L'Appareil-photo

by Jean-Philippe Toussaint

Il y a quelques années j'ai essayé de faire une photo, une seule photo, quelque chose comme un portrait, un autoportrait peut-être, mais sans moi et sans personne, seulement une présence, entière et nue, douloureuse et simple, sans arrière-plan et presque sans lumière.

Genres: Fiction, Belgium, France, French Literature, Novels, Literature, Unfinished

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 16, 1989

About the author

Jean-Philippe Toussaint (born 29 November, 1957, Brussels) is a Belgian prose writer and filmmaker. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages and he has had his photographs displayed in Brussels and Japan. Toussaint won the Prix Médicis in 2005 for his novel Fuir. The 2006 book La mélancolie de Zidane (Paris: Minuit, 2006) is a lyrical essay on the headbutt administered by the French football player Zinedine Zidane to the Italian player Marco Materazzi during the 2006 World Cup final in Berlin. An English translation was published in 2007 in the British journal New Formations. His 2009 novel La Vérité sur Marie won the prestigious Prix Décembre.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

Quirky and curious yet charming and, dare I say, existential.

Although there is zero information provided relating to his background or profession, I picture the somewhat eccentric unnamed narrator of Jean-Philippe Toussaint's short novel as a well-educated, thirtysomething Parisian working a cushy job requiring scant hours but a certain amount of international travel.

Also included in this Dalkey Archive Press edition is an interview wherein the Belgian author relates that Camera contains elements both humorous and cerebral; it’s a novel serious as well as casual, although the more intellectual, philosophic dimension doesn’t kick in until the later part, following the protagonist's boat trip when the story shifts from the struggle of living to the despair of being.

As part of the same interview, Jean-Philippe relates two additional points worth mentioning: 1) his entire corpus of fiction, Camera included, might best be categorized as infinitesimal rather than minimalist since minimalist brings to mind the infinitely small, whereas infinitesimal evokes the infinitely large as well as the infinitely small, and 2) he quotes Kafka: "In the fight between you and the world, back the world."

Recall I alluded to Camera as an existential novel. And that’s existential as in a keen focus on the singular, the particular, the uniquely individual to better comprehend, or at least come to terms with, our all too human predicament. So, employing this existential lens, I’ll shift to select passages of Camera to both flesh out the observations Jean-Philippe offers in his interview and illuminate several other aspects of this delightful fiction.

"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." Jean-Philippe worked and reworked this, the novel’s first sentence, over the course of a month. The Belgian author is all about giving voice to the banal, the mundane and the “not-interesting” all the while injecting an element of humor. Obviously, he takes the exactitude of his language seriously. I reread this first sentence multiple times, and must admit, it sets the tone for the entire novel in all its quirkiness.

“But, for the time being, I had all the time in the world: in the battle between oneself and reality, don’t try to be courageous.” The narrator’s reflection echoes the above Kafka quote and highlights his philosophic side. In dealing with the everyday stuff of the world – completing forms, gathering documents, learning to drive a car, filling a propane tank, waiting for a mechanic at a service station (among the challenges encountered in the tale) – resist the temptation to become frustrated or angry; much wiser to approach the world’s minutiae with equipoise or, in hip parlance - hang easy; dangle loose.

“The next morning, I woke up, still half-asleep in the partial shade of the room, Pascale in my arms, and I was gently caressing her breasts under her pajama top. She wasn’t any more awake than I was and, both of us still sleeping, we moved closer together in our sleep, hands touching cheeks or running fingers through hair . . .” Pascale is the name of a single mom working at the driver’s ed office, a gal the narrator falls in love with (ah, a love story!). But please don’t expect sizzle or hot passion; in keeping with the author’s literary aesthetic, we’re treated to moments usually judged trivial or prosaic. I say “usually” since, if we read with care and attention, there’s great beauty and tenderness in the couple’s maneuvering in and around a driver’s ed office, her father’s Triumph, a slot machine, an Indian restaurant.

“It was night now in my mind, I was alone in the semi-darkness of the booth and I was thinking, protected from outer torments. The most favorable conditions for thinking, the moments when thought can let itself naturally follow its course, are precisely moments when, having temporarily given up fighting a seemingly inexhaustible reality, the tension begins to loosen little by little, all the tension accumulated in protecting yourself against the threat of injury . . . " The narrator is in a photo booth and here we have an initial glimmer of the novel’s shift from action and struggle to a formless, still realm of Being. Reading this section, I was reminded of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time as well as The Upanishads and the Tao Te Ching.

