Exquisite Pain

by Sophie Calle

A poignant visual record of the obsessive nature of failed love by a leading French contemporary artist. Over the last two decades, Sophie Calle has made it her business to follow, peek into, and illuminate the lives of people she barely knows. In Exquisite Pain , Calle turns her attention to a life-changing experience from her own past. This book is a visual record of the time in 1985 when a lover failed to meet Calle as promised in a hotel in New Delhi. Calle was devastated. As always, she kept everything from that journeyphotographs, ticket stubs, visas, and letterseach image rubber-stamped to mark the countdown to the fateful day of her heartbreak. On her return to Paris, she asked a group of friends to answer the question, "When did you most suffer?" Their stories of pain, each of them accompanied by a photograph, interplay with Calle's own story and daily reflections"It is now seventy-five days since the man I love left me"creating a testament to the heartache of romantic rejection. 130 illustrations, 71 in color.

Genres: Art, Photography, Nonfiction, France, Feminism, Love, Female Authors

282 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Sophie Calle is a French writer, photographer, installation artist, and conceptual artist. Calle's work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and evokes the French literary movement of the 1960s known as Oulipo. Her work frequently depicts human vulnerability, and examines identity and intimacy. She is recognized for her detective-like ability to follow strangers and investigate their private lives. Her photographic work often includes panels of text of her own writing.

Reviews

[Kenya Stéphanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sophie acompaña su dolor de ruptura con un hombre que le dobla la edad junto con los dolores ajenos que otras personas escriben para ella. Mientras tanto, cuenta una y otra vez su misma historia de ruptura hasta que se vuelve ilegible en el papel.

Un libro para dejar enmarcado en el salón con el Dolor favorito de una. En concreto el Dolor D-1, donde el amante elige la habitación que va a ser el marco de su Dolor último, su Dolor exquisito. En cuanto la habita, la abandona.

Sophie Calle, te amo incondicionalmente.

[Beñat Azurmendi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Libro objeto sagrado

[Nita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeah yeah, we get it. You were boning your dad's friend and then you were sad when things ended.

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just in time for Valentine's Day, I thought I'd mention this exquisitely precious book of prose and photography by Sophie Calle. I enjoyed it, but only as a connoisseur of erudite masochism. Mainly it's the form of the book itself that makes it rewarding – a handsome little hardback by Thames & Hudson with a telephone embossed on its plain gray cover. The red telephone is the leitmotif (comedy or torture?); the chapter headings beg to be mocked: "91 Days to Unhappiness" etc.

If you're the type of reader who enjoys Elena Ferrante, this is your book. I'm not mocking (exactly); I've suffered this raw extreme of unhappiness myself – but it's tricky to translate to the page. In the course of her tale, Calle runs into Hervé Guibert (famous for being the doomed lover of Foucault) – and for me Guibert's book To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life is much more painful. But not as exquisite.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is wonderful the way Calle turns pain into poetry and escapes sugary sweet sentimentalism.

[ikersito · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro ha sido a partes iguales precioso y devastador.

En esta mezcla de fotografía y literatura, Sophie Calle nos lleva de la mano a contarnos el momento en el que más sufrió en su vida.

Ella vivía en París con su pareja, pero decidió irse tres meses a Japón. M (su pareja) le avisó de que seguramente no la esperaría, pero ella confío en él ya que le prometió que se verían en Nueva Delhi nada más terminase su estadía en el extranjero. Finalmente el hombre la abandonó por otra mujer y la dejó plantada en la otra punta del mundo en una habitación de hotel pendiente de un teléfono rojo.

El libro se divide en dos partes: la anterior y la posterior al terrible momento de abandono. La primera se trata de una recolección de momentos fotografiados haciendo cuenta atrás para el día señalado. La segunda va combinando el recuerdo de la autora del momento con testimonios de otras personas contando como fue el peor momento de sus vidas.

Un libro que nos habla del sufrimiento como algo colectivo y común, de la fotografía como una manera de encapsular los recuerdos y de lo desgraciados que son los hombres.

Sophie Calle mi ídola.

