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Réparer les vivants

Maylis de Kerangal

3.86 · Rating details · 6,944 ratings · 996 reviews

"Le coeur de Simon migrait dans un autre endroit du pays, ses reins, son foie et ses poumons gagnaient d'autres provinces, ils filaient vers d'autres corps". Réparer les vivants est le roman d'une transplantation cardiaque. Telle une chanson de gestes, il tisse les présences et les espaces, les voix et les actes qui vont se relayer en vingt-quatre heures exactement. Roman ...more

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Paperback, 281 pages

Published January 2nd 2014 by Verticales

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May 01, 2015 Ilse rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: any reader looking for something quite extraordinary

Shelves: france, 2016, reviewed

Reports from the heart

Mend the Living is a gripping novel of stunning beauty, an audacious and highly original composition on the fragility of life.

One man's death is another man's breath. As to the donation and transplantation of vital organs, this proverb, when interpreted literally, is a lapalissade. In Dutch, there exists an expression with a similar significance, connecting death with bread instead of breath: one man’s death is another one’s bread. Perhaps it is less harshly formulated ...more

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Feb 21, 2016 Diane S ☔ rated it liked it · review of another edition

A horrible tragedy, a young man lies in a hospital declared brain dead. This is a book that takes place in twenty four hours, from his declaration of death, his parents being told and the process started for the transplanting of his organs. Stories are told about everyone involved in this devastating process, from the parent's grief, the doctor who declares him dead, the transplant co-ordination, and everyone else involved in this process which means sorrow for some and new life for others.

Trans ...more

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Jun 13, 2017 Jen Campbell rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

'Maybe there is a scrapyard for organs somewhere, she thinks, removing her jewellery and her watch, some sort of garbage heap where hers will be dumped along with others, evacuated from the hospital through a back door in large trash bags; she imagines a container for organic matter where it will be recycled, transformed into a paste, a flesh compost served by unimaginably cruel heirs of Atreus to their rivals, who enter the palace dining room with hearty appetites - served as pancakes or steak ...more

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Jul 24, 2017 Jola rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: france

Is it possible to fall in love with a book? Probably yes, as it has just happened to me. The symptoms are typical: I keep thinking about it almost all the time. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can't concentrate. Fortunately, I'm having summer holidays at the moment, otherwise it would be really hard.

I want to share my thoughts and impressions with you badly. I really do. The problem is I am at a complete loss for words. I think it would be better if, instead of writing a review, I could show you a Is it possible to fall in love with a book? Probably yes, as it has just happened to me. The symptoms are typical: I keep thinking about it almost all the time. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can't concentrate. Fortunately, I'm having summer holidays at the moment, otherwise it would be really hard.

I want to share my thoughts and impressions with you badly. I really do. The problem is I am at a complete loss for words. I think it would be better if, instead of writing a review, I could show you a sort of electrocardiogram documenting what was happening to me when I was reading Maylis de Kerangal's novel. Then you would know exactly when I wept. When my heart was missing a beat. When I was profoundly moved. When I howled noiselessly. When I felt totally mesmerized by Maylis de Kerangal's words.

Speaking of words, Marcel Proust was trying to find the lost time, while Maylis de Kerangal sets sail on other mission: she searches for the language which can express the most tragic feelings you can imagine. In my opinion the mission has been accomplished in an enthralling way. Without any monumental words, any marble pathos, any cheap sentimentalism. The beauty of the writing blends with enormous empathy and tact here.

I can't promise you will be as much enchanted as I have been. You might find de Kerangal's style annoying. I know that some readers do. But if you love it as much as I do, be prepared for the inner conflict: you will want this book to last forever and at the same time you won't be able to put it down. At least that's what has been happening to me for the last few days.

While I was reading 'The Heart', I was listening to Loreena McKennitt almost all the time. I didn't pay much attention to the lyrics as I was focused on the novel. Completely sucked by the novel, to be exact. Suddenly I realized that the song I was listening to, probably for the twentieth time, was closely related to Maylis de Kerangal's book. I mean 'Dante's Prayer':
'Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars

Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares

Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
Please remember me'

It was like a revelation. The lyrics made me think of Simon and Maylis de Kerangal's novel. It's a coincidence of course but shows you how infatuated I am.

