A Sunday in Ville-d'Avray

by Dominique Barbéris, John Cullen (Translator)

In this subtly haunting novel, a married woman confesses her encounter with a mysterious man, which threatens the stilted calm of life in a Paris suburb.

Echoing the acclaimed and unsettling film Sundays and Cyb�le from 1962, A Sunday in Ville-d'Avray is suffused with the same feeling of disquiet: Two sisters meet as the light is fading in a detached house in Ville-d'Avray, each filled with the memory of their childhood dreams and fears, their insatiable desire for the romantic, for wild landscapes worthy of Jane Eyre, and for a mad love, all concealed beneath the appearance of a sensible life. They confide in each other. One tells of an unlikely meeting in this seemingly peaceful provincial town. The other recounts, to her sister's amazement, her wanderings around the Fausses-Reposes forest, the Corot Ponds, and the suburban train stations, and the lurking dangers she encountered there.

In this arresting novel reminiscent of Simenon, Dominique Barb�ris explores the great depths of the human soul, troubled like the waters of the ponds.

Genres: Fiction, France, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, French Literature, Summer, Novella

143 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 5, 2019

Reviews

[Left Coast Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm happy that I read this, though I'm not exactly sure what to take away from it. I enjoy books drenched in atmosphere, and Barberis does a great job of describing the nervous, uptight feel of Parisian suburbs, where hoses are curled up perfectly after use, drinks are poured with obsessive precision, libidos are left unquenched and perfectly outfitted housewives go crazy with boredom.

This stretches not only from Paris proper out to Ville-d'Avray on the outskirts, but is intergenerational as well. When the two women of the story were still girls, their mother would despair of their schoolwork:

"If you don't study, you'll end up as cashiers! Discount store cashiers! So you know what's waiting for you."

Mom can perhaps be forgiven, because she's battling with ennui problems of her own:

For example, the neighbors in the apartment above ours, a Belgian couple (the Kacenelenbogens), were content with café au lait and tartines de cassonade, slices of bread spread with butter and brown sugar, for Sunday dinner. From this practice Mama would draw an argument: if we could only have been Belgians, real Belgians, free from French complications in matters regarding la cuisine, we would have eaten tartines de cassonade like the Kacenelenbogens, and she wouldn’t have had to tire herself out.

.
Nice touch, that toast has a pretty name like tartines de cassonade.

The book didn't change my life, and only one thing happened, or didn't happen, so it's impossible to talk about the story arc without spoiling. If you read this, it'll really be an anthropological study of repressed Parisian housewifes.

I believe a book like this succeeds if if makes you want to go there, to eavesdrop in cafes and to kick through the leaf-soggy streets and peep into people's windows. I enjoyed it.

[JimZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t exactly know what to make of this book. I will give it 3 stars…I think if it was any longer, I might have given it 2 or 2.5 stars.

I kept on expecting something to happen because that is what I was told on a blurb on the front cover, inside of the dust jacket in the synopsis, two pages of blurbs before the title page, and more blurbs on the back cover. 😮 Here are some examples, which set me in a mood of trepidation (like something creepy and scary and unsettling is going to happen):
• A captivating, haunting read
• An eerie, unsettling story

There were 12 blurbs in all of that ilk. So you can imagine I was thinking there was something that was going to be disturbing and unsettling when I embarked on reading the book.

It’s clear she is an excellent writer…her evocative sentences conjured up vivid images in my brain. The small book was only 132 pages. It was a semi-interesting plot but at the end it was somewhat of a “that’s all?” I guess I expected something more. What even happened is not clear…what did Claire-Marie do with the man who had a mysterious past?

Having said that, I would like to read another book by her. But as far as I can tell this is the only book she has that is translated into English. Guess I will have to wait. 😐

Reviews:
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• https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2021...

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insomnia read, and finished in one sitting, absolutely unable to put the book down. One might think that a book of only 144 pages would be an easy thing, but this little book is actually quite thought provoking and complex so I'm giving it another read.

Two things off the top of my head: one, the movie of the same title is mentioned in this book under its English title (Sundays and Cybèle) so I'll take a look at that and two, why on earth was this book even mentioned at CrimeReads? Don't go there.

back soon

[Pop Bop · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Wuthering Heights" In A Paris Suburb

Autumnal.

