October 12, 2010
The Woman With the Bouquet, a collection of short stories by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, enchanted and perplexed me. From what century did this charming writer emerge? His gothically-romantic but also penetratingly realistic depictions remind me of the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich and Johan Christian Dahl (whose names are also reminiscent of Schmitt) wherein a human scene of huge impact is played out against an even larger background of grandiose nature. And so the characters of Schmitt's stories -- a love-sick author, an angry wife, an unsure woman, a grouchy professor -- play out their own scenes of love, desire, jealousy, and despair against the larger background of rich atmosphere. From the deserted (and later, overrun) beaches of Ostend to the wild countryside of the Ardeche to the railroad station in Zurich to a hospital ward for the critically injured, Schmitt places his characters. As powerful as the backgrounds are, the human scenes are big enough to capture and hold attention, as the players deal passionately with life and find reasons both irrational and irrefutably sane, for doing what they do, wanting what they want, and dreaming what they dream.
Schmitt is so comfortable at using both realism and a touch of authorial control through coincidences and hyperbolic situations that I felt as if I were reading the true heir of Dickens or Maupassant, and I loved every minute of it. As heavy with portent and intent as his stories are, Schmitt is also very, very funny, especially in his observations: "Like many single people who have no sexual life, he worried a great deal about his health." Speaking of sex, his first story contains guidelines for a very lively evening, ingeniously created as a menu taken from classic mythology, geometrical shapes, geography and landmarks, fruits and vegetables, and folktales.
The way Schmitt begins his stories is forceful, for example: "In a few minutes, if everything went well, she would kill her husband" and "At the train station in Zurich, on platform number three, there is a woman who has been waiting, every day for fifteen years, with a bouquet in her hand." And he completes his tales with endings that bring both pleasure and satisfaction, even when utterly unbelievable. Read these stories for pleasure and they will be sure to linger long after the book is finished, lovely memories of romance and excitement, dreams and visions, rolling luxuriously around in your brain.
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