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The Bathroom

Jean-Philippe Toussaint

3.57 · Rating details · 1,272 ratings · 145 reviews

First published in France in 1985, The Bathroom was Jean-Philippe Toussaint's debut novel, and it heralded a new generation of innovative French literature. In this playful and perplexing book, we meet a young Parisian researcher who lives inside his bathroom. As he sits in his tub meditating on existence (and refusing to tell us his name), the people around him—his girlfr ...more

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Hardcover, 128 pages

Published October 1st 1991 by Marion Boyars Publishers (first published 1985)

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Dec 19, 2020 Vit Babenco rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

What does life consist of? And what role can a bathroom play in life?

When I began to spend my afternoons in the bathroom I had no intention of moving into it; no, I would pass some pleasant hours there, meditating in the bathtub, sometimes dressed, other times naked.

The Bathroom is an unusual psychological portrait of a young man… Everyday life consists of insignificant events, tiny details and unnoticeable trivia… Some trifles are seen and some are just ignored…

It was I who, standing in front o

...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Adam Dalva rated it really liked it

Terrific, strange little book - I'm a fan of Toussaint, particularly his Marie Tetralogy. This is his debut, so it's not quite refined in terms of formula (all his late books have micro arcs toward, always, three minor climaxes) and there is a bit of unnecessary showiness (pythagorean chapter sequencing), but the fun philosophizing and detached tone is very him .You'll fly through it. ...more

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Apr 25, 2012 David rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: low-calorie

When a book is called The Bathroom and its back cover blurb suggests that it's about 'a young Parisian researcher who lives inside his bathroom,' I think I'm right in feeling cheated and betrayed when the protagonist leaves the bathroom on page six, never to return. Well, I'm sure he returns for practical visits, of course, but he no longer domiciles there.

I was actually looking forward to a short novel about living in a bathroom for the simple reason that the idea sort of appeals to me. Imagin When a book is called The Bathroom and its back cover blurb suggests that it's about 'a young Parisian researcher who lives inside his bathroom,' I think I'm right in feeling cheated and betrayed when the protagonist leaves the bathroom on page six, never to return. Well, I'm sure he returns for practical visits, of course, but he no longer domiciles there.

I was actually looking forward to a short novel about living in a bathroom for the simple reason that the idea sort of appeals to me. Imagine it... spending your leisurely days in a snug little windowless room with the steady hum of the overhead ventilation fan subsuming all noise from the outside world. It's a blissful and willful ignorance of the so-called real world. If you spend a long, indefinite period in a bathroom, you can be theoretically unaware if it's day or night, sunny or overcast, summer or winter—or even if some random variety of apocalypse has occurred while you were otherwise engaged, leaving only your tiny bathroom standing in a limitless horizon of charred ruins. A good bathroom bridles human awareness and brings its occupant into a richer communion with himself. (And please notice that I specified 'a good bathroom.' Not all bathrooms are good. Some, in defiance of all good taste and rationality, actually have windows, so that one can experience his utter smallness, smothered under the infinity of the sky, while dropping a deuce. Other bathrooms, sadly, lack fans—which speaks volumes of the builder's sadism, I think. I won't even dwell on those rare and wholly inadequate bathrooms that don't have locks on the doors. They are beneath proper consideration.)

Can you then imagine my great disappointment when I discovered that Jean-Philippe Toussaint's The Bathroom wasn't really about living in a bathroom at all? On the contrary, it's about some Belgian yahoo who spends much of his time doing banal things outside the bathroom and telling us about them in detail. I have a feeling this is all supposed to be very droll. (Or something.) This Buster Keaton-esque schmuck celebrates his own dullness and pointlessness in such a way that it should be ironic and (gag) whimsical. But let me ask you a question: Would you rather watch a Buster Keaton movie or read the belabored summary of one in a book? Keaton's humor is, by and large, derived from the visual. Toussaint tries to blend quirkiness and indolence to achieve a similar (written) effect, but all in all it just doesn't work. Even though the book is only (a large-printed, heavily-spaced) 102 pages, I shut the book in relief. Some short books are very, very long. ...more

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Aug 29, 2014 Josh rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015, abandoned

A thought I must convey to the masses.

