The Mystery Guest

by Grégoire Bouillier, Lorin Stein (Translator)

When the phone rang on a gloomy fall afternoon in 1990, Grégoire Bouillier had no way of knowing that it was the woman who’d left him, without warning, ten years before. And he couldn’t have guessed why she was calling—not to apologize for, or explain, the way she’d vanished from his life, but to invite him to a party. A birthday party. For a woman he’d never met.

This is the story of how one man got over a broken heart, learned to love again, stopped wearing turtlenecks, regained his faith in literature, participated in a work of performance art by mistake, and spent his rent money on a bottle of 1964 bordeaux that nobody ever drank. The Mystery Guest is, in the words of L’Humanité, a work of “fiendish wit and refinement.” It pushes the conventions of autobiography (and those great themes of French literature: love and aging) to an absurd, poignant, and very funny conclusion. This translation marks the English-language debut of an iconoclast who has attracted one of the most passionate cult followings in French literature today.

Genres: Fiction, France, Literature, Novels, Biography Memoir, Book Club, Contemporary

120 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Grégoire Bouillier is the French memoirist who wrote Rapport sur moi (Report on Myself) and L'invité mystère (The Mystery Guest). Rapport sur moi won the Prix de Flore in 2002.

Reviews

[Buck · Rating 3 out of 5]

It takes a big man to admit how deeply he’s been hurt by a woman—and an even bigger man to do it without sounding like Conor Oberst. In his prime, Isaac Hayes could feel secure enough to cry like a girl, because everyone knew he was still a bad mutha (shut yo mouth). More recently, Ghostface Killah taught us that even gangstas get all torn up inside, and that a kick in the nuts doesn’t have to impair your swagger permanently. And just this past summer, Cee-Lo Green tried desperately to “forget” (call me a prude, but I prefer the radio edit.)

Grégoire Bouillier, being a bookish Frenchman, inclines more toward the emo end of the scale. After being dumped by his girlfriend in a particularly disorienting way—she just up and leaves one day, without a word—Bouillier spends years wallowing in sweet, sweet pain. L’Invité Mystère tells the story of how he clawed his way out of it, got his mojo back, and Learned To Love Again. In other words, it’s a sort of Mange, Prie, Aime for Parisian intellectuals. Sure, it boasts classier literary antecedents and more daring syntax than Gilbert’s book, but the trajectory is similar: heartbreak, acceptance, redemption. And that’s okay. Parisian intellectuals need love and redemption, too—I SUPPOSE. I’m just suspicious of any memoir that refines all the messiness out of life, reducing it to a pat narrative schema. That’s not how life feels to me. There’s triumph in it, definitely, and tons of failure, but there are also great heaping gobs of amorphous stuff, and distilling all that chaos into a three-act journey of self-discovery seems like a massive cop-out to me. Which is why nobody’s optioning my life story, I guess.

On a more gossipy note, I see reality keeps gifting Bouillier with fresh material. Sophie Calle, the conceptual artist that Bouillier hooks up with at the end of the book, has since been dumped by him, almost as brutally as he was dumped by his previous girlfriend. Apparently, he gave her the bad news in a “breakup email,” which she took and used as the centerpiece of a popular exhibition at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Ouch. It’s never a good idea to piss off a conceptual artist, Grégoire. And Sophie? If I may? As Ghostface puts it (in the radio version), “What he did was wack, but you don’t get your man back like that.”

[Edan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taking this to Kauai...

...Man this is a strange little book! I was thinking I'd give it 3 stars, but I am throwing in 1 more for its confounding factor. Yes, this book totally confounded me. The narrator speaks in these endless, circular, self conscious, amusing sentences, full of all kinds of verbal tics. His obsession with his ex-girlfriend is puzzling and sad and also totally realistic. His actions are crazy (um--the turtlenecks?), as are his reactions. I was really interested in how this guy used books and literature to understand his world and past, and how his revelations about things never once matched my own. That is, he would say stuff like, "I finally got it!" and I would be thinking, "Oh what now?" It was pleasing, though. Monsieur Bouillier can't survive without words and stories and the interpretations they carry, even if those textual interpretations are completely solipsistic and unrelated to the text at hand.

