Reviews

03 by Jean-Christophe Valtat

piccoline's review against another edition

4.0

Well played, with only very few false notes. Valtat spins out a poetic and thought-provoking meditation from the moment when a young boy sees a girl he likes at the school bus stop across the street.

This musters a nice emotional kick in only 84 pages.

sabernar's review against another edition

5.0

Excellent! Less than 100 pages and only one paragraph long. It really captures the disillusionment of youth. The narrator slides from subject to subject, all centered around a girl he has a crush on that he sees every day at the bus stop across the street from his.

mrjoe's review

4.0

James Wood review in the 9/6/2010 edition of the New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/09/06/100906crbo_books_wood

quintusmarcus's review

3.0

An utterly curious little book. The story, such as it is, unfolds in one long stream of consciousness, with no break from beginning to end. The narrator, looking back, describes his infatuation with another student, ruminating on love, music, and life in the wretched French town of Montperilleux. Comparisons to the style of Thomas Berhnard are not far off the mark--actually, one could almost imagine the narrator as a very young Bernhard, before he became angry and self-imprisoned in loathing. This narrator is rather charming, though, and his observations are amusing, if rather light. A very brief but engrossing book, a fine new voice in French literature.