[Maria Fernández Beltran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me obsesiona la idea de que la dejada puede, a pesar de todo, controlar la narrativa de su abandono. En mi última lectura, la monja portuguesa decide que “ya ha tenido suficiente” de escribir tanta carta de despecho. Sophie Calle marca una diferencia clara antes y después del dolor. Antes, las misivas se escriben para el amado ausente e invoca así el cuerpo querido durante la ausencia, preguntándole incansablemente sobre los augurios de separación que constantemente se le aparecen durante su viaje. La llamada a través del teléfono rojo, de apenas unos segundos y, perdonad la frivolidad, parecida a la que Joe Jonas le dedicó a Taylor Swift, se resume en un: ya está. El principio del dolor marca también el inicio de la despedida. Visual y textualmente Calle pone su dolor en perspectiva comparándolo con el de otras y otros, y a la vez vuelve sin descanso al momento del colapso, entendiéndolo, observándolo, controlándolo, reduciéndolo, poniéndole un marco (más que fotográfico) hasta que es capaz de decir: basta, oscureciéndolo y permitiéndose mirar hacia otra parte.

[Maureen · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few very well crafted photographs appear in this book, which is certainly no small feat and absolutely worth note. That aside, the lollipop sweet layout, text, and fixation on self portraits don't captivate at all. Conceptually, as a title in print, it's absurd, but maybe as an exhibit it could hold ground a bit better. Count me as a Calle fan but definitely not of this book.

[p33€3 · Rating 3 out of 5]

poso akesta pk n sta ledicio en kasteià, ledicio daket llibre es cheff kiss preciosisima com tot lo d comisura son llibres k regalaria a totes les meves amigues

la historia en si n sta mal el final si k es fa una mica bola per la repeticio d les pagines pero esk tmb es la magia d la historia i com ella es sentia no? pero kin pal a la vegada

[Jolanta (knygupė)]

2.5*

[Ally McCulloch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yesterday, I finished this exquisite book. Loaded with pictures and short pages, and stories about French people suffering from normal and excruciating circumstances alike, Sophie Calle proves to be one of the most wonderful and expressive artists who deals in a variety of artistic formats. This time, a book, bound outlined with shimmering red, just like a book she picked up one time that helped her deal with her suffering, just like the red telephone she stared at after she got the news.

She counts down to her suffering and while it's expected, the actual way it happened was unexpected. Then through her motif of repetition, she tells the story again and again until it's so worn out, she's almost sick of her suffering to the point where it's not suffering anymore. Definitely wonderful. Recommended for those who don't mind facing and dealing with pain. Cathartic.

(Sophie Calle is a friend of Paul Auster and I found her work while doing a search related to Paul Auster.)

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first of Sophie Calle's works that I've read - it's beautiful and painful and I suppose therapeutic. It's interesting to see how she viewed the world during a time of suffering, and how pain can fade away. The book itself is also beautiful - grey cloth cover embossed with a telephone, red-tipped pages, a ribbon bookmark. I loved this piece of art.

[Jiaying · Rating 5 out of 5]

"15 days ago, the man I love left me."

I relate so much to this series because it was exactly like what I've gone through when you lost someone, or essentially a potential. You lose yourself, you go crazy, you lose your mind and Sophie managed to capture all of these rawness well through a stream of consciousness writing, as though flipping through excerpts of her personal diary. Her use of repetition was especially something I found intriguing and liberating. Keeping track of time by counting down, almost like a mirror of some sort to my experience too as I was grieving. The way she depicts this melancholia, was something that was precious in it's artistic form.

And because it felt so real as though you are living through that moment when she wrote those words, I just teared up reading this book. I love Sophie Calle's works because she does live out the spirit that to be an artist, sometimes it's about trusting that inner voice within you and sharing this emotion with the world as simply being human. To own your life story and not be apologetic about it. And what comes out it's a celebration of this life after all. And that's what I found healing about art. While facing vulnerability is uncomfortable, Art then comes in as a medium to weave your own language and create a life form that is uniquely your own.