“Leaning over the guardrails, photos in hand, I saw the endless sea, waves swelling off into the distance, immense and formless.” Our narrator has an even deeper, more direct experience of the boundless, infinite fullness (or emptiness) of Being beyond the turmoil and habitual tug-of-war produced by the mind.

“Less than a meter from me, leaning over the machine, the man frantically worked the joysticks, having his helicopter suddenly gain altitude – lips pressed tight, and thrusting his pelvis against the machine – discharging a salvo of electronic beams that blew up boats on after another . . .” Ah, the stark contrast! It’s predawn and the narrator leisurely roams the boat, his mind continuing to mirror the stillness and quietude of the immense and formless sea when he’s jolted by an island of violence and war.

“I took the camera out of my pocket and almost without moving, I let it fall overboard, smashing against the hull before bouncing off into the sea and disappearing in the current.” Bravo, sir! No comment of mine needed here; rather, I will end with Jean-Philippe Toussaint's Zen-like words when an interviewer asked: "What is the role of the artist in society?" J-P T's answer: "To run away."


Belgian novelist Jean-Philippe Toussaint, born 1957

"A few minutes earlier, on the maritime platform, I had stopped to watch the rain fall in a bright projected beam, in the exact space delineated by the light, enclosed and yet as devoid of material borders as a quavering Rothko outline, and, imagining the rain falling at this place in the world, which, carried by gusts of wind, passed through my mind, moving from the shining cone of light to the neighboring darkness without it being possible to determine the tangible limits between the light and shadows, rain seemed to me to represent the course of thought, transfixed for a second in the light and disappearing the very next second to give way to itself." - Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Camera

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like floating on a cloud as the golden sunlight lazily fades through the day to reveal a shadowy indigo twilight.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel in which nothing significant happens on purpose, to draw attention to the insignificant things that comprise 90% of our lives. Toussaint calls this the ‘infinitesimal novel’ and his entire canon could be read in an afternoon. That’s how infinitesimal these novels are.

There is a richness here, a more philosophical flavour to the second half of the novel, so it isn’t merely about a man hanging around a DMV office trying to shack up with a single mum. But mainly it is, and there’s nothing wrong with that: it’s funny and incisive. Très bon.

[Hux · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's a crazy idea: how about a novel about the trivial banalities of living, the day-to-day mediocrity and smallness of things. After all, what could be more existential than a novel about the very boring and mundane, the dull and ordinary?

On paper, this ought to have appealed to me. And I did enjoy a lot of the book (I especially liked Toussaint's writing when he allowed his prose to flow), but after a while, you need something... anything... to give the piece a little more meat on its bones. But the tone remains the same throughout. The narrator tells us about meeting a woman at the drivers ed office, then he tells us about going to get groceries. Then he tells us about the car breaking down, needing some propane, trying to find the Metro, what the weather is like. Then he and Pascale (the woman) go to London for a trip and eat in a restaurant, and look at things, and say things, and do things. It's all very minimalist, the insignificant aspects of life we all endure, with no discernible plot and no desire to waste any time introducing one. It's just an average man, living an average life. And THAT'S where we acquire the existential qualities of this novel. Because what could be more existential than merely existing?

It's a nice idea and the book has a gentle feel (some may even be tempted to describe it as charming). It reminded me of a few things. Autumn Rounds, The Sundays of Jean Desert. But those books had different qualities when it came to the existential themes (the latter in particular being more thought provoking in my opinion). This book is, at face value, a very quiet novella about a man meeting a woman and doing dull, normal things. That's it... that's your lot! While that does indeed cover the basics in regards to a reflective novel exploring existential ideas, it ultimately was a little too lightweight for my liking. There were periods where the writing was really fluid and crisp, and I would have liked more of that, but the book is too busy offering tedious aspects of an average life, the classic humdrum of western existence, that it doesn't get to dwell too long on those beautiful sentences very often. Which is a shame because that's the book's best feature.

Fundamentally, I don't think I will ponder this one for very long. Short and sweet. Easy to read. An odd little book to be sure. But ultimately underwhelming.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

One would be hard-pressed to find in a novel a character who examines the nature of his existence as scrupulously as the protagonist of Camera. Improbably, it’s a love story.