I have an affliction when it comes to towels. Hand towels, bathroom towels, napkins, paper towels, shop towels. What distinguishes a hand towel from a bathroom towel from any of the other? Is it the size? What if you're a small person and a bathroom towel is too big? What if you're a large person and only have a handful of hand towels? Do they become bathroom towels then? Dabbing large areas of drops off your skin, going through a few at a time, in those nic A thought I must convey to the masses.

I have an affliction when it comes to towels. Hand towels, bathroom towels, napkins, paper towels, shop towels. What distinguishes a hand towel from a bathroom towel from any of the other? Is it the size? What if you're a small person and a bathroom towel is too big? What if you're a large person and only have a handful of hand towels? Do they become bathroom towels then? Dabbing large areas of drops off your skin, going through a few at a time, in those nicely private spots, ticklish, making he-he ha-ha sounds...which leads up to my main affliction...re-using someone elses towels. Do any of you use another person's towel once they've used it before washing it? What a dilemma! "Oh, you can use this towel, I just used it earlier, it's clean because I took a shower, and hence I'm clean!" "Is that a hair poking out?" "Is that dirt or did you leave me a present?" Oh god, no! You're clean, but still I can't do it, I mustn't!"

So yeah, I have a problem with that.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Being from the Dalkey Archive, you sort of expect something more to your liking, something just for you. Toussaint's main character in The Bathroom is not Sæterbakken's Edwin. He leaves the bathroom when he’s not supposed to leave the bathroom; he is not sad or miserable, yet confused, a bit delusional and a bit eccentric, encountering things for which he doesn’t feel familiar.

"I put my face close to the window and, eyes against the glass, suddenly had the impression that all these people were inside an aquarium."

With this, it poses the question: Is the world just a wet-stained aquarium, waiting for someone to realize it?

"The rain had become a downpour, as though all the rain were going to fall: all."

When we expect the rain to stop, does it keep on going? Can we conceive it not ending?

Ok. I’m not serious. Honestly, I couldn’t finish this. I’m sure there’s some meaning to it, but this wasn’t for me.
...more

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Oct 22, 2008 Jim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Having realized that he prefers reading in the tub, the protagonist of Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s The Bathroom decides to take up residence there, because, after all, “the bathroom was where I felt best.” This is a typical setup for the Belgian author of eight short but deliciously enigmatic novels: Toussaint puts his protagonist in an absurd position and describes it as if there’s nothing absurd about it at all. The author himself has characterized his work as being focused on the “not-interesti Having realized that he prefers reading in the tub, the protagonist of Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s The Bathroom decides to take up residence there, because, after all, “the bathroom was where I felt best.” This is a typical setup for the Belgian author of eight short but deliciously enigmatic novels: Toussaint puts his protagonist in an absurd position and describes it as if there’s nothing absurd about it at all. The author himself has characterized his work as being focused on the “not-interesting” and the “not-edifying.” This is especially true of his early novels, The Bathroom (1985) and Camera (1989), rereleased late last year by the Dalkey Archive Press (which has also published Toussaint’s Monsieur and Television). But what sounds like an exercise in navel-gazing pulses with a queer kind of intensity that makes reading Toussaint as easy as slipping into a warm bath.

Our hero has inexplicably received an invitation to a gathering at the Austrian Embassy. He insists it’s a mistake but cannot stop daydreaming about it. He spends his days in the bathroom, eating pastries, listening to soccer matches on the radio, staring at the walls. “One crack seemed to be gaining ground. I spent hours staring at its extremities, vainly trying to surprise it in action.” Fed up, his lover, Edmondsson, tries to lure him out with sex. “Make love now? I shut my book composedly, leaving a finger inside to keep my place.”

