“There are incredible people whom we meet at the wrong moment. And there are people who are incredible because we meet them at the right moment.”
‘Delicacy’, while I believe to be well transliterated into English has made me wish to read this and other books by David Foenkinos in the original. What first made the book remarkable for me was the way the author managed to write in a relatively simple but elegant way, and how this echoed throughout the book.
Yet, though the style is inherently non-complex (or perhaps because of it) it manages to capture emotion in a strangely unreal way. There is also a certain finality about everything said which is quite refreshing.
I believe there also to be a certain sense of promise and hope within this book. Despite what I’ve said, it should be clear that it is not entirely a happy-joyful book and there are sorrowful moments — described just as well as anything else. And that I believe to be another great aspect of ‘Delicacy’.
“Natalie was rather private (a kind of Swiss femininity). She’d gone through adolescence without trauma, and she respected crosswalks. At twenty, she saw the future as a promise. She liked to laugh, read: two pastimes that weren’t often simultaneous because she preferred sad stories.”
EDIT: I think that David Foenkinos might be the first author I will try reading in French, just because I think his style is sufficient for a non-complete mastery to understand and yet not lose too much of the greatness inherent. Maybe not. We’ll see…
