What do you think?
Rate this book
Mise en pièces
« Elle construit un palais de mémoire qui, à mesure qu’il se peuple de sexes nouveaux, se complique de couloirs, d’annexes et de dépendances. Les portes y sont toujours plus nombreuses. Elle aurait pu prendre des photos et en faire collection, elle aurait pu tenir un carnet de comptes ou de croquis, utiliser comme support un tableur ou un journal intime, confier à d’autres ses souvenirs plus ou moins retouchés, elle aurait pu oublier – elle a préféré construire un palais. »
De chambre en chambre, Jeanne rencontre des hommes. Elle verrouille des portes qui l’enferment avec des inconnus et les rouvre un peu plus tard, emportant avec elle le souvenir du sexe qu’elle a mis à nu, oubliant la personne.
Imaginons une vie qui ne serait que sexuelle.
Jeanne circule dans Paris et y trame une géographie fantasmatique. Parfois, elle tombe dans les filets qu’elle a elle-même tendus.
Une romance à un personnage. Une romance d’aujourd’hui.
De chambre en chambre, Jeanne rencontre des hommes. Elle verrouille des portes qui l’enferment avec des inconnus et les rouvre un peu plus tard, emportant avec elle le souvenir du sexe qu’elle a mis à nu, oubliant la personne.
Imaginons une vie qui ne serait que sexuelle.
Jeanne circule dans Paris et y trame une géographie fantasmatique. Parfois, elle tombe dans les filets qu’elle a elle-même tendus.
Une romance à un personnage. Une romance d’aujourd’hui.
160 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 12, 2017
22 people are currently reading
1166 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews
October 8, 2019
We are fairly used to women in fiction being reduced to their body parts, as described by male authors (or at least narrators). Perhaps this book only seems radical for switching things round – here it is men, faceless and inconsequential, who are disaggregated into the parts of their anatomy.
Well, one part in particular. Jeanne, the protagonist, is a collectionneuse of sorts (hence the English title). What she collects is penises. Not by means of a crazed amputation spree, although that might have been a more dramatic, Virginie-Despentes-style approach; rather, she arranges to have innumerable casual sexual encounters, and then simply memorises her partners' genitals in intricate detail. (Some people spend a lot of energy trying to forget such things, but it takes all sorts.) She keeps all of these memorised specimens in her ‘memory palace’ (which I thought was a term they invented for that Sherlock Holmes adaptation, but I guess it's a thing), where she can reflect on them at her leisure. She has no memory whatsoever of the accompanying faces, the men's backgrounds, even their names; before they have even left the hotel room, she's forgotten everything else about them.
This is quite a hard book to latch on to, and one of the reasons for that is that Jeanne is almost as insubstantial as her assignations. We don't know whether she is young or old, single or married, rich or poor. We don't know what she does for a living, if anything. We don't know her last name, or what her home looks like, or how she grew up.
What's going on here? The point, I think, is that Leger is deliberately resisting giving us anything that might be taken as a ‘explanation’ of Jeanne's habits. Jeanne is all inexplicable appetite, and no pathology is to be allowed. One of the few things we know about her is that when she was younger, she tried to read books by female novelists about sexual freedom, but somehow they never worked out as hoped:
And this is still as bafflingly true as it ever was – all those Bovarys and Kareninas, the Edna Pontelliers and Marquises de Merteuil, right through to the Hausfraus and Adèles – they no sooner get their leg over than they end up under a train. (One thinks yet again of Angela Carter's comment that after Chaucer it would be long time before a woman could fuck who she wanted in literature without getting punished for it.) This book is, I think, at least in part, a response to Leïla Slimani's Dans le jardin de l'ogre, a response which determinedly resists the ridiculous idea that female sexual desire inevitably indicates depression or breakdown or the effects of abuse.
Arguably, this point may have been more forcefully made by giving Jeanne a tangible, balanced, and happy life, rather than by making her a complete cipher. Still, for all this book's slightly arthouse and humourless choices in approach, it does have some things to say, and it's unlikely that you'll read another book about a cock collector this year.
Well, one part in particular. Jeanne, the protagonist, is a collectionneuse of sorts (hence the English title). What she collects is penises. Not by means of a crazed amputation spree, although that might have been a more dramatic, Virginie-Despentes-style approach; rather, she arranges to have innumerable casual sexual encounters, and then simply memorises her partners' genitals in intricate detail. (Some people spend a lot of energy trying to forget such things, but it takes all sorts.) She keeps all of these memorised specimens in her ‘memory palace’ (which I thought was a term they invented for that Sherlock Holmes adaptation, but I guess it's a thing), where she can reflect on them at her leisure. She has no memory whatsoever of the accompanying faces, the men's backgrounds, even their names; before they have even left the hotel room, she's forgotten everything else about them.
This is quite a hard book to latch on to, and one of the reasons for that is that Jeanne is almost as insubstantial as her assignations. We don't know whether she is young or old, single or married, rich or poor. We don't know what she does for a living, if anything. We don't know her last name, or what her home looks like, or how she grew up.
What's going on here? The point, I think, is that Leger is deliberately resisting giving us anything that might be taken as a ‘explanation’ of Jeanne's habits. Jeanne is all inexplicable appetite, and no pathology is to be allowed. One of the few things we know about her is that when she was younger, she tried to read books by female novelists about sexual freedom, but somehow they never worked out as hoped:
At the start, the heroines were audacious and amoral; she'd burn through the first few pages, the subversiveness making the lines race past. Then the pace began to slacken, became a gentle pulse that slowly weakened, until its vital functions were completely arrested. By halfway through, the heroines had been unequivocally changed into psychic composites designed for explanatory purposes – and the novel, which had seemed wild and free, now preferred to play around within a deeply limited field of meanings, where sex could be nothing more than a symptom, the sign of an absence to be filled, an anxiety to be pacified, a wound to be slowly scarred over. An appetite for sex in and of itself was not a strength, but the result of a profound weakness.
