It must be admitted that I picked up this book displayed in the New Books section in the library because the blurb at the back said, “A beautiful tale for everyone who likes to end a book with a smile on their face” (Live). Who doesn’t want to read such a book, right?
It begins promisingly enough – our protagonist, Juliette, rides Line 6 of the Metro everyday to work, and watches fellow passengers, especially those who read. “There was the old lady, the maths student, the amateur ornithologist, the gardener and the woman in love” p7, and the man in the green hat who is always reading the same book. A History of Insects Useful to Man, Animals and the Arts, with a Supplement on How to Destroy Pests.
Juliette lives an extremely narrow existence, as laid out for her by her loving mother:
She had always tried to smooth the ground beneath her daughter’s feet, guiding her towards the safest paths, where she would meet neither obstacles nor difficulties. Not adventures Not any other kind of unforeseen event. Nothing that could hurt her deeply, nor anything that could stir her passions, elevate her above herself, above her cautious certainties her almost cloistered, gentle, humdrum existence.
p116
AS such, when we meet Juliette, her routine is regimented – up at seven thirty every morning for 4 crispbreads spread with cream cheese “never any more” (p114) and apple juice and tea, lunch with a workmate sometimes, an apple and a packet of Petit Berurre biscuits for tea break, then home in the evening to housework, dinner in front of the TV, Friday evenings to the cinema, Saturdays to the pool, Sundays to visit her parents.
Then one day, taking an alternative route to work, Juliette stumbles on a door jammed open with a book, and from there, meets the charming child, Zaide, and Zaide’s book-lover father, Soliman. Soliman talks to Juliette, at first of the principle of releasing books into the wild, tracking their release, such as the BookCrossing website, but tells her what he does is different, he is a passeur:
A passeur has to choose a reader. Someone they will have watched, even followed, until they are able to intuit the book that person needs. Make no mistake, it’s a very demanding task. You don’t allocate a book as a challenge, on a whim, to upset or provoke. My best passeurs have a tremendous capacity for empathy.
p34
Once Juliette becomes a passeur, her life changes completely. And she in turn changes the lives of others, completely. However, this narrative has a touch of magic realism about it which makes it hard to take literally. Even willingly suspending disbelief that all this could fall into place so easily, that so much can be taken on trust, this narrative is not entirely satisfactory as it unfolds and as it concludes. Zaide’s story doesn’t seem to go anywhere in particular, Leonidas is more of a useful side-kick than a real character, more of a Watson to Juliette’s Holmes, and the various threads are not tied up at the end. And while of course it is true life’s threads do not always tie up at the end, wherever the end point may be, in a narrative, the structure could be more definitive than life, and can ensure shape and endings are clearer, with better conclusions.
This was a very easy read, soothing and pleasing, and it preaches to the converted as far as I am concerned about the power and influence of reading and books on lives. But I find that although it was a quick and pleasant read, I take away nothing of import really, from the reading, and so am hesitant to recommend it. Maybe a good beach book, or airplane book. But nothing much to get one’s teeth into.
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