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the complete review - fiction

Nothing Serious

by
Justine Lévy

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B : odd soul being searched, but intermittently compelling

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "The clues in this lightly disguised roman a clef are too obvious -- and too delicious -- to ignore. (...) Levy's short book is written in a fragmented, stream-of-consciousness voice that is poignant and literary but can also sound like a therapy session." - Helen Greenwood, The Age
  
  
• "Das einzige Kind, das wirklich bedauert wird, ist Louise selbst. Von den eigenen Gemütserschütterungen bleibt sie so restlos fasziniert wie eine Dreijährige von ihren Schürfwunden (.....) Zum Schluß bleibt der schale Eindruck, daß die literarische Plattform ein weiteres Mal gekapert wurde, um Medienprominenz zu ertrotzen. Der Rachefeldzug geht auf Kosten der lieben Verwandten, doch die scheinen das gewohnt zu sein." - Ingeborg Harms, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
  
  
• "Nothing Serious, judged solely on its literary value, is nothing much -- a repetitive, tiresome and stillborn exercice du style that reads, for the most part, like a doctored-up diary. (...) Skim the long, depressed passages, with their many variations on the theme of emptiness (translated, with all too much accuracy, by Charlotte Mandell) and focus instead on Lévy's intermittent moments of grace (.....) There is a deliciousness to this vapidity. If only Nothing Serious had taken itself less seriously, it could have been a delight." - Judith Warner, The New York Times Book Review
  
  
• "Belying the title, this barely disguised roman a clef is nothing but serious -- a candid and raw portrayal of a woman's insecurities and failings that is as compelling as her life is disastrous. (...) Levy's second novel is clever and complete, offering a smartly seductive look inside the lives of the literati." - Christine Thomas, San Francisco Chronicle

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Like The Rendezvous, Nothing Serious is narrated by a young woman named Louise (here also identified as having the last name "Lévy") who has a mother named Alice. Where The Rendezvous is told by a young woman (eighteen years old at the time) and focusses on her childhood, Nothing Serious examines the next decade or so, Louise -- now in her late twenties -- reflecting on her years as an adult. She's been married -- and is now divorced --, pregnant, and in rehab, but whereas The Rendezvous had an easily identifiable (and blameable) villain in Alice, the adult Louise has contributed mightily to the mess she's made of her life. (Alice has been rendered almost harmless here -- the gods have punished her with a vengeance, and Louise seems to have come to terms with her.)
       For Louise, the defining relationship of the past decade or so has been with Adrien, the man she married and then lost (to his own father's lover ...). The novel does not proceed chronologically, but rather reveals the significant events of these past ten or so years in drips and drabs, as Louise revisits and reexamines what has happened. The loss of Adrien was a brutal blow for her; the substitute lover she has taken, the very nice (and surprisingly understanding) Pablo, is a man she almost doesn't want to love. She explains herself, and her life -- one screwed up young woman trying to come to terms with her life.
       Louise takes an almost perverse pride in her non-being. She's not entirely the wallflower, blending in with the background, but she almost strives to be unformed and unidentifiable. She doesn't want to have that badge of womanhood, her period, and she sounds almost proud to acknowledge:

     I don't have any likes. No dislikes either, really. I know what's done and what's not done, I know the ins and outs, but that leaves room for leeway, massive room, and inside me too there's massive room and that's why it's empty, there's nothing there and I'm still waiting.

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Links:

• Melville House publicity page

• The Age
• Deutschlandradio (German)
• L'Express (French)
• France-Jeunes (French)
• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (German)
• Leselupe (German)
• Lire (French)
• The New York Times Book Review
• parutions (French)
• ReadySteadyBook
• Ruminator
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Voir (French)
• Weltexpress (German)

• The Rendezvous

• See Index of French literature

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About the Author:

       French author Justine Lévy is an editor at Editions Stock.

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© 2005-2021 the complete review

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