The affair commences when a man with a “propensity not to hasten matters” becomes smitten with a woman named Pascale Polougaïevski, who works as a clerk in a driver’s-education office. (While Toussaint’s narrators are habitually nameless, the women are saddled with ungainly handles.) The romance proceeds in disarmingly oblique fashion:

“We made small talk while I was catching up with current events and, when her tea was ready, she asked me, yawning, if I would like a cup. Without putting down the paper, still reading, I told her no, God forbid, what’s the world coming to? But a cup of coffee, on the other hand, I said, putting down the paper, I wouldn’t turn down.”

Aside from the suitor’s fascination with Pascale’s “natural and fundamental languor,” we never find out why he thinks it’s a good idea to accompany her to pick up her son at school, or to whisk her away on the ferry for a one-night excursion in London. Motive, Toussaint seems to be telling us, is entirely beside the point, especially in the early “flu-like state” of romantic love.

Camera has no narrative thrust; its energy is frittered away in endless asides, discursions, parentheticals, etc. Yet there is an undeniable tension at work, as the protagonist moves “from the struggle of living to the despair of being.” These hypercontemplative periods invariably follow a burst of frenetic activity and restless motion. He’ll confine himself to a service-station restroom, a photo kiosk, or telephone booth and wait for the “thinning ruins of exterior reality” to give way to “a different reality, interior and peaceful.”

What is it about these slender, yearning novels that makes them so charming and compelling? How do books with almost no dialogue but obsessed with weighty topics, sound so breezy? Why do these vague and laconic yet relentlessly specific narratives penned some 20 years ago feel timeless and new?

Perhaps Toussaint’s infatuation with the quotidian is a mask for his true subject: what it means to be a human being. Though his judgments are rendered in existential fashion, they are expressed as comedies that are “purposeless and grandiose” — like life.

Read an interview with Toussaint's translators here.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s particularly amusing to read ‘Camera’ after The House of Writers, as this is exactly the sort of literary work that the latter mocks. In a very similar manner to Event Factory earlier this week, I found the novella itself did not make a huge impact on me. However I was very entertained by the interview with Jean-Philippe Toussaint included at the end. The novella itself seeks profundity via triviality. The narrator is always travelling about, for vague or unspecified reasons. He wanders cities, smokes, and contemplates existence in classic flâneur style, except without any great interest in society. He looks inside rather than outside himself, or just stares into space. The narrative begins with an air of gently playful absurdity, then concludes on a darker note. Prosaically, this darker note is because the protagonist has missed the last train. (I’ve been there, it's a real bummer.) I think the writing style probably works better in the original French, as it tends towards the trite in English. Nonetheless, there is some elegance in the close observation of petty incidents and uneventful journeys.

The author interview, however, is a joy for its sheer unselfconscious pretentiousness. Surely a British author would be embarrassed to baldly state: “‘The Bathroom’ can be described as the description of a crisis, whereas ‘Camera’ is more the description of a condition, the condition of someone’s place in the world. The book progressively shifts from the ‘struggle of living’ to the ‘despair of being’”. I mean, does it really? I can be a terribly literal reader, thus sometimes fail to notice the full profundity of despair occasioned by missing a train. Nonetheless, I find it fascinating to learn what authors of deliberately plotless fiction think they are up to. As Toussaint puts it:

Underlying my novel is, although it isn’t expressed theoretically, an idea of literature focused on the insignificant, on the banal, on the mundane, the ‘not interesting’, the ‘not edifying’, on lulls in time, on marginal events, which are usually excluded from literature and are not dealt with in books.

It is of course ambitious and brave to write of such dull things, as without plot to intrigue the reader the pressure is on the author to write exquisitely beautiful prose and/or to extract deeper meaning from minutiae. Naturally, Toussaint references Kafka to this end - something Nicholls spends a whole chapter mocking in The House of Writers. At the end of the interview, Toussaint discusses possible names for this turn in literature: ‘the minimalist novel’, ‘the postmodern novel’, and ‘the impassive novel’ are mentioned. He favours ‘the infinitesimal novel’, as this ‘evokes the infinitely large as much as the infinitely small: it contains the two extremes that should always be found in my books’. There might be something in that, or on the other hand it might be total waffle.

Personally, I find ‘the impassive novel’ most apposite. Camus is mentioned on the back cover and Toussaint’s narrator has a similar disconnection from his surroundings and the consequences of his actions. When reading L'étranger, Sartre’s Nausea, and latterly ‘Camera’, I was struck by how not giving a shit is a peculiarly masculine luxury. At the end of ‘Camera’, the protagonist calls his girlfriend from a phonebox, waking her up, because he’s missed the last train. Her annoyance and worry at her boyfriend’s fecklessness go unmentioned. Only his existential musings matter. I haven’t come across any impassive novels by women and do not think that’s a coincidence. (I also find it fascinating that the canon of French literature includes such extremes of emotional affect and lack thereof as Victor Hugo and Albert Camus, but that requires further thought.)

