Reticence

by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, John Lambert (Translation)

"A little thing happened to me. Which could have just as easily happened to you. You're on vacation in a hotel with your son in a small village and you're about to go see some friends, but something holds you back, a mysterious reticence that prevents you from going to find them. Here is the novel of this reticence, small and specific, and of the fears that it instigates, little by little. Because not only are your friends not there when you do decide to go find them, but, several days later, you find a dead cat in the harbor, a black cat floating in front of you on the water . . ." In Jean-Philippe Toussaint's take on the detective novel, we find a man on vacation in a tiny village, where a writer named Biaggi appears to be keeping him under surveillance. To what end? Ah, but it's far more pleasant to enjoy the Mediterranean night air than to look for answers, make deductions, or get upset—isn't it?

Genres: Fiction, Belgium, Novels, French Literature, Mystery, 20th Century

137 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Jean-Philippe Toussaint (born 29 November, 1957, Brussels) is a Belgian prose writer and filmmaker. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages and he has had his photographs displayed in Brussels and Japan. Toussaint won the Prix Médicis in 2005 for his novel Fuir. The 2006 book La mélancolie de Zidane (Paris: Minuit, 2006) is a lyrical essay on the headbutt administered by the French football player Zinedine Zidane to the Italian player Marco Materazzi during the 2006 World Cup final in Berlin. An English translation was published in 2007 in the British journal New Formations. His 2009 novel La Vérité sur Marie won the prestigious Prix Décembre.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read all of Reticence during the fourth and final session of a particularly painful tattoo. I knew that the session was likely going to be a long one, i.e. over three hours, and I've been saving this book for the occasion. I find the best books for reading while getting tattooed have a little bit of everything: interesting characters, a compelling plot and some evidence of humor. In other words, you want to care, you want to turn pages, you want to laugh. These are always desirable qualities in a book, but even more so when someone is inflicting pain on you during the reading experience.

The story is a simple one: a man arrives in the fictional fishing village of Sasuelo with his infant son, checks into a hotel, and putters around town. That's pretty much it. The reticence at work in the novel is the protagonist's apprehension over calling on a friend after his arrival. After two days of doing very little at all, he is besieged by embarrassment and guilt over failing to visit a friend in town. When he finally pays him a visit, he discovers his house is dark and no one is home. From this point forward the protagonist concocts a series of explanations for his friend's absence, which becomes increasingly paranoid as the days progress and include the features of a seaside village at the onset of winter: a lonely lighthouse, a dark house on a cliff, a dead cat floating in the harbor.

Reticence isn't as funny as some of Toussaint's other novels, and the protagonist is even more of a blank slate than usual (Toussaint rarely supplies much detail by way of back story), and there isn't much of a plot. But Toussaint makes up for these shortcomings with an atmosphere of gloom that would not be out of place in an Edward Gorey story.

In some ways Reticence reminded me of those old Infocom text adventure games where the player interrogates his environment in order to glean clues as to its utility. (One is always asking the question: Why am I here? What is all this for?) On of the the more frustrating aspects of the game is you'd have to invent scenarios where the location's features could be put to use and then test them out, which is precisely what the protagonist of Reticence does. That sounds kind of maddening, especially since there are so few locations to explore, but Toussaint evokes these landscapes masterfully.

Sauelo, apparently, is set in Corsica where Toussaint has lived and where parts of The Truth About Marie are set, but it really doesn't matter. Any Mediterranean or island village will do. Because of the rain that is always falling I kept thinking about the small, sleepy villages of coastal Ireland with their preternatural damp and handful of identical features: gloamy churchyard, manky pubs, shops that always seem to be closed. This is precisely what I needed while getting tattooed. A place to go to. Dark lanes to wander down. The sound of the sea in the distance. The harbor a flat gray plain where everything is out in the open. A landscape to become intimate with the way it's possible to "know" the surfaces of a small village after three or four days in town.

