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brandonalan's review against another edition
5.0
"I think about death and the sky, for whenever I think about death, I think about the stars too. I feel very small beside the infinite and quickly abandon these thoughts..... Solitude, what a sad and beautiful thing it is!"
brandonalan's review against another edition
5.0
"A cloud hid the sun. Warmth and colour left the street. Flies no longer glittered.
I felt sad.
A little while before I had set out for the unknown feeling like a vagabond, free and happy. Now, because of a cloud, everything was finished.
I retraced my steps."
I felt sad.
A little while before I had set out for the unknown feeling like a vagabond, free and happy. Now, because of a cloud, everything was finished.
I retraced my steps."
vivarimany95's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt
zoebird81's review against another edition
3.0
Didn't expect to like this but it ended up being incredibly enjoyable—I just don't know that I would re-read. Really well-done character study about a man who is both self-hating and egotistical, who has strong views about the world and his place in it yet feels inferior to others and cannot express them. He pities himself and wants to be pitied; you want to help him as much as you want to admonish him for needing help. He is both endearing and infuriating. He performs acts of kindness for others just so they'll be forced to thank him for it. All he wants is to cross someone's mind, if even for a second. The structure feels redundant, yet it's more intentional than it seems. As each character comes and goes from Baton's life, something is revealed about the jagged edge of reliability upon which he sits. It's hard to say if Baton truly wants a friend or if he merely wants to live in a society that would allow him to live his days in solitude. He probably can't fathom that the latter is an option—at the time Bove wrote this, it wasn't. It still isn't, maybe? Something extremely relatable there. You feel bad for Baton and you don't—I wouldn't want to be friends with him, either...
bob625's review against another edition
3.0
My Friends was Emmanuel Bove's first and most successful novel, though I doubt it would be read at all today if it weren't for the new reprinting by the New York Review of Books. In his time, Bove was an extremely prolific writer, writing 22 novels before his death at age 47 (and that's not counting the novels published under a couple of pseudonyms), though only a handful of his works have been translated into English and he is now largely forgotten.
My Friends is a simple and likeable little novel, told with dismal charm and an equally hopeful and despairing world view. Our protagonist is the lonesome and desperately poor war vet Victor Bâton, a wandering soul without a friend in the world. The novel is separated in several parts, each one dedicated to a failed friendship. Victor meets a suicidal bum, a wealthy factory owner, a luxurious theatre singer, a wine-shop proprietor and the lover of a girl with a limp. With each he attempts to form a connection, but it just never seems to work out, and he is always left glumly alone once again.
This was an intriguing and pleasantly slim read, though I'm a little perplexed at the amount of four and five star ratings it's been given. Bove's short and to the point sentences can get a bit boring at times, and Victor's constant remarks on the things he's noticed in different types of people and their behaviours take themselves as insightful and maybe even profound, but are often just obvious or plain idiotic. I am interested to read more Bove though, maybe Armand or Henri Duchemin and His Shadows, providing I can find copies.
My Friends is a simple and likeable little novel, told with dismal charm and an equally hopeful and despairing world view. Our protagonist is the lonesome and desperately poor war vet Victor Bâton, a wandering soul without a friend in the world. The novel is separated in several parts, each one dedicated to a failed friendship. Victor meets a suicidal bum, a wealthy factory owner, a luxurious theatre singer, a wine-shop proprietor and the lover of a girl with a limp. With each he attempts to form a connection, but it just never seems to work out, and he is always left glumly alone once again.
This was an intriguing and pleasantly slim read, though I'm a little perplexed at the amount of four and five star ratings it's been given. Bove's short and to the point sentences can get a bit boring at times, and Victor's constant remarks on the things he's noticed in different types of people and their behaviours take themselves as insightful and maybe even profound, but are often just obvious or plain idiotic. I am interested to read more Bove though, maybe Armand or Henri Duchemin and His Shadows, providing I can find copies.
ipb1's review against another edition
4.0
Prose of deceptive starkness and brevity that drips with pathos. Ideal if you are looking for something achingly sad to drag your spirits down.
jimmylorunning's review against another edition
5.0
Sometimes a book comes along that is so good that I don't know what to say. How do you express speechlessness in writing?
Every page contained perfect sentence after perfect sentence. Sentences that were both funny and sad at the same time. Like crystallizations, clear and precise. But above all, simple sentences--Bove makes writing seem easy, even self-evident, when it is obviously not.
