O bigode; A colônia de férias

by Emmanuel Carrère, André Telles (Translator)

Na primeira novela, Emmanuel Carrère desenvolve uma ideia perturbadora, por vezes cômica, sobre um homem que decide raspar o bigode e, aos poucos, perde a identidade. Ao acompanhar a narrativa, porém, nunca sabemos se ele está louco ou se são os outros que perderam a razão.

"O que você diria se eu raspasse o bigode?", pergunta o narrador a sua mulher, Agnès, misturando a comédia do absurdo com a especulação filosófica. "Poderia ser uma boa ideia", diz ela, despreocupada. Ao se barbear por completo, no entanto, algo imediatamente se altera em sua vida. Não só Agnès e os amigos deixam gradativamente de reconhecê-lo, como negam completamente que ele algum dia tenha tido um bigode.

Para Carrère, seu livro conta a história de um homem que se perde de si mesmo e testa os limites da solidão. Serve também como metáfora para um desencontro que, ele acredita, todo casal enfrenta um dia, de uma forma ou de outra. "Mais do que uma história de um homem que se mete numa espiral de loucura, quis contar como um homem e uma mulher que se amam podem se afastar tanto um do outro a ponto de se reencontrar depois e se reconhecer de forma totalmente diferente daquela de quando tudo começou", diz o autor.

Já em A colônia de férias, uma história de "terror literário", o leitor acompanha Nicolas, um menino inseguro e solitário, numa excursão da escola para uma temporada de esqui na neve. Com problemas familiares, ele se isola cada vez mais dos outros garotos e terá de enfrentar uma realidade que nem sua vívida imaginação poderia recriar. Reunidos em um único volume, os textos de Carrère apresentam alguns dos mais impactantes retratos psicológicos da ficção contemporânea.
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Genres: Fiction, France, Horror, Novella, Novels, Mystery, Literature

264 pages, Paperback

Published May 25, 2011

About the author

Emmanuel Carrère is a French author, screenwriter, and director. He is the son of Louis Carrère d'Encausse and French historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse.

Carrère studied at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (better known as Sciences Po). Much of his writing, both fiction and nonfiction, centers around the primary themes of the interrogation of identity, the development of illusion, and the direction of reality. Several of his books have been made into films; in 2005, he personally directed the film adaptation of his novel La Moustache. He was the president of the jury of the book Inter 2003.

(Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if one day you shaved your mustache, one you've had for several years and which is an established part of your look, and no one noticed? Not only that, everyone insists you've never had one, even your wife. It's actually a pretty terrifying question, as it means that either: A. You're going crazy; B. Everyone else is crazy; or, perhaps most frightening, C. Everyone is trying to DRIVE you crazy.

While not technically a horror story, I'm almost tempted to label The Mustache as such, but that's partially because it involves one of my biggest fears: the loss of my mental faculties. This is tied into another fear, or at least a concept I find freaky: that reality isn't real. The narrator's (mostly internal) quest to figure out a way to discover the truth kept me absorbed throughout, and I read the entire thing in one sitting.

The other novel included here, Class Trip, is every bit the equal of The Mustache. It's about a young boy, Nicolas, who's on a class trip at a mountain chalet, where the boys are learning how to ski over several days. When a little boy from the nearby town goes missing and becomes the talk of the chalet (and the town), Nicolas's imagination begins to consume him as he imagines all sorts of scenarios that could have happened, remembering a strange story his father once told him, about a shadowy group of malicious people who go around kidnapping kids in order to steal their body parts.

Nicolas, like the narrator of The Mustache, is another character who seems to have trouble separating fantasy and reality, and Carrère expertly brings the reader into his head, which is a good thing since a sizable chunk of this story takes place in the boy's mind. And yet this was, again, a one-sitting read for me.

Each of these tales are fast reads, more novella-length than full-blown novels, and there is no padding here. Carrère keeps the story moving, and even though I wanted more, I'd rather be left with that feeling as opposed to feeling there's too much. Anyone who's into psychological thrillers should check these out ASAP.

Who knew that reading two novels focusing mostly on the characters' internal thoughts could be so intense and enveloping?

