Christian Gailly: Dernier Amour (2004)

Christian Gailly's Dernier Amour (2004) isn't really even about what it announces in its title – a last love. Rather, it's a combination of narratives – the narrator's, words spoken by the characters, thoughts of Paul the protagonist, all melded into one short novel.

What's actually happening comes in fits and starts, and the narrative itself is like that: generally short sentences, frequently of only one or two words, which often interrupt themselves, tangle around each other, as if in suspension, waiting for an answer, or waiting for nothing.

And Paul is waiting for nothing, or rather nothingness, as his life seems extended by days, his death a long wait. Meanwhile he lives on, going to Zurich to see the first performance of his music which is only greetd by hoots of derision. And he goes back to Paris, from there to the north coast where he'll die, where his wife has, following his wishes, left him to die.

But yet there's a revival of sorts, in which Paul picks up his wife's bathrobe on the beach, although it isn't her bathrobe, it's an American's, who comes to pick it up. And who returns to the skeletal Paul and takes him for a ride in her car. A Mercedes, of course.

My Christian Gailly posts:
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Christian Gailly: Un soir au club
Christian Gailly: Lily et Braine
Christian Gailly: La Roue et autres nouvelles
Christian Gailly: Dernier amour
Christian Gailly: Nuage Rouge | Red Haze
Christian Gailly: L'Incident
Christian Gailly: Les Oubliés