Toussaint traffics in a kind of slow-motion situation comedy. What makes the humor so effective is that he never appears to be going for the gag. His work is frequently compared to the silent comedies of Buster Keaton, but you won’t find anything as inelegant as a pratfall in Toussaint’s oeuvre. He doesn’t construct plots; rather, he devises pantomimes in which his reluctant heroes grapple with dilemmas largely of their own making. Whether it’s the decision to suddenly leave the bathtub — and Paris — for a decrepit hotel in Venice or insulting a dinner party host’s style of dress, seldom if ever do Toussaint’s characters reveal what motivates them to behave as they do.

Read an interview with Toussaint's translators here.

...more

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Aug 28, 2013 Jonfaith rated it really liked it

"Immobility is not absence of movement but absence of any prospect of movement."

The above observation lies three-quarters of the way through The Bathroom, just before the quasi-authorial ruminations break forth, escaping the previous three room stage design. A change of locale occurs. Not to disclose much, but it is a change of nation as well. The insular goes on the lam. In fact, the section abroad distills the almost static gestation of the earlier salvos. The novel's only act of violence (exc ...more

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Oct 18, 2014 Jeroen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recently, more and more, I have been vouching for slowness. Slowness in movement, slowness in thought; slowness as a form of rebellion. But what I call slow isn't really that slow; it's a return to human speed. The speed of our feet, not our wheels.

Jean-Philippe Toussaint in this novella wants to go beyond that. Or perhaps you could say he wants something entirely different. For isn't immobility qualitatively different from movement, even slow movement? Toussaint clearly distinguishes between th Recently, more and more, I have been vouching for slowness. Slowness in movement, slowness in thought; slowness as a form of rebellion. But what I call slow isn't really that slow; it's a return to human speed. The speed of our feet, not our wheels.

Jean-Philippe Toussaint in this novella wants to go beyond that. Or perhaps you could say he wants something entirely different. For isn't immobility qualitatively different from movement, even slow movement? Toussaint clearly distinguishes between the immobile chess piece, flush with potential movement, and true immobility: the Mondrian painting that is immobile even in its immobility. Toussaint's unidentified protagonist is similarly inflicted as Bartleby: he “would prefer not to” do anything.

Whatever he does do has to hold the promise of an ending. Like the raindrop that he follows to the ground, the darts he starts obsessively throwing are poised for a full stop. They make it possible to “imagine that the essential tendency of motion, however lightning-swift it may appear, is toward immobility and that, however slow it may sometimes seem, it is continuously drawing bodies toward death, which is immobility.” What is death if not the perfection of stillness?

If you are anything like me – a little absurdly inclined – this novella's cover blurb of “a young Parisian researcher who lives inside his bathroom” should be enough to reel you in. And indeed, if Toussaint were more famous, I could see “leaving the bathroom” become idiomatic of going into the world again. What would be specific about this idiom is the reasoning behind it, which is hardly sound. It might not be so healthy, our young researcher argues, to spend life in a bathtub. Sounds fair, but if health were the main issue, I would like to point out to him that it is usually life that kills us, more than anything. The absence of life might be the best way to stay afloat.

While I find Toussaint's fondness for “the quietude of my abstract life” endearing, it is ultimately rather preposterous. Well-considered, the abstract life is meaningless. In fact, conversely, our protagonist actually insists on things whose meanings are more secure and unwavering, like sports scores, and the eternal mark he leaves on his girlfriend's forehead. To his wit it “added to her charm”, probably because it reminds him of a perfect singular act, or, as he mentions somewhere else: “one blazing movement.”

There is a sense of the infraordinary in The Bathroom. Whereas Toussaint spends pages on the dissection of an octopus for dinner, the big decisions get one line: “I decided to go back to Paris.” I like this. It creates a rhythm that to me seems more true to modern life. The actual events puncture the story like gong strikes, ringing on indefinitely. Most of life, however, is mundanity, so why should fiction be exempt (and yes, I know your arguments for this, but I deem them inadequate). Pretending life can be overtly meaningful all the time just seems naive to me. After all, “there is something suspicious about the need to be diverted,” as our Parisian researcher has it. In an interview I read that Toussaint, when pressed, says he writes “infinitesimal novels”, and that probably does sum it up best. It's a word that suggests both the minimal and the maximal; both the singular act that synecdochically portrays a life, and the tedious, repetitive target practice that lives it. ...more

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Oct 04, 2020 Erik rated it liked it · review of another edition

"The Bathroom" is a short, absurd bit of satire that questions time and movement and movement through time.