Surely someone has written a novel taking the form of an interview with a novelist? The nearest thing that I’m aware of is Lint by Steve Aylett, which in my opinion is the most hilarious book ever written. I certainly prefer the latter of these quotes (from the interview) to the former (from the novella):

[Protagonist is sitting in a phone booth] Hours passed in an unvarying sweetness and my thoughts continued to maintain amongst themselves a network of sensual and fluid relationships, as if they were continuously adhering to a play of mysterious and complex forces that would come at times and stabilise them into an almost palpable point of my mind and at other times would have them fight a moment against the current to return immediately to their infinite course in the peaceful, silent state of my mind.

[...]

[Interviewer:] Could we say that ‘Camera’ is the outcome of ‘The Bathroom’?
JPT: You could, but ‘Camera’ is also a dead end. It can be seen as the outcome of ‘The Bathroom’, but the outcome may be less interesting than the initial moment, the first attempt, the moment when a style, a manner of things, something new, appears, without our know quite where it comes from or how it was done. At any rate, I didn’t pursue this further. Something ends with ‘Camera’. I opened a path and then I stopped, went on to something else, I made movies, experienced other things in my books, I thought I wouldn’t write a novel like ‘Camera’ every two or three years, but maybe others will. As far as I’m concerned, I intend to go further, I want to discover something else, find the initial impetus which had motivated me to write in the first place, a sharpness, something Kafkaesque or Dostoyevskian.

Is it even more pretentious of me to get greater enjoyment from the interview? Am I enjoying it ironically? Who knows. I just think it would be fun if authors of postmodern literary fiction were more frequently asked to explain themselves.

[Ronald Morton · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was at about the same time in my life, a calm life in which nothing ordinarily 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.

Or, to paraphrase: “I’m going to tell you about some things that taken separately are not very interesting, but taken together are still not very interesting”

Which is an honest way to open a book, but unfortunately it’s also an accurate way to open this particular book. It’s well written, and it’s got a sweet little budding romance in it – but it’s intentionally languid/sleepy (hell, they have sex half asleep), and it mostly just bored me.

Unfortunate, especially as I think I own at least 3-4 more by this author. I will say that the writing in the second half is quite strong (which tipped it to 3 stars), but this book wasn’t really for me; or at least it wasn’t for me here at work, wishing I’d brought a different book to waste the afternoon away with.

[Lee]

A remarkable and fascinating little book. There is a superficial stasis of plot and character that will turn off some readers, but great riches lurk beneath the quotidian surface. At an aesthetic level, "Camera" reminds me of how I feel when standing alone in large clean empty parking lot or in a newly opened airport terminal. Each moment here manages to become both small and large, and has the smell of abandoned infrastructure.

[Adam Dalva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written, oddly structured little book; a transition between my favorite Toussaint (the traveloguer of his later Marie tetralogy) and the overly staid Monsieur. The first third is quite funny, a humor which melts out and is reformed as lovely and philosophical by the time the title object finally appears. The problem: the bridge between the two sections (a shopping mall sequence) is too long, a misstep in a book this short. I most like Toussaint as a palate-cleanser, which is underselling his skill on the line level and composer of scene, but his books have a lightness that's hard to find. And this one had a very good line, worth the price of admission:

"Maybe it was already love, that flu-like state."

[Donald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not as good as The Bathroom, which is a small masterpiece, but Camera is brilliant in a sly and quiet way.

[Guttersnipe Das · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before the internet, where essays often come adorned with a note as to how long it will take to read them (is it ever longer than 8 minutes?) it seems that one initiated philosophical conversations by reading light French novels. Here, the story is like a lightly sweet, smooth, enteric coating that makes the philosophy comfortable to swallow. It is a harmless and quiet book, determined, like its narrator, to never feel too much. That’s not a criticism -- it’s a relief. Some days require such a book.

I was glad of it, except when it tried too hard, during the last third, and then it seemed a novel to be designed to be assigned to freshman students, non-literature majors. “It’s only 100 pages, they’ll read it, and even if they’re drinking jug wine as they read, they’ll feel as though they’ve had an /experience/.”

It’s funny how time overcomes a book. Written today, this book would be a satire about millennials, except that ordinary reality has become so extreme, so grotesque, that it is now difficult to satirize. Ennui and disdain are now very, very competitive sports. Just the same, I loved the form of the book, the size and quiet of it. I wish more people would read it, and imitate it, and then do something more brave or even desperate.