À leurs débuts, les héroïnes étaient audacieuses et amorales ; les premières pages flamboyaient, la subversion faisait battre les lignes. Puis le battement s'affaiblissait, devenait une infime pulsation qui déclinait à petit feu, jusqu'à l'arrêt complet de ses fonctions vitales : à mi-course, les héroïnes étaient définitivement changées en composés psychiques élaborés à des fins d'explication et le roman qu'on croyait libre et sauvage préférait s'ébattre dans un enclos de significations ultra-restreint où le sexe ne pouvait être autre chose qu'un symptôme, le signe d'un manque à combler, d'une angoisse à apaiser, d'une blessure à cicatrisation lente. Le goût de sexe, lui, n'était pas une puissance, mais la conséquence d'une extrême faiblesse.
And this is still as bafflingly true as it ever was – all those Bovarys and Kareninas, the Edna Pontelliers and Marquises de Merteuil, right through to the Hausfraus and Adèles – they no sooner get their leg over than they end up under a train. (One thinks yet again of Angela Carter's comment that after Chaucer it would be long time before a woman could fuck who she wanted in literature without getting punished for it.) This book is, I think, at least in part, a response to Leïla Slimani's Dans le jardin de l'ogre, a response which determinedly resists the ridiculous idea that female sexual desire inevitably indicates depression or breakdown or the effects of abuse.
Arguably, this point may have been more forcefully made by giving Jeanne a tangible, balanced, and happy life, rather than by making her a complete cipher. Still, for all this book's slightly arthouse and humourless choices in approach, it does have some things to say, and it's unlikely that you'll read another book about a cock collector this year.
September 15, 2019
It feigns naivety, confines itself to the factual and gives no reasons at all, no essential explanations that can explain such bizarre behaviour. Loosely, it produces several irregular pieces, but doesn't take the trouble to fit them together with the help of nuts and bolts, without which the whole assembly is doomed to collapse: the whys and the becauses.
The Collection is the excellent debut translation by Laura Francis from Nina Leger's Mise en pièces, a novel that starts with explicit content from the first page right through to the (identical - as this is, see below, a circulatory novel) last page, winner of the Le prix Anaïs-Nin "récompense une œuvre qui se distingue par une voix et une sensibilité singulières, l'originalité de son imaginaire et une audace face à l'ordre moral" (inaugural winner Vernon Subutex, 1).
The ostensible subject of the novel is Jeanne, a woman who travels around Paris seeking assignations with men, although not nightclubs and bars, but rather her sexual geography is composed of places where bodies pass with their personalities undiscernible: shopping centres, public transport, boulevards and avenues.
Gare du Lyon - EXIT LEFT - pale neon lights. Jeanne stares at the tropical gardens caged by glass walls. Dark, mordant greens; droplets of water on the branches; leaves that are upright or drooping, bushy or flat like the oars of small, agile boats; glistening stamens, grey earth. Real plants mingle with plastic fascimiles, but the brief halt at the station and the reflections in the glass make it impossible to distinguish the real from the fake.
She takes the men back to a variety of hotels (only hotels offer the neutrality required) and after their, on her part at least, wordless encounters she erases all memory of the men except one:
She is constructing a memory palace that, as it fills with new penises, becomes intricate with corridors, annexes and outbuildings. The number of doors is always growing.
It is in hotels that she finds the necessary elements to furnish her palace. She appropriated a doormat and some candlesticks from the Hôtel Saint Pierre, net curtains from Timhotel, bedspreads from the Hôtel du Delta and the Hôtel Cambrian, some obsolete ashtrays and two bedside lamps from the Hôtel de Nice. The palace is an exquisite cadaver of the Parisian hotel trade.
While the rooms retain the complete memory of the penises, nothing else penetrates: the man disappears, his image consumed by Jeanne's magnified gaze.
(Jeanne instantly went up in my estimation for only mentally appropriating things from hotel rooms)
Originally she uses a pseudonym, then after a while she refuses to even give a name, or to agree to another meeting:
From now, Jeanne does not see anyone more than once, and has no further because to Melanie, preferring silence in the place for. She also prefers not to know the name of the man she is unzipping. If, despite everything, he speaks, if him embarks on the details of his professional life and outlines his future prospects, she focused her attention on the shape of his penis curving in his boxer shorts, and on the two plastic pearly buttons she will soon unfasten. The rest, all the rest, falls into forgetfulness; and Jeanne’s forgetfulness is as dense as her memory is precise.
Indeed she is at first shocked, then pleased at the success of her erasure, when she realises that she has gone with a man she had previously encountered, recognising only when she goes to place him in her memory palace.
The fascinating aspect of The Collection is what it isn't. Jeanne erases all but one memory of the men she encounters, but at the same time the novel itself tells us nothing about Jeanne. While the narrator speculates, we learn nothing about her, and there is no narrative arc in the sense of any explanation or justification for her behaviour - the deliberately absent whys and the becauses nor any sense of evolution or redemption. Jeanne looked for models for herself in the pages of (in)famous novels, only to be disappointed:
The same pattern was invariably deployed. At the beginning the heroines were bold and immoral; the first pages blazed, the lines throbbed with subversion. Then, this heartbeat diminished, became a minuscule pulse which dwindled little by little, until vital function last shut down completely; halfway through, the heroines had been irrevocably transformed into psychological composites devised for the purpose of explication and the novel, which had appeared free and wild, preferred to frolic in an enclosure of highly limited significations where sex could be nothing other than a symptom, the sign of a void that needed filling, of an anguish to be appeased, of a slowly healing wound. The taste for sex itself was not a strength, but the consequence of extreme weakness.
