Summary Synopsis
The narrator was a 28-year-old man living in the apartment of Paris. One day, he was living at home and using the bathroom all the time. Edmondsson and their mother looked after him. The Polish artists Kabrowinski and Kovalskazinski would arrive and paint the walls, cook the chickens… The couple would dine at the narrator's and four would play Monopoly…
One day, out of the blue, the narrator left the bathroom and Paris, headed aimlessly for Italia, stayed in a hotel in Venice, and spent futile days. Finally, Edmondsson came looking for him, and she spent some time in Venice. But the narrator inadvertently sent an arrow to Edmondsson that stuck in his forehead. And Edmondsson returned to Paris.
He was ill with sinusitis and entered a hospital. He befriended their attending physician. The doctor invited him to dinner and tennis. By misbehaving with the head nurse or something, out of the blue, he decided to return to Paris…
Book Review
This novel decribes the ordinary contemporary life of Parisians without sense significant and serious events. The narrator's behavior and purpose are random and strange, as light and unreasonable as they are stagnant from time to time. The narrative progresses lightly, but at times comes to a halt. And it's composed of miniature things and banal episodes.
There's an important description in section 33 of part 1, in a monologue by the narrator. It's described below.
33) There are two ways of watching the rain fall, at home, behind glass. The first is to hold one's gaze fixed on any point in space and watch the succession of rains at the chosen spot; this way, restful for the mind, gives no idea of the finality of the movement. The second, which requires greater flexibility of vision, consists in following with the eyes the fall of a single drop at a time, from its intrusion into the field of vision to the dispersion of its water on the ground. In this way, it's possible to imagine that movement, however lightning-fast it may appear, tends essentially towards immobility, and that consequently, however slow it may sometimes seem, continuously drags bodies towards death, which is immobility. Olé. (pp. 37-38)
This description is the essence of the novel, and it is the thought and theme of the novel. And it is the thought of movement and stillness, so this novel is a tale of flow and stillness.
Three rooms in which the narrator lived and stayed: the bathroom, the hotel room and the hospital's twin-bedded room are the places and points from which the narrator looks at moving things.
Three foods, pouples, dame blanche and flamber les rognons, are symbols of movement and continuous change. They signify the movement or flow of matter between spaces.
And monopoly, darts and tennis are things or elements of standstill. They are essential movement things, but they sew stops in this novel, or developments of the stop.
The narrator lives randomly and freely, causing events or phenomena of the stop, and remains the points for thinking and reflecting.
The three elements, eposodes among others people and these combinations make the rhythm and current pleasant, and composes pretty white scenes.
This novel is the novel of rhythm and flow, which writes people live in rhythm and light flow in the contemporary city without heavy significant. It's a good life. It must be very sympathetic, pleasant and amusing for readers.
Product Details
La salle de bain
Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris, France, (initialement publié en 1985)
144 pages, €5.50
ISBN 978-2707319289
Articles et pages similaires
Works of Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Best Classical Recordings
Playlist
on YouTube
Best Classical Recordings
Playlist
on Spotify
