The Cuttlefish: A Novel

by Maryline Desbiolles, Mara Bertelsen (Translator)

With precision, candor, and gentle seduction, Maryline Desbiolles transports us to the privacy of a houshold kitchen, where the aromas, tastes, and textures of food evoke a woman's most intimate thoughts. Searching for mastery over the unique ingredients of her identity, she is beckoned by a richly-drawn cast of characters in her life and is pulled deeply within to confront the haunting dreams and the sublimated traumas of her childhood.
Over the course of creating her delicacy, a recipe she lovingly follows in anticipation of her guests' arrival, the narrator is by turns nervous, sensual, and powerfully psychoanalytic. As she reveals in the magic of cooking, she expounds on the combination and transmutation of the various ingredients, especially the diaphanous cuttlefish - as elusive and delicate as the feminine self she strives to capture.

113 pages, Hardcover

First published March 11, 1998

About the author

Maryline Desbiolles naît en 1959 à Ugine, où vivent ses grands-parents maternels, émigrés italiens, qui tiennent une petite mercerie-bonneterie.
En 1981, elle crée à Nice où elle vit une revue de poésie et de littérature, Offset, puis en 1990, La Métis, du nom de l'intelligence rusée pour les Grecs. En 1998, son roman La Seiche attire l'attention pour son style. Elle reçoit le prix Femina en 1999 pour Anchise.
En 2024, elle remporte le prix Le Monde 2024 avec son roman publié aux éditions Sabine Wespieser, L'agrafe, qui revient sur l’humiliation des harkis.
Elle écrit régulièrement des chroniques dans le journal La Croix.
Elle vit dans l’arrière-pays niçois, à Contes. Elle est l'épouse du sculpteur Bernard Pagès.

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

After buzzing through a good handful of short, quick books, I thought I might keep the trend going with this one, which I'd picked up for a dollar during one Barnes and Noble clearance or another. It's a stream of consciousness piece, it seems, from the mind of a woman cooking cuttlefish for a dinner party (although the speaker admits in chapter one that she bought squid instead, unable to procure actual cuttlefish, she maintains steadfast in defining them as the real thing throughout the book). The smells, the sights, the overall experience of cooking leads her into thoughts about her childhood, romances (however brief), womanhood in general, food in general, and the impending party (interspersed with bits of actual action, insofar as cooking can provide action). The concept appealed to me, but the execution was flawed. Glimpses of feminism would clash with such mundane worries as what to wear, in case the guy she was interested in was to show up. Some memories were too garbled to extract meaning from, some too unrelated to feel at all important. Every now and then, it felt like something didn't click. It's hard to tell if this is the fault of the author or translator in a case like this, but either way, I'd have to give this a low 2.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is the second book that i've read from a female writer that has moved me. that i have been able to own it makes the reading so much better. it is not maybe a book to be read quickly; and when i return to it, new meanings expound. it is GREAT. -also cuttlefish are very interesting, though that's not really the book's bent.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the sensual and emotional nature of this short novel. Will make you think of life, love, yearning, and cooking in new ways - in this aspect it is not entirely dissimilar to another of my favorites: "Like water for chocolate"

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous. Really, really, really hard in French. Diaphanous and amorphous, like the cuttlefish, writing for the sake of beauty. Quite feminist. It was more experimental than I really knew what to do with.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I read this book it was out of print (don't know about now; sure you can find it somewhere) but the language is beautiful. Entire story takes place within just a few hours' time. Lovely, lovely.