The Flood

by J.M.G. Le Clézio

Francois Besson listens to a tape recording of a girl contemplating suicide. Drifting through the days in a provincial city, he thoughtlessly starts a fire in his apartment, attends confession, and examines, with great intentness but without affection, a naked woman he wakes beside.

Genres: France, Fiction, French Literature, Literature, Literary Fiction, Modern Classics

300 pages, Paperback

First published March 11, 1966

About the author

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, better known as J.M.G. Le Clézio (born 13 April 1940) is a Franco-Mauriciano novelist. The author of over forty works, he was awarded the 1963 Prix Renaudot for his novel Le Procès-Verbal (The Interrogation) and the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Remember the letters we used to write each other in the old days? Funny the way we invented excuses to send a letter, anything would do. […] Remember? But that’s all over and done with now. I can’t use dodges like that any more. Even with you. Even if I could be certain you’d understand. Even if I was sure you wouldn’t tell me I was trying to play arty poetic tricks with past memories. Anyway, my position nowadays is very simple on that score—I just can’t write any more, not a word. It’s—it’s a kind of illness. The mere sight of a blank white sheet of paper’s enough to depress me half out of my mind. Frankly, it beats me how anyone still manages to go in for writing—novels, poetry, that kind of kick. Because in the last resort it’s quite useless. Pure dumb egotism. Plus the urge to expose yourself, let other people gobble you up. Anyway it’s so exhausting. Honestly, I just don’t get it. I tell you, I can understand people writing letters and postcards better than I can someone settling down to a novel. It serves no purpose, there isn’t any truth in it. I mean, you don’t make any discoveries or isolate any area of knowledge, you just wallow in illusion. […] I just don’t believe in it any more. […] One can get along very well on one’s own, don’t you agree? What’s really needed, I feel, is the ability to detach oneself, stand aside. Anyway as far as I’m concerned it’s the end of the road. I can’t stomach lies and poetry any longer.

[Chandradhish · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have this book since 2012 and I finished it in 2019. It is not for the lack of trying or wanting to read it. This book requires immense patience and is very very dry. For people who do not enjoy descriptions, please do not touch this book. All those like to read for the pure joy of language and how language is one of the ways of conveying abstract, real, beautiful, sad thoughts would find it delightful. I would personally like to sit down with the author to know what he really meant by the first forty pages (I read this part almost thrice and still can't tell you what it is about). It does contain some delightful conversations and deep philosophical conundrums. I will not gift this book to anyone but I will say that it is worth a try purely because a reader can taste a very abstract form of writing.

[P · Rating 1 out of 5]

The last time I picked up a book solely because it was labeled "Nobel Prize Winner" the book was "The Feast of the Goat" by Mario Vargas Llosa. That was a perceptive book about the legacy of dictatorship. This is boring, pretentious, and uselessly difficult.

[Jesse K · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Flood was greater than Fever to the extent that Fever was greater than The Interrogations. Were these three books Le Clezio's only books, they would be the literary equivalent of Warsaw/Unknown Pleasures/Closer.

[Brett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sure, this book is going to make you roll your eyes plenty of times (the first 40 pages in particular) and some of the themes have been explored by better writers (Sartre/Camus), but give Le Clezio credit for creating a meticulously detailed world of despair.

The book serves as a warning against consciousness as nearly every object our narrator observes (pinball games, a story written when he was in grade school, a piece of chicken) arrives back to the paradox of how everything can feel so lifeless when surrounded by a world filled of it.

The universality of this feeling is what makes Le Clezio's prose so eclectic and riveting ("human flotsam") but the novel ultimately unrewarding. The book never really deviates much from its initial premise and at times it comes off as hilariously morose (the oppressing smell of bread -> hunger -> thoughts of suffocation/death is one such sequence).

[Eliana Rivero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es más un 3,5. Es interesante el desenvolvimiento de Besson ante la vida. A mi parecer, tiene algo de existencialista, y quizá atreviéndome a decir surrealista, pero un poco banal. El tema fundamental de la novela es la muerte y el tránsito que se da entre la vida y la muerte, los límites entre ellas, la búsqueda premeditada de la muerte en algunos personajes. Y la muerte como fuente de vida (?).