5 Stars

[Szplug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two short pieces that really dig into the unsettling paranoia that grows creepily and pervasively stronger when one's view of the world becomes tuned to a slightly different—and far more sinister—frequency. All those fears that lurked just below the surface when you were a child—of what exactly was hidden around that next seemingly inoffensive corner, and what terrifying beasts were concealed within the otherwise stolid frames of the adults who towered above you—mix with the rich fantasy factory that operates within such immature minds in The Class Trip, to blossom with the gelid frissons of a midnight kidnapping. Nicholas, an anxious, imaginative boy whose prosthetic salesman father's most recent gift to him was a cigar box wherein he might store his little secrets, embarks upon a school-mandated ski holiday—and soon finds his eerie, parent-induced daymare sessions of child snatching and organ removal inscribing themselves within this far-from-idyllic excursion amidst snow and slopes. A boy has gone missing in manner that aligns with little Nicholas' crepuscular fantasies, prompting him to don a junior detective cap—the kind of prepubescent intrepidity that is seldom rewarded outside of Hollywood.

The world of lost children smoothly transitions to that of lost minds in The Mustache, with Carrère's taut tale springing lightly into the air via the protagonist's happenstance decision to shave off his mustache as a surprise to his spouse, only to come swiftly crashing down with a disturbing thud when everyone around him—beginning with his exasperated wife and a pair of coupled friends whose relationship is beginning to show cracks, then progressing to a widening circle of intimates and acquaintances—refuses to admit of the mustache's prior existence. Are they conspiring to drive him crazy? Playing some disturbingly complex and well-organized prank? Or rightly concerned about the percolating madness of the shutter-eyed, delusional narrator? Follow the circular travel which ensues—physical and mental—if you wish to reach the perturbing conclusion, stuck on an endless loop of up-and-down escalators in a cramped and dreary mall with but hints of an outside sun hanging far above the window-seasoned roof.

Swiftly-paced and sleekly written, paranoically taut and basement dark, these two stories work quite nicely at leaving the reader out-of-kilter with the placid-seeming, unchanging world outside. Kafkaesque in form, which term is almost a triteness at this point: but nothing else captures, in a single, aspirated word, that eerie sense of displacement within the mundane and banal; simple conversations turned menacing in mid-morpheme; lazily loping shadows rearing titanic and murderously dark; the entirety of an understood, mnemonically-placed lived past become questionable in all facets of the veracity and accuracy of its content; standard authority figures markedly noticeable as possessed of an unrestrained power operating with extreme prejudice; and the subtle-but-sharpening awareness of family and friends, once of an undoubted faithfulness, closeness, and alliance in all matters of import, as possessed of hidden agendas, questionable motives, and a current of malevolence that has begun to pour through the sluice box of their spirits, with the accumulated mineral weight turning them from ballasts against unbalance to anchors relentlessly straining to drag one under.

[Peter Landau · Rating 4 out of 5]

After my wife and me had finished reading Emmanuel Carrère’s fantastic nonfiction true-crime book THE ADVERSARY we were eager to read more. She ordered this twofer, a collection of his early novels CLASS TRIP & THE MUSTACHE. I only realized after it came in the mail that I already own a copy, but it’s packed up and in storage as I slowly contemplate moving the family into a house big enough to fit our growing brood. What does this have to do with these novels? Nothing and something. Both characters have a tendency, like me, to get lost in their heads and ramble on as events unfold around them. That’s the thematic connection, I guess. Otherwise the two stories are very different. The first concerns a young boy on a skiing vacation with his classmates. There’s a mystery at the heart of the boy’s relationship with his father that plays itself out with creepy inevitability. The other novel is about a man who decides to shave off his mustache and with it goes all coherence. No one acknowledges that he ever had facial hair, for a start, and from there the action snowballs to absurd tragedy. The delusion of both stories’ main characters is disturbing, doubly so for me, as I can easily see myself getting similarly unhinged. There’s really very little that anchors us to reality, which can be whatever we think it is, and sometimes we think bad thoughts.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two novels in one volume and both are really good. Also both are kind of creepy and disturbing, which in my world is perfectly fine.

"The Mustache" is something I can relate to in a way. It's a story of a man who shaves his moutache and no one noticed that he had a moutache before. This sort of happened to me when I had a beard many years ago. People are not that observant, so a little change or even a big change may not be noticed. And that's really upsetting - not due to the lack of attention, but the fact your change means nothing to the people around you. Superb literature!

"Class Act" is a young boy's adventure story into a disturbing world. Walt Disney it's not!