I read this book in one day, in swimming attire, and I recommend that you read it that way, too.

[Alicja Chryscienko · Rating 3 out of 5]

a love letter to overthinking

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein vollkommen unerwarteter Anruf am Sonntagnachmittag reißt den 30-jährigen Ich-Erzähler, der ein literarisches Alter Ego von Grégoire Bouillier ist, aus der Lethargie, in die er gefallen ist, seit ihn einige Jahre zuvor seine Geliebte verlassen hat; als wäre nichts Außergewöhnliches daran, ruft eben sie den Liebesversehrten an und lädt ihn ein, als Überraschungsgast auf der Feier der „bekannten zeitgenössischen Künstlerin“ Sophie Calle zu erschienen. Überrascht über sich selbst sagt der Erzähler zu und hat nun allerhand Anlass, auf kauzig-humorvolle und bisweilen neurotische Weise die beiden Problemfelder zu reflektieren, die sich aus dieser Einladung ergeben: bedeutet der Anruf für ihn, der seit der Trennung gleichsam als Wundverband die ihm zuvor immer so verhassten Rollkragenunterziehpullover trägt, neues / altes Liebesglück? Und welches Geschenk des selbst überraschten Überraschungsgastes ist angemessen, was kann er Sophie Calle schenken?
Die Situation ist schwerst bedeutungsgeladen, überall sieht er Zeichen: Gerade ist Michel Leiris gestorben, derweil man in Deutschland die Wiedervereinigung feiert und im Kino „Stirb langsam II“ läuft. Erwartet ihn neues Glück oder neues Leid? Aber vielleicht steht ihm ja auch etwas ganz anderes bevor, denn die Raumsonde Ulysses schickt sich an, das Sonnensystem zu verlassen. Überzeugt ist er allerdings davon, dass es die Kraft der Liebe ist, die ihm diese Zeichen beschert, und nicht sein Unterbewusstsein: „(…) ich erfinde nichts, dafür habe ich viel zu viel Phantasie.“
DER ÜBERRASCHUNGSGAST ist vom Verlag Nagel & Kimche nicht mit einem Gattungsbegriff versehen worden, und das ist gut so. Denn jede Einengung, die mit einer solchen Bezeichnung einherginge, würde den Lesespaß mindern. Biografisch angeregte Kurzprosa, literarisch durchgestaltet – das klingt doch eher sperrig, oder? Besser, man lässt sich vorurteilslos ein auf den Bericht des Erzählers, der auf sympathische Weise und in zuweilen ausufernden Sätzen alle möglichen Töne anschlägt, vor allem selbstironische und humorvolle; aber auch melancholische Unterströmungen sind zu verzeichnen, wenn er seine hochfliegenden Hoffnungen von der Gravitation des Alltags unerwartet niedergedrückt findet.
Ein wunderbares Vergnügen, Freude an eleganten Sätzen und eigenwilligen Reflektionen vorausgesetzt! Ein wenig habe ich beim Lesen an Genazino gedacht, ansonsten ist diese leichtfüßig elegante und zugleich anspruchsvolle Erzählweise, in der sich Kunst und Realität treffen, die Domäne französischer Autoren und hierzulande eher Mangelware.

[Leif Quinlan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The power of rereading: The power to reveal what a dumbass you were the first time around. This isn't your typical 5-star book because it doesn't have the heft of truly great books but it is perfectly unique. I love this book

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

what melodrama! (I relate completely)

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bear with me. This review requires some background. A couple weeks ago I posted a review of Sophie Calle's Exquisite Pain. A week ago I read a review in the NYT about Bouillier's Report on Myself (which not only won the 2002 Prix de Flore, but is translated by Bruce Benderson, who won the same prize in 2004). So I ordered this book and its predecessor The Mystery Guest – only to discover that TMG is actually the successor (even though it was translated first). Also, in a coincidence worthy of Boullier's memoir, The Mystery Guest is dedicated to the same Sophie Calle, at whose party Boullier was the titular guest.

