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lanikei 's review for:
A Year in the Merde
by Stephen Clarke
If you're into France and obnoxious unlikeable narrators, this is the book for you! I don't speak French and so struggled through some scenes, though these seemed to lessen as the narrator stayed in France. If this was meant as a device to keep me confused just like the narrator, then I suppose it's rather clever.
Otherwise the narrator is just annoying in his chase of French women and a cheap place to live. Somewhere in the middle he gets caught up in a confusing scheme that I never quite figured out. It's as if the author realized that his main character didn't work or have any relationships, so to inject a plot into his book he would add... a conniving boss with political aspirations that came out of nowhere!
Maybe if you've lived in Paris this is extraordinarily clever with lots of nods to a culture I'm not familiar with. But I found it pretty pointless and the characters were all caricatures of stereotyped French traits. I can't believe he managed to write a sequel!
Otherwise the narrator is just annoying in his chase of French women and a cheap place to live. Somewhere in the middle he gets caught up in a confusing scheme that I never quite figured out. It's as if the author realized that his main character didn't work or have any relationships, so to inject a plot into his book he would add... a conniving boss with political aspirations that came out of nowhere!
Maybe if you've lived in Paris this is extraordinarily clever with lots of nods to a culture I'm not familiar with. But I found it pretty pointless and the characters were all caricatures of stereotyped French traits. I can't believe he managed to write a sequel!