Belinda Cannone: Entre les bruits (2009)

This is a story of confusion, but then that would be expected of a novel which is a spy story (a number of times reminding me of Echenoz's parody spy novel Lac), a detective story, a love story, but most of all an intense study of awareness, of what our minds (and bodies) are capable of. Belinda Cannone explores not only between the sounds, but between the relationships we have with all living people and things, even though we may not be aware of them.

A central subject is hyperacusis, or the ability (some may with reason say disability because of its sometimes devastating effects) to recognise tiny sounds a long distance away: the sounds a 'mute' mouse makes, what people are saying some distance away in a noisy restaurant, the sound a fox makes in a distant forest, etc. Ear plugs are a great help in a town where the noise of chaos can drown out thought, drown out any attempts at communication.

Hyperacoustic Jodel, who works as an acoustics engineer, meets hyperacoustic eleven-year-old Jeanne, and begins to teach her how to distinguish between different sounds, how to to some extent render some order to the chaos, learn what it's like to be different. But then only the different understand.

I was some way through this novel which one reviewer had suggested had strong sexual content, which I thought was maybe a reference to a different book, and then Jodel has sex with Jeanne's mother Jaumette. I don't think the description of sex lasted more than two pages, and for those looking for masturbation go elsewhere, but the description of Jaumette's multiple (and I mean multiple) orgasms stunned me by the realism: Belinda Cannone, er, knows how to write.

Links to my Belinda Cannone posts:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Belinda Cannone: Entre les bruits
Belinda Cannone: La Chair du temps