As soon as I read the first sentence in this book – "It was the day Michel Leiris died" (echoes of L'Etranger!) – I realized that I'd read, or at least started, this book a couple years ago – but never finished it because it bored the merde out of me. This time I got all the way through (it's short) but remained unimpressed. Bouillier has a bit of French fun with his exacerbated-self-pity-caught-in-the-web-of-correspondences; the reader, not so much. The tale spins around an extravagant gift of a bottle of Grand Vin - and I suggest sipping a few glasses to get you through, even if it's only the house red.

Still – I'm going to read his first book, which at least has a great first paragraph.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

"the significance of a dream, we're told, has less to do with its overt drama than with the details; a long time ago it struck me that the same was true of real life, of what passes among us for real life."

"we brick ourselves up in prisons of our own devising, we spend our lives losing touch with ourselves, disappearing behind what negates us."

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you had your heart broken? Are you an existentialist? Do you yearn for the chance to participate in performance art? If you've answered yes to all three questions then this book is for you. I found it by accident in a used bookstore and I've read it three times already. It appeals to little bitter girl living inside me.

[Nicco Mele · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delight. The absolute force of the narrative carries you through the pathetically, hilariously French story.

[Maya Hartman · Rating 4 out of 5]

“.. and the opposite of courage isn’t cowardice but discouragement…”

Such an interesting and thoughtful little read and one of the most intriguing concepts I’ve come across (all the more so because it’s a true story!)

[Kara Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

bouillier is the king of run-on sentences. unbearable. lose the turtleneck

[Lee Klein · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.7 stars, rounded up considering its brevity? Maybe seven really distinguished pages throughout, whereas the rest often seemed like a kinder gentler French version of Thomas Bernhard (who's name-checked at one point), or a not-as-obsessively-precise Nicholson Baker? Zero LOLs. Way more than zero zone-outs. Inconsequential, ultimately, despite intimations of consequence? But, again, a few sweet pages, plus it's short, idiosyncratic, and moves unpredictably on the backs of sidewinder snake/opium smoke sentences. Never really felt like a memoir, interestingly. Has such a literary/fictional vibe. Worth looking at it for the bit of time it takes to read. No way I'll remember it in six weeks? But maybe worth it if you see a used copy for cheap somewhere? Some good wise sentences throughout, albeit for me mostly a soporific.

[Yules · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I absolutely love is this review calling it "One of the most disgustingly French books I have ever read."
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Clara Browne · Rating 3 out of 5]

um livro sobre a importância de ser doido, mas não necessariamente neurótico

[Branden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this little quick read. Gave me High Fidelity vibes mixed with The Sun Also Rises. Very much a tale “as they say” inside the mind of the author. It was fun and quirky and French. And it just ends.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reminded me of being invited to a party where I didn’t know anyone but the friend who invited me and then they ditched me to hangout with their friends so I’m awkwardly standing in a corner observing everyone else. The internal existential monologuing and anxiety that courses through one’s brain during these awkward moments is intense and depressing. I feel like Mystery Guest perfectly captures these feelings of inadequacy.

[Preet Kaur · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/10! Will be rereading!

[Yulia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was immediately drawn into the obsessive internal world of Bouillier, who receives an invitation to be a mystery guest at an artist's birthday party from the woman who'd left him without a world four years before and hadn't contacted him till that fateful call. I read on, captivated by his neuroses, wanting to gain some insight about their relationship or at least about the woman who'd so tormented him, but instead we follow Bouillier as he wracks his brain to interpret what her invitation means, what message she is sending him, as if in code, and determines in advance how he should regard the party, whether as a challenge or an opportunity, a beginning or an end, and how he should compose himself, with disinterest or in scorn and with a wry smile of complicity.