[Siena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strongest 5 star read of the year I absolutely loved this book!!! Carrere has a masterful way of building dread, paranoia, and anxiety in his stories and the second short novel in this book (The Mustache) absolutely blew me away. The way the story starts with a normal couple on a normal night and turns into something so bizarre and twisted without feeling forced or exaggerated had me obsessed. It was one of the best stories (plot wise) supported by some of the best writing that I’ve ever seen. It was like an episode of the twilight zone but lowkey almost better? I rented a copy from the library and I’m trying to figure out how to get them to sell it to me😭 this book make me realize that a lot of good suspense and thriller books get a little overlooked bc they’re labeled and shelved in the regular fiction sections of stores and libraries

[birdbassador · Rating 5 out of 5]

both stories contain an important moral: if you ever for a moment have anxiety about your past or your future, and can vividly imagine terrible things happening in a way that paralyzes you from action, it's because there's something unfixably wrong with you, you have a problem, everybody can tell that you don't belong, something terrible is going to happen and it's going to be, fundamentally, your fault.

[Cammi · Rating 4 out of 5]

eeek holy hell

[Allison Betch · Rating 4 out of 5]

OKAY.

Let’s start with the first story Class Trip:

A group of ten year old boys all go on a 2 week ski trip with their school. The boys ride the bus except for our boy Nicolas. Nicolas’s dad is a bit worried so he drives his son. Now listen, Nicolas is a little strange. Not many friends. He has a VERY active imagination. So anyway, dad drops him off but forgets to give him his suitcase for the trip. From here, things get weird. A local child goes missing which has Nicolas telling some very strange stories about organ trafficking and honestly I don’t want to spoil it because I was like “WHAT THE FRICKEN FRICK IS HAPPENING” the whole time. The ending is both extremely sad and a little depraved. Four stars. ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Now, the story we’ve all been waiting for THE MUSTACHE!!!!!!

A man shaves his mustache that he’s had for ten years. His wife doesn’t notice. His friends don’t notice. His coworkers don’t notice. Our MC thinks it’s his wife playing a trick on him. Now, things get weird (obviously). Our MC isn’t sure what’s real and what’s not and his wife is no help. I again, will not spoil the ending BECAUSE THE ENDING HAD MY JAW AGAPE LOOSING MY SHIT. The last 5 pages made the entire story for me truly. A lot of this was the reader inside the mind of our MC while he just spirals. One paragraph would go on for 2 entire pages and at some points I found myself thinking “OK I GET IT YOU’RE LOOSING IT” but but but with the ending I appreciated that we spent so much time in the head of our MC. Do I have any clue what actually happened? No absolutely fucking not. But did I love it?! YES. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

MUSTACHE MUSTACHE MUSTACHE 🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really top-shelf writing in both of these novellas—probing, gripping philosophical suspense stories reminiscent of Highsmith, du Maurier, Auster, Beckett, Camus, Kafka, and Dostoevsky; yet somehow more convincing in their premises (merely unlikely, if monstrous, in Class Trip; downright absurdist in Mustache) and in the description and deep exploration of their protagonists' interior states. Denial, gaslighting, the mental and emotional mechanisms of adaptation to an impossible and intolerably fluid reality—all get thoroughly interrogated and vivisected. It's a shame that Carrère isn't better known in the U.S., and I'm grateful to an insightful review essay in Gary Indiana's Utopia's Debris: Selected Essays for bringing his work to my attention.

[Fee · Rating 4 out of 5]

When writing a story, it is very difficult to make a good ending. This author knows how to end stories. It was genius how the author could grasp the thoughts of the insanity. I could not sleep after i finished, so I had to watch a movie afterwords to put me down. It was pi. I am still watching the movie, its noon and I keep watching pi, I just paused it for a second to let everyone know i finished reading the story.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

"the mustache" is one of the most disturbing stories i have ever read. it seems like the pinnacle of gaslighting, and even worse than most because he seems to have gaslit himself. i had to stop reading this story for a while because it disturbed me too much to finish it in one go, but finally gained the courage to finish it a bit later. terrifying.

[Bruno Alves · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Acessível em http://adlectorem.wordpress.com/2014/...)

Duas novelas em um volume, O bigode e A colônia de férias não parecem, na leitura da orelha, histórias relacionadas. Temi que tivessem jogado duas histórias do autor, Emmanuel Carrère, em um único volume. Após a leitura, entretanto, quaisquer dúvidas são dissipadas: há uma unidade temática em ambas. É perceptível que a paranoia, o trauma, a descida em um monólogo interno de um personagem desamparado, são elementos que formam entre os dois uma espécie de união que funciona muito bem.