For certain types of travelers, the protagonist's reticence will be all too familiar. When traveling I'm often seized by a sudden and inviolate apprehension of doing that which I'm supposed to be doing. Sometimes it manifests as a resistance to the local attractions or wherever the guide book recommends. Sometimes it's a party or gathering I'm expected to attend. Sometimes it's simply an overwhelming desire not to leave the room I've rented. One night in Spain I stayed holed up in my pension reading a James Elroy novel some traveler had left behind. Recently, I spent three days at a hotel in L.A. near the beach yet never made it to the ocean. I'm often content to look out the window and wonder what its like or speculate what the noises I hear outside in the street or in the hallway are all about rather than investigate myself -- things that Toussaint's characters make a fetish out of doing. It's the opposite of reality hunger: an appetite for the imagination.

Reticence strikes me as a writerly trait, a preference for observing from the sidelines, a deliberate withholding of the self from the stream of life. Perhaps the novel is Toussaint's way of poking fun at himself. The specificity of the undertaking makes Reticence a remarkable and peculiar book that I will undoubtedly return to, perhaps while on holiday in a foreign city when the comforts of a strange room are preferable to the incessant beckoning of a needful world.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tight, precise inversion of a murder mystery that exuberantly casts aside the elements we might expect to matter and instead elevates "minor" ones through focused description and attention, making a tense, surprising, and arresting investigation out of both something and nothing.

[lyell bark · Rating 3 out of 5]

this guy tries to avoid talking to another dude and steals his mail, then when the guy goes to return the mail and talk to the other dude, the other dude is on vacation.

[Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bold endeavor on Toussaint's part to attempt to convey the neuroses we all carry as individuals incessantly worried about what others may think of our individual behavior. While I found it a bit lackluster, the French minimalist novels are nonetheless tried and true escapes into magical, mundane experiences we often take for granted.

[Abigail · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this novel has about 40 or so actually interesting pages. It is in the middle when there's a real mystery and a sense of paranoia but the writer instead turns it into a personality study. By page 100, I really, desperately wanted the book to be over. It is a very cinematic novel however, it is like a very beautiful film playing inside your head. The only good Jean philippe toussaint novel I've read so far has been Monsieur. I can recommend that one. This, no.

edit - actually been thinking about this one a bit. so 2 stars.

[Jeff Buddle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belgian writer Jean-Philippe Toussaint is without question one my favorite writers. I discovered him accidentally. I was browsing Boston’s Ave. Victor Hugo when I came across “The Bathroom,” which was a strange enough title to compel me to take the book from the shelf. The blurb, describing a story about a young man who decides to live in his bathroom, was just strange enough to make me want to read the book. I bought it and read it on the same day. At that time none of Toussaint’s other books were available in English. I figured I’d found an anomaly, a strange and unique pleasure, a foreign writer that few Americans knew and would likely never know. Now years have gone by. The Ave. Victor Hugo is long gone. I no longer live in Boston and Dalkey Archive has published 9 of Toussaint’s books in translation. I have read them all. “Reticence” is the most recent.

The plot is spare, a man and his infant son come to a town. The man had planned to contact a friend who lives just outside of town, but upon taking a room in a small hotel finds himself reticent to do so. On his first night in town his discovers a dead cat floating in the bay. This dead cat, and the feeling that his friend is not only aware of his presence in town but surveilling him, watching his every move, photographing him from unseen vantage. But why? He never tells us. He’s certain that spies lurk everywhere. He’s certain that somebody murdered the cat.

This is a detective story, of sorts, a detective story without a detective, without deduction, a kind of Robbe-Grillet meets Beckett meets Camus nouveau roman. Our narrator doesn’t discuss his motivations, he just does stuff. He suspects that he’s being spied on, but it’s he who breaks into his friend’s house, steals his mail, and interrogates his groundskeeper. If anybody’s actions can be questioned, it’s him.

What I love about “Reticence” is what I love about all of Toussaint’s novels, the plain, affectless voice describing action with the same passivity as non-action. Our narrator breaks into his friend’s house and it’s described with the same voice he uses to describe his evening meal. He steals the keys from various rooms in the hotel and breaks into those as well. He never questions why he does any of this and does not even attempt to explain his motivations, he just does it. Toussaint’s prose is unadorned yet beautiful. Where many contemporary American writers tend towards elaborate metaphor, Toussaint strips all that out and leaves just the essentials.