Our narrator drives from Paris to the elegant suburb Ville-d'Avray to visit her sister. The two sit in the garden of the sister's fine home and the sister, surprisingly and unexpectedly, begins to muse about and then tell the story of a long distant affair. Our narrator returns home in a pensive mood. That's about it. But of course there's much more to this brief novel than that.

Anthony Powell wrote a book about the dissolute and aimless young men between the Great Wars; the book was titled "Afternoon Men", and that title has always struck me as a perfect, sad, and melancholy description of an entire generation. This book could have been titled "Sunset Women". The two sisters possess all of the signs of outward success and happiness - families, husbands, comfort, financial ease, health. But for each there is unhappiness and an unnamed regret that arises from a sense of something missed or lost. The actual affair described by the sister is bland and uneventful, extremely so. If this is a story about missed opportunities and roads not taken, well those opportunities weren't very appealing and the roads not taken seemed unlikely to lead anywhere interesting. But who are we to judge the regrets of others?

This seemed to be much more about autumn, and endings, and winding down. Part of that seems to include a wistful revaluation of choices made and avenues left unexplored. This might not be novel and groundbreaking, but the test is in the writing. And that was what made this book such a pleasure.

Autumn fills every page. Dead leaves, chill breezes, early dusk, bare branches - it seemed that every event in the book took place as rain fell and the gloom of night approached. Everything happens in half light and concludes in darkness. Everything is winding down. What could have been Heathcliff on the Moors turns out to be just a story told in a tidy garden on a distinguished cul-de-sac, tinged with melancholy and vague unease.

The reward here, if the message doesn't move the reader, (as it might not), is in the author's unerring ability to describe a scene or setting, to set a mood, to take the reader from bright, hot Paris to a vaguely unnerving other place. There are light brush strokes on the canvas, and casual observations and thoughts that arrest the reader in flight and capture a certain generational, class, and feminist unease. You can read the book to absorb the mood, to ponder the issues it addresses, or to analyze the use of metaphor and symbol. It works on each level.

This is the sort of book that will rest in your mind in opposition - is it a trifle or is it consequential? As I noted above, our narrator returns home in a thoughtful and disquieted mood. Me too.

(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

[Andy Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is more enjoyment than I could possibly have thought about reading of one sister's visit to another on a Sunday afternoon. The short book's strength is the place, Paris is wonderfully described here. The writing manages to be intimate without being intrusive, and there's a form of escapism in reading it.

[JacquiWine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a beautiful, evocative novella, as melancholy and atmospheric as a dusky autumn afternoon.

The story takes place in Paris on a Sunday afternoon in September, just at the crossover point between summer and autumn. The narrator – an unnamed woman – drives from the city centre to the Parisian suburb of Ville-d’Avray to visit her married sister, Claire Marie. Right from the start there is a particular ‘feel’ to the sister’s neighbourhood, a quietness and slower pace of life compared to the buzz of the inner city.

As the two sisters sit and chat in the garden, an intimate story emerges, something the two women have never spoken about before. Claire Marie reveals a hidden relationship from her past, a sort of dalliance with a mysterious man named Marc Hermann, whom she met at her husband’s office. Very little seemed to happen between Claire Marie and Marc at the time – they met one another in secret a few times, mostly walking in the local parks and forests – and yet one senses a deep connection between them, despite the somewhat sinister edge.

She was almost sure that he was lying to her about a great many things, but she felt certain that he was alone and that his solitude was complete, so dense that she could perceive the space it occupied around him, and that solitude touched her heart. (p. 103)

At first, the story seems a relatively simple one; but as the narrative progresses, additional layers begin to emerge, enhancing the air of mystery surrounding these characters. There’s a sense of unspoken desire here, of missed opportunities and avenues left unexplored. Both Jane Eyre and Chekhov are referenced in the novella, acting as touchstones for Barbéris’ story. Nevertheless, I don’t want to say too much about what developed between Claire Marie and Marc – in many respects, it’s probably best for readers to discover this for themselves.

To read the rest of my review, please visit:

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[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me, Daunt Books are an incredibly exciting publisher. Not only are they bringing out themed anthologies with commissioned content from contemporary authors both well-known and new to me, they are also making a concerted effort to translate works from other countries. Any reader of my reviews will know that I am an enormous fan of French literature, and so Daunt’s release of Dominique Barbéris’ A Sunday in Ville-d’Avray was a title which immediately made its way onto my must-read list.

