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donato 's review for:
Cosmetica del nemico
by Amélie Nothomb
I think this would have been better as a play. More powerful even. It's 90% dialog as it is [1]. I hated it, and I loved it. I won't give anything away, but my brain caught hints of what was to come without really processing them (the hints). I think I was too busy hating the Textor character to really analyze what was going on. Not hating the character as a creation, but hating his "personality". Of course, that's the point. I thought of Lolita -- the solipsistic unreliable narrator (the difference is in the final twist).
In the end, it was delightfully disturbing, the way a car crash might be, as long as we're not part of it, rubber-necking past the wreckage. But watch out, the next car crash might involve you...
What was most interesting to me was not so much the doppelganger aspect of the story so much as the what-we-keep-hidden-from-ourselves aspect of the story. We do this every minute of every day in one degree or another. This book shows one of the possible consequences of this hiding-from-ourselves...
[1] I usually don't like all-dialog novels. I kept thinking, why not just write a play?
In the end, it was delightfully disturbing, the way a car crash might be, as long as we're not part of it, rubber-necking past the wreckage. But watch out, the next car crash might involve you...
What was most interesting to me was not so much the doppelganger aspect of the story so much as the what-we-keep-hidden-from-ourselves aspect of the story. We do this every minute of every day in one degree or another. This book shows one of the possible consequences of this hiding-from-ourselves...
[1] I usually don't like all-dialog novels. I kept thinking, why not just write a play?