My French Life™ BOOK CLUB - Our 2020 Books in Translation: The Rain Watcher

[Jacqueline]

First comments
-Tatiana de Rosnay : ‘“I wanted to write about a son who finds the courage to talk to his ailing father at last, about himself, about who he really is. And I wanted to describe the city I love, the city I was born in, Paris, flooded by a catastrophic natural disaster that could very well happen today: the river Seine bursting its banks.”
-Jacqueline Dubois Tatiana de Rosnay is bilingual and lives in Paris, she wrote it in English and it was translated into French by Anouk Neuhoff. I am certain she paid a particular attention to the translation process. A question we could ask her directly via her twitter or instagram or website!
-Judy MacMahon I’ve finished and really enjoyed it
-Review in Goodreads by Jane Susan Gabin : An engrossing story centered on a family reunion in Paris. A little rain in the beginning turns into a great flood, and the book’s pages exude the dreary, wet, and ultimately stench-filled atmosphere. As the city becomes increasingly dysfunctional, readers understand that the family is dysfunctional as well. The main character, a photographer with the first name of Linden, has been avoiding telling his father about his gay identity. One does not have to be a linguist to know that ‘Linden’ is not a usual French name or an English one. Linden is named for a tree. At the very end, Linden’s father sends the young man to find something hidden in tree at their home. The contents, while revealing the choice of Linden’s name, also raise questions of their own. In fact, the ending of the book left me with many questions. Better communications would have saved this family a lot of grief. But then there would have been no need for the flood-as-metaphor. The best aspect of this book is the depiction of a great city transformed and almost destroyed by the same river which gave it life.
-Denise Robinette 'I loved The Rain Watcher. I found the themes of trees, rain and flooding, and secrets held deep significance to me at the time in my life when I read this book'
-Terry Cagle 1)I am a bit further into the book now, and I have to say I am enjoying it a lot. It's a good read, not a literary masterpiece maybe but nevertheless. . . When I read our comments, I can't help but think of Dan Brown's DaVinci Code, which no educated person could possibly admit reading. 2) I loved it.I am having trouble putting this book down. It is highly readable, at least for me, with a lot of references to the flooding of the Seine in 2016 and the devastating wind storm in the winter of 1999-2000. And of course the city of Paris itself is a background character.
-Leslie Reid I am just starting the novel & like #TerryCagle finding it highly readable. And - as it happens, it started raining & raining from last night , all through the night and now into the day here in Dallas TX. 🌧 ☔️. I had forgotten how much we “watch” rain - how heavy it is, how gray the skies are, where it is flooding in the neighborhood.

[Jacqueline]

RECAP ON MYFRENCHLIFE BOOKCLUB ZOOM MEETING ON THE RAINWATCHER
First I insisted on the fact that at start I had all the good reasons to choose this book even though I had intentionally not read any reviews
- The author Tatiana de Rosnay known for Sarah’s Key
- A great title ‘the rain watcher’ which I found poetical
- The topic and themes : A French-American family reunion in Paris, the flooding, the love of trees, a family reunion and secrets to be revealed.
However I pointed out that in the end I did not think the book had held to these promises. How so?
In the ‘chat’ section of the zoom meeting, I had added 3 questions which could be used as directions for possible discussions
- Each member of the family has a secret which is revealed throughout the story. What are these secrets? do you think secrets should be revealed under same circumstances?
- Linden : do you think his coming out would have been different in an American/Australian/ English family ?
- Did you find the descriptions of the Seine flooding realistic?
- The invisible man of the book, Paul. What do we learn about him? What do you think of exposing him through the letters ?
Members present gave their general impression
Elisabeth said she taught a course on French books on films and had had Sarah’s Key in its syllabus. She found it interesting for its themes but average and not flawless and that there were too many layers.
Sherrie takes French lessons and as a learner of French language and culture, she was very much interested but agreed the story was disappointing and it was not great literature.
Amy enjoyed a few things , like walking down the streets of Paris along with Linden as she is missing France very much. Also she is a ‘tree person’. It was a quick read.
Susan found the book ok and as a francophile also enjoyed the Paris description of streets and setting, imagining herself in the different places described. However she found most elements of the story over the top, not believable.
Beverly read several books by Tatiana de Rosnay and since she is a gardener and tree person enjoyed the parts played by nature. She thought the book had interesting dynamics.
Jane is new Francophile and compared it to Sarah’s Key in terms of drama.
Judy enjoyed the book despite its flaws (she could only get the audio version, so it was a first different experience and tried to not pay attention to the voice) and liked particularly the description of the trees
During the one-hour non-stop discussion we made many remarks :
- Regarding the present situation, we found the book quite premonitory : the doctors overwhelmed, the transfer from one hospital to another due to the torrential rain and flooding, the impossibility to anticipate the turn of events and to leave Paris, the family stuck in Paris, all this looks like to ‘déjà vu’ right now.
- We also examined the names, which sounded phony for some (could be those of the protagonists of a soap) but which had not been chosen accidentally. All had a purpose and meaning.
- We found there were plenty of inadequacies and improbable situations. Telia’s secret for instance, how could her family not know she had spent six months in a coma? How could she look for her friends’ photos in Facebook in 2004? Also there was more to expect from the finding of the box in the tree at the end and it lacked a sense of closure. We agreed the relationship between father and son should have been developed more in depth. We also wondered what the unexpected arrival of Colin, Mistral and finally Sacha could have brought to the narrative.
- At the same time we found the secrets themselves were either gory or conventional and expected - the chopping of the head, Susanne’s horrible murder, the aunt’s defenestration for the former and Linden’s coming out and the mother’s return of a youth lover for the latter.
- We definitely could not imagine a movie made of this story, probably would be better as episodes in a Netflix series!

To conclude, it was obvious that the book was not such a bad pick as there were many things to say from its silences, its flaws and great potential. We particularly loved the Paris tour and the precise description of trees and their importance.
I would like on this occasion to pay a tribute to Alisa Bearov Landrum , who passed away at the beginning of June, a very active and passionate member, who had attended a book club meeting in Paris and had become a friend to many of us, and whose last post for https://www.myfrenchlife.org/author/jacdubois/ was when I made the suggestion for this book, she wrote ‘there are so many bad reviews on Goodreads that it makes me want to read it!’