Sin dar spoilers, porque en el índice sale nombrado qué ducede en cada capítulo, hay 3 pasajes que me gustaron mucho: la de la ola inmensa, el ciclón que hay en una especie de bahía, que lo envuelve y lo empapa de realidad; la muerte del perro, ese límite y la agonía de la muerte; la quema de todos sus papeles personales (escritos y recibidos) y el suicidio de Anna. Hay también otros temas como el rechazo hacia la religión, a el amor, a la realidad y a su entorno, pero aún así, es interesante el detalle que se le pone a los personajes que van pasando, que ni siquiera tienen nombre y es como un impacto o una reacción en la vida de Besson. Lo hacen ser más real.

Ahora, lo que no me gustó (no sé si por la traducción) es que el lenguaje es muy repetitivo. Usa adverbios y florituras exageradamente. En serio, hay como 60 dulcemente, 35 muellemente y 20 lentamente. Una cosa exageradísima. A pesar de esto, la parte antes del primer capítulo y después del último capítulo, es muy poema narrado y muy hermoso. Tiene una belleza por sí sola increíble, como un despojamiento del universo y del cuerpo. Me gustaría leer más a Le Clézio, porque las dos cosas que he leído de él, me parecen muy diferentes entre sí.


-"Entró en la escritura como en un paisaje, sin buscarlo, sin entretenerse. Vio como las palabras iban lloviendo a frases enteras, hilando rápidamente hacia la derecha, como si fueran animales minúsculos". (p.140)

[Harald · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author was famous already as a young man in the 1960s, but it took him another forty years to win the Nobel Prize. Almost as long "The Deluge" has been sitting unread in my bookshelf until I finally got around to read it in a Norwegian translation this summer. It is a novel to test the reader's patience. Especially the first forty pages or so written in the style of the "New French Novel" are almost unreadable, before the story of Francois Besson finally picks up and follows a more conventional story line of personal alienation and despair. More interesting for today's reader is the author's prescient view of the effects of motorization and climate change. Not only do we follow Besson's dispiriting career on the personal level, but also the apparent destruction of the environment by irresistible forces of nature and civilization. The book was first published in French in 1966.

[Kamakana · Rating 2 out of 5]

130713: this is not where to start reading le clezio, not where to end, not where to judge his worth. if you can make it through a very difficult prologue, he does introduce characters, offer some happenings if not plot or story, offer some speech- though this is mostly monologue on tape or elliptical dialog that describes characters and does not advance plotless plot. if had not previously read and enjoyed his work would have never finished the prologue... this is le clezio- lyrical, imagistic, always a new way of describing, following, inventing, but truly more world than slightly incomprehensible actions of something like people...

[Polina Semikina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Я купила її бо це ж нобелівка, треба розвиватись. Продиралась кріз перші 40 сторінок тижні два - і не продерлась. Можливо це просто не для мене, можливо не доросла, можливо це переклад (я таки підозрюю що це переклад - впевенена що оригінал дуже красиво звучить, бо текст виглядає так, наче усі слова, фрази, звороти та ідіоми були перекладені буквально, а таке ж фіг поймеш), то і вирішила не мучати себе і може колись ще спробувати

[Ricardo Munguia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Siento una especie de remordimiento al tratar de dar una reseña de la novela por que no la recuerdo del todo, pero me recuerda a la novela "El Extranjero" de Albert Camus, solo que una versión más extensa. Una visión existencial de un hombre, François Besson, que se derrumba tras cometer un asesinato y empieza a vagar por las calles de una ciudad, antes de aquel suceso llevaba una vida simple y vacía, sin ninguna especie de motivación, pero con una agonía interior que lo devora lentamente.

Básicamente eso es lo que recuerdo de la novela, aunque me atrapó por momentos hay algo en la manera en la que está escrita que no me gustó del todo, puede ser el hecho de que sea demasiado extensa, las confesiones del personaje y sus pensamientos, las descripciones demasiado estilizadas, el hecho de que este poblado de personajes que parecen cascarones de personas reales. No es mala, y de seguro si te gusta el existencialismo le encontraras algún chiste, solo siento que esta novela pretende más de lo que plasma con palabras. Solo que a mí, en lo personal no me llegó, por momentos me pareció aburrida.

Lo que sí puedo decir es que esta novela es la única del autor en la que intenta algo así, intenta decir algo sin decir nada, no solo es narrar una historia en la que describe paisaje exóticos y hace uso de su gran intelecto para retratar un mundo lleno. Es la única obra del autor (al menos de las que e leído) en la que su muy acostumbrado lirismo, que llega a ser chocante por cursí y rebuscado, se encuentra de lado. Si quieres leer algo diferente del autor, ya sea por que sus novelas te hartaron o por que buscas sorprenderte, puede que este libro sea para tí.