[Vincent Scarpa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all of Calle's work, I think Exquisite Pain might be my favorite. I read it tonight in one sitting—it's always impossible to tear oneself away from Calle's work, I find, so riveting is her writing and presentation—and then spent maybe an hour going through it again, rereading certain parts and thinking about and through what Calle presents. The book is divided into two parts, before unhappiness and after unhappiness—the first a kind of photographic essay with the text of letters sent to her beloved, the latter a telling and retelling of the night of Calle's greatest suffering (when the beloved breaks things off), paired alongside stories she has been told by others about their moments of greatest suffering. (Also included: a very mysterious anecdote about Herve Guibert that Guibert recounts, albeit quite differently than Calle, in To The Friend Who Did Not Save My Life.)

Calle's work is so meaningful to me for precisely this reason: it operates under the belief that a heartbreak which occasions great suffering, exquisite pain, also occasions an opportunity, in time, to not only make of oneself an autoethnographer, but to present the findings and the play of such examination and investigation as necessary, as important, as art. It enacts something in me that is beyond empathy—it's phenomenological. Between her experience of pain and my own, there is this third thing, this document of heartbreak, which allows for, to borrow from Maggie Nelson, "a kind of touching." That is the art which most moves me, which most inspires me, and by which I feel known and instructed.

I am grateful as ever for Sophie Calle. I would very much like to meet her. If you can make this happen, do let me know. I'm planning to read her newest work out from Siglio Press very soon.

[Haley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I happened upon "Exquisite Pain" while sorting books in my job at the library. Maybe it was the muted, somber grey of the cover, or the shiny blood red of the pages that drew me in; most likely it was the painful subject matter that I can closely identify with as I begin divorce proceedings. A perfect choice for anyone suffering heartache. The layout and photographs aptly capture and enhance the mood, and the authors story and those of her contributors helped to remind me that pain will fade, the story will be rewritten, and it could be far, far worse.

[Margarita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Le livre est divisé en 2 parties dont la première est remplie de photos, accompagnées de temps en temps par de petits commentaires, et dont la deuxième nous raconte une histoire d'amour désespérée de manière très inhabituelle au niveau du jeu de la forme et du contenu (la particularité de l'oeuvre de S. Calle, d'ailleurs). Ce qui m'a gêné c'est l'impossibilité de bien ouvrir le livre pour voir certaines photographies sans le pli au milieu

[okyrhoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book's aesthetic is imbued with the seduction of pain, a theme prevalent in Japanese art. The spare color scheme throughout this beautiful little volume - reds, whites, black - reinforces the influence of the Far East.

The minimal text with its repetition gradually soothes the reader, like an ominous fairy tale recited to a child before sleep.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

see kids, you can make good art out of emotions!!

[Holle Singer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A work of art. Quite literally.

[Sophiaalmaria · Rating 5 out of 5]

One must document in order to process heartbreak.

[Shophika · Rating 5 out of 5]

I simply loved this piece of art. I love how she turned her feelings into words and captured a picture to represent it each feeling. Great book!

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh Sophie Calle…..

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why cant i find my copy of this? How totally inappropriate to leave this with your ex-boyfriend!

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

D’abord il me semble nécessaire de préciser que Douleur exquise, bien que vendu en librairie, n’est pas tant un livre qu’une œuvre plastique. Sa lecture en 2025 impose une longue quête car, cet objet étant épuisé depuis longtemps, il te faudra partir à sa recherche avec tout le hasard qu’amènera ta Quête.
Il est impossible de spoiler ce livre car chacun en connaît l’exact contenu puisqu’il est décrit en 4ème de couverture.
Alors pour l’histoire: en 1984, l’artiste entreprend un voyage au Japon au terme duquel elle découvre toute la lâcheté de l’Homme qu’elle aime par un aveu de rupture à distance, au téléphone. Pour survivre à cette douleur exquise, elle documente les jours précédant l’appel téléphonique, puis les 100 jours qui le suivent, en partageant et confrontant l’évolution de sa douleur avec celles vécues par des proches.
Une histoire banale tout aussi unique que celles de la tienne la mienne et toutes celles de tous les humains fragiles et si sensibles qui nous entourent.