I found the preparation and the party itself very absorbing, but the book, though only 120 pages in translation, drags on after the party is over and he grasps at some grand connections his ex had been trying to make, a lofty story she had been making of or trying to re-enact through her and their lives, as well as too many great leaps of association and underlying inspiration involving a space shuttle to the sun, light bulbs, contemporary art, and the death of a certain man who has inspired Bouillier to write not what happens to him, but what meaning he takes from these events. It's a fascinating look into the mind of a grandiose and self-absorbed individual, but could have been made so much more tolerable had he not tried to make too much of the events or had he (or the translator) note used the term, "as they say" ("comme on dit" in French?), every single time a cliche was used, which was a massive number of times, sometimes twice in one breath.

As they say, c'est le bouquet!

[Ryan Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bouillier's book covers a phone call, a party, and a few conversations, but from such meager fuel comes pure wisdom. After the author was cruelly and mysteriously dumped by his girlfriend, she calls him out of the blue, as they say, after five years of incommunicado. She would like him to be the "mystery guest" at her friend's birthday party in a couple weeks. This sets off chains of neurotic, hilarious tangents which populate the book and render Bouillier not only as a winning and charming narrator, but a savvy writer (with an unfortunate love life). What happens at the party, what it all means for him, and how this is all tacked to the trajectory of the Ulysses satellite I'll leave for you to find out. At 120 pages, it can be read in a sitting, and despite its hardcover price tag The Mystery Guest should be picked up and read immediately.

[Kristenyque · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book details the mental un-wrapping each one of us conducts in our daily lives in the hope of discovering something larger than ourselves.

My favorite quote (although it is not from the author it is from Michel Leiris) is: "literary activity, in its specific aspect as a mental discipline, cannot have any other justification than to illuminate certain matters of oneself at the same time as one makes them communicable to others, and that one of the highest goals....is to restore by means of words certain intense states, concretely experienced and become significant, to be thus put into words."

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone who chronicles their moments of humiliation for public consumption commits an act of moral courage (or insanity), especially when those moments are just so absurd. That said, Bouillier documents a few of his with humor, generosity and self-aware elan, ultimately transforming them into acts of grace. The effect feels downright magical sometimes; in fact, I'm a little buoyant after reading this little volume.

[Roniel Tessler · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're looking for an angrier version of Dave Eggers, this is your guy. He writes beautifully and truthfully, and with a stream-of-consciousness I totally related to, though also with a hopeful ending I'm not sure I share. Filled with little lines you'll want to savor. This book is great if you've ever hated an ex, and tried to find continued meaning in their existence as it relates to your life.

[Paula · Rating 2 out of 5]

A slight but entertaining novel. The author seamlessly incorporates a great deal of French thought into the narration while keeping it readable. Fans of Bernhard will recognize the very obvious homage to him in Boullier's first-person narration, and may want to read this book solely for the oddness/fun of reading a French man ranting like a German.

[Kristiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

While reading this I felt the narrator was a little self involved, but there's a point in the book that everything changed for me. He stopped being so into himself and started making a lot of sense. It's a short book and when I finished it I wanted to read it start to finish in bed enjoying every sentence.

[Ilianna Kalkatzikou · Rating 5 out of 5]

A breakup transformed into art. Strange, obsessive, and oddly beautiful. This memoir reads like an existential detective story where the mystery isn’t a crime—but a past emotional wound. Bouillier takes something small (a random party invitation) and spins it into a wild meditation on love, memory, ego, and storytelling itself. Frenetic and philosophical, but also kind of hilarious.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half way through I was furious at its self absorption and lack of economy, but the end won me over a little. It's sort of about literary paranoia (in the strict sense): that events in one's life can begin to align with signs from literature and art. Involves Sophie Calle...

[will]

Bouillier has written a brief but excellent memoir about his own self-doubt and sense of loss. His subjects are heavy and existential even as his prose remains fairly light and humorous. I'm looking forward to more translations of his work.

[Stephanie Sun · Rating 3 out of 5]

An amusing novella for those who like amusing novellas.

[Jeanine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the storyline and themes presented here, but their presentation left a lot to be desired. The writing style is not my type...perhaps something lost in translation.