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A review by joanaprneves
Le parfum des fleurs la nuit by Leïla Slimani
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
3.25
This is a series where an artist is invited to spend the night at a prestigious contemporary art museum. Leïla Slimani took this opportunity as a way to indulge her fantasy of being locked up somewhere where she can isolate herself, a fantasy she presents as being typical of the writer.
Before leaving she introduces her fears, that of the « outer world », of the obligatory platitudes of small talk, of contemporary art while in some ways falling prey to them. She spends a lot of the first part of the book talking about what she doesn’t want, like, identify with or enjoy such as the tourist paradox of not wanting to do touristic things only to arrive at Venice and behave like a - more cultured - tourist would. It’s a bit daunting to see someone with such a nuanced creativity going straight for the pitfalls of anyone who doesn’t regularly enjoy contemporary art museums: she does not avoid to saying that the object of contemporary art is not as sublimated as the artist intends it to be but she is well-read enough to counter-quote Marcel Duchamp, thus producing the abomination of the good student writing what the teacher wants to read.
After this first bit, the text ends up becoming a sort of art catalogue text for a group exhibition, redeeming the art through a personal critical analysis that gives the reader the best moments when it becomes personal. It always does. The book is an excuse to write about the solipsistic condition of the writer, and we end up understanding better why the writer is fascinated with emprisonnent at the end, in a poignant (self)-revelation. However, the book never reality took off, with the unnerving fact that the writer seems as conscious of this than the reader.
Before leaving she introduces her fears, that of the « outer world », of the obligatory platitudes of small talk, of contemporary art while in some ways falling prey to them. She spends a lot of the first part of the book talking about what she doesn’t want, like, identify with or enjoy such as the tourist paradox of not wanting to do touristic things only to arrive at Venice and behave like a - more cultured - tourist would. It’s a bit daunting to see someone with such a nuanced creativity going straight for the pitfalls of anyone who doesn’t regularly enjoy contemporary art museums: she does not avoid to saying that the object of contemporary art is not as sublimated as the artist intends it to be but she is well-read enough to counter-quote Marcel Duchamp, thus producing the abomination of the good student writing what the teacher wants to read.
After this first bit, the text ends up becoming a sort of art catalogue text for a group exhibition, redeeming the art through a personal critical analysis that gives the reader the best moments when it becomes personal. It always does. The book is an excuse to write about the solipsistic condition of the writer, and we end up understanding better why the writer is fascinated with emprisonnent at the end, in a poignant (self)-revelation. However, the book never reality took off, with the unnerving fact that the writer seems as conscious of this than the reader.