[Nancy Zigler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would have done brilliantly blown up and in a contemporary art museum. The pages seemed to confine the narrative arc, which was more visual than anything. I found that fascinating. She has a knack for condensing the narratives of other and juxtaposing them alongside her own space. The artistic act of turning her heartbreak into something else felt definitely something, though I have no idea what. Voyeuristic? Consumer-driven? Not sure. I do like the fact that she did this to this certain person, but not that she did this in the name of love. It felt like quite the opposite.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

simultaneously a love letter to film photography, handwritten letters, and the art of falling out of love. sophie calle definitely has watched some wong kar wai in her free time! this book truly is something of genius. even the pages change texture in “after unhappiness.” EVEN the way the white font on sophie’s side gets darker to the point where it’s nearly illegible at the end of the book. when i get broken up with, i WILL be capitalizing upon it and publishing my heartbreak!

[CM · Rating 4 out of 5]

1)As I have read the Chinese translation, I'm going to type in Chinese, good to know the database of Goodreads actually got this edition as well.(留意中文版有份小刊,係導讀同圖片中既文字翻譯)

2)書既前半部係作者,亦係概念藝術家Sophie Calle係1984年一次日本之旅既相集,每一張相都有一個紅印,倒數住一日子,當倒數結束,就係"極度疼痛"(其實只係分手...)既日子;後半部就以書既左右劃分,左面既書頁係佢係當日講返"疼痛"既經過,每次都係以"今天是疼痛之後第X日"開始,而右面既頁數係另一個陌生人以一頁講佢人生最痛苦既事.

3)三十六次重新回憶當日既事對照三十六位陌生人既人生苦難...當中既情感可能係世界上最為私密,最為濃烈,而接連咁閱讀右邊既頁數,可以係一個人最悲涼既閱讀經歷,但係左面既頁數所表達既係情感既減弱...當中既反差實在令人佩服作者既心思,亦係我比四星既主要原因

4)或者係世上最能表達感情消逝既書

[jpeg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ce livre raconte une rupture amoureuse. Trois mois avant le drame, un échange universitaire Paris–Tokyo, voyage pour lequel Sophie Calle est menacée d’être quittée. Par esprit de contradiction, elle part. Elle n’en a pas vraiment envie. Tellement peu qu’elle tente même d’écourter son séjour en passant par la Russie.

Le récit s’ouvre trois mois plus tôt, avec un article d’un journaliste, Hervé, qui dresse d’elle un portrait si flatteur que sa mère lui demande si elle a couché avec lui. L’article est accompagné d’une photo d’elle enfant, à laquelle elle tient énormément. Elle la lui confie en lui faisant promettre de ne pas la perdre. Il la perd. Ils se retrouvent. Elle couche avec lui. Avec un Italien aussi.

Puis vient la rupture, au téléphone. Il en aime une autre. De retour en France, elle ne fait que répéter l’histoire. Une relation étrange : homme plus âgé, tromperies, menaces.

Comme catharsis, elle décide d’échanger son histoire contre la douleur la plus forte de ceux qui acceptent de lui parler. Le pari fonctionne : en trois mois elle est soignée. Nous sommes en 1985. Quinze ans plus tard, elle en fait un livre. Page de droite : sa douleur. Page de gauche : celle de l’autre.

Une femme à qui l’on annonce la mort de son amant et qui force la personne en face à lui expliquer le mot « décès ». Son français est hésitant.

Une horrible douleur de dents. "Le reste ne se dit pas."

Une punition : "J’avais triché au Nain Jaune, et c’était écrit, à la main, sur un morceau de carton que ma mère m’avait accroché dans le dos."

Une jeune fille qui perd la vue. Sa mère, contrainte de mendier pour payer le train et rejoindre le chevet de sa fille. La douleur, c'est le récit du voyage.

Etc, etc.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Repetition wears away, sometimes making something painful eventually feel silly. As usual, the stories of others are played against and into Calle's work, contrasting ideas of suffering and offering perspective that shifts the source material with each new page.

[Daniela Castillo Zavala · Rating 4 out of 5]

es una maravilla como a través de un texto que cuenta distintos días, el relato cambia; madura con ella, se procesa.

supongo que así viviríamos los términos si fuésemos lo suficiente valientes para escribirlos y hacerlos más tangibles.

(supongo).