I read this book entirely sober, without cigarettes, at 11 o’clock in the morning, with nothing more than half of a cold cup of coffee. Surely that is not how it is designed to be read! I suggest a lonely insomniac night -- and liquor.

[Caitlin Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t really get it :/ some lines articulated a new something for me, and I liked the bits about driving school and the general “Mr. Bean” tone. But I feel that I didn’t understand the philosophical bend. Feels very French tho

[Hasse · Rating 2 out of 5]

we liepen de albert heijn uit met broodjes en een appeltaart, want de examens waren voorbij. Toen zagen we dit boek in een leenkast en hebben we het meegenomen "want ik heb nu toch alle tijd". Ik vond het boek zelf okee, maar het verhaal van de leenkast maakt het leuker

[Adam Tramposh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Central premise:
Absolute refusal of meaning is a graceful way of life.

Revelatory excerpt:
"The conditions were now perfect, it seemed to me, for thinking. A few minutes earlier, on the maritime platform, I had stopped to watch the rain fall in a bright projected beam, in the exact space delineated by the light, enclosed and yet as devoid of material borders as a quavering Rothko outline, and, imagining the rain falling at this place in the world, which, carried by gusts of wind, passed through my mind, moving from the shining cone of light to the neighboring darkness without it being possible to determine the tangible limits between the light and shadows, rain seemed to me to represent the course of thought, transfixed for a second in the light and disappearing the very next second to give way to itself. For what is the act of thinking —if it's not the act of thinking about something? It's the flow of thought that is so beautiful, yes, the flow, and its murmur that travels beyond the world's clamor. Let yourself attempt to stop thought, to bring its contents to light, and you'd end up with (how could I say, how could I not say rather) trying to preserve the quavering, ungraspable outlines, you'd end up with nothing, water slipping through your fingers, a few graceless drops drying out in the light. It was night now in my mind, I was alone in the semi-darkness of the booth and I was thinking, protected from outer torments. The most favorable conditions for thinking, the moments when thought can let itself naturally follow its course, are precisely moments when, having temporarily given up fighting a seemingly inexhaustible reality, the tension begins to loosen little by little, all the tension accumulated in protecting yourself against the threat of injury—and I had my share of minor injuries —and that, alone in an enclosed space, alone and following the course of your thoughts in a state of growing relief, you move progressively from the struggle of living to the despair of being." (p.82-83)

[abcdefg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a charming book that I found to be light and airy, but also simultaneously melancholic and quite serious. Jean-Philippe Toussaint explains in an interview with Laurent Demoulin that the book "progressively shifts from the 'struggle of living' to the 'despair of being.'"

It certainly is a postmodern existentialist novella in a sense, where the main character, falling in love with the "sleepy" Pascale, also becomes a witness to his own thoughts. There's a metaphysical, philosophical touch to this "witnessing" of the mental processes and the protagonist's relationship with reality.

There's quite a shift in tone also after the protagonist finds the camera on the boat. The first half of the story focuses on his relationship with Pascale and their growing friendship and love for each other. The second half takes quite a turn. You're not sure what happened between them, but you know that the protagonist's insight into his own condition as it becomes revealed not only through the roll of film he finds on the boat, but through his own continued witnessing of his thoughts, is the underlying cause for a rift that may never be bridged between them.

There are beautiful images towards the end of the book of solitude, night, rain, and utter darkness that I've never quite experienced from any other book. The darkness isn't threatening or entirely despairing, but revealing. There's a heaviness that very much reflects the inner condition of the protagonist. There's no sense of where he's going, but while lost in the dark, the book doesn't necessarily end on that note. While the last sentence might be construed as somewhat sadistic, it's also quite fragile and energetic.

[Lukáš Palán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fotoaparát od Toussainta sleduje hrdinu, který si nakráčí do autoškoly s tím, že si chce udělat papíry, ale jelikož nemá fotku na řidičák, tak se jen tak poflakuje na recepci, přičemž začne koketovat se sekretářkou a zanedlouho už ji nakládá jak okurky a jezdí s ní a s malým synkem do školy a pro plynovou bombu a na výlety, večeře a kávičky. Opět se tedy potvrzuje, že ve Francii jde lidem jen o sex, krosénty a kafe. Je suis penis.