When (if?) my ability to think logically comes back, I will discuss a few more things I would love to tell you about 'The Heart'.

To be continued... ...more

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Aug 29, 2017 Carol rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Carol by: Jean

Shelves: read-2017, fiction, 200, published-2014, cultural-france, translated

3.5 Stars.

Oh My....what to say. One minute I'm glued to the pages and the next I'm wondering why in the world the author is introducing yet another character....one with a story that went on and on and wasn't (for me) significant to the plot....for what purpose?

Anyway, overall I thought 75% of THE HEART to be extraordinary, informative and one dam fine read....the other 25% a bit tedious.

IT ALL HAPPENS IN 24 HOURS beginning with some early morning surfing fun for three teens that turns deadly br

...more

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Dec 26, 2016 debra rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I really enjoyed the basic story concerning all that is involved with organ donation: the loss of loved deceased,telling family and getting permission, harvesting, transport,all the emotional upheaval of all these people and the myriad other issues involved in the process.There was also a varied cast of believable and often compelling characters.

Many reviewers thought the author wrote beautifully. IMO, author took purple prose to the level of aubergine. Majority of book was walls of text. One s ...more

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Oct 04, 2016 Snotchocheez rated it liked it · review of another edition

3 stars

My feelings were all over the place for The Heart (or I guess as it's titled on the francophone side of the pond, Réparer les vivants; something about "Heal the Living" doesn't quite resonate in English). Parts of Maylis de Kerangal's short, hyper-stylistic, fictional take on the world of organ transplantation were just amazing; other parts kerflop like an Emergency Organ Transport van's blown-out Michelin.

When she sticks to the core subject (the aftermath of teen surfer Simon Limbres' a 3 stars

My feelings were all over the place for The Heart (or I guess as it's titled on the francophone side of the pond, Réparer les vivants; something about "Heal the Living" doesn't quite resonate in English). Parts of Maylis de Kerangal's short, hyper-stylistic, fictional take on the world of organ transplantation were just amazing; other parts kerflop like an Emergency Organ Transport van's blown-out Michelin.

When she sticks to the core subject (the aftermath of teen surfer Simon Limbres' all-but-fatal van collision, the resulting Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief experienced by his loved ones, the hard choices to be made regarding Simon's comatose, vegetative body, the technical exigencies of organ transfer) the book absolutely soars (so much so that when I heard that there was a big screen adaptation soon to be released, I thought "duh! no brainer! Palme d'Or!") Yet other parts, particularly the back stories of all the people tangentially connected to Simon's plight (especially--though not limited to--Thomas Rémige, a nurse/organ donation coordinator, whose back stories include singing opera and having a near-fetish-like fascination with North African goldfinches) go nowhere. Most of these back stories lend nothing to the story whatsoever, and only serve to muck up the works (with style, sure, but...no thank you.)

Ms. de Kerangal has a fascinating writing style, equal parts frenetic and locked in stasis. Very unsettling, but effective. I would ordinarily say the lack of quotation marks would be a terrible distraction, except that there's almost no dialog: you really don't miss them. Kudos to the translator, Sam Taylor, who I'm sure really had his hands full trying to decipher this chaotic prose and make it sparkle and flow in English.

I'm very curious how the soon-to-be-released film adaptation is going to be received. With just a little tweaking here and there, it just might work cinematically. I wouldn't mind reading anything else from her that's been translated (doesn't seem so at present, though. Most promising-sounding: Dans les rapides, a 2007 fictional tribute to Blondie and Kate Bush. Yum!) ...more

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Mar 30, 2016 lark benobi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: europe, france, fsg, 2016, words-without-borders

This novel is a great example of how simplicity can be transformed via some kind of alchemy known as "great writing" into high art. I'm reminded of Picasso's "Bouquet of Peace." The story of The Heart is so basic that I almost gave the novel a pass after reading the book jacket--the plot is the stuff of straight-to-video movies--and yet in Kerangal's hands it transforms itself into a story that is exquisitely particular and full of humanity. I'm in awe of her storytelling skills and I'm grateful ...more

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Dec 09, 2016 Amanda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

3.5 rounded up because the writing is just fantastic. Despite quite a bit of buzz earlier this year and some positive reviews from trusted GR friends, I was skeptical of this book and almost took a pass. It seemed like a simple Lifetime movie story. Tragic accident, brain death, heart transplant. I was expecting weepy maudlin prose. It is not that at all. It is a simple story but the prose is outstanding and the way the author makes you feel like you ARE the characters shows a real talent. I wil ...more

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May 24, 2016 Roger Brunyate rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: top-ten-2016, science

To Repair the Living

Bury the dead and repair the living.