And Nina Leger is a fascinating essay in Granta (https://granta.com/nina-leger-notes-o...), again translated by Laura Francis, tells us about the evolution of her approach:
The Collection is the excellent debut translation by Laura Francis from Nina Leger's Mise en pièces, a novel that starts with explicit content from the first page right through to the (identical - as this is, see below, a circulatory novel) last page, winner of the Le prix Anaïs-Nin "récompense une œuvre qui se distingue par une voix et une sensibilité singulières, l'originalité de son imaginaire et une audace face à l'ordre moral" (inaugural winner Vernon Subutex, 1).
The ostensible subject of the novel is Jeanne, a woman who travels around Paris seeking assignations with men, although not nightclubs and bars, but rather her sexual geography is composed of places where bodies pass with their personalities undiscernible: shopping centres, public transport, boulevards and avenues.
Gare du Lyon - EXIT LEFT - pale neon lights. Jeanne stares at the tropical gardens caged by glass walls. Dark, mordant greens; droplets of water on the branches; leaves that are upright or drooping, bushy or flat like the oars of small, agile boats; glistening stamens, grey earth. Real plants mingle with plastic fascimiles, but the brief halt at the station and the reflections in the glass make it impossible to distinguish the real from the fake.
She takes the men back to a variety of hotels (only hotels offer the neutrality required) and after their, on her part at least, wordless encounters she erases all memory of the men except one:
She is constructing a memory palace that, as it fills with new penises, becomes intricate with corridors, annexes and outbuildings. The number of doors is always growing.
It is in hotels that she finds the necessary elements to furnish her palace. She appropriated a doormat and some candlesticks from the Hôtel Saint Pierre, net curtains from Timhotel, bedspreads from the Hôtel du Delta and the Hôtel Cambrian, some obsolete ashtrays and two bedside lamps from the Hôtel de Nice. The palace is an exquisite cadaver of the Parisian hotel trade.
While the rooms retain the complete memory of the penises, nothing else penetrates: the man disappears, his image consumed by Jeanne's magnified gaze.
(Jeanne instantly went up in my estimation for only mentally appropriating things from hotel rooms)
Originally she uses a pseudonym, then after a while she refuses to even give a name, or to agree to another meeting:
From now, Jeanne does not see anyone more than once, and has no further because to Melanie, preferring silence in the place for. She also prefers not to know the name of the man she is unzipping. If, despite everything, he speaks, if him embarks on the details of his professional life and outlines his future prospects, she focused her attention on the shape of his penis curving in his boxer shorts, and on the two plastic pearly buttons she will soon unfasten. The rest, all the rest, falls into forgetfulness; and Jeanne’s forgetfulness is as dense as her memory is precise.
Indeed she is at first shocked, then pleased at the success of her erasure, when she realises that she has gone with a man she had previously encountered, recognising only when she goes to place him in her memory palace.
The fascinating aspect of The Collection is what it isn't. Jeanne erases all but one memory of the men she encounters, but at the same time the novel itself tells us nothing about Jeanne. While the narrator speculates, we learn nothing about her, and there is no narrative arc in the sense of any explanation or justification for her behaviour - the deliberately absent whys and the becauses nor any sense of evolution or redemption. Jeanne looked for models for herself in the pages of (in)famous novels, only to be disappointed:
The same pattern was invariably deployed. At the beginning the heroines were bold and immoral; the first pages blazed, the lines throbbed with subversion. Then, this heartbeat diminished, became a minuscule pulse which dwindled little by little, until vital function last shut down completely; halfway through, the heroines had been irrevocably transformed into psychological composites devised for the purpose of explication and the novel, which had appeared free and wild, preferred to frolic in an enclosure of highly limited significations where sex could be nothing other than a symptom, the sign of a void that needed filling, of an anguish to be appeased, of a slowly healing wound. The taste for sex itself was not a strength, but the consequence of extreme weakness.
And Nina Leger is a fascinating essay in Granta (https://granta.com/nina-leger-notes-o...), again translated by Laura Francis, tells us about the evolution of her approach:
As soon as I gave Jeanne characteristics (an age, a personality, a profession, etc.), these elements appeared to be determinants of her attitude to sex. ... The smallest clarification became explication, and the more clarification I gave, the more I reduced Jeanne’s liberty: her sexual life was no longer a choice but a consequence. Western culture has forged hundreds of narrative frameworks that we perpetually apply to female sexuality. ... But it was not my aim to reassure the reader by offering them explanations, even less so to confine Jeanne in determinisms.
...
To say nothing about her was the only way to allow her to be everything. I therefore gave up knowing her age, imagining her physique, being privy to the rest of her life, and it was from this act of suppression that The Collection truly began. The novel took shape through this absence, was constructed from this position.
...
[To] avoid any note (no matter how miniscule or discreet) of condemnation or reform in the novel, the most efficient solution proved to be to forsake the narrative framework entirely. There is no plot in The Collection. Jeanne does not transform and the reader that follows her does not encounter in her movements the reassuring trajectory that would convey them from a beginning to an end, via the middle. The Collection is not an evolutive novel, it is a circulatory novel.