Zároveň je to co jsem napsal výše asi celým dějem této knihy, která se stejně jako Koupelna nezaobírá tím, co se děje (páč vono se nic neděje), ale spíš se vznáší na obláčku z banalit. Toussaint píše jako autista, pěkně popisuje naprosto vše co se kolem něj nachází a svým způsobem se mu z toho daří budovat velmi plastický svět, který vlastně děj ani nepotřebuje – protože jeho dějem jsou banality - knihu bych tedy doporučil všem, kteří mají rádi banány.

Vysvětlivky pojmů:
banalita - banánová brutalita
krosén - croissant ve vesnickém dialektu
nakládat jako okurky - dělat sex
autista - sběratel aut

[Michael Lindgren · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those quintessentially French postmodern novels that is intriguing and exasperating in the same measure. Toussaint's book is an example of the novel of the infinitesimal, apparently the latest flavor in French intellectual circles. The narrative is aggressively quotidian, the tone flat, the action inconsequential, interrupted by occasional vaguely poetic meditations on the nature of thought, time, action, et cetera. If fiction built on abstract theoretical constructs interests you, you'll like this. The book was pressed upon me, against my will, by my Europhile friend Ron.

[Brent Legault · Rating 3 out of 5]

A waiting room novel. Not to say that it's a novel that it should be read in a waiting room, although it can be and, if the wait runs a little long, it can be read in full. But to the point, it is a novel that is interested in the waiting rooms of life, where nothing much happens "on the page" but where some thinking can get done. It might be a little boring sometimes or maybe mildly amusing or slightly frustrating but the wait will be short at least and then something else will surely come along. Something better, perhaps, or something worse.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's an interview with the writer at the end. I didn't like his novel Reticence, which I read several weeks ago, and he says many people, many critics also did not like it. I did not know this before. He insists it is his best work.

As for this book, it is quite beautiful. The first part has more of a story, more humor, is really quite a page turner. As the writer says, it is the "struggle of living", and as Beckett has said, "there is nothing funnier than unhappiness", and this is true here, but in the second half, the tone shifts to the "despair of being", and then everything is darker, sadder and the rainlight sentences are effective in bringing out these somber moods, I think. The philosophical implications, I don't agree with but it is a nice attempt.

[Michael Slembrouck · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of those delightful little books that would probably elicit a comparison to the TV show Seinfeld in most reviews (which would not be entirely uncalled for at all). It’s an amusing, thoughtful book essentially about nothing, and a pleasant way to spend some time sharing life’s ennui with someone else. I do find the whole “it’s a love story” thing odd, though, as to me it seemed less like an actual romance and more like the main character inserting himself into the woman’s life until she relents. Like I said, comparisons to Seinfeld are apt.

[Abe Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one will sneak up on you. It's sort of a romance without a clear sense of emotion, and it doesn't give you everything you want, especially as it comes to a soft ending, but what it does give you is often very funny and perfectly observed, much like the somewhat random images on the instamatic camera of the title. It's also very short.

[Vincent Hernot · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad really - a curious mixture of the strangeness of Echenoz or Carrere, stylistically bare and allusive, and so in the end the question is a bit: was it deep? Or did the style create a sense of it's-got-to-be-deep, while, really, it wasn't quite?
Not for the first time do I ask myself the question with him...

[Isaac · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5!

Charming, funny, poignant!
Randomly found this book at the bookstore and am pleased as punch with the decision to buy it.

Big fan of the dreamy atmospheric moments found throughout. It’s also deeply contemplative like, sorry I can’t come to your thing tonight I’m still unpacking.

Recommend!

[Samuel B · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very philosophical novel but also a humorous one; some people might not say minimalist but definitely minimal—it is a very quick read and feels pared down not just because of it’s short length.

The descriptions of the horror and intimacy of film photography the obscene and brutal reality of photos is excellent touch.

[Clemensinio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Braucht bisschen, bis es ins Rollen kommt, vor allem die ganze Gasflaschen-Eskapade ging für mich bisschen zu lang, aber hat wirklich wunderschöne Momente und die Love-Story is, auch wenn man merkt dass das Buch echt schon älter ist, ziemlich süß. Und sehr gut weglesbar.

[Larry Ggggggggggggggggggggggggg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sorta funny like when he eats chips on the toilet

[TamaraLeila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Une lecture rapide et très sympa ! :) Merci le cours de littérature comparée

[Jeff Russo · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading this - I have no idea what to think of it

[Patrick Hanlon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meandering plot with not as evident a narrative drive as it ought to have had. Brief but still a hard read.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laughed, a lot.