As far as I can tell, Toussaint has flown under the radar when it comes to literary fiction in translation. We have seen Bolaño take the spotlight, Hans Falada, Knausgaard, and (of course) Murakami all while Dalkey Archive has been churning out these little gems of contemporary fiction. If you haven’t read them, I’d recommend seeking them out.

[Plumb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read Self-Portrait Abroad by Toussaint and enjoyed it immensely, but the humorous, lighthearted style of that novel didn't prepare me for this paranoid and brooding little mystery. At times there was a real sense of foreboding as details came up and I wondered whether it was real or imaginary. I was also struck by the pure cheek of the protagonist who seems to do whatever he pleases in quite an insane manner, and that reminded me a little of Toussaint's character in Self-Portrait Abroad where there were little touches of impertinence too, although in that case it was funny, and in this case it made me worry that this protagonist was losing his grip on reality.

I also very much enjoyed the character of his 8 month old son. That added a tenderness to the story, but also some tension as the protagonist loves to go wandering by himself and leaves his little boy alone in the hotel. I do wonder why the son was included in the story though. A reflection of himself, perhaps, and his responsibilities - the real world? Reflections themselves, or his lack of, are quite prominent in the story.

Interesting and well written.

[Lulú Arroyo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am reading the reviews here wondering what in the world made some think this is a 4 star book… Superbly repetitive and well .. boring. I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the translation? I had high expectations as this was recommended to me by someone at McNally Jackson. They’re usually on point but phew- not this time. Goes to show the subjectivity of art- at least ai can appreciate that!

[elise anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eerie, dark, thoughtful, and clean. Like if Garth Greenwell wrote a Paul Auster novel.

[Lilly Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of depressing and not in a good way

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Father of the year right here.

[William Laborde · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jean-Philippe Toussaint s'incruste dans mes écrivains favoris depuis sa découverte il y a un peu moins de dix ans maintenant. J'ai lu quasiment tout ses livres avec immense plaisir et c'est généralement vers lui que je me tourne lorsque en manque de direction littéraire, pour faire une halte et me retrouver sur une lecture qui est garantie de me plaire. Mais cette fois ci avec La Réticence je n'ai pas trouvé tout mon bonheur.
Lenteur d'évolution, répétition et usage incessant de certains noms, une intrigue qui tourne en rond avec obsession. Tout ces aspects servent à bâtir ce qui compose la psychologie de notre narrateur, je le réalise bien.
Mais ce suspens qui ne trouve ni développement ni réel aboutissement me laisse frustré. Bien sûr, j'ai souris, j'ai rigolé par certains moment. Les détails Toussaint sont présents, ils délectent - mais ils ne sont pas assez pour transformer ce roman. Trop souvent j'ai voulu qu'on avance, qu'on passe à autre chose. Mais ne le récit n'a pas répondu, il a continuer à tourner en rond, à se casser la tête, à retourner en arrière. C'est au final ce personnage qui ma déplu, par son caractère même. La structure de l'intrigue était prometteuse mais je n'ai pu sympathiser avec cet idiot - chose que je réussit dans chaque roman de Toussaint, quelque peut distant le narrateur soit-il. C'est la psychologie du protagoniste qui forme la structure de cette histoire 'quasi-policière' mais c'est elle aussi qui fait défaut par sa lourdeur et au final ne m'a pas trop plut, (désolé Philippe, c'est bien dit avec réticence pour le cas).

