Story of Love in Solitude

by Roger Lewinter, Rachel Careau (Translator)

A notable discovery of a truly original voice Several stories inhabit Roger Lewinter’s first small book to appear in English, Story of Love in Solitude . Each story takes the form of a a spider who won’t stop returning; camellias that flourish and then die; dying parents whose presence is always yet felt; turning again and again to work on Rilke translations; a younger man whom the narrator sees each week at the Geneva street markets. All the tales touch on the possibility, the open possibility of love―a loop without end. Lewinter’s short fictional works are at once prose poems and a form of dreaming; they are akin to the great French tradition of things sparking emotions and emotions sparking things―part Sarraute, part Robbe-Grillet, part Perec. Plot is not really the point of his meditative works. Lewinter concerns himself more with perception, apperception, and sudden inflections of loss and beauty meet in an explosion of joy, which becomes, “in its brilliance, a means of transmittal.” 

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, France

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Roger Lewinter was born in Montauban, France, in 1941, to Austrian Jewish parents. The family moved to Switzerland during the war, and he has lived much of his life in Geneva. For more than forty years he has worked as a writer (of both literary and scholarly works), an editor, and a translator (of Georg Groddeck, Karl Kraus, Elias Canetti, Robert Walser, and Rilke, among others). Among his dozen books are three works of fiction.

Reviews

[Jeff Bursey]

Review to come, so here I'll say this is work of tangled sentences that require the reader to work at figuring out what's being said. All for that.

This is a bilingual edition (english and french). Also, this is an ARC so might differ from the finished work, due out in October.

Here is a longer review:

http://winnipegreview.com/2016/09/and...

[jeremy · Rating 1 out of 5]

it may have been my punctuated reading. or perhaps the robbe-grillet aftertaste. but roger lewinter's story of love in solitude (historie d'amour dans la solitude) left me feeling nearly nothing. the three very short stories in this brief collection seemed more about revealing the blueprint or scaffolding upon which stories are built, rather than being stories themselves. this type of fiction is very difficult (for this reader) to swallow. it might well be enough to put me off from the frenchman's simultaneously released (and seemingly more promising) the attraction of things.

*translated from the french by rachel careau

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love it or hate it, you can read it in the time it takes you to watch an episode of your least favorite of the shows you're watching. So even the experience of hating it might prove to be a more valuable use of your 30 minutes.

[Joseph Schreiber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Upgraded my rating from 4 to 5. This tiny book and the novella The Attraction of Things take time to process, and appreciate. My thoughts on both are gathered here: https://roughghosts.com/2016/12/29/th...

[Gabrielle Squailia · Rating 5 out of 5]

An anxious incantation in long, tail-devouring paragraphs that bring to mind a horny W.G. Sebald in the darkest part of winter.

[Heronimo Gieronymus · Rating 5 out of 5]

STORY OF LOVE IN SOLITUDE is a very compact volume containing three brief pieces of remarkable elegance. Roger Lewinter as writer of literary prose has clearly taken some time (why!?!) to find his way to English readers. Based on the work contained herein it is clear that we are dealing w/ a singular artist of unique vision. There are a few things going on here: the blurb furnished for the New Directions edition by Lydia Davis makes sense as both writer share a common (if breathtakingly apt) attention to workaday things like housekeeping and trips to the market (as though such matters were genuine philosophical conundrums); the works are all composed of long, elaborate sentences that invoke writers like Proust, László Krasznahorkai, and Javier Marías; the extreme attention to the work of language in relation to form (there is an EXTREME attention to form here) invoke poetry, especially Rilke (who is discussed in these pieces, and whom Lewinter has translated, said work of translation also being referenced herein). That the first two pieces in large part focus (complexly) on insects penetrating domestic space, causes me to think of William H. Gass's story "Order of Insects," which may or may not be an actual influence (I feel that it is in general a story that has majorly influenced other writers). The final story, "Nameless," is the true tour de force here, detailing as it does a prolonged and targeted erotic longing arranged according to a complicated and fractured time line. The fact that the word "solitude" is in the title tells you a great deal about what the book (as well as the creative life in general) is about. Lewinter is almost entirely a poet in the realm of prose, and is represented here as a fiercely solitary man, at ease as such. Erotic longing (registering far short of actual torment) and care extended to plants and insects are the conduits through which he connects to life outside of himself (and books, and writing, from which he is essentially constituted). These extremely beautiful and measured pieces (little masterpieces, each) will speak above all to the solitary.

[Charlie Kruse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really strange and focused, like a kitschy version of Basinski's disintegration loops, a constant repetition of form in different variations until a conclusion is reached, if not just found. But I don't really find them fun to read, more so interesting, and I wonder what Lewinter is trying to do evoking this increasingly frantic present. Not so much a stream-of-consciousness as so much a whirlpool

[Jennifer Croft · Rating 3 out of 5]

Absolutely love the first (title) story in this otherwise somewhat uneven (yet slim) collection. Moments of dazzling brilliance and sensitivity, and the translation is great. Just ultimately a bit unsubstantial, like "Attraction of Things."

[mb ! · Rating 1 out of 5]

i wasn't the most charmed in english or french

[Frank Karioris · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a book whose perspicacious - and perfunctory - punctuation is both its strength and weakness. Like Defoe's Crusoe, or Joyce's Ulysses, the book - a set of interlinked short stories or vignettes - runs from comma to comma, to dash to dash, often with semi-colons in-between. The resultant discord leaves the reader fumbling slightly, looking for what is the sub-clausal statement, and which is the main sentence. This stylistic choice runs throughout the text, with limited periods around - giving the British name for periods their full verve therefore.