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real rambler, all right. The following extract had nothing to do with any conceived plot:
' "I'm a real paragon," a man wrote in his diary. "I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't go to the theatre or cinema, and I'm unswervingly faithful to my wife. I never so much as look at another woman. I go to bed every evening at eight o'clock, and get up and go to work at dawn. Every Sunday I attend church. But it's all going to be very different once I get out of jail..." '
More like a 3.5/5, the above garners the extra half...

[Florin Murarașu-Catană · Rating 4 out of 5]

The city is suffocating Besson. With all its rigorous geometry, its constructions and its inhabitants. The people in it contribute to the anxiety and the constant rain, instead of cleaning, is getting all the mud, all the dust to the surface.
One could feel trapped like in a room with walls slowly closing in. Is there any escape?

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man makes observations, experiences sensations, and has conversations.

[Karla]

No rating. I have no idea what happened, how or what anything meant.

[José Pereira · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s beyond annoying, tedious, and brings uncertain rewards; but I don't think it is pure bullshit.
On a sentence level, the writing is quite good, probably better than in “The Fever”.
The existentialist-like over the top emotionality is present again but it kinda feels honest. There are, here and there, flashes of a type of insight that is uncommon. The world created in the punishing, indescribable first 40 pages is transfixing.

[Maléxica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitivamente me retiro (por ahora, pasará un largo tiempo antes de que lo retome).

Las razones por las que decidí abandonar esta lectura son:

1) Me deprimió mucho pero de una manera autodestructiva y sin dejarme realmente un mensaje. Hay libros que te ponen triste, pero te transmiten un mensaje. Siento que éste sólo me dejo mucha palabrería pero no un mensaje muy claro.

2) Me desesperó de sobremanera su abrumante descripción. Fue demasiado lejos con todo lo que pensaba sobre una cajetilla de cigarros tirada en la calle, leí como 7 páginas al respecto de eso, y francamente me desesperó.

No me gusta abandonar libros. Sólo lo he hecho dos veces... Pero de plano, ya no estaba haciendo click con este.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

well if that wasn't weird i don't know what is.

i'm giving it three stars (liked it), beacuse i understood way too little of it to "really like it" (which would be four stars). i ain't that smart.. yet.

what i did understand about this is how complex can language be. it amazed me how a man can express himself page after page with constantly different words and incredibly complex sentences that twist and turn and make the reader have to go back beacuse he didn't quite grasp de idea.

i will surely have to read this again, sometime. for now, i'm going to stick with books that are a tad easier.. this kind of consumed my energy!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extraña novela. Las 50 primeras páginas son una auténtica maraña de descripciones, un aparente sin sentido. El resto del libro sigue en la misma tónica, interrumpida de vez en cuando por pasajes perfectamente comprensibles, tradicionalmente comprensibles.
Pero qué magníficas descripciones, qué magnífico mundo nuevo dibuja Le Clézio. Impactante, hipnótico, oscuro, muy oscuro, un paso más allá de Proust, un libro que te hace pensar en muchas preguntas, una lectura diferente a toda otra lectura.

[Victoria Sadler · Rating 3 out of 5]

It would be hard to recommend this book widely as there's no story to speak of, which limits any popular appeal. I wouldn't even describe it as a collection of short stories either. There is a character, Besson, but we never really know anything about him. He is simply a vehicle for Le Clezio to write long, languid descriptive passages about the universe, life and death. Sometimes my eyes glazed over, sometimes I found the passages quite poetic. ,

[Ben Richmond · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not exactly a treat to read. The beauty of the prose really swallows any momentum the plot may be developing, so you're left with a main character who is a little like some guy left at the end of a party, just sort of on your couch and not really all that fun to hang around with.

[Biskin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, of course parts were incredibly beautiful. But my god I was counting the pages. It got so boring! And when I think a book is boring, well, it is probably advisable to skip it. Read Desert. That was amazing.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Le Clezio's the Flood, while a bit difficult to read, is one of the apex in French Literature. His Nobel Prize winning isn't a fluke. It was well deserved.

[sergio pacheco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hay libros mejores.