August 5, 2019
Of the many reading initiatives that occur online, Women in Translation Month (#WITMonth) which happens in August is one of my favourites. So I’ve started the month with “The Collection” by Nina Leger, a slim newly-translated novel from France which has a very attractive cover although it’s most definitely not about mushrooms. It concerns a woman’s anonymous sexual encounters and while this might seem straightforward it’s given me a lot to think about it. So much so I have much more to say about this book than some other much longer novels and that’s not just because of its provocative subject matter. I was surprised by how emotionally engaged I felt with the story as well – especially because the full details of its protagonist’s identity remain pointedly obscure.
Read my full review of The Collection by Nina Leger on LonesomeReader
Read my full review of The Collection by Nina Leger on LonesomeReader
August 18, 2019
Too much penis, not enough plot. In fact, penis IS the plot. Pure filth, and not in a way I found at all sexy. I was reminded of Lisa Zeidner's Layover on occasion; a novel I enjoyed far more than this book. There were some definite attempts at creating depth of character here, but these moments were nowhere near frequent enough for me. And damn, I love this cover, I so wanted to love the contents too.
August 1, 2019
Cock-filled nonsense.
October 17, 2019
1.5, generously rounded up.
Leave it to the French to not only make penises boring, but cerebral. This is one of those short books, I won't dignify it with the title of novel, that just goes on and on with virtually no plot, and with long sections of intellectual blather that really adds up to nothing. There are a few interesting passages, but these are rather few and far between, and I won't remember a thing about it within... well, what time is it now?
Leave it to the French to not only make penises boring, but cerebral. This is one of those short books, I won't dignify it with the title of novel, that just goes on and on with virtually no plot, and with long sections of intellectual blather that really adds up to nothing. There are a few interesting passages, but these are rather few and far between, and I won't remember a thing about it within... well, what time is it now?
November 10, 2019
Jeanne collects penises.
She is constructing a memory palace that, as it fills with new penises, becomes intricate with corridors, annexes and outbuildings. The number of doors is always growing.
By thus spatializing the memories of her sexual encounters, she divests the men of personality. This depersonalization allows her to relish sexuality without constraints. It is a cognitive space of her own, a place she can visit whenever she wishes.
Jeanne passes through her domain in the evening, at bedtime, in the morning, upon waking; she roams around it between appointments, in the midst of loud dinners where conversations stream out without spilling a drop onto her, in the crystalline sharpness of the beauty counters in department stores, under the halogen bulbs of waiting rooms.
The novel thus juxtaposes Jeanne’s physical and mental spaces, probing the distinction between the rooms in which she has sex and the rooms in her mind where she isolates male genitalia.
Although this fascination may appear absurd, Nina Leger achieves something fresh with the idea in her second novel The Collection, elegantly translated from the French by Laura Francis. Comprised of fittingly short segments that amount to some 150 pages, the novel captivates not only on account of its succinct and powerful form, but also on the merit of its suggestive narrative. Stories that yield more questions than answers tend to linger in my mind for a longer time. I find the novel successful in this respect. Accordingly, Jeanne’s ill-defined identity plays a central role. Apart from the clearly outlined palace, we know considerably little about her.
We cannot distinguish the contours of this body, nor the objects that surround it, nor the status that animates it. Is it one of those bodies that change and appear suddenly several years later in another form – filled out, or slimmed down – with a complexion, a haircut and an attitude that are not those you used to know? Or is it one of those rare types that are unchanging: elements of the child persevering in the adult, as much as the latter is already visible in an outline of the former? Is it striking, or neutral? Is it well proportioned, or does it display those irregularities which can sometimes contain the beauty of a figure – and often, its failure? Jeanne: is she beautiful, or is she sexy? Is her body loud? How does her skin absorb or reflect the light?
She is constructing a memory palace that, as it fills with new penises, becomes intricate with corridors, annexes and outbuildings. The number of doors is always growing.
By thus spatializing the memories of her sexual encounters, she divests the men of personality. This depersonalization allows her to relish sexuality without constraints. It is a cognitive space of her own, a place she can visit whenever she wishes.
Jeanne passes through her domain in the evening, at bedtime, in the morning, upon waking; she roams around it between appointments, in the midst of loud dinners where conversations stream out without spilling a drop onto her, in the crystalline sharpness of the beauty counters in department stores, under the halogen bulbs of waiting rooms.
The novel thus juxtaposes Jeanne’s physical and mental spaces, probing the distinction between the rooms in which she has sex and the rooms in her mind where she isolates male genitalia.
Although this fascination may appear absurd, Nina Leger achieves something fresh with the idea in her second novel The Collection, elegantly translated from the French by Laura Francis. Comprised of fittingly short segments that amount to some 150 pages, the novel captivates not only on account of its succinct and powerful form, but also on the merit of its suggestive narrative. Stories that yield more questions than answers tend to linger in my mind for a longer time. I find the novel successful in this respect. Accordingly, Jeanne’s ill-defined identity plays a central role. Apart from the clearly outlined palace, we know considerably little about her.
We cannot distinguish the contours of this body, nor the objects that surround it, nor the status that animates it. Is it one of those bodies that change and appear suddenly several years later in another form – filled out, or slimmed down – with a complexion, a haircut and an attitude that are not those you used to know? Or is it one of those rare types that are unchanging: elements of the child persevering in the adult, as much as the latter is already visible in an outline of the former? Is it striking, or neutral? Is it well proportioned, or does it display those irregularities which can sometimes contain the beauty of a figure – and often, its failure? Jeanne: is she beautiful, or is she sexy? Is her body loud? How does her skin absorb or reflect the light?