[Heronimo Gieronymus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my second Toussaint. I read Camera about six or seven years ago. I was impressed by it, but had the sense that, though this was some stripped-down and precise writing, there were kinda a couple different novels going on at the same time, and I was not entirely convinced that they were ever really reconciled. This is so far from being the case w/ Reticence (the novel he wrote directly after Camera), that what is actually most notable about it is its extremely impressive unity and sense of purposeful and methodical development. This is extremely sober writing, which is especially rich because our first person narrator is talking us through some crazy decisions, conclusions, and calculations in an eminently reasonable manner. Craziness can be very sober and mindful. I can think of few texts that exemplify this better than Reticence. This is an extremely cerebral novel (there is a great deal of space for intellectual reflection here) that is at the same time ineluctable in its evocation of place. Also, due to the precise formal structure, there is a real strong sensibility regarding the passage of time. Reticence will certainly appeal to fans of 'pataphysics and Oulipo-type games in the domain of sleuthing. It is a book I can imagine impressing Borges. It also made me think of cinema. I was often imaging what it would be like to render this story, and its particular modalities, cinematographically. I imagined a radically opaque paranoid movie about a mystery too mysterious to be reducible to a coherent explanatory methodology. A world of clues without a narrative to bind them. I have no qualms about outright stating that Reticence is a masterpiece, albeit a quiet one. Major literary and philosophical implications are implicit.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that, as it says in a blurb on the back cover, is meant to be read in one sitting. I discovered this book after reading a review by a person who goes by the name, proustitute. If you are not familiar with him take a glance at his wonderful blog: http://proustitute.tumblr.com/

The story takes place in the fictional town of Sasuelo where an unnamed narrator has arrived with his infant son. Why? Presumably to visit the Biaggi's. For some reason after arriving the narrator is reluctant to visit his friends. He is, for reasons unknown feeling reticent.
The story begins with a dead cat floating in the sea. The narrator slowly becomes convinced that the cat had been murdered. His paranoia continues to grow throughout the novel. When he finally decides to visit his friends he finds they are not home. He steals and returns their mail, enters their home and later becomes convinced that Biaggi is following him. He suspects that Biaggi is staying at the same hotel with him. That he is being observed. Maybe even photographed.
I've said too much already. This is a great book that I highly recommend. Sit down with the book when you have the time to read the entire book in one sitting (It's only 128 pages). Read it on a day when for reasons unknown you are reluctant to do the things you set out to do. Stay indoors and allow yourself to be dragged into the narrator's madness.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dead cat floats in the harbor in the opening scene of this novella length parody/tribute to the noir genre. A black cat, naturally, as black clouds slowly move overhead, allowing pale moonlight to reveal the murder. For surely it was a deliberate killing, our narrator thinks, an act somehow connected to the fact that his old friend Biaggi, whom he has come to this village to see, though he is avoiding Biaggi now that he has arrived, has been stalking him through the village, keeping watch on him, even taking a room in the same little hotel.

Every minor event is drafted into the service of this suspenseful game of cat and mouse. Our narrator turns snoop, stealing Biaggi's mail, slipping into Biaggi's house
unseen. Or has Biaggi in fact been watching every one of these moves?

Perhaps all will become clear at the end, on a deserted beach in the pale moonlight, a lonely lighthouse flashing monotonously.

[Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This tale feels like a short story, spanning about 120 small pages, and it begins and ends with a dead cat. Actually, there is dead cat throughout. The narrator spends the duration of the story alone, convincing himself that the cat was murdered by a human. It's a rather disturbing meditation, and I could not convince myself that anything was at stake. On the last page with the author's bio, it says that his work has been compared to that of Samuel Beckett, whose work also puzzles me.

In the story's favor, its construction felt quite original. Partly cued by the title, Reticence, I noticed there is no dialogue in the book--at least, none in quotation marks. There's a couple sentences like "He didn't answer right away, and I examined his face in the feeble light. I don't know, he said, I didn't go up, I thought you were with him." The manner in which this roughly shaded dialogue is built into the descriptive paragraphs gives the book the feel of a silent movie.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming but also chilling little jeu d'esprit. I haven't read any other Toussaint, and get the feeling this is intentionally 'minor,' but it's very entertaining and extremely clever. Toussaint uses a very restricted symbolic palette (cats, light, the color grey, that's about it) and a very restrained narrative voice to more or less drag you to hell and back, even though at any given moment you just feel like you're reading a very mild memoir of a moderately intelligent man going about his business.