A Sunday in Ville-d’Avray was longlisted for the Prix Goncourt, and shortlisted for the Prix Femina, both incredibly prestigious awards in the author’s native France. This edition has been translated into English by John Cullen. Although Barbéris is a prolific author, this novella is the only one of her books currently available in English.

The novel begins on a Sunday in early September, ‘one of those days thar cross the border between summer and autumn’. Our protagonist, high school teacher Jane, is leaving her home in Paris in order to visit her sister, Claire Marie, in the western suburbs of the city, a place called Ville-d’Avray. Although it is less than an hour away from the centre, our narrator tells us that it ‘seems like another world, with its secluded streets and set-back houses.’ Claire Marie lives in: ‘One of these streets that climb the hills near the Parc de Saint-Cloud’.

The sisters do not see one another often, and Jane rarely visits. In fact, the sisters have not spoken for an entire year before Jane’s unexpected visit. Jane’s partner professes that he finds her sister ‘boring’; she tells us, though, that ‘it would be more accurate to say that he’s suspicious of her’. For Claire Marie, Sundays are a sacred time, where she can devote hours to thinking about life, and ‘whether she expected something more from it, and whether she is still waiting for it to begin.’

Interspersed with the present-day narrative are sections where Jane thinks about Sundays which she spent during her childhood in Brussels. On Sundays, ‘Night fell faster than it did on the other days of the week’, and her mother was perpetually worked up about having to run the household: ‘… she’d say that Sundays were unbearable, and that her life was a failure.’ During this particular visit, Claire Marie is also thinking about the past; she reveals to Jane an ‘encounter’ which she had several years before, with one of her doctor husband’s patients. This could have changed the entire course of her life, and she continually wonders what would have happened if she had chosen this other, different path. She muses: ‘“On Sundays – don’t you think? – certain things come back to you more than on other days.”’

The sisters are both unhappy with aspects of their lives, and are visibly uncomfortable around one another. Jane reveals to us: ‘As I waited in the garden, I also had a familiar with indefinable feeling, slightly heavy, like a mild illness. Ville-d’Avray is just a few minutes from Paris, but you’d think you were hundreds of kilometres away. That, no doubt, explains how a man like [her partner] Luc can be incapable of comprehending the universe my sister lives in.’ She tells us that she was ‘in the melancholy state of mind that often comes over me when I go to see my sister…’.

A Sunday in Ville-d’Avray is constructed of a series of short vignettes which move back and forth in time. This is something which I love in fiction, and I felt that Barbéris controlled the technique incredibly well. The narrative, despite flipping back and forth somewhat between time periods, never feels confusing, or disjointed. The visceral descriptions throughout were also most enjoyable to read. Jane reflects: ‘I could practically see my sister stalling with her stranger in a setting composed of reflections, of beautiful trees, of leaves speckled with tiny light-coloured patches, like eye floaters, as if the blurriness of dreams interposed itself between the image and the beholder…’. Throughout, I also really liked the way in which our narrator described the physical being of her sister, and revealed snippets about their relationship.

There is something rather creepy which settles throughout this novella. When we learn about the stranger with whom Claire Marie had her ‘encounter’, we are led to put our guard up against him straight away. I think that this element of mystery fitted in well with the narrative, and I could not put the book down. A Sunday in Ville-d’Avray is a striking book, which builds wonderfully to its conclusion.

[Noe herbookss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un domingo como otro cualquiera una mujer va a ver a su hermana, casi por compromiso, la visita de rigor con cualquier conversación banal, pasar un rato tranquilo y vuelta a casa. Pero a veces la memoria se despierta y los planes cambian. Llevan un tiempo algo distantes pero el momento se presta a confidencias y entre recuerdos y anécdotas de la infancia van surgiendo temas cada vez más íntimos y profundos hasta llegar a una confesión secreta, algo que nunca nadie ha sabido y que, de forma inesperada y sin saber bien cómo, sale ahora.

Con una narración tranquila y sosegada, como el propio domingo y el pueblecito a las afueras de París en el que vive una de ellas, el diálogo entre las dos hermanas va deslizándose entre reflexiones sobre su vida actual, la rutina, la monotonía, las expectativas, los secretos que guardamos y las mentiras. ¿Hasta qué punto conocemos realmente a los que están a nuestro alrededor, a nuestra propia familia? ¿Son realmente como pensamos?