March 9, 2020
An Ode to the Penis... what the heck was this book?
June 21, 2020
This was impressive and well written. I am very sure a lot of it went over my head, which is why I wasn’t always able to connect to it. Nevertheless I really enjoyed reading it. It’s definitely artistic, weird and sensual. I can’t help but be intrigued and stay intrigued by this story, since it offers no real solution. The way the story stays unresolved and the way in which it doesn’t explain itself makes it mysterious and elusive, yet consuming. If you’re into literary fiction with a bit of a weird and erotic twist, you’re bound to enjoy this.
July 8, 2019
This book missed me. I can see, in the distance, what it is meant to be, what it is meant to evoke, but for me, it sailed over my head - too cerebral for me.
Reminds me of Fermentation by Angelica Jacob, or The Fermata by Baker - using sexual connotations as the brushstrokes of a larger and more weighty idea.
Read if you enjoy the higher planes of fiction - the dream sequences, the stream of consciousness, the giant metaphors. Its not for readers who just enjoy the 'simpler' story novels.
Reminds me of Fermentation by Angelica Jacob, or The Fermata by Baker - using sexual connotations as the brushstrokes of a larger and more weighty idea.
Read if you enjoy the higher planes of fiction - the dream sequences, the stream of consciousness, the giant metaphors. Its not for readers who just enjoy the 'simpler' story novels.
August 16, 2020
I’m feeling conflicted about this one. On the one hand, I love Leger’s exploration of sexuality and of the female gaze - however because this is a fairly plotless novel I wanted more in terms of character development, which unfortunately we just don’t get. Because of this I found I didn’t really care all that much. I still appreciate the book - it has some good writing and some interesting ideas but for me personally, it fell a little flat. 2.5 ⭐️
September 8, 2019
This is a book about cocks. A lot of them. A woman in Paris, about whom we know virtually nothing bar her name, Jeanne, has made them her specialist subject. Her modus operandi is to feign illness in doorways, then lead the gallant male who has come to her aid to a hotel. Jeanne likes hotels, and she likes cocks. In fact she has constructed a memory palace, the rooms of which she is free to wander at will, recalling “black skin, dark veins, light, supple testicles; red hairs, glans a purplish blue as though bruised, flushed penis; penis hunched up on itself like a burrowing animal; blurred penis, tortured outline; bare cylinder, pointed-cone pediment, sex-blueprint.” Jeanne has no interest in the men beyond this, and Leger gives virtually no other details about them, or indeed about Jeanne. In fact she teases us with the personae Jeanne might or might not adopt: neglected wife, recovering bulimic, child abuse victim.
Not much happens in The Collection beyond cock and hotel bedrooms. Jeanne visits a “sex shope” and builds an impressive collection of dildos. She watches a bit of porn. She tries to find representations of herself in fiction and, unsurprisingly, can’t.
As a formal exercise in subverting the male gaze – Jeanne’s priapic career begins when she finds herself staring at a man’s flies on the metro and realises that he is “petrified… divested of his rights over his own penis” – The Collection works brilliantly. As a piece of fiction – less so. The lack of context, of any emotional interpretation of Jeannes’ sexual odyssey, becomes fairly limiting, fairly quickly. Best take it at its face value then: a survey of a particular portion of male anatomy. And of hotels.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
Not much happens in The Collection beyond cock and hotel bedrooms. Jeanne visits a “sex shope” and builds an impressive collection of dildos. She watches a bit of porn. She tries to find representations of herself in fiction and, unsurprisingly, can’t.
As a formal exercise in subverting the male gaze – Jeanne’s priapic career begins when she finds herself staring at a man’s flies on the metro and realises that he is “petrified… divested of his rights over his own penis” – The Collection works brilliantly. As a piece of fiction – less so. The lack of context, of any emotional interpretation of Jeannes’ sexual odyssey, becomes fairly limiting, fairly quickly. Best take it at its face value then: a survey of a particular portion of male anatomy. And of hotels.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
October 5, 2019
to sum it up:
"horny parisian girl pretends to faint in order to gain the attention of men whose dicks she will later suck in hotel rooms"
that's literally the plot.
I'm not even kidding.
I'm giving it 2 stars out of 5 because it was still quite well written but the story (if there was one) was pretty boring. I have nothing against books that solely rely on descriptions, but the plot itself is so poor... the book feels quite empty.
enjoyed the writing nonetheless.
edit:
after many thoughts i decided to give it only one star.
waste of potential.
anyways.
moving on.
"horny parisian girl pretends to faint in order to gain the attention of men whose dicks she will later suck in hotel rooms"
that's literally the plot.
I'm not even kidding.
I'm giving it 2 stars out of 5 because it was still quite well written but the story (if there was one) was pretty boring. I have nothing against books that solely rely on descriptions, but the plot itself is so poor... the book feels quite empty.
enjoyed the writing nonetheless.
edit:
after many thoughts i decided to give it only one star.
waste of potential.
anyways.
moving on.
August 23, 2019
Penises, beautiful language, very French.
February 1, 2021
Beautifully language and beautifully translated (well , I imagine , as I'm not a French speaker), I was intrigued by the idea of this novella. A young woman in France who pursues casual sexual encounters. These are impersonal and so is she. We get vague ideas about who she is/wants to be/could be and that she is a modern woman who seems to live for sex with these faceless men in soulless encounters in hotel rooms. This is the book in a nut shell and gorgeous prose aside , all I got from it.
She constructs a Sherlock style 'memory palace' of the penises that she has encountered at some point. I had to laugh out loud at this bit.
This would have worked as a longer short story but wasn't for me really.
