincing herself that someone really interested. And behind the scenes, it was disgusting in the night, it was crying under the duvet, it was leaking on all sides. Nothing had ever been waterproof again. "
Why this book?
Because
I am
these bodies… I have been… We can all
be the characters that punctuate this story… This book touched me enormously, it spoke to me, it moved me.
Certain sentences are a blow of the scalpel, under the pen of Carine Joaquim, this scalpel which wants to cut into these bodies… The image of this body which becomes our worst enemy, when we do not listen to it or no longer…
Our foreign bodies
is a title that sticks to the text, we imagine them oozing love, desire, we can also imagine a certain acceptance ...
Because our bodies are the expression of our joys as
much as that of our sorrows ... Our joys engrave easily recognizable furrows, while sorrows hollow it out, search it, cry out in all forms.
Shout these silences, these unspoken, these abstractions that one makes of his person, of his most buried desires ...
Because many will only read this book through a plot,
a fiction, which indeed it is.
But others will read it through the prism of life, through the prism of their history.
From their stories ... Some people will tip over to the point of no return and others will take matters into their own hands, or should I say, take their lives in hand.
Because hell is on earth, hell is other people, but hell
is mostly us.
We are our own hell ... Being an actor in your life, being the maker of your happiness, can go through pain, you just have to make a choice, only one and our life can change.
It is enough not to accept these silences, to accept the failures.
Because we can be this woman or this man, whose sufferings inhabit daily to the point of paralyzing them.
Because even if Elisabeth's suffering is palpable,
Stéphane's is no less present.
It is expressed in a different way, more latent, more buried, but with a particular resonance.
Forgiveness remains inaccessible, even when it is desired, each one locking himself up a little more in his own doubts.
Maëva, a 15-year-old teenager, is the privileged spectator of family decline, even as she is confronted with her first great love, the first misunderstandings of the world around her.
Because each character brings his own stone to the narrative construction.
Those in the background, are also, bearers of important messages.
To forget oneself, to lose oneself, only distils the poison of secrets, of the unspoken, this poison which will rot what one thought to protect.
Telling the truth can be painful, but it is also the balm on that pain.
The liberating word despite all the pain that one feels when the words spring up.
The essentials in 2 minutes
The plot.
Élisabeth and Stéphane move away from the bustle of Paris with their daughter Maëva, they are convinced of making a new start.
A big house that will allow them to get off to a good start: save their marriage.
Characters.
Élisabeth and Stéphane as well as their daughter Maëva
Places.
A large house in a village, place not defined.
The time.
Current.
The author.
Carine Joaquim was born in 1976 in Paris where she grew up.
She now lives in the Paris region and teaches history and geography there.
If she has always written, it is for the past six years that she has devoted herself ardently to it.
Our Foreign Bodies
is his first published novel.
This book was read with
the impression of having loved everything in this novel: the pen that leaves no one indifferent, the finely crafted psychology of each character, the finale of absolute darkness.
But I also liked the message, bearer of hope that Maëva carries with it.
Everything is meticulous, meticulously described.
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