São histórias de terror e suspense psicológicos, voltadas para a interioridade de seus protagonistas. Angústia definiu a minha experiência com O bigode. A proposta da primeira novela, curiosíssima, se transforma em um conto de “dúvida” até o seu medonho desfecho. Começa com a pergunta do protagonista à sua esposa, Agnès: “o que você diria se eu raspasse o bigode?” Ele cuida de seu bigode há dez anos, desde antes de se conhecerem. Em chiste, ela lhe responde que seria bacana, e ele, sem levar muito a sério, desafia sua piada ao remover de fato o bigode. O problema é que, ao o ver, Agnès não exibe reação alguma. Ao ser questionada, está confusa: ele nunca usou pelo facial algum.

Ninguém mais vê seu bigode. A partir daí o protagonista envereda mil possíveis explicações: estaria sua esposa e seus amigos malucos? Conspirando para deixá-lo insano, para negar as verdades incontestáveis da sua vida? Quando a polêmica da ausência do bigode — do qual ninguém mais se lembra — começa a invadir o resto dos fatos do que viveu, não resta mais um referencial seguro do que é real e do que não é. Ele foi ou não à ilha de Java? Tem ou não dois melhores amigos?

Agnès diz que ele está louco, que nunca fizeram nenhuma dessas coisas, e que nunca teve um bigode. A própria realidade e a memória começam a se desfarelar. Estamos lendo a narrativa agora, mas e se daqui a dez páginas alguém disser ao nosso protagonista que o que acabamos de ler jamais aconteceu? Nesse enredo de gaslighting, não temos mais ideia do que é confiável. E, ao mesmo tempo, jamais podemos ter certeza do que aflige o mundo ou o personagem; se ele está realmente louco, ou se o mundo está lhe pregando uma peça colossal.

Carrère monta um temível mas divertido monólogo interno, reproduzindo mesmo na terceira pessoa o discurso e os cacoetes de um homem carcomido pela paranoia, ciúmes e suspeita. E quando nós mesmos perdemos os parâmetros do que aconteceu de verdade, transportamo-nos para esta dimensão de não sabermos no que confiar. O leitor transfigura-se em um símile do próprio personagem, e se cria uma experiência medonha na qual começamos a temer que, em qualquer momento, com uma mera mudança trivial como a remoção de um bigode, o próprio tecido da realidade se volte contra nós, brincando com a existência de nossas memórias e entes queridos.

Enquanto trabalhava, mordiscando uma canta hidrográfica, lutava contra a tentação de fazer pelo menos um teste com alguém que o conhecesse bem, fazer a pergunta pela última vez, antes de sepultá-la, ou então partir para o psiquiatra. Pois a questão persistiria independentemente da resposta. Ou a cobaia respondia que não, que ele nunca usara bigode, e isso confirmava não apenas que ele padecia de um surto de loucura, como ainda levava tal loucura ao conhecimento de uma pessoa suplementar. [...] Ou então o interlocutor respondia que naturalmente, sempre o conhecera de bigode, que pergunta incomum, e então fatalmente Agnès seria culpada. Ou estaria louca. Não, culpada, uma vez que tivera de aliciar os demais. O que por sinal dava na mesma, pois essa culpa, em mentira tão exacerbada, tão metódica, às raias da conspiração, presumia uma forma de loucura. (p. 49)

Já em A colônia de férias, o gênero muda mas a paranoia continua: o jovem Nicolas vai contra sua vontade para uma colônia de férias de esqui. Ele é aquele menino ostracizado por ter pais superprotetores: é um pouquinho patético, desejando sempre a proteção alheia, e não quer encarar as dificuldades da vida. Prefere se manter em um casulo fechado. Enquanto o resto da turma foi de ônibus, seu pai lhe entrega pessoalmente de carro na colônia. E o pior, vai embora e leva a mochila do menino junto, sem querer. Nicolas, desamparado, sem suas roupas e pertences pessoais, deve passar aqueles dias com artefatos improvisados comprados no mercado próximo com o monitor.