Una historia sencilla, sosegada, con una atmósfera íntima, que se lee muy bien, y además en dos ratitos, que me ha gustado. Perfecta para una tarde de domingo otoñal. Yo no conocía a esta autora pero me ha dejado con ganas de leer algo más de ella.

[Libroscuentosyleyendas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Empezaré contando que es la historia de dos hermanas , una vive en París, otra en un lugar o pueblecito , cerca . Se ven los días típicos, Navidad , cumpleaños, sus maridos son diferentes y ellas también. El carácter de las dos lo formaran en la infancia, esa etapa tan importante donde todo empieza a tomar forma , la que más tarde definirá gran parte de nuestra vida.

La magia del libro es que tienes dos formas de leerlo , como un relato intimista, familiar , o como detrás de cada persona se esconde una parte de uno mismo distinta , menos convencional , o al revés , más bien convencional, mas conservadora de lo que realmente aparentamos , ¿pero que parte es la que realmente queremos ser? ¿ nos gustan las dos? ¿ forzamos para ser lo que los demás quieren que seamos? ¿ renunciamos al yo más oculto?

" Tiene miedo de no ir "bien" ¿por qué? , me pregunto; padece una indecisión enfermiza."

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

This gorgeous cover was screaming my name and the poetical writing felt like a warm hug on a Sunday in autumn. The novel made me think about serene Sundays with scattered thoughts of unspoken desires and missed opportunities. Loved it.

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suburban, sentimental middle-class story which somehow reminded me of a Stefan Zweig novella - an essay on idleness, it inhabits a space between the fatuous and the profound.

[Ru · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5
Finished this short book in one sitting.

Short, atmospheric, a beautiful kind of melancholy.

[Cristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pensaba que me iba a gustar mas por el tema que planteaba (relación de hermanas).
El principio me ha enganchado, el modo en que presenta todo, como se ven las diferencias. Interesante el tema de hasta qué punto nos conocemos los unos a los otros y nos juzgamos.
Pero pese a lo bueno y ese inicio, no me ha mantenido dentro, no me he sentido parte de la historia y me costaba seguir.
Una pena.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

ONE SENTENCE SUMMARY: A brief but enjoyable escape to France in this story about sisters with secrets.

BRIEF REVIEW: Two sisters who were very close when young, now live a distance away. Our unnamed narrator sister and her partner Luc live in Paris, while the other sister, Claire Marie, lives in a quiet suburb and is married to a doctor and also has a daughter. Since Luc does not care for Claire Marie, he stays behind on the Sunday the narrator makes the trip. Already in a melancholy mood when she travels to her sisters place, oddly, Sunday had always been a day their mother hated when they were young as well. Over the course of their Sunday visit these middle-aged sisters reveal things they had never shared before.

I sat down with this brief novella and a hot cup of tea on a dreary spring afternoon and found it to be a rewarding escape that made me think. There was a quiet, intimate, yet suspenseful and atmospheric feel to the writing. By the end of this brief novel, I felt like I knew what made each sister tick but, did I? Can you always tell the difference between fact and fiction and can we always trust our memories?



MEMORABLE QUOTES: "WHO REALLY KNOWS US? We say so few things, and we lie about almost everything. Who knows the truth? Had my sister really told me the truth? Who can know it? Who'll remember us? With the passage of time, our hearts will become dark and dusty....."

[PaperDreams55 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Empecé esta novela breve con muchas ganas porque me atraía bastante el argumento y además, me apetece leer libros que hablen de la relación entre hermanas.
Lo que me ha pasado con este libro es que me he quedado con ganas de más.
Me han gustado los personajes, la diferencia entre las dos hermanas y las vidas que han decidido llevar. También cómo se ven la una a la otra.
Se lee con facilidad y hay tensión por el secreto que decide contarle la hermana mayor a la pequeña y he esperado hasta la última página para saber más. Lo que pasa es que eso no llega y llevado una pequeña desilusión.
El estilo de la autora me gusta bastante, es el tipo de escritora que sabe cómo envolverte y guiarte a través de sus páginas. Seguramente siga indagando en su obra.
Es una nouvelle que viene bien para desconectar entre libros más densos, pero a mí, personalmente, se me ha quedado muy corta. Me hubiera gustado que tuviera más páginas o quizás un final más contundente.
Eso sí, la relación entre las dos hermanas me ha encantado.

[Reggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Un extraño llega a la ciudad», una de las dos tramas más fértiles y explotadas de la literatura universal, es la que escoge Barbéris para su novela, breve y desoladora, que bien podría haber sido película de Louis Malle o Agnès Varda. Pero no toma al extraño (al extranjero) como argumento central, sino como elemento que acentuará aún más la inquietante brecha que existe entre las dos hermanas protagonistas.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled on this book in a small bookshop in London. Loved it. Quirky, thought-provoking, and beautifully written (and translated from the French.) Loved the references to Jane Eyre and the sister relationship and the question of what makes a life. A small gem of a book!

[Miriam. L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ideal para una tarde de domingo.

[Margarida ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes imaginative and engaging, other times completely monotonous.
.
I guess I was looking for a deeper examination between the two sisters’ relationship, which we only get in a more subtle way. Maybe that’s on me and my own unreflecting expectations.
.
Still, I think you can read it in one sitting in a summery Sunday and have a pleasurable time.

[Romi Galeano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Una línea gris, contínua y monótona delinea la historia. A veces se muestra más oscura y, a veces, entrecortada. Una historia que refleja la genuina fragilidad de la persona en una vida que tiene pero a la vez carece. No me la volvería a leer, no la recomiendo.

[mi.terapia.alternativa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una mujer visita a su hermana en Ville-d’Avray. Sus vidas han seguido caminos muy distintos y han perdido la complicidad de su niñez, pero ese domingo al atardecer, en el jardín, resurgirán inesperadamente las confidencias; su hermana le contará la breve e inquietante relación que tuvo con un desconocido, todavía presente en su pensamiento pese a los años transcurridos.

Una novela breve y delicada en la que no pasa nada tremendamente interesante pero que te hace pensar si nuestra vida es la que esperábamos, si estamos satisfechos con ella o si la aparente perfección de la vida de los demás es real o sólo conocemos lo que nos quieren mostrar.

Una historia sencilla, rápida de leer y muy entretenida. Una historia que a pesar de su aparente ligereza me ha inquietado y me ha parecido llena de nostalgia y en ocasiones de tristeza.

[Daphna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This very short novel is as atmospheric as is Jane Eyre, the two sisters' heroine and the subject of their childhood fantasies and imaginary games, with Rochester, of course, in the role of the dark, mysterious and distant hero of their shared daydreams.
Replace Thornfield Hall with the suburb of Ville D'Avray, with its autumnal aura of cold, rainy and dark evenings, its solitary houses at the mercy of random burglars, or worse, real or imagined, the dead and rotting leaves, and the adjacent eerie forest from which Mr. Rochester could very well emerge on his black steed.
The two sisters are probably around 45 years old, Claire Marie a suburban matron married to a doctor with a teenaged daughter, and the unnamed narrator, a Parisian living the city life with her cynical and judgmental partner, who has a very low opinion of Claire Marie, her husband and their life in suburbia.
It is evident that the closeness the sisters experienced throughout their childhood is a thing of the past, and the Parisian sister visits Claire Marie at Ville D'Avray as a matter of course, more a perceived obligation, for often too long and boring afternoons.
All this changes on one such afternoon visit in which Claire Marie tells her sister the story of her adventure (for the lack of a better word) with a mysterious, somewhat sinister stranger. As the afternoon slips into evening, the story, no less riveting than the imaginary stories of their childhood, takes over.
The brilliant creation of the novel's atmosphere by Dominique Barberis reminded me of many of George Simenon's Noire novels. Here too the atmosphere is very much a character of the novel. It creeps up on you, and you are left wondering what is real, what is in the story-teller's mind, and what is enhanced by the deep autumnal atmosphere.
There are no simple answers to the question raised by Claire Marie to her sister as the trigger to the sharing of her story (I will not include a spoiler, because this question is material to how each of us will perceive Marie Claire's story). This seemingly simple question is not only a trigger to the story of her embroilment with the stranger, but it seems that for the first time in many years they are sharing a question that is relatable for both sisters despite their very different lives. More importantly, it opens up their old bond and the intimacy of their childhood. They are once again able to share feelings and secrets.
The novel does not provide simple answers to Claire Marie's existential question. But life itself doesn't provide simple answers to existential questions we might ask ourselves on dark, rainy, and windy evenings.