This line from Chekhov's Platonov both explains the French title of this prizewinning novel, Réparer les vivants, and sketches its narrative arc in a single stroke, simple and daring at the same time. For it is the story of a heart transplant, from the last hours and death of the donor to the restoration of the recipient. All taking place within a single day and night. But a very eventful day, involving many people whom we get to know and care about, and the precise working of skilled surgeons within a finely-tuned administrative apparatus. It is one of the best books I have read all year.

Kerangal is what you might call a "process writer." Immediately before this, I read and reviewed her earlier novel, Naissance d'un pont. In it, she describes the building of a great bridge, also from start to finish, an enterprise requiring several years and thousands of engineers, workmen, and hangers-on. I described her then as the "Poet of Everything." No detail was too small for her, from the mud of the river bed to the vomit outside a Friday-night bar; no character was too insignificant. All material for her brilliant pyrotechnics, jamming epithet to epithet in jazzy verbal profusion. There is something of the same quality here, its linguistic surprise faithfully captured in the translation by Sam Taylor, but this is much more restrained, more finely focused on the task at hand. Instead of a span of years, we have an exact 24 hours, beginning at dawn on one day and ending at dawn the next. The story could have gone on for longer, but I am sure this precision was important to the author, putting her novel within the classical French unity of time. If Naissance was drunk with possibilities, The Heart is a sober work, dealing as it does with questions of death and life, and their impact on individual human beings.

But Kerangal cannot introduce a simple fact without exploring all the way around it; each new character comes with not so much a back-story as a flash vignette. When Pierre Révol, the ICU doctor first sets eyes on the blotchy face of Cordélia Owl, the nurse assigned to assist him, he immediately imagines an active night with some boyfriend. In fact, he is not far wrong, although the actuality turns out to be more bizarre and more powerful. It is important to the author, in this novel about death, to include constant reminders of life, its unruliness, its splendor, its fragility. Simon Limbres, the donor in this case, is a young surfer, killed in his prime—but the reminder is always there that death could come for any of us, and meanwhile the only thing we can do is to live life, live it as fully as possible.

For all its detailed emphasis on medical technique, ethical issues, and legal procedure, this is a deeply human book. And the character who shines the most brightly for me is the male nurse in charge of coordinating the organ-donation process, Thomas Rémige. Once more, we get the unexpected glimpses into his private life, a youngish gay man, a lover of music. When we first see him, he is standing naked in his apartment, singing:

Watching this scene, it would be possible to draw an analogy with the sun salutation or the morning chants of monks and nuns, the same lyricizing of the dawn. You might imagine such a ritual to be aimed at the maintenance and conservation of the body—like drinking a glass of cool water, brushing your teeth, unrolling a rubber mat in front of the television to do floor exercises—but for Thomas Rémige it is something else altogether: an exploration of self—the voice as a probe infiltrating his body and transmitting to the outside world echoes of everything that animates it. The voice as stethoscope.

Our coordinator is a singer, so what? But no, we shall see that Thomas's care and gentleness will be essential to who he is, as he listens sympathetically to the boy's separated parents as they gradually come to an acceptance of the situation and, just possibly, to a reconciliation with one another. And the music will be important too, as a symbol and something more. By this time, I was used to Maylis de Kerangal's tendency to explore every by-road that she passes, but nothing prepared me for the extraordinary flashback chapter just over halfway through the book in which Thomas visits his partner's cousin in Algiers to buy a rare goldfinch. It has nothing directly to do with the story, but at the same time it is essential, not only as a symbol of the preservation of life and the life spirit, but also as an intermezzo, a palate-cleanser, at the exact moment when the focus shifts from the donor to the possible recipient.

