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Hunting and Gathering

Anna Gavalda

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Aug 03, 2012 El rated it really liked it

Shelves: artsy-fartsy, 21st-centurylit

I'm not great at reading contemporary novels for some reason. I think in a lot of ways I expect too much out of them, especially when I compare them to so many of their predecessors (totally unfair of me, I know, but that's how I roll). I usually see so much room for improvement, or "had this been tweaked just a bit..."'s, that I wind up wondering what everyone makes such a fuss about.

I don't wonder as much with this book. It's charming. It's heartbreaking in parts. It actually punched me in the I'm not great at reading contemporary novels for some reason. I think in a lot of ways I expect too much out of them, especially when I compare them to so many of their predecessors (totally unfair of me, I know, but that's how I roll). I usually see so much room for improvement, or "had this been tweaked just a bit..."'s, that I wind up wondering what everyone makes such a fuss about.

I don't wonder as much with this book. It's charming. It's heartbreaking in parts. It actually punched me in the heart a few times. You know how certain paragraphs in books can hit you somewhere inside you didn't even know existed? Yeah, that's what happened with this book.

There are four main characters - the starving artist, Camille; Philibert the aristocrat who lives in Camille's building; Philibert's roommate, Franck; and Paulette, Franck's grandmother. While the story shouldn't be told without any one of them, the only one I particularly cared about was Camille. Maybe it's because we're both of the womenfolk genre, and I could connect with her on that sort of level; but honestly I think it has more to do with how Gavalda wrote her. Camille is wonderful. I love the way she sees the world, and the way her art is an extension of her character. Everyone else in the story paled in comparison. I just wanted Camille.

Now this is where I get obnoxious: I see that 10 Goodreads members have shelved this book as "chick lit". I'm not attacking them for that, but it just doesn't fit the bill in my opinion. This might be because my own definition of "chick lit" is less forgiving than I think it is according to most of the readers of the world. "Chick lit" to me is fluffy - that's what I imagine when I think of a baby chick. Fuzz. This was deeper than that. This wasn't a fuzzy story. There are the occasional fuzzy elements, but Camille is not a chick. She's not fluffy. She's bones and grit and paint. She's not out to find herself a man, or even the right pair of high heels. I'm not sure she would know how to walk in high heels. (Something else she and I have in common.) Most characters in what I define as "chick lit" do not appreciate the beauty in an ugly knitted scarf. Camille could.

So I'm interested with that shelving, but I'm trying to ignore it. I just hate that someone might be led astray by that. I almost couldn't bring myself to read this because of that. But one of my close GR friends rated it so highly and I trust her judgment that I couldn't turn it down; and I'm so happy I pushed myself.

For the record, I do believe many readers are confused by "chick lit" and "women's literature" or "fiction by women writers". It doesn't help that so many are marketed so freaking insanely in order to garner readers.

What I'm saying is that this is a book that I think even male readers could appreciate. And I worry that the label "chick lit" could be a real turn-off for most.

I can't give this a full 5 stars because it really consists of more dialogue than I prefer. I often find that an easy way out; Gavalda, however, manages to throw in an occasional paragraph or few pages that are not as superficial as straight conversation, and for that alone I hung on.

Now, really. Can Gavalda write a book just about Camille? For me? Please and thank you.

All the valves opened and she blew her nose against his shirt, cried some more, letting go of twenty-seven years of solitude, of sorrow, of nasty blows to the head, crying for the cuddles she never had, her mother's madness, the paramedics on their knees on the wall-to-wall carpet, her father's absent gazes, the shit she went through, all those years without any respite, ever, the cold, the pleasure of hunger, the wrong paths taken, the self-imposed betrayals, and always that vertigo, the vertigo at the edge of the abyss and of the bottle. And the doubt, her body always in hiding, and the taste of ether and the fear of never being good enough.

That, right there. That's one of those sections that hit me somewhere I didn't know existed. You don't have to understand. That one is just for me. ...more

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