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the complete review - autobiographical

Nulle part

by
Yasmina Reza

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

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Our Assessment:

B+ : appealing but very small collection

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "Ce sont des textes légers, cristallins, qui disent la douceur d'aimer mais qui dissèquent aussi, sans complaisance, d'autres sentiments: la proximité de la joie et du chagrin, l'impatience, les petits manquements quotidiens, la difficulté d'être." - Isabelle Martin, Le Temps

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:

       Nulle part is a collection of five pieces -- small scenes from lives, a bit of reflection. It's a small book -- probably with fewer words than some of Reza's plays -- and not meant to be a cohesive memory-account (though it's not really fragmentary either). If anything, it feels like an author trying to formulate scenes and thoughts for some future (autobiographical ?) project.
       The first pieces are mother-child variations, each beginning with a sentence describing the child walking, carrying a satchel. They are simple scenes of separation and ties, and it's a theme that runs throughout the book in different variations. "Oú est l'enfance ?" ('Where is childhood ?') Reza asks at one point, and that's one of the main issues she's wrestling with, both her own and of the children she is writing about (her own, presumably -- though it's unclear how autobiographical and/or fictional the pieces are).
       The final section, also called 'Nulle part', is the longest and most reflective. Reza begins it admitting she doesn't know any of the languages of her parents or ancestors, cutting her off from their (and her own) past in a way. Rather than through description of events and encounters, as in the earlier pieces, she is here more (self-)analytic, the piece more obviously and openly wrestling with the issues of memory and communication and literature and, especially, childhood that occupy her. She refers to some of her own work, and considers passages from other writers (Kertész Imre, Klaus Mann) that struck her.
       There are some nicely realised scenes, and some interesting reflections in Nulle part, but it feels a bit inadequate -- not too thin, but simply too small. Still, an appealing read.

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Links:

• Le Livre de Poche publicity page
• Hanser publicity page

• Aimez-vous lire ? (French)
• Deutschlandradio (German)
• egotrip (German)
• Focus (German)
• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (German)
• Mille et une Frasques (French)
• Die Presse (German)
• Süddeutsche Zeitung (German)

• See the complete review's Yasmina Reza page

• Adam Haberberg
• 'Art'
• Babylon
• Conversations after a Burial
• Dawn, Dusk or Night
• Desolation
• The God of Carnage
• Hammerklavier
• Life x 3
• The Unexpected Man

• See the index of French literature at the complete review

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About the Author:

       French author Yasmina Reza, born in 1959, achieved her first great success with the play 'Art'. She has also written fiction and screenplays.

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© 2007-2018 the complete review

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