Por que seu pai não volta? Cogita a sua morte, um acidente. Ele simplesmente esqueceu? Mais tarde, o mais temido dos colegas lhe empresta o pijama. O que ele quer com Nicolas? Será uma espécie de teste? A insegurança de uma criança que imagina seus traumas. Nicolas está a toda hora pensando no que de mau pode acontecer, e em seus resultados: ser alvo de pena e misericórdia, o que lhe convém; a sensação de segurança que provém de uma inabilidade de ser responsabilizado pela própria vida. Seu suspense e medo começam a desenrolar-se de forma cada vez mais (in)tensa quando uma criança da vila próxima desaparece.

Com um desfecho um pouco previsível, mas muito bem executado, temos de ver o menino Nicolas encarar sua vívida imaginação. Tanto nesse quanto em O bigode, vemos questões de pessoas levemente fora da realidade. Têm um outro viés de visão do que existe, uma perspectiva insegura de tudo. Em Colônia, mais uma vez temos o monólogo interno, dessa vez infantil. A diferença muda o tom da história para algo mais leve de se ler, ainda que igualmente climático. O estilo do autor não dá margem para a calmaria: a tensão que Nicolas sente em todas as possibilidades de um trauma ainda irrealizado toca o leitor. Particularmente, como uma ex-criança que vivia imaginando o pior de todas as situações, senti uma boa representação, quase nostálgica, de um sentimento de medo que sempre imaginamos mas que continuamos torcendo para que não se concretize.

Deitado bem próximo à janela, sob a calefação opressiva, Nicolas ouvia o motor roncar cada vez mais alto, cada vez mais perto. Via o carro aproximar-se por baixo, como no mecânico quando o subiam no guindaste. Todo aquele metal incandescido, estufado pelo superaquecimento, passaria por cima dele, as esteiras e óleo e sangue correriam sobre ele como os caldos com que uma aranha lambuza sua presa viva. Os pneus rangiam na neve, por trás da janela. O motor parou, ouviu-se uma porta bater depois outra. [...] Pronto, pensou Nicolas: estão vindo por minha causa. (p; 234)

Carrère conseguiu nestas duas histórias, dois lados de uma paranoia pesada, construir pedaço a pedaço as psiques de duas personagens que, a despeito de suas perturbação, passam uma impressão de vívida realidade. Mesmo quando o mundo ao seu redor não os trate como reais, como no caso do protagonista de O bigode. Seus tiques e anseios são palpáveis e é muito difícil não sentir uma empatia; esta que torna esta experiência de leitura algo tão angustiante.

[Erwin Maack · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Acabou por achar que os sonhos eram percepções dinâmicas da realidade. Eram abafados e filtrados para fora da consciência por padrões convencionais da ordem estática social e intelectual, mas revelavam uma verdade primária: uma verdade de valor. Os padrões estáticos dos sonhos eram falsos, mas os valores subjacentes que produziam os padrões eram verdadeiros. Na realidade estática nenhum polvo vem nos apertar até a morte, nenhum gigante Vem nos devorar e nos digerir e nos transformar em partes do seu próprio corpo, de forma a ficar cada vez mais forte enquanto somos dissolvidos e nos perdemos no nada.” Robert M. Pirsig

Estes dois contos, começaram a conversar com o Robert (autor da citação acima) e da conversa entre ambos, mediadas por mim resultou em histórias, principalmente a primeira (O bigode), sem muito cuidado com os detalhes lógicos que raptam o leitor para a crença no enredo. E se você não acredita que uma pessoa pode agir daquela maneira, a empatia tropeça e cai.
O segundo conto está melhor estruturado e crível. Principalmente seu final que me apaixonou, é aterrador, deixando-me curioso, apesar de nada mais haver de escrito para informar a curiosidade ela não cessa e ele faz com que tentemos percorrer os caminhos que ele já visitou, e não saberemos jamais o que aconteceu.
E sobre eles - caminhos- foi uma grande surpresa para o leitor de Carrère acostumado com narrativas de sobre lugares e pessoas inóspitos ou benfazejos, descobrir outros escuros e medonhos.

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

closer to 4 stars probably

the first few pages of the class trip were so unsettling they really set a tone of paranoia and distrust. the vibe was alienation. it has a slight surrealist touch and it felt like horror playing with absurdity for a bit

thinking of the warmth of the teacher, the kids desire to be pitied, and returning home as a going into a cold unforgiving future

the mustache - omg i would scream. reminded me of gregor samsa

[Melinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read the The Mustache, but The Class Trip was a doozy of a short novel. I liked the way Carrere crawled inside the morbid imagination of this boy, an outsider on a trip where everything goes wrong. It's a short novel, but one that will make you think. Not sure about the ending? Is is father dead? A "fiend"? What? Adds to the creep factor, for sure.

