JEAN-PHILIPPE TOUSSAINT - CAMERA

Image: poster for a driving school

A gallerist who stayed at a former apartment of mine recommended Touissaint to me after reading some of my stuff; I have now returned to reading Touissaint because I found out he’s Belgian and I’m moving to Belgium. I liked this novel more than the other Toussaint novel I read. Camera has a breezy pace, some weird jokes, and raises interesting philosophical questions, namely this one: is it better to be anxious about everyday things or step back from the everyday and experience the anguish of being? The novel doesn’t have the scope to really mount an argument either way, but that’s okay; I’d rather mull the idea over myself (if you read this and have any insights about the question, let me know). The comedy here often comes from the narrator’s martian sense of plotting (unmotivated events, spontaneous appearance of new characters). I’ll quote the first sentence, because it gives a good sense of what you’re getting into if you read the rest:

“It was at about the same time in my life, a calm life in which ordinarily nothing happened, that two events coincided, events that, taken separately, were of hardly any interest, and that, considered together, were unfortunately not connected in any way.”

Read, March 2020.