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A review by katykelly
The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Thériault
5.0
A snake eats its own tale in this short novel with shades of both Amelie and Cyrano de Bergerac.
What a beautifully told tale. Sparse, like the haikus it contains, and elegant. A lonely postman in Montreal secretly steams open mail to correspondents in his round. Living vicariously through their love letters and missives, his favourites come from a woman sending intriguing poems to a local man. By chance he one day sees this same man killed by a car on his way to post a reply. Can he allow the woman he has fallen for to stop sending the poems he loves? Or can he intervene?
There's the lightest touch of comedy here but really, it's a romance of words, as Bilodo begins his own halting stream of haikus with the enigmatic Segolene. The poetry is beautiful, the story rounded even at a span of just over 100 pages. And the ending is a delightful and satisfying surprise, perfectly suited to the theme of the story.
A nod to the translator who has done an excellent job with the poetry.
A beautiful tale. One that I could see making the KS4 syllabus alongside Metamorphosis or Of Mice and Men as a modern classic of a novella.
Review of a Lovereading advance copy.
What a beautifully told tale. Sparse, like the haikus it contains, and elegant. A lonely postman in Montreal secretly steams open mail to correspondents in his round. Living vicariously through their love letters and missives, his favourites come from a woman sending intriguing poems to a local man. By chance he one day sees this same man killed by a car on his way to post a reply. Can he allow the woman he has fallen for to stop sending the poems he loves? Or can he intervene?
There's the lightest touch of comedy here but really, it's a romance of words, as Bilodo begins his own halting stream of haikus with the enigmatic Segolene. The poetry is beautiful, the story rounded even at a span of just over 100 pages. And the ending is a delightful and satisfying surprise, perfectly suited to the theme of the story.
A nod to the translator who has done an excellent job with the poetry.
A beautiful tale. One that I could see making the KS4 syllabus alongside Metamorphosis or Of Mice and Men as a modern classic of a novella.
Review of a Lovereading advance copy.