[abrazaletras · Rating 3 out of 5]

Libros del Asteroide nos trae una novela breve en su lectura, pero de esas que dejan poso y cierta reflexión. Y es que la pregunta que suelta de manera directa Claire Marie a su hermana en una tarde cualquier de domingo, es de las que esconden una historia, y de las buenas, tras las palabras.

- ¿Tú también sueñas a veces con otra cosa?
- ¿A qué te refieres con otra cosa?
- No sé - había suspirado mi hermana -. ¿Te satisface tu vida?
[...]
- Sí. ¿Por qué? Todo va bien.
Era mentira, debo reconocerlo [...]

Pensamos que conocemos a nuestra familia, a nuestras amistades, pero en realidad muchas veces solo nos quedamos en el escaparate y en nuestras suposiciones. Claire Marie lleva una vida aparentemente perfecta, con su marido, su hija, su casa bien en zona residencial bien, pero en una tarde con su hermana se abre el cajón desastre. Ese que llevaba tantos años cerrado, que no olvidado, y que nadie conoce. Ese que encierra una historia misteriosa, maravillosamente situada entre jardines, estanques y lluvias nocturnas. La emoción de una novedad que rompe una monotonía.
Una lectura de lo más entretenida que atrapa desde su sencillez.

[Niamh O · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first this unassuming little book doesn't seem like much. It weaves its haunting magic slowly. The author uses weather, the seasons, nature, light and dark, shadows, deep ponds, the contrast between quiet suburbia and glittering Paris to unsettle one. Something is going on, but what? As the narrator's sister tells her tale the mystery and sense if foreboding only intensify. In the end, because we cannot be certain of what might have happened, or even what really happened - we weren't there after all and, as the narrator notes, there is always some doubt as to whether the full truth has been withheld in any story, we are left with exactly the same sense of unease the narrator is feeling. That is, we feel poignancy of regret over roads not taken, the quiet existential angst experienced in the autumnal years of middle age.
This book might be too quiet for some but I found it deep, wistful and very atmospheric.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slim, atmospheric little novel, delicately translated from the French. (I read an ARC and am curious to see if the translator's footnotes will appear in the published version.)

Early on I questioned the author's choice to tell the story at such a remove. It's a first-person narrative and the whole story is told to her (and to us) by her sister; why not have the sister tell it directly? But having finished it I think Barberis was aiming for that intentionally vague, unreliable sense of secondhand information; near the end, the narrator says, "Who really knows us? We say so few things, and we lie about almost everything."

Perhaps a few too many exclamation points for my taste, and the deliberately large paragraph breaks seemed overly dramatic. But I was able to slip into it and by the end I was in sync with the pacing.

[Ali Rahali · Rating 4 out of 5]

L'auteur donne une description sinistre de cette Ville-d'Aveay tout en mettant en lumière son obscurité, son calme écrasant et en la comparant avec Paris. En outre, le terme le plus émergent dans ce roman c'est "Ombre", "arbre" "noire" "pluie" qui font l'isotopie de la tristesse. Dès au début la voix du narrateur nous mène à sa sœur pour nous dépeindre sa vie...

[La Repisa de Elena · Rating 3 out of 5]

¿Realmente nos mostramos como somos a los ojos de quiénes conviven con nosotros? ¿Todo es transparente? Dominique Barbèris nos cuenta en este breve libro que la vida sin acción no tiene emoción. La historia de una vida monótona y de secretos. El libro te engancha pero pierde un poco de intensidad a medida que avanza la narración. ❤️❤️❤️

[Marta Factor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Primera obra de Dominique Barbéris traducida al castellano. Valoro la capacidad de generar un aura íntima, así como el tema que trata sin hablar directamente de él. Sin embargo, creo que no es mi estilo. Se me queda descafeinada, una conversación entre hermanas que un domingo comparten sus pensamientos sobre la vida.

[Cathrine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yum 🥰

[James Michelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written short novel as a lonely affluent suburban housewife recounts an I’ll advised affair. Emotive, haunting, and autumnal - loved it.