She constructs a Sherlock style 'memory palace' of the penises that she has encountered at some point. I had to laugh out loud at this bit.
This would have worked as a longer short story but wasn't for me really.
April 7, 2025
"Only the penises remain, avidly contemplated, and in the sharply angled corridors, Jeanne's steps once again ring out in perfect solitude."
Well, this book takes the idea of a mind palace to a whole new level. I don't even know how I would describe this narrative (?) except I feel that labelling it under "erotica" would be a complete misjudgement of its content and message.
Essentially I'm going to foister this book on every friend so I can discuss with them what they think this is actually about (because I'm a good 30% unsure). Reader, you have been warned.
7/10 - it does amaze me how good an author and translator partnership is when the words have such lyricalness, flow and poignancy to them across languages
Well, this book takes the idea of a mind palace to a whole new level. I don't even know how I would describe this narrative (?) except I feel that labelling it under "erotica" would be a complete misjudgement of its content and message.
Essentially I'm going to foister this book on every friend so I can discuss with them what they think this is actually about (because I'm a good 30% unsure). Reader, you have been warned.
7/10 - it does amaze me how good an author and translator partnership is when the words have such lyricalness, flow and poignancy to them across languages
May 6, 2025
unerotic, cold, the negative space of a woman, of a story.
enjoyed thoroughly
enjoyed thoroughly
January 31, 2024
Quite a disorientating read. Bodies, time and reality are all mashed up together in an exploration of gender performativity and female sexuality. Reliable story settings and contexts are abandoned in favour of minute detail.
I’m really fascinated by this one. Nina Leger won the Prix Anaïs Nin for this so I was expecting erotic, but I feel like it’s almost deliberately un-sexy—I felt like it was challenging my idea of sexy. If it is erotic—and this is subjective of course—it’s erotic by association (penises, sexual acts, sex toys, porn, all that jazz). But passion and pleasure have been given a wry, detached treatment, splitting the body from the mind and making me realise that I think of sex and pleasure as a combination of physical and mental. This split renders the heart of the narrative kind of opaque and disorientating.
But it’s also compelling and slippery. Not just detached, but also maybe a challenge to what we think female sexuality is. If I’m finding a bit of a grey area where the ‘heart’ of the book should be, is this Leger’s intention?
Why does Jeanne do what she does, who is she really, and, ultimately (once I became aware of these questions), why am I so anxious to tie up the loose ends? One explanation is that Leger is acutely aware of confusion and moral uneasiness about women’s sexuality—the fear of a distinctly female desire which doesn’t conform—and has created a character whose identity is so fractured in terms of context and motive that there’s little certainty to cling on to, and without this information it’s much harder to make judgements. We can only pin down Jeanne’s movements when she’s building her collection; that is, interacting with a penis (or planning to).
Jeanne carries out actions decisively, meeting with no pushback. Though “sometimes she dreams of determinisms, imposed plans of action”, nothing impedes her purposeful progress through hotel rooms, adding penises to the rooms of her mind palace. Go on, Jeanne.
I’m really fascinated by this one. Nina Leger won the Prix Anaïs Nin for this so I was expecting erotic, but I feel like it’s almost deliberately un-sexy—I felt like it was challenging my idea of sexy. If it is erotic—and this is subjective of course—it’s erotic by association (penises, sexual acts, sex toys, porn, all that jazz). But passion and pleasure have been given a wry, detached treatment, splitting the body from the mind and making me realise that I think of sex and pleasure as a combination of physical and mental. This split renders the heart of the narrative kind of opaque and disorientating.
But it’s also compelling and slippery. Not just detached, but also maybe a challenge to what we think female sexuality is. If I’m finding a bit of a grey area where the ‘heart’ of the book should be, is this Leger’s intention?
Why does Jeanne do what she does, who is she really, and, ultimately (once I became aware of these questions), why am I so anxious to tie up the loose ends? One explanation is that Leger is acutely aware of confusion and moral uneasiness about women’s sexuality—the fear of a distinctly female desire which doesn’t conform—and has created a character whose identity is so fractured in terms of context and motive that there’s little certainty to cling on to, and without this information it’s much harder to make judgements. We can only pin down Jeanne’s movements when she’s building her collection; that is, interacting with a penis (or planning to).
Jeanne carries out actions decisively, meeting with no pushback. Though “sometimes she dreams of determinisms, imposed plans of action”, nothing impedes her purposeful progress through hotel rooms, adding penises to the rooms of her mind palace. Go on, Jeanne.
February 3, 2021
I read this book two years ago and it still lingered. This was my second reading and it didn't disappoint. I'm still intrigued by the mysteries in this book.
The Collection provides a new perspective on casual sex. It’s a refreshing, non-judgmental story with sharp observations. Leger’s detached writing style brings this story to a desolate level. The protagonist Jeanne is unapologetic and doesn’t explain herself or her need to build a memory palace of penises. She gives nothing of herself away, not to the men she encounters nor to the reader.
Highly recommend this if you want to read something different that will strike you with an unconventional view on female sexuality.
The Collection provides a new perspective on casual sex. It’s a refreshing, non-judgmental story with sharp observations. Leger’s detached writing style brings this story to a desolate level. The protagonist Jeanne is unapologetic and doesn’t explain herself or her need to build a memory palace of penises. She gives nothing of herself away, not to the men she encounters nor to the reader.
Highly recommend this if you want to read something different that will strike you with an unconventional view on female sexuality.