Beckett says Bove has an instinct for the essential detail like no other, and I cannot agree more.
Observations on people:
Plot-wise, a comparison can be made with [b:Hunger|32585|Hunger|Knut Hamsun|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266455321s/32585.jpg|3135610], in that both books show a man wandering around looking for sustenance. Both seem rather aimless and open ended. But in this book, the narrator's hunger is not for food, it is for human contact.
And whereas in Hunger, the speaker had an overly played out unreliable voice of madness, here the narrator's voice cannot be more different. It is uniquely a blend of naivety, self consciousness, doubt, bitterness, longing. This is a different sort of neuroticism, full of sensitivity and subtlety.
And quietness above all; this is not a loud book. Which is what makes it special. It almost begs you not to read it.
At times the naivete (especially in social situations) reminded me of some of [a:Robert Walser|16073|Robert Walser|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1220906198p2/16073.jpg]'s characters, but the sentences are simpler. And the tone is not as exaggerated (exaggeration is a good thing in Walser's hands, but I must say what Bove does is probably more difficult). The naivete does not lead to wide eyed optimism, but a blend of human indecisiveness and complexity.
I think Victor Baton is more real to me than most of the people I know in real life.
I have the odd, uncomfortable feeling that this book was written just for me.
Every page contained perfect sentence after perfect sentence. Sentences that were both funny and sad at the same time. Like crystallizations, clear and precise. But above all, simple sentences--Bove makes writing seem easy, even self-evident, when it is obviously not.
Beckett says Bove has an instinct for the essential detail like no other, and I cannot agree more.
Observations on people:
He has two daughters and he beats them--just with his hand--for their own good. They have sinews at the back of their knees. Their hats are held on by elastic.On places:
Raindrops were falling on the ground, never one on top of another.On things:
It is odd how ugly women's wedding-rings are particularly noticeable.Even on his own psyche (for he is very self aware):
I am light-hearted as if I were going out without my overcoat for the first time. My eyelashes and the inside of my ears are still damp with washing-water. I am sorry for people who are still asleep.Just the fact that Victor (the narrator) notices things nobody else does sets him apart. One senses that his extraordinary gift for observation was honed through a life of being a loner, longing from the sidelines. Since he cannot possess things in real life, he possesses them in words.
Plot-wise, a comparison can be made with [b:Hunger|32585|Hunger|Knut Hamsun|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266455321s/32585.jpg|3135610], in that both books show a man wandering around looking for sustenance. Both seem rather aimless and open ended. But in this book, the narrator's hunger is not for food, it is for human contact.
And whereas in Hunger, the speaker had an overly played out unreliable voice of madness, here the narrator's voice cannot be more different. It is uniquely a blend of naivety, self consciousness, doubt, bitterness, longing. This is a different sort of neuroticism, full of sensitivity and subtlety.
And quietness above all; this is not a loud book. Which is what makes it special. It almost begs you not to read it.
At times the naivete (especially in social situations) reminded me of some of [a:Robert Walser|16073|Robert Walser|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1220906198p2/16073.jpg]'s characters, but the sentences are simpler. And the tone is not as exaggerated (exaggeration is a good thing in Walser's hands, but I must say what Bove does is probably more difficult). The naivete does not lead to wide eyed optimism, but a blend of human indecisiveness and complexity.
Spoiler
Also: Victor longs for friends but the Blanche chapter is especially telling: you realize that perhaps he doesn't really want friends. That his loneliness is perhaps out of choice, or habit. And maybe he is more attached to the idea of having friends than actually having them.I think Victor Baton is more real to me than most of the people I know in real life.
I have the odd, uncomfortable feeling that this book was written just for me.
thesoulsearcherreads's review against another edition
3.0
An odd main character - he claims he wants friends, love and a job. Yet, when he has moments of one or the other, he self sabotages! In one moment he wants to be seen as wretched and lonely, and the next he is annoyed when someone wants to talk to him! Confusing, complicated, and yet something made me keep reading. The writing was lovely, the craft itself well done; the plot nonexistent, but the character portrayal annoyingly well done! And my favorite part, the almost last line: “Solitude, What a sad and beautiful thing it is! How beautiful when we choose it! How sad when it is forced upon us year after year!”
flora_b's review
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0