Thomas Rémige will stay with Simon until the organs have been removed and the surgeons have repaired the necessary incisions. Remaining alone in the operating theater, he will perform his own ritual, stripping, washing, and enshrouding the body, singing to it all the time. Although not yet the end of the book, it confers a benediction whose beauty speaks absolutely to the wonder, humanity, and daring of this astounding novel:

When it is all gone, the body appears suddenly more naked than ever: a human body catapulted far from humanity, disturbing matter drifting through the magmatic night, through the formless space of non-meaning, an entity to which Thomas's song confers a presence, a new inscription. Because this body, fragmented and divided by life, becomes whole again under the hand that washes it, in the breath of the voice that sings; this body that has suffered something extraordinary is now united with the company of men, with common mortality. It is praised in song, made beautiful.

...more

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Feb 10, 2019 Marc rated it really liked it

Shelves: french-literature

So much has been written about this novel, almost all positive and absolutely justified. I must say that at first I had some trouble with the exuberant prose of De Kerangal. But after a while I saw that this had to do with her attempt to make the impetuous and energetic feeling of the young men surfing at the beginning of the novel almost physically tangible. That is indeed something that also keeps coming back: the prose of De Kerangal is extremely visual and uses powerful sentences to make the ...more

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Apr 03, 2016 Jill rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: best-of-2016

One heart, one magnificent heart. The heart in question belongs to Simon Limbres, a 19-year-old boy, not a perfect boy, a passionate surfer who has barely has had the chance to inhabit the person he will become.

In this astoundingly good novel, Malis De Kerangal introduces us to Simon briefly, when he is thrumming with life, surfing on a cold morning with two good friends. Just pages later, he is close to death, the result of a car accident. The effect is jarring: life contrasted with death, risk One heart, one magnificent heart. The heart in question belongs to Simon Limbres, a 19-year-old boy, not a perfect boy, a passionate surfer who has barely has had the chance to inhabit the person he will become.

In this astoundingly good novel, Malis De Kerangal introduces us to Simon briefly, when he is thrumming with life, surfing on a cold morning with two good friends. Just pages later, he is close to death, the result of a car accident. The effect is jarring: life contrasted with death, risk contrasted with the mundane.

Simon is at the core of those connected by his single beating heart, yet this book is never maudlin or manipulative. In long sentences, written with lyricism and confidence, we meet those who are just a heartbeat away – and they are portrayed in exquisitely precise detail. Marianne, his mother and Sean, his father must grapple with the worst news a parent can ever imagine hearing, with the most potent stew of emotions (anger, disbelief, numbness, all at once). When Marianne calls Sean to inform him, and hears his innocent voice, she thinks of it as “the voice of life before”.

There is Thomas Remige of the Coordinating Committee for Organ and Tissue Removal, the man intimately attuned to life, who sings Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and revels in the delicate song of his rare Algerian goldfinch. It will fall to him to walk that precarious line between honoring the family’s wishes and honoring life itself by the reuse of the organs. There is the hedonist heart surgeon Virgilio, who is as passionate fan of soccer (and France is about to play Italy) as he is the operating theater. There is Claire, the 51-year-old heart recipient, who is curiously conflicted upon knowing that now, after years of living with no conception of the future, it will open for her through another’s death. We are privy to their most intimate emotions and foibles and they come alive under this author’s exacting tutelage.

Most importantly, this narrative transcends plots and even transcends characters. Maylis De Kerangal is looking at the bigger picture: the ubiquitous symbolism of the heart. There are some strikingly beautiful images, a merging of forever time (the rise and fall of the waves Simon loved) with immediate time, and the gravity of recognizing that the “separation between the living and the dead no longer exists.” Kudos to Sam ...more

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Aug 08, 2018 Claire rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: french-literature, fiction, women-in-translation, around-the-world-2018

Although I've read reviews and seen this book appear often over the last year, and knew I really wanted to read it, I couldn't remember anything about what is was about or why.

It's really down to a consistent feeling and feedback from readers whom I admire and respect, where their brief tweets of encouragement were all that was necessary to ignite the flame of motivation to make me decide that this would be the first #WIT novel I'd read in August 2018.