June 21, 2019
This had some excellent and deep moments of writing and some more that were just meh. The premise was really promising and had some great potential but the actual product did not really deliver. The writing was good but I did not really care about the characters that much. It just felt half finished and a bit empty. I finished this and went 'okay, what now?' as it did not leave an effect on me.
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Read
February 10, 2020I... think I loved this? TBD.
June 18, 2025
(gelezen in het Nederlands, vertaling door Sanne van der Meij, uitgegeven door Leesmagazijn)
October 10, 2019
There is no point beating about the bush. This is a novel mainly about the penis, a word that turns up on most of the 151 pages. Always penis, with the words cock and phallus only turning up once each.
It is quite a hard book to fathom, since there is no real explanation of the behavior of the central character Jeanne. Out on the Parisian streets she will appear to faint and allow herself to be helped back to a hotel room by a man, any man, whose penis she will proceed to use. But it is more than a physical thing, it is also a mental exercise. Each penis has a very clear identity, a singular shape, size, taste and texture. Jeanne will commit the memory of it to her mind, somewhere she calls the ‘palace’, many rooms and many memories. The faces and identities of the men themselves, she has no interest in. So much so, in fact, that when one penis turns out to have been encountered before, she has to go to especial trouble to create a new room in the palace to allow it to exist in two memories not one.
The feature of the book that I liked the most was the speculation about Jeanne herself. The book leads us down a host of alternatives around her identity. The narrator is having fun with us. We run through a whole list of things we know nothing about; her wardrobe, her technological objects, trinkets, habits, or job. No answers are provided. We consider whether Jeanne is a lecturer, journalist or graphic artist. There is elaborate description of the apartments that she might inhabit for these different roles. But not definitive answers. At another time we speculate on her age and the type of husband that she might have had, was she thirty-six and married to a ‘prematurely greying ophthalmologist’ or twenty-two with her adolescence devastated by bulimia? Lots of options are presented, none are settle upon.
The pleasure of this book for me is all about little sentences and observations. For example “The next day, she catches the metro at 15:00, the time of day for those with nowhere to be.” Wow. And then in the middle of more vigorous activities there are a host of observations: “That other one, who places a hand over her mouth to muffle the cries she has no intention of emitting.” And “An armpit, hairs pearled with sweat where the electric light plays in sparkles. Jeanne stares at the flickering of this delicate garland, until one particularly vigorous movement launches one droplet onto her cheek and another into the corner of her eye. The man comes and asks if she is crying.”
Jeanne is an indifferent participant in all the activities that she initiates. She even attempts to get over her strange obsessions by investing in a host of rubber toys, spending time in sex shops choosing a range of shapes and sizes. The final chapter, an exact repeat of the first, hints that she is not getting over any of it.
This is an odd book. It is not arousing, but it does have some gems of playful prose and pointed observation. I shall certainly think of it again, especially at 15:00 when I have nowhere to be.
It is quite a hard book to fathom, since there is no real explanation of the behavior of the central character Jeanne. Out on the Parisian streets she will appear to faint and allow herself to be helped back to a hotel room by a man, any man, whose penis she will proceed to use. But it is more than a physical thing, it is also a mental exercise. Each penis has a very clear identity, a singular shape, size, taste and texture. Jeanne will commit the memory of it to her mind, somewhere she calls the ‘palace’, many rooms and many memories. The faces and identities of the men themselves, she has no interest in. So much so, in fact, that when one penis turns out to have been encountered before, she has to go to especial trouble to create a new room in the palace to allow it to exist in two memories not one.
The feature of the book that I liked the most was the speculation about Jeanne herself. The book leads us down a host of alternatives around her identity. The narrator is having fun with us. We run through a whole list of things we know nothing about; her wardrobe, her technological objects, trinkets, habits, or job. No answers are provided. We consider whether Jeanne is a lecturer, journalist or graphic artist. There is elaborate description of the apartments that she might inhabit for these different roles. But not definitive answers. At another time we speculate on her age and the type of husband that she might have had, was she thirty-six and married to a ‘prematurely greying ophthalmologist’ or twenty-two with her adolescence devastated by bulimia? Lots of options are presented, none are settle upon.
The pleasure of this book for me is all about little sentences and observations. For example “The next day, she catches the metro at 15:00, the time of day for those with nowhere to be.” Wow. And then in the middle of more vigorous activities there are a host of observations: “That other one, who places a hand over her mouth to muffle the cries she has no intention of emitting.” And “An armpit, hairs pearled with sweat where the electric light plays in sparkles. Jeanne stares at the flickering of this delicate garland, until one particularly vigorous movement launches one droplet onto her cheek and another into the corner of her eye. The man comes and asks if she is crying.”
Jeanne is an indifferent participant in all the activities that she initiates. She even attempts to get over her strange obsessions by investing in a host of rubber toys, spending time in sex shops choosing a range of shapes and sizes. The final chapter, an exact repeat of the first, hints that she is not getting over any of it.
This is an odd book. It is not arousing, but it does have some gems of playful prose and pointed observation. I shall certainly think of it again, especially at 15:00 when I have nowhere to be.
March 26, 2023
I wish I had something intelligent to say about this book, but I really don’t.
I guess it could be regarded as refreshing to have men’s bodies described in a way as if they’re just objects, like is often seen with women. The protagonist really is just fainting (pretending to faint?) to get men to help her and lead them to hotels in order get a good look at their penis and store it in her mind.. However, I’m not entirely sure if trying to even the score of objectification is what we need? So I’m definitely not sure if that’s what the book was trying to do.
A book about a woman who just unapologetically enjoys sex and does so with random consenting men would be fun, however none of this comes across as like she even really enjoys these sexual encounters.
