463. The Red Notebook
Rating: ☆☆☆1/2
Recommended by: Meris Delli-Bovi
Author: Antoine Laurain
Genre: Fiction, Romance, Foreign
159 pages, published April 7, 2015
Reading Format: Book
Summary
When Parisian bookseller Laurent Letellier comes across an abandoned handbag on the street there is nothing in it to indicate who it belongs to. However, there are all sorts of other things in it which bit by bit disclose the identity of the owner, especially a red notebook which contains the owner’s thoughts and musings. Laurent spends the next week tracking down the mysterious and enigmatic owner of the bag.
Quotes
“How many things do we feel obliged to do for the sake of it, or for appearances, or because we are trained to do them, but which weigh us down and don’t in fact achieve anything?”
”If there was one thing that defined adolescence it was hysterical laughter. You never laughed like that again. In adolescence the brutal realisation that the world and life were completely absurd made you laugh until you couldn’t catch your breath, whereas in later life it would only result in a weary sigh.”
That was exactly what Tabucchi was suggesting with his title (“La Nostalgie du Possible”) –that we can pass right by something very important: love, a job, moving to another city or another country. Or another life. ‘Pass by’ and at the same time be ‘so close’ that sometimes, while in that state of melancholy that is akin to hypnosis, we can, in spite of everything, manage to grab little fragments of what might have been. Like catching snatches of a far-off radio frequency. The message is obscure, yet by listening carefully you can still catch snippets of the soundtrack of the life that never was. You hear sentences that were never actually said, you hear footsteps echoing in places you’ve never been to, you can make out the surf on a beach whose sand you have never touched. You hear the laughter and loving words of a woman though nothing ever happened between you. The idea of an affiar with her had crossed your mind. Perhaps she would have liked that –probably, in fact– but nothing every happened. For some unknown reason, we never gave in to the exquisite vertigo that you feel when you move those few centimeters towards the face of the other for the first kiss.”
“Can you experience nostalgia for something that hasn’t happened? We talk of ‘regrets’ about the course of our lives, when we are almost certain we have taken the wrong decision; but one can also be enveloped in a sweet and mysterious euphoria, a sort of nostalgia for what might have been.”
“There, it was over. How was it so easy to disappear from someone else’s life? Perhaps it was with the same ease that you enter it. A chance meeting, a few words exchanged, and a relationship begins. A chance falling out, a few words exchanged and that same relationship is over.”
“A quote from Sacha Guitry came to mind: ‘Watching someone sleep is like reading a letter that is not addressed to you.”
“What I really need is a friend just like me; I’m sure I’d be my own best friend.”
“Do great things, Laure, be happy, or at least do your best to be. Life is fragile.”
“There’s nothing worse than being bored with a boring man.”
My Take
The Red Notebook, which is a romance where the protagonists only meet at the end of the story, is a delightful read. While reading it, I felt as if I was right there with them in the streets, book shops and cafes of Paris. That alone makes it worth reading.