How to describe it?

There's a clue in the t ...more

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Nov 30, 2016 Rebecca rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lit-in-translation, newbury-library, wellcome-prize-winner

(3.5) Nineteen-year-old Simon Limbeau is declared brain dead in a French hospital after a car accident, but his heart lives on: metaphorically through the love of his parents, sister, friends, and girlfriend; but also literally, in the recipient of his organ donation. Again and again de Kerangal makes a distinction between the physical reality of organs and what they represent: “Simon’s eyes are not just his nervous retina, his taffeta iris, his pupil of pure black in front of the crystalline – ...more

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Aug 20, 2017 Margaret rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I was transfixed by this book. At first, I didn't want to read it. A three hundred word opening sentence? Really? But I was immediately seduced, and continued to be seduced by the atmosphere - the atmospheres - that de Karangal creates as she introduces us to Simon, the boy who loves to surf, but who dies in a road accident as he and his friends return from an early morning assignment with the waves.

He's brain-dead. His perfect body is there for his mother, his father to see, lying on his hospi I was transfixed by this book. At first, I didn't want to read it. A three hundred word opening sentence? Really? But I was immediately seduced, and continued to be seduced by the atmosphere - the atmospheres - that de Karangal creates as she introduces us to Simon, the boy who loves to surf, but who dies in a road accident as he and his friends return from an early morning assignment with the waves.

He's brain-dead. His perfect body is there for his mother, his father to see, lying on his hospital bed. Thanks to technology, he breathes, as if in dreamless sleep. But he's dead. And his parents need to decide whether his organs can be 'harvested' so others might live.

'How could they even envision it, Simon’s death, when his complexion still flushes pink, and supple, when his nape still bathes in cool blue watercress and he is stretched out with his feet in the gladiolus.'

Now, they must decide now, watching their son calmly 'sleeping'. This is their story. It's the story of the hospital staff, medical and otherwise, charged with his care, coming into work from their messy day-to-day lives. They leave behind them evenings of unsatisfactory sex, of football matches missed, and it's business as usual for them. It's the story of Simon's girlfriend, cross that he's preferred to go surfing than snatch a few more hours with her. It's the story of the woman destined to receive his heart.

The life and death of Simon's heart impacts on so many others, and de Karangal explores this in affecting, poetic language. The emotional consequences overlie the whole book, but she's also researched, quite meticulously, the whole process of transplant from the moment that a patient is recognised as a possible donor, to the time when the heart is successfully transferred to the body of someone else. So many, many people are involved. And it all has to happen so quickly.

This is no medical manual. It's poetic, beautiful, lyrical, rhythmical - and audacious: a quality which seemed to identify the book for me as 'very French'. And I want to single out the quality of the translation. I haven't read the original, but I have read the translator's notes. Moore seems to have successfully been 'sensing in two languages, with the English sentences lain like a transparency over the original'. She has rendered into wonderfully expressive English a work with many of the qualities of French cinema: a narrative alongside an intimate exploration of what it is to be human. ...more