[Kyle Schnitzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disturbing, albeit original.

[Maria Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy The Mustache very much. The class trip was just ok.

[Marlla · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Ashlyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very deep. Makes you think. I did not expect a story about a mustache it to be so chilling! A great psychological horror story.

[Riley · Rating 3 out of 5]

what the fuck did i just read

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read the Mustache. It was a personal book/movie project. In a surprise twist…I liked the movie more.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny and frightening. Very easy to read.

[Sofia Fuentes · Rating 4 out of 5]

crazy if true

[nat · Rating 5 out of 5]

“What would you say if I shaved off my mustache?”

[Tiffany Rezvani · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mustache > class trip

[Jon Rieke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I preferred Class Trip to The Mustache

[Matthew Pridham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Emmanuel Carrère’s existential mysteries engage with questions of identity and sanity in an elusive, compelling way, often seeming about to yield to a comprehensible solution before pulling back. The Mustache’s setup is so benign and absurd, it almost seems like the beginning of a joke: a man wakes up one morning and decides to shave off the mustache he’s worn most of his life. The problem? After he shaves, everyone in his life, including his wife and his best friends, insist he never had a mustache in the first place. Surprisingly, this innocuous beginning spins into dark psychological territory, leading him to wonder if everyone around him is lying to him, if he has gone insane, or if something even worse has happened. Class Trip is a little more rational, though the gaps in its narrative suggest even more awful things. Nicolas is a kid whose father drives him up to a ski chalet where he’ll be joining his friends for skiing instruction and various hijinks. When a child from a nearby village goes missing, Nicolas begins daydreaming increasingly dark and violent scenarios to explain the situation to himself. This one captures very well the workings of the childish imagination as well as the ways it can fail to capture the sad truths of reality.

I reviewed this book for my list of surrealistic horror novels and short stories. If you’re interested in similar titles, check out some of my favorites:

https://matthewpridham.wordpress.com/...

[Jules · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories by Carrere were fabulous! The author is very crafty at building suspense and drawing you into his creepy stories in his clever and unpretentious style. The story The Moustache really gets under your skin as Carrere's protagonist tries desperately to discover what is real/ity in his life just as the reader attempts to do the same never quite trusting the protag.'s view of reality. This story made me think about the characteristics that define us and what would happen if these defining characteristics (your spouse, important events in your life that make up who you are, things you have done in/with your life that define you) disappeared--who are you then after these things are subtracted. I have often creeped myself out even before seeing this movie and reading this story by thinking what if my husband Dave is just made up in my head--what if he does not exist at all, but I have just dreamed up our whole lives together. So when I saw this movie/read the book I was really floored.

The Class Trip was also wonderful drawing you in immediately dropping little hints along the way as the story progresses and building tension...until the horrible truth is creepily realized.
Anyway, I really look forward to reading more of Carrere's works.

[Leslie]

Disorganized thoughts re: Class Trip (I did not read the second novel in this volume):

This is a book about imagined trauma: other folks’ trauma we absorb, trauma we anticipate without experiencing it.

Nicolas is perceptive, macabre and wimpy—the sort of child who whimpers aloud, feigns illness and hasn’t a shred of dignity. He has a grim imagination. He is spooky and spooked.

I admire how well Carrere ("the Stephen King of France") writes in the voice of a young child. He captures the tension Nicolas feels with adults: he wants protection, but he spots lies and sugar coating from a distance. Thus: skepticism. Trust issues.

The second guided meditation scene is so chilling/squirm-inducing!

Without giving anything away, I am intrigued by the ending. Trauma is implicit. The reader becomes Nicolas: the imaginer/anticipator. O psychology!

Who doesn't want to read about erotic just-pubescent ski trips?!

[Rhett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its kind of like a French-risque--the main character has his first wet dream--version of Stephen King's "It" or "The Body"(Stand By Me-movie). Its written hyper-vividly in the perspective of this over-protected boy at a school weekend trip. He's a bullied, outcast, bed-wetter with this really gory imagination, and he has this private, after hours, hardy boys relationship with the popular kid, solving a missing child case going on in the area....Its borderline pedaphile fiction, really well-written and well-translated, from French.