
On a Day Like This
A Novel
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
- دیدگاه کاربران
نقد و بررسی

May 5, 2008
In the quiet but evocative latest from Swiss writer Stamm (Unformed Landscape
), Andreas, a 40-something Swiss expatriate, teaches German in Paris and spends much of his time musing over Fabienne, the lost love of his youth, while sleeping with women he doesn’t much like. Andreas thinks of himself as quiet and passive, and is thus surprised by the intensity of his reaction when told he may have a serious lung disorder. He reacts by allowing a casual affair with 24-year-old Delphine (a teaching colleague who had briefly been involved with Andreas’s best friend, Jean-Marc), to intensify. He tells Delphine about his illness; she reciprocates by taking care of him as he recovers from surgery. The two seem poised to take a chance on one another, but Andreas’s fidelity to Fabienne is still to be reckoned with. Andreas’s sorrows and changing perspectives are surprisingly powerful in this muted, thoughtful novel of second chances.

June 15, 2008
Swiss author Stamm's latest novel (after "Unformed Landscape") describes a few months in the life of Andreas, a secondary school teacher and confirmed bachelor. This glimpse at one man's midlife crisis is a mediation on what it means to be lonely. Sitting in a doctor's office awaiting the results of a biopsy, Andreas has an epiphany. Dissatisfied with the banality of his life, he decides to quit his job, sell his apartment, end his romantic affairs, and leave Paris for good. He heads to his childhood home in Switzerland and an ill-fated reunion with his first love. Andreas's completely unrealistic self-perception (illustrated with subtle irony by his language-teaching materials) makes up for his being far from sympathetic as a protagonist. Stamm's narrative is both insightful and dreamy, his fluid prose rendered adeptly by award-winning translator Hofmann. And while the novel's ending is unexpected (and, some might argue, inappropriate), it is not unwelcome. Appropriate for large fiction collections.Karen Walton Morse, Univ. at Buffalo Libs., NY
Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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