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Feb 08, 2016 Liesl rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This novel is astonishing, a tour de force. De Kerangal visually, viscerally brings to life...and to death...a teenage boy, Simon Limbres, who is sent into an irreversible coma by a car accident, after an early morning surfing expedition. The boy's brain has shut down, but his heart continues to pump; his skin is warm; his hair still is salty from his dawn surf. Soon, nurses and doctors will monitor him, specialists will remove his organs; transplant surgeons will transfer his strong, still livi This novel is astonishing, a tour de force. De Kerangal visually, viscerally brings to life...and to death...a teenage boy, Simon Limbres, who is sent into an irreversible coma by a car accident, after an early morning surfing expedition. The boy's brain has shut down, but his heart continues to pump; his skin is warm; his hair still is salty from his dawn surf. Soon, nurses and doctors will monitor him, specialists will remove his organs; transplant surgeons will transfer his strong, still living heart to a woman whose life it will save. First, though, they must clear this with the boy's mother and father (who, though separated, reunite upon this calamity). How can the parents reconcile these two things?: 1)Their child is dead; 2)He looks alive, he breathes.
Maylis De Kerangal's language is painterly and descriptive but masterfully restrained. Even when the emotions she describes are rending, her words are controlled and unsentimental, deepening their strength and pathos. The letters on the page are black and white, but reading them you feel as if you've absorbed them in vivid gouache--cadmium red, ultramarine, sap green-you can picture every room or space De Kerangal puts you in, and every person in it. That said--it is the English version I have read; and I should make it clear, when I praise the language, it is Sam Taylor who has beautifully, effectively, smoothly translated the text I describe.
This is a modern novel, up-to-the-minute, with cell phones, medical monitors, state of the art science (as well as ordinary family scenes, love affairs and quickies, children, tattoos, same-sex partnerships and the social stamp of now) . And yet, Kerangal subtly summons up ur-old forces here, reviving a respect for human grandeur that belongs to antiquity, to myth. As a surgeon stitches Simon's body neatly together , he sings over him reverently, "like the aoidos, the rhapsodist of ancient Greece," unaware he's doing it, moved, perhaps unconsciously, by "his youthful beauty fresh from the waves of the sea, his hair still sticky with salt and curly like those companions of yearning Ulysses."
An unforgettable book, exalting the human body, and spirit, in extremis. ...more

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Jun 26, 2015 Mary Soderstrom rated it really liked it

This is a book that is impossible to find in Montreal libraries--it's a run away success here, and every copy is checked out. Because a book group of friends I belong to wanted to read it though, I bought a e-version and enjoyed reading it on the Kobo that until then I'd had great problems with. (Note: it's not available yet in English: will be published as The Heart in 2016.)

The novel takes place within 24 hours one winter day in Northern France. Three guys go surfing, getting up before the sun This is a book that is impossible to find in Montreal libraries--it's a run away success here, and every copy is checked out. Because a book group of friends I belong to wanted to read it though, I bought a e-version and enjoyed reading it on the Kobo that until then I'd had great problems with. (Note: it's not available yet in English: will be published as The Heart in 2016.)

The novel takes place within 24 hours one winter day in Northern France. Three guys go surfing, getting up before the sun, to get the best waves. On the way home, there's an accident, and one of them receives mortal injuries. The drama circles around the people whose lives are touched by this incident--the young man's parents, the emergency room doctor, the staff who arrange for transplants and the woman who will receive his heart.

Kerangal tells a great story, with much information about what happens in such a situation. Details are different from the way organ transplants are handled in North America, the biggest difference being the legal assumption in France that everyone agrees to donate organs unless a specific refusal is filed. This is the reverse of the legal framework in many other places, where the donor must have given specific approval beforehand. Nevertheless, the mourning of the parents is vividly, poetically described as are the paths the led the health care workers involved in the complicated transplant procedure to this day.

I've tried to check on the facts, but have not come up with much more than a reference to Kerangal being present at a heart transplant operation. Nevertheless the narrative feels true in a way reminiscent of the best creative non-fiction. The story is often told in long, stream-of-consciousness sentences, which at first may be daunting, but in the end force the reader into the heads of the people involved.

A book I heartily recommend, in short. This reaction is quite different from my reaction to Kerangal's earlier La naisssance d'un pont (The Birth of a Bridge in English translation,) which is confusing, pseudo-magic realism. Why that book won the Prix Goncourt, one of France's most illustrious literary prizes, is beyond me. ...more

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Apr 09, 2018 Kyle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: literature-fiction

Actual rating: 3.5

This is a story (that starts out) about Simon Limbres. But when Simon is involved in an accident at the opening of the novel, left in a coma/a state of brain death, and declared medically “dead”, part of him remains the constant throughout— his heart. This book follows many characters: Simon’s parents are there, his girlfriend, too... but a majority of the pages are devoted to the revolving door of doctors and nurses that are in some way involved with Simon’s case. I found this ...more

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May 13, 2018 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read2018, translated, location-france, around-the-world

This novel is the story of a heart transplant, but really it is more about the people surrounding the situation and their individual stories. As seen on The Readers Podcast summer reading longlist, which I'm very grateful for because somehow this one had slipped by me.