The story opens on a man who can't seem to leave his bathroom even as this urge tends to ruin his life. But then suddenly he does leave - the bathroom and Paris - and finds himself in Venice, refusing to return home. His wife, Edmondsson, who does everything for him, comes in search of him but leaves after his anger gets the best of him and ends up leaving a mark on her. Destitute and alone ...more

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Jul 26, 2012 Kathy rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: everyone who loves to ponder over life and death

Shelves: novel-and-literature

There is a 27-year-old man who loves to stay in the bathtub and ponder over life for the whole afternoon every day. He does not have a mental problem, yet, he is a mere reflection of our anxiety in this 21st-century modern bustling world. He represents the helpless and desperate attitude towards life yet no one can resist such desperation.

He is not a loser, instead, he is somehow a thinker or a philosopher. One day, he took a book someone left in the cafe in Venice. The book was the English vers There is a 27-year-old man who loves to stay in the bathtub and ponder over life for the whole afternoon every day. He does not have a mental problem, yet, he is a mere reflection of our anxiety in this 21st-century modern bustling world. He represents the helpless and desperate attitude towards life yet no one can resist such desperation.

He is not a loser, instead, he is somehow a thinker or a philosopher. One day, he took a book someone left in the cafe in Venice. The book was the English version of "Pensées" written by Blaise Pascal. He was fascinated by the quotation about death and desperation. From my point of view, all of his mentality and actions throughout the whole novel actually represent us, as modern citizens in this modern world, as well as our deepest fear: what are we exactly doing in our lives while we are all going to die one day? What to do with our short and desperate lives that are doomed? We cannot change anything because we are so small.

This little book may be plotless, yet it contains a lot of meanings and philosophy. There are few times that the narrator comes really close to offering the reader a reason for his bathroom behaviour. However, he can never be able to complete the sentence. This is because he does not, and will not, and cannot know the answer. He is hopeless. I think Toussaint is trying to reveal our fear of death and uncertainty by using a very relaxing, slow and peaceful tone. He talks about death and the hopeless feeling without fear. He also mentions a little about love as well by including Edmondsson in the story.

The narrator loves Piet Mondrian's paintings very much because he thinks they reflect a very still and immobile state. This immobile moment is very abstruct yet bears the state of death (not even dying because it is already still, it is not a movement at all). The Bathroom is itself a painting of Piet Mondrian. This little book is a representation of literary abstructionism. This book has a very abstruct story just like the abstruct lines in Piet Mondrian's paintings, yet it bears a very peaceful and still state and mentality just like the feelings Mondrian's paintings give you. Both Toussaint and Mondrian want to express the immobile moment which represents hopelessness and death with a very peaceful and calm depiction.

This is really a lovely book which can make you think. This book can make you feel very peaceful and calm yet somehow a little sad at the same time. After reading this book, you see how helpless and hopeless you are in your life but you will accept this fate peacefully without fear.

I strongly recommend this beautiful little book to you. ...more

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Jan 10, 2015 Amelia rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: in-translation, fiction

spoiler alert: he leaves the bathroom.

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May 21, 2011 Nathanimal rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: from-the-french, dalkey-archive

Moral: Don't bug a guy when he's playing darts. ...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Emmett rated it it was ok

This is a slim novel that's also slight. Third-rate Beckett, second-rate Barthelme, full of "postmodern" playfulness with nothing at stake. The worst kind of "experimentalism". Toussaint is a funny writer, and I've got time for his later work, but his early novels just aren't very good. ...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Martyn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, à-l-origine-en-français, novellas, experimental, 2013

Hey, it's French, it's experimental, it's funny and it had post-modern, bijou chapterettes - it's my thing man. ...more

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Nov 02, 2020 Jake Goretzki rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020

I came to this via a history of Belgian literature. It's stylistically innovative (or at least very distinctive) and often pretty drily funny.