And suddenly you think holy shit, this guy is a crazed murderer! Wait, no he's not, he's 'just' a paranoid delinquent! Wait, no he's not, he really is a crazed murderer! Oh my god the world is just death and ugly cars! Oh no, it's all okay.

It's like Henry James' 'The Jolly Corner' + 'Moby Dick' set in the bleakest, most economically depressed tourist town you can imagine. Occasionally hilarious, occasionally terrifying.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reticence carries a great deal of appeal for me and I have much admiration for the way Toussaint has constructed this story. The flow is effortless and the consistent repetition of new themes results in a feeling of comforting continuity for the reader. In this stories main character, Toussaint has created a masterpiece of an individual, not only because of his quirkiness but also because of the relatable ways of his nature. While his nature is curious and compelling in many ways it leaves the reader asking many questions and keeps us turning the pages. This was a book that was very easy for me to read in one sitting and I enjoyed every bit of it. I would highly recommend this book to any fan of quality literature.

[Zay Aw · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2022, I finished reading "Reticence" while baking French butter bread, taking three hours to complete. The book cover still bears the imprint of my buttery fingers. It's a gripping short story, following the protagonist and his child on a Mediterranean vacation, starting with a dead cat and ending with one.

Belgian author Jean-Philippe Toussaint's work, originally in French, captures the protagonist's reserved nature, leading to keen observation and imagination, bordering on pathology.

The inclusion of the child character was pure genius, providing a perfect balance to the protagonist's dark thoughts. If you have a few hours to spare, "Reticence" is your go-to.

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone new to J-P. Toussaint, this is a good introduction. Those familiar with his books will recognize the same obsessive thinking on the part of an unnamed male narrator that, at the beginning, doesn't look that way at all. Again, there are those sentences that take you up in their rhythm and bring you forward, helpless to resist. Flow with them as, in this case, they're in the service of a type of detective story concerning the corpse of a cat.

For a full review, go here:

http://www.thewinnipegreview.com/wp/2...

[Igor Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up this long-short-story at random, my interest piqued first by the striking cover illustration, and subsequently by the enigmatic blurb. It's turned out to be a lovely, quirky meditation on obsessive and paranoid thought patterns, their derivation from the real circumstances to which they relate, those which they call forth or create, and the interplay between all of these. A great intro to M. Toussaint which I think will have me following up on his other work.

[Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

Toussaint's writing has always been described as "cinematic." While all of his books are visual, narrative, and subtle - reading much like watching an new wave movie - this one was above all "cinematic" and failed to emphasize his usual (and equal) strength in writing. While it was entertaining (at times), "Camera" and "The Bathroom" are more enjoyable reads (strictly, reads).

[PaddytheMick · Rating 2 out of 5]

light on depth and lacking emotional catalysts, seems hastily constructed; reminds me of robbe-grillet a bit, where progression is supposed to be confusing and standard literary tools intentionally averted.

if you want to keep my interest though (with this nouveau roman stuff), you better be lyrically talented.

maybe his others are better.

sucks to be the cat...

[Jilanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like participating in someone else's dream. Watching them unravel, become more and more unreliable. Loved the sense of being at sea with a madman. And the humor that's interwoven. It's short and easy to read in one evening. Definitely more interesting than standard American fare.

[Michael York · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very short read. I finished it in one sitting and I was engrossed. Narrator's sanity questionable during most of the book and I was constantly concerned for the safety of his infant son who is left alone for hours. Highly recommended.

[Ronan Doyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a thrillingly atmospheric anti-mystery of a novel, borne on brooding noir airs and a sense of pervasive neurosis. Hugely enjoyable minimalist narrative achieves a terrific dry humour that just chimed with me perfectly. Keen to track down more Toussaint.

[Jeff T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one does noneventuality (noneventfullness?) like J-PT. Or: Another unforgettable non-event from J-PT!

[Lee Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's so much I want to say about this book, but...

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genre fiction where the mystery is more or less what the book is about. Not in a bad way.

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Slight.