I'd say the writing won't be for everyone. What could be a very simple linear story veers off into many tangents to allow for each character to have their own focus. These are often only 1-2 pages in dense prose, but some of the wo ...more

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Mar 10, 2016 Paul Fulcher rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mbi-long-list-2016, 2016

"For Thomas Remige, a clear refusal was worth more than a consent torn from someone in confusion, delivered with forceps, and regretted fifteen days later when people are ravaged by remorse, losing sleep and sinking in sorrow, we have to think of the living, he often says, chewing the end of a match, we have to think of the ones left behind - on the back of his office door, he had taped a photocopied page for Platanov, a play he'd never seen, never read, but this fragment of dialogue between Voi ...more

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Mar 15, 2016 Neil rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-stars, re-read, 2016, 2016-mbi

Utterly compelling. I could not put it down. Who knew that a book about a heart transplant operation could be so completely gripping and all-consuming? The writing is a key factor here: the language and style bring an immediacy and an urgency to everything. The translation must be, I think, amazing. Clearly, I haven't read the original, but this English version is so good it is hard to imagine the book starting life in a different language.

It's a sad story with an element of hope as it explores ...more

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Jul 20, 2017 Lisa rated it liked it · review of another edition

The Heart, about the fate of a young man who lies brain dead in a hospital after a car accident, was engaging but uneven. The extravagant and overworked language dissipated its power and my own heart became calloused.

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Dec 02, 2020 Cheryl rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite-fiction

Breathtaking and visceral.

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Apr 12, 2017 Paul rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-2017

Simon Limbeau is in search of that perfect wave. He knows it is out there, and perhaps this will be the day that he finds it, the forecast seems to indicate that it will be good. Rising just before 6 am, he ventures into the freezing morning to climb in the van with his friends to hit the beach. It is a journey Simon has undertaken hundreds of times. Waves were found, ridden and conquered and they pile back in the van trying to warm up. Chris turns the key in the van and begins the return journe ...more

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Apr 27, 2017 Laline Paull rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I've been forcing this book on people since I read it - I can't even remember how I first heard about it but the other day I was delighted to be asked to blurb the new paperback edition, and I say words to the effect (if not these actual ones) 'I wish I'd written this book. Brilliant in every way.'
A great cathartic poetic leap of the imagination. And apparently she has stage presence like a rock star too. FFS! ...more

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Apr 01, 2016 Joce (squibblesreads) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

4.25 stars

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Mar 31, 2016 Antonomasia added it · review of another edition

Recommended to Antonomasia by: Man Booker International Prize Longlist 2016

Shelves: novella, booker-international, decade-2010s, francophonie, france, 2016, netgalley, women-in-translation, arc

Read in Jessica Moore's translation, published in the UK and Canada as 'Mend the Living'. (The US translation, by Sam Taylor, is called 'The Heart'.)

Sometimes superlative, sometimes infuriating. Like Lee in his review of another recent translated novella, The Story of My Teeth, I want to give this both 1 star and 5 stars. (But definitely not 6 stars.) It does at least succeed in transcending the cheap-magazine, commercial-weepie idea of the story of a heart transplant.

From the get-go, there are ...more

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May 07, 2016 Elizabeth A rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016, translated

I'd heard that this book was all the rage in France and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. My copy is translated by Sam Taylor.

Medical science has advanced to the point that transplants are no longer considered all that unusual, but how often do we really think about all the players involved in a transplant? There are of course the donor and the recipient(s), their families, and the medical staff that manage, or perform the actual operations, and all these humans carny their own individ ...more

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May 12, 2017 Kim rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: women-writers, translations, ol-french

I ended up skimming long sections of this book. I found the longwinded descriptions of the private lives of the characters annoyingly irrelevant (why do I need to hear about the nurse's one night stand, for instance?) as I did the endless, multiple similes and metaphors used to describe virtually everything in the book - seriously, one is enough! The passages describing the emotional states of the family and patients were very effective, but I would have liked more factual detail and fewer lyric ...more

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Mar 05, 2020 Brooke rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I really don’t even know how to fully rate this one. I thought it was absolute genius, but also “stupid” in parts. Mainly genius though!

Even with the short 240 pages this book packs a punch and is very throughly researched and completely moving. It took me two weeks to read and I’m glad I took my time.

The heart. It’s more than just a muscle it’s what allows us to experience life and with life comes relationships: the people who amount to make us who we are. Our main character nineteen year old ...more

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The Mookse and th...: 2016 Longlist: Mend the Living	5	55	May 13, 2016 10:06AM
ManBookering: Mend the Living / The Heart by Maylis de Kerangal	19	80	Mar 30, 2016 01:45PM

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About Maylis de Kerangal

Maylis de Kerangal

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Maylis de Kerangal est une femme de lettres française, née le 16 juin 1967 au Havre. Elle passe son enfance au Havre, fille et petite-fille de capitaine au long cours. Elle étudie en classe préparatoire au lycée Jeanne-d'Arc de Rouen et ensuite à Paris de 1985 à 1990 l'histoire, la philosophie et l'ethnologie. Elle commence à travailler chez Gallimard jeunesse une première fois de 1991 à 1996, ava Maylis de Kerangal est une femme de lettres française, née le 16 juin 1967 au Havre. Elle passe son enfance au Havre, fille et petite-fille de capitaine au long cours. Elle étudie en classe préparatoire au lycée Jeanne-d'Arc de Rouen et ensuite à Paris de 1985 à 1990 l'histoire, la philosophie et l'ethnologie. Elle commence à travailler chez Gallimard jeunesse une première fois de 1991 à 1996, avant de faire deux séjours aux États-Unis, à Golden dans le Colorado en 1997. Elle reprend sa formation en passant une année à l'EHESS à Paris en 1998.

Carrière d'écrivain[modifier | modifier le code]
Elle publie son premier roman, Je marche sous un ciel de traîne, en 2000, suivis en 2003 par La Vie voyageuse, puis par Ni fleurs, ni couronnes en 2006, Dans les rapides en 2007 et par Corniche Kennedy en 2008. Ce dernier roman figure cette année-là dans la sélection de plusieurs prix littéraires comme le Médicis ou le Femina.

Elle crée en même temps les Éditions du Baron Perché spécialisées dans la jeunesse où elle travaille de 2004 à 2008, avant de se consacrer à l'écriture. Elle participe aussi à la revue Inculte3.

Son roman Naissance d'un pont est publié en 2010. Selon elle, « Il s’agit d’une sorte de western, autrement dit d’un roman de fondation, et la référence à ce genre cinématographique opère dans le texte, l’écriture travaille en plan large, brasse du ciel, des paysages, des matières, des hommes, et resserre sa focale sur les héros qui sont toujours pris dans l’action, dans la nécessité de répondre à une situation. ». Le 3 novembre 2010, l'ouvrage remporte à l'unanimité et au premier tour le prix Médicis. Le livre remporte aussi le Prix Franz Hessel et est, la même année, sélectionné pour les prix Femina, Goncourt, et Flore. Le Prix Franz Hessel permet à l'ouvrage de bénéficier d'une traduction en allemand, parue en 2012 chez Suhrkamp.

En 2011, elle est l'une des participantes du Salon du livre de Beyrouth au BIEL (Beirut International Exhibition & Leisure Center).

En 2012, elle remporte le prix Landerneau pour son roman Tangente vers l'est paru aux éditions Verticales.

En 2014, elle est la première lauréate du Roman des étudiants France Culture-Télérama (ancien Prix France Culture-Télérama), pour son roman Réparer les vivants14 qui a été aussi couronnée par le Grand prix RTL-Lire 2014. Dans celui-ci, elle suit pendant 24 heures le périple du coeur du jeune Simon, en mort cérébrale, jusqu'à la transplantation. ...more

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Quotes from Réparer les vivants

“The moment of death is no longer to be considered as the moment the heart stops, but as the moment when cerebral function ceases. In other words: I no longer think, therefore I no longer am. The heart is dead, long live the brain—a symbolic coup d’état, a Revolution.” — 6 likes

“They used to stay up late, talking into the night while the house was asleep, and maybe they would even whisper I love you, not really knowing what it was they were saying, only that they were saying it to each other” — 3 likes

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