The prose reminds me partly of Meursault in L'Etranger, in that absolutely absence of feeling and partly of Knausgaard, with the detailed description of the most mundane, everyday micro-routines (finding a jumper when it's cold, ordering a drink, ordering something at the bar). Which often creates moments of dead-pan humour (I love the bit where a man say ...more

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Jan 16, 2019 Justin Evans rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Apparently this is important for literary historical reasons, but then, lots of solid but not great books are. What's good here can be found more fully in Toussaint's later work, and, mercifully, what's bad here (numbered paragraphs for no reason, for instance, as well as silly juvenile rebellions) is not. Great cover, though. ...more

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Feb 14, 2016 jennifer rated it it was amazing

Lovely. I only wish I had this version, where "bathroom" is hyphenated.

This was written three years after (even) I was born, yet still retains the tinge of the somewhat enterprising/somewhat upcoming/somewhat avant garde.

Now to go live in the bathtub for a bit. ...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Keight rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: in-translation

Link to booklog ...more

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Apr 08, 2018 Charlie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

he leave the bathroom tho

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Apr 05, 2019 Guttersnipe Das rated it really liked it

On the back cover, a blurb from French magazine /Le Point/ raves, “An exception, a marvel: the budding of an incomparable, a perfect writer.” Pardon? Book reviewers, like myself, are known to be a highly excitable bunch. We may safely assume that espresso was involved in the writing of this review, though amphetamines cannot be ruled out. My personal theory is that when this book appeared, in 1985, after the very, very strenuous joys of the noveau roman and the French experimental fiction that f ...more

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Aug 28, 2020 Kaitlin Reagan rated it liked it

rating: 3.8
this book took me 4 years to finish, which is mostly the only reason why it’s not getting a higher rating. i randomly picked this book up at my favorite independent bookstore and i thought the premise of the story was weird and interesting, so i thought it would be fun to read. i reread the first 33 pages maybe 5 times, but for some reason i could never finish it. i think it’s because i was taken by surprise at the form/style Toussaint wrote this book. it took me 4 years, but i’ve com ...more

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Mar 11, 2020 Donia added it · review of another edition

With my limited understanding of french, here is a review. This is a book about a man who decides to live in his bathroom contemplating life, death and his toenails, and the colour of the bathroom wall. His girlfriend and family seem unbothered by it.

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Jan 15, 2022 Lizzie Ramirez rated it it was ok

I think this may have been one of the most pointless books I’ve ever read.
It was like reading someone’s diary of the bland parts of their day, occasionally throwing in something interesting.
I’m kinda sad, I was excited to read this book and it ended up having no plot or anything

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Jun 07, 2017 Owen Prum rated it really liked it

lala!

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Mar 28, 2018 erika purrington rated it did not like it · review of another edition

most tiresome for what's 100 pages or so ...more

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May 08, 2019 Antonia rated it really liked it

"I ought to take some risk, I said, looking down and stroking the enamel of the bathtub, the risk of compromising the quietude of my abstract life for ... I did not finish my sentence." ...more

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Jul 24, 2020 Sincerely The Moth rated it really liked it

Ah. A joy to read.

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Mar 09, 2021 Diogo Oliveira rated it it was amazing

a book that set a tone for many american novels.

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Apr 27, 2021 Chris rated it really liked it

There's a definite Bartleby the Scrivener meets The Stranger vibe here. ...more

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Jul 11, 2021 Long Nguyen rated it did not like it

I read the translated Vietnamese version of this and it's totally incomprehensible. To be fair, the plot is also dry and without proper structure. ...more

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Oct 30, 2021 notsoweirdbutverydumb rated it liked it · review of another edition

like a vlog or something, a day in my life, first trip to New York, 72 hours in Paris, summer in Italy, ect..

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About Jean-Philippe Toussaint

Jean-Philippe Toussaint

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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 ...more

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Quotes from The Bathroom

“...we had long silences together over the line. I liked those moments. With my ear close to the receiver, I'd try to hear her breath, her breathing. When she broke the silence, her voice became more important.” — 1 likes

“In the street, asked a running man the way to the post office. I've always enjoyed asking people in a hurry for information.” — 1 likes

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