The book has quite an unusual narration style , and there were lots of metaphors in metaphors and rambling disconnected phrases… it was hard for me to follow. I didn’t really know what was going on beyond she met a lot of dick, bought sex toys and watched porn. And didn't seem to have that much fun doing so?
The protagonist is disconnected from her life and the narrator keeps us disconnected from her. We never get to know her or fully understand her motives.
No idea what happened at the end.
There’s also a potentially underage boy involved sexually with her, which obviously isn’t ok and I don’t understand this book enough to know why this choice was made.
I guess it could be regarded as refreshing to have men’s bodies described in a way as if they’re just objects, like is often seen with women. The protagonist really is just fainting (pretending to faint?) to get men to help her and lead them to hotels in order get a good look at their penis and store it in her mind.. However, I’m not entirely sure if trying to even the score of objectification is what we need? So I’m definitely not sure if that’s what the book was trying to do.
A book about a woman who just unapologetically enjoys sex and does so with random consenting men would be fun, however none of this comes across as like she even really enjoys these sexual encounters.
The book has quite an unusual narration style , and there were lots of metaphors in metaphors and rambling disconnected phrases… it was hard for me to follow. I didn’t really know what was going on beyond she met a lot of dick, bought sex toys and watched porn. And didn't seem to have that much fun doing so?
The protagonist is disconnected from her life and the narrator keeps us disconnected from her. We never get to know her or fully understand her motives.
No idea what happened at the end.
There’s also a potentially underage boy involved sexually with her, which obviously isn’t ok and I don’t understand this book enough to know why this choice was made.
May 6, 2022
A generous 2.5.
A book on sexual exploits from the mindset of a suggested nymphomaniac. Through the guise of Jeanne's penile mind palace, we are introduced to every penis imaginable.
I wish that the plot had more plot, and wasn't just pages after pages of no characterisation. I understand that this mind palace has of course taken centre stage in Jeanne's life, yet the few paragraphs we get which speculate on her life were some of my favourite pieces of prose! Especially in the overlapping way in which the written voice was done, it was like a gossip session on paper, really fun to read. Though that was it. I don't know, I'm not a huge fan of penises on the best of days, and so reading about pretty much the same penis (with slight differences, as every penis is unique of course) again and again without much of a narrative string got a little old.
I do appreciate, and am happy, that sexual women are becoming more prevalent as narrators without any change in character occurring to make them "stick to their prince" or become more modest. Let women be frivolous in their sexual exploits. Just also make it interesting.
sais pas, c'était pas mal.. Au moins, je connais maintenant de nombreux hôtels à Paris par leur nom. c'est utile
A book on sexual exploits from the mindset of a suggested nymphomaniac. Through the guise of Jeanne's penile mind palace, we are introduced to every penis imaginable.
I wish that the plot had more plot, and wasn't just pages after pages of no characterisation. I understand that this mind palace has of course taken centre stage in Jeanne's life, yet the few paragraphs we get which speculate on her life were some of my favourite pieces of prose! Especially in the overlapping way in which the written voice was done, it was like a gossip session on paper, really fun to read. Though that was it. I don't know, I'm not a huge fan of penises on the best of days, and so reading about pretty much the same penis (with slight differences, as every penis is unique of course) again and again without much of a narrative string got a little old.
I do appreciate, and am happy, that sexual women are becoming more prevalent as narrators without any change in character occurring to make them "stick to their prince" or become more modest. Let women be frivolous in their sexual exploits. Just also make it interesting.
sais pas, c'était pas mal.. Au moins, je connais maintenant de nombreux hôtels à Paris par leur nom. c'est utile
May 4, 2020
What did I just read? I have no idea, but it was a good ride. ;) We read this for Episode 69 of The Bookstore Podcast and you can find more of my thoughts on it there. Jeanne is a woman living in Paris who develops an obsession with penises. She keeps a "collection" in her mind. I suppose my only complaint of this bizarre book is that her collection is only mental, she doesn't actually have a physical collection of penises that she treasures. Leger is very humorous at times, especially when Jeanne perfects her seduction technique. It is also fairly abstract, so I caught myself having to reread paragraphs to understand where Jeanne was and what she was doing. If you like wacky French novels about sex (who doesn't?!) this is the book for you.
September 14, 2021
Such a weird experience reading a novel that feels like it’s trying as hard as possible to resist it’s novel-ness. I admittedly bought this because the cover looks fantastic and it sounded intriguing but I feel pretty neutral toward the contents. It reminded me a lot of Jenny Hval’s latest novel Girls Against God according to its form and pace but it felt like Hval gave readers a bit more to chew on. Would absolutely recommend to anyone studying feminist contemporary fiction. There’s SO much here to parse through.
January 13, 2022
do not expect a strong plot, or else it will leave you motionless. this book logs (collections) of sexual encounters with our main character. Nina Leger did an amazing job evening out the views of society between hypersexual males vs females. Showing us that females have the right to have explicit thoughts and be sexually liberated without shame and/or embarrassment.
March 7, 2025
an erotic rollercoaster that twists genders and their sexual roles in paradoxical ways that intrigue me!
the main character, Jeanne, felt a bit bland, but also mysterious, while she was on her journey to collect (metaphorically speaking) men’s intimate body parts :)
it’s interesting, it’s different
would I read it again? no
would I recommend it to someone else? sure, why not
the main character, Jeanne, felt a bit bland, but also mysterious, while she was on her journey to collect (metaphorically speaking) men’s intimate body parts :)
it’s interesting, it’s different
would I read it again? no
would I recommend it to someone else? sure, why not
Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews