Loop nooit weg zonder helm

by Camille Bordas, Gertrud Maes (Translator)

Isidore Mazal is elf jaar oud en de jongste zoon in een gezin met zes kinderen. Zijn broers en zussen zijn allemaal superintelligent, hij is gevoelig. Berenice, Aurore en Leonard behalen al voor hun vierentwintigste doctoraten. Jeremy is een muzikaal genie en Simone, dertien jaar oud, is overal goed in. Ze weet zeker dat ze later beroemd zal worden. Alleen Isidore heeft nog nooit een klas overgeslagen of een proefschrift geschreven. Maar wanneer de familie Mazal getroffen wordt door een tragedie, is hij de enige die ziet hoe ze allemaal worstelen met hun verdriet, en is hij ook de enige die hen kan helpen - als hij voor die tijd tenminste niet is weggelopen van huis.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Coming Of Age, France, Literary Fiction, Novels, Family

320 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2017

About the author

Camille Bordas est née à Lyon, en 1987. Elle a passé son enfance au Mexique et vit maintenant à Paris. Elle est étudiante en anthropologie.
En 2009, elle a été remarquée par la critique avec la parution de son premier roman, Les treize desserts, pour lequel elle a reçu la Bourse Thyde Monnier de la SGDL et le Prix du Livre du département du Rhône.

Reviews

[Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was wonderful! It has mixed reviews but I don't really care about that, I only care about what I think.

The first couple of paragraphs from the book had me choosing this one as my next blog book.

Excerpt

There was a darker brown stain on our brown suede couch. If I swept it one way with the palm of my hand, it almost blended in. I could squint and forget it was even there, but then a swipe in the other direction, and the stain reappeared, darker than I remembered, like I'd just fed it.

Everyone had a different story about the stain. Simone said I'd pissed the couch as a toddler, after running free from our mother's bundle of towels, just out of my bath. "You went straight for the couch, stood right there on the armrest, grabbed your half-inch wang, and aimed," Simone said. "I saw it, and Aurore and Jeremie, we never understood what came over you, Dory. It's like you were on a mission."

Yes, it is the oddball things that reel me in from time to time. I never said I was normal and normal is boring.

This story is unique, funny, sad and, well, real. The story is told through Isidore's (Dory) words. Not just him making commentary in his mind, there are real interactions.

He has 5 brothers and sisters: Berenice, Aurore, Leonard, Jeremie and Simone and they are all eerily smart. I say eerily because who has that many children that end up getting phd's and go in for more and oh anything you can think of that make them seem like robots. Not Dory, he's just a wonderful little kid that tries to take the world as it comes.

The book is funny in places and sad in others. The family as a unit is very strange. They call their dad "the father" it was something their mother cooked up. They only see him on weekends and certain times of the year because he travels a lot. Dory makes believe he's a spy. I felt sorry for Dory and I guess the whole family because the father was so distant and strange. The whole family is strange, they don't like anyone. (well the sibs)

Excerpts

The father and I were the only ones to actually go in the sea. He swam while I threw myself at oncoming waves, not too far from the shore, waiting for him to swim back to me. That's as close as I could get to sharing something with him, even though I was scared to go far out like he did.

My parents didn't look very much in love to me, and I thought it was my fault. I guess it's what happens when you're the only one to notice a thing: you feel responsible for it. They didn't really kiss, just a dry smack on the lips in the mornings when the father left for somewhere. They only seemed to exchange practical information about appointments or taxes, sometimes us. I thought they were waiting until I was old enough to move away to get a divorce.

There was an old lady that was a sort of celebrity in the story. Her name was Daphne and she ended up being 111 years-old. Dory and his mom would talk to her from time to time because most people didn't talk to her all that much unless she was getting an award for being so old or something. I liked their time with Daphne.

I believe it was 6 times in the book that Dory ran away. He went to see his older sister once, had a great conversation with a homeless man and a few other adventures. I loved Dory. He tried every thing.

Excerpt

I believed if I ran away from home, it would make my mother happy. She always complained we weren't adventurous enough, and while my siblings usually met her remark with the same indifference they granted statements of personal opinions in general, I, the youngest of the six of us, took it to heart. I didn't want to be blamed for others' quirks. I wanted to be my own man. To be different. I mean, I had no choice but to be different (I wasn't as smart or as good-looking as my brothers and sisters), but I had no particular idea what kind of person I should be either. I thought I could at least try what my mother had in mind and be adventurous.

One of Dory's sister had a penpal that came to visit, it was for school. She was ignored by the sister of course but Dory became a friend to Rose. I don't understand the rest of the family being the way they are to people. Even when something tragic happened, they were all weird about it and Rose was the only person that broke out crying. It was all strange. But I also felt that tragedy brought them together. They slept in the same room together for some time before going back to normal.

I could go on about the book forever and leave tons more excerpts but I will stop here. I love how everyone in the family started to be closer and talk to each other more closer to the end. Some of them even became human and not robotic. Either way, it was a lovely story and I enjoyed it so much. Dory is one of a kind.

Mel ♥

*Thank you to bloggingforbooks for a hardback copy of this book.*

MY BLOG: Melissa Martin's Reading List

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is described as a dark comedy and while there are some funny moments, I found it more sad than comical. The Mazal family is a quirky family like none I've ever known. I have to admit at first I didn't like any of the six children in the family except Isidore (Dory), the youngest and our narrator. I wasn't sure I wanted to continue , but I was so taken with this 11 year old boy who takes us through the next few years of the lives of this odd family who live in a small French town. An odd bunch for sure , dysfunctional in many ways. Dory's siblings surpass the norms, skipping grades, getting PhDs at very young ages but they live in the shell of their studies and their bedrooms, except when they watch American tv shows and analyze them by Aristotle's "Poetics". Dory perhaps gives us the best insight into who they are : "I love my family, I believe. Even though I'd known no other and couldn't really tell, I thought they were all right, decent people. But oblivious. They got lost in their thoughts. They had no sense of the other - or anyone outside our family, sometimes even me."

Dory too is an outsider not just in his family, but in school. He keeps running away but keeps coming back sometimes even before his family knows he's gone. Dory is not book smart as his siblings but he is perceptive about people- his family, about the friends he reaches out to make. He is caring and it was touching to read that he updated his will every year since he was eight. "I still wanted them to know I'd thought of them." The family faces a loss and I won't say more to avoid a spoiler but suffice it to say that they are grieving. In spite of Dory's siblings' inability to connect with people and their condescending nature to almost anyone not as smart as they are, I couldn't have been more moved than when facing their loss, Dory tells us " ....we all slept in the same bedroom for days but didn't talk about why."

This is a wonderful coming of age story. Dory deals with some real issues- bullying, teen suicide, loss, and trying to find his own identity within his family and in the world at large. His brothers and sisters certainly have the gift of intelligence, but Dory is gifted with love and empathy and an unbound curiosity about life that make him a gift to his family and definitely to the reader.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Crown Publishing through NetGalley.

[Larry H · Rating 2 out of 5]

Have you ever gone to see a movie or a comedian that everyone says is really funny, but you sit there and wonder when it will get funny?

I think I have a good sense of humor; those who know me know that I'm really very sarcastic (I often say that sarcasm is my superpower) and I love a good joke, yet for some weird reason movies and books that are supposed to be hysterically or even darkly funny often miss their target with me. In fact, when I see books lauded as funny, I often steer clear of them, because I rarely find them as funny as they're purported to be.

This was the case with Camille Bordas' How to Behave in a Crowd . While it wasn't supposed to be a knee-slapper, the book's characters were full of quirks which almost instantaneously wore on me, almost as if the author was trying to be ultra-clever, and many of the situations which I'd expect were supposed to be funny fell flat for me.

The Mazals are a family living in a small French town. Four of the six children are tremendously accomplished—Berenice, Aurore and Leonard are academic prodigies of sorts, each on track to have their doctorates before age 24; Jeremie is a musician who performs with a symphony; and Simone, although only 13, is already distinguishing herself academically. Only 11-year-old Isidore, more often called Dory, doesn't seem to stand out intellectually, and in fact, is at a loss when it comes to deciding his future ambitions.

What Dory has that his siblings lack, however, is humility and empathy, for people he knows and those he doesn't. Quite often his mother remarks on his kindness and sensitivity, especially when comparing him to her other children. Yet sometimes standing out for not standing out isn't appealing, especially in adolescence, and he often tries to escape his family by running away.

But when a tragedy strikes the Mazal family, each of them handles it in their own way. But as the cracks begin to show, Dory sees how everyone is dealing with their grief and tries to help where he can, often in bizarre yet kindhearted ways. However, Dory has his own issues, and must balance his own grief with the anger he has felt about being the odd man out.

I thought that this book had a lot of potential, but it just never clicked for me. I don't know if the characters were so odd that it was difficult to empathize and connect with them, or if I just found the story to be more of a series of anecdotes than a cohesive narrative. Dory was also seemed much more mature than his age; I often had to remind myself that he was 11 or 12 years old. One other quirk that really irritated me for some reason was that the children's mother constantly referred to their father as "the father," never "your father."

I've seen some tremendously positive reviews of this book, so it's inordinately possible I'll be the one in the minority. If you often are on the same wavelength with books hailed as funny, or the quirks of a quirky family don't drive you crazy, pick this book up. I'd love to hear you tell me how wrong I am!

NetGalley and Crown Publishing provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

See all of my reviews at http://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blo....

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmmmm.....Took me awhile to get into the character-driven....matter-of-fact writing style of this novel. It's so different....with little to no plot, and (for me) leaned toward more of a character study.

Anyway....The Mazel family are all highly intelligent....but rather cold....distant....loners for the most part who spend much of their time indoors studying. Even when tragedy strikes, the announcement is monotone....and the immediate reaction (by family members) a non-event, but there is grief.

Among the six children, the focus is on the youngest, Isidore....who prefers to be called Izzy vs. Dory. Izzy is just about twelve, an obviously caring and sensitive young man....unlike the rest of the family. He has an excellent memory, but no friends to speak of and spends much of his time trying to figure out how to fit in....understand adults, or....trying to escape them.

HOW TO BEHAVE IN A CROWD is described as a "darkly comedic novel" and although I did laugh out loud a few times; overall, I found it to be rather sad....even shocking and heartbreakingly so in one instance....but I loved Izzy....his courage to ask tough questions....his ability to figure things out, and the way he gave comfort.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short pitch to see if you'd like How to Behave in a Crowd: meet the Mazals, kind of like the French version of "The Royal Tenenbaums", a family comprised of a somewhat absent father and solid, grounded mother to a cadre of snarky, sharp, smart, somewhat asocial savant children. We're exposed to the Mazals through our narrator, Izidore but more commonly known as Dory, youngest son of this unique tribe, less intelligent and accomplished than his older siblings but also deeply emotional, empathetic, and extremely curious about his world and the larger world around him. Camille Bordas' first novel in English is witty, funny, smart and occasionally sad, and features some truly formidable female characters in Dory's family and his schooldfriend Denise, so this was a welcome surprise of a novel for me, something I went in knowing nothing about and was delighted reading from beginning to end.

While the Mazal children (Berenice, Leonard, Aurore, Jeremie, and Simone) for the most part have skipped multiple years of schooling and are singularly dedicated to pursuing their own individual goals in academia and other fields of passion, Dory is trying to navigate being the only normal level child in a family of geniuses, and also become socially adept or at least functional, while somewhat hamstrung by his overly smart and less socially aware or caring siblings. His mother knows Dory is different from her other children, and though she tries to reach all of them and ensure they're well rounded and can function outside of their bubbles, it's a difficult prospect:

"Aren't the best parties supposed to be phony, though?" Leonard said, to our mother's surprise.
"I believe the best parties are the ones where one enjoys oneself," my mother responded diplomatically.
"Exactly," Leonard said. "By finding a small crowd with which to make fun of the larger crowd."
"Well as long as you find yourself a crowd, I guess. That's all I want for you," my mother said.
"No need to find a crowd," Leonard said. "Jeremie and Simone will do just fine."

And goodness this book made me laugh! I'm not usually the reader who gravitates towards comic novels, but this one walks the line well and delivered its lines with sharpness and truth. There's not much overarching plot per se, other than a family tragedy occurring for the Mazals that upsets their standard equilibrium as a family, and Dory pushed to grow up and start considering alternate viewpoints of life besides those of his highly intelligent but socially unengaged siblings. And it's in the characters' conversations and interactions with friends and family that author Camille Bordas won my affection. Simone, Dory's closest sibling, is one of Bordas' best characters: very sharp and forceful and intelligent, but also with acknowledged vanity and a frustration with most everyone that doesn't operate on her level, including her siblings but never Dory, her future biographer. And where Dory is the heart of the novel, Simone is the head, breaking things down for a Dory and the reader as circumstances force hard conversations and change the Mazal children's outlook.

"Maybe you should be the dictator," she said, like it was the best idea she's had in a while.
"I wouldn't know what to do with power," I said.
"I'd help you! I have a few ideas for a better society."
"I don't doubt it," I said, "but how would you telling me what to do be different than actually being the dictator yourself?"
"Dictators have advisors, you know? No one expect you to come up with all the laws."
"What do you think should be my first measure as a dictator?" I said.
"If I were your advisor," Simone said, "I would make commenting on the internet illegal. I don't think people should express themselves as much as they think they should."
"I'll keep that in mind," I said.
"Obviously, you should leave this exchange out of my biography."

And then, for a combination of truth and humor and a unique perspective, consider Dory asking his mother about love, a fairly normal line of questioning for an adolescent:

"It's your memories with the person that become your love for the person, you know? And building memories takes time. A lot of time, actually. I don't think I can do it again. I don't believe I have enough time left to do it again." It sounded like she might have a rehearsed speech about love as well. "When people talk about love, Dory, they call it love because it is a festive word, like 'champagne'. You hear the cork pop just saying 'champagne'. But what they're really talking about when they say 'love' is attachment, ties, which are, admittedly, less glamorous words. And when they say you love only once," she went on, "they don't mean it in a cheesy romantic way or anything, you know? It's very practical, in fact: there is no time in life to get to really know and... tie yourself to more than one person."
"That's a lot of pressure," I said.
"What is?"
"That you only have time in life to love one person. What if you set your mind on the wrong one and waste years on her?"
"Well, then you're fucked," my mother said.

And it doesn't just focus on Dory and his family: Bordas casts the net to extend to small French town the Mazals are from but not really of, the very special tribe of outsiders that the rest of the towns inhabitants interact with in ways ranging from stalking (the succession of gentleman callers for Berenice, Aurore, and Simone) to bizarre (Simone's pen friend who becomes Dory's first big crush and sexual awakening). The town also boasts the oldest living woman in France, whose age is used for illustrative and plot purposes, and Dory forms a deeper acquaintance with her as she teaches him German and town rumors surrounding her past are revealed:

"I suppose those people you're talking about still haven't registered how old I actually am. I was already old when the Nazis started rising to power. My husband had died. He couldn't have been a Nazi even if he'd wanted to, poor Thomas darling. Not that he would've wanted to be a Nazi, of course, that's just a way of speaking. He was a German deserter from the First World War, that's how old I am. But maybe they don't teach you about the First World War in school anymore."
"They do," I said, in a senseless attempt to defend my education, given I knew next to nothing about the First World War. "The First World War was with the trenches and the Second with the concentration camps."
"How specific," Daphne said.

This story, roughly encapsulating a coming of age tale and a portrait of a family, is one of the more charming reads I've had in 2017, and yet for all its charm, it's also full of black humor and some dark situations. I'll say one of main reasons I didn't rate this book higher is that for all of Dory's warmth and goodness and empathetic ignorance turning to knowledge, he does pale a bit as a foil to some of the fiery, spirited, fierce women in this story. But overall I really enjoyed reading this, and definitely recommend it for readers who like quirky family tales, some smart writing, and like a good laugh with an occasional French twist. 4 solid stars.

-received an ARC on edelweiss, thanks to Tim Duggan Books and Penguin Random House

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was addictive. I wasn't sure where it was going, but I just didn't want to stop reading. The story is told through the eyes of Isidore, the youngest of the six Mazal children and seemingly the least remarkable, academically speaking anyway, as all of his siblings are already working on advanced degrees when most people their age are finishing high school. They are on a whole other plane on thinking from the 11-year old... and from pretty much everyone except one another.

It doesn't take long before you start to realize that Dory (who would rather be called Izzie) is pretty remarkable. He doesn't fit in with his uber-academic family, and he also may be a little too smart to really fit in with his classmates. His family does not suffer fools gladly, they're a pretty solitary group for the most part. But Isadore is much more open. Awkward, but open nonetheless. For 300 or so pages, we follow along as he seeks to find his place in the world. I loved every minute of it.

After finishing this book, I had to take a day to consider a few things. I think if I read it a second time I may get even more out of it. The characters reference Aristotle's Poetics, as well as other concepts that make this novel intellectually stimulating, as well as emotionally stimulating. I do not read like a scholar, I generally need to be hit over the head with symbolism to be consciously aware of it. When the characters in a fictional novel are discussing Poetics and arguing that there are only a few variations of stories since Aristotle, I have to think that something meta is going on there. But, like I said, I don't read like a scholar and I enjoyed this book and will likely continue to consider it for quite shine time.

Thank you to Penguin's First to read program for providing me with an advance copy for review.

[emre · Rating 5 out of 5]

uzun zamandır bu kadar hisli ve güzel bir roman okumamıştım. aile ve çocukluk zaten edebiyatta zayıf karnım, ama başlarken hiç böyle seveceğimi düşünmemiştim. isidore mazal ve ailesini hep buruk bir tebessümle hatırlayacağım. denise'i de elbette.

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 4 out of 5]

fransızların yazdığı tatliş romanlardan biri daha. ailenin küçük çocuğun gözünden anlatıldığı birçok fransız romanı okudum son on yılda sanırım. buradaki aileyi de biraz açmak gerekiyor, genelde pek normal olmayan aileler anlatılıyor. romanlar hem sıcak ailevi hisler uyandırıyor okurun içinde hem de aslında aile denen kurumun sahteliğini irdeliyor. avrupa romanı aile konusunda zaten çok iyi, katı ve eleştirel ama fransızlarınki akdeniz soslu oluyor.
burada da onlu yaşların başındaki isadore'un üstün zekalı 5 kardeşi, hafif çatlak annesi ve uzak/soğuk babası söz konusu. pat diye babanın ölmesiyle her kardeş farklı yas ve kabullenme süreci geçiriyor. isadore ailenin en normal zekalısı olarak empatisi en yüksek olan çocuğu. okuldaki en yakın arkadaşının intihara eğilimli olması, kaçıp evine gittiği mektup arkadaşı rose'un çatlaklığı, kasabanın en yaşlısıyla kurduğu ilişki ve kardeşleriyle kurduğu biricik ilişkiler onu mükemmel bir kahraman haline getiriyor.
ve 13 yaşında bir çocuğun pek de yaşamaması gereken trajik olayla roman tatliş tatliş ilerlerken bizi bir tokatlıyor. sonra yine sımsıcak bitiyor ama o tokat da yanağımızı yakmaya devam ediyor.
okunası bir çocukluk, aile ve büyüme hikayesi...

[merixien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bu aralar okurken çok arada kaldığım ama ikinci yarılarında -Hamnet gibi- ya da sonlarına doğru sevdiğim kitaplar okuyorum. Birlikte Yaşamanın Yolları da onlardan birisi oldu.

Kitap, aşırı zeki beş kardeşin ortasında sıradan bir çocuk olarak yalnızlığının içine düşmüş Dory’nin gözünden; ailesinin yas dönemini ve kendi hayatının dönüm noktası olan bir olayı kapsayan bir süreci anlatıyor. Açıkcası kitabı bitirdiğimde sanki Dory’nin Leonard’ın bilimsel incelemesine karşılık; -bu hikayeyi asıl anlatılması gereken haliyle- kendisinin yazdığı bir kitabı okumuş gibi hissettim. Bunun sebebi de kitabın son bölümü olan “Yabancılaştırma Etkisi”nde kafamdaki bütün eksik kalan noktaların yerine oturmuş olmasıydı. Zira ben kitabı uzunca bir süre sevip sevmediğimden emin olamadım. Çünkü Dory ve Denise dışındaki karakterler asla derinleşmediğinden -bir miktar karikatürüze kaldıkları için- hikayede hep bir yapaylık ve kitap okumaktan çok bir film izliyormuşum hissini atamadım. Ancak Simone’un “huni teorisi” ile zeki ve ukala görünen kardeşlerin gerçeklerine ve kendi iç dünyalarındaki yalnızlığa girmeye başladığında çoğunluğun kitabı neden sevdiğini anladım. Sıcacık bir aile hikayesi diyebileceğimi sanmıyorum. Ancak farkılıklarıyla yalnızlaşmış ve babanın aile içindeki mesafesinden kaynaklı duyguları üzerine konuşmamayı alışkanlık edinmiş ama o duyguları içlerinde yaşamaya devam etmiş, kırılgan insanların bir aile içinde bir arada kalma hikayesini buruk ama bir yandan da komik bir dille çok güzel anlatmış Camille Bordas. Atletik ve akıllı kardeşlerin içinde şişman ve aptal küçük kardeş klişesi okuyacağımı sanmışken aptallık ile masumiyet arasındaki o ince çizgiyi farketmenin ne kadar kıymetli olduğunu bu kadar hoş bir şekilde göstermesini asla unutmayacağım. Siz de benim gibi başlarda kitap hakkında ararsız kalırsanız bence okumaya devam edin. Asla pişman olmazsınız.

[Leylak Dalı · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mazal ailesi her bir bireyi ayrı ilginçlikte 6 çocuklu bir aile. Çocukların tamamı çok zeki, kendine yetebilen ve asosyal, bir o kadar da dobra. Kitapta aileyi çok sevdim ama tanışsam aynı ölçüde sever miydim bilemedim. Olayları evin en küçüğü Dory'nin ağzından okuyoruz, içlerinde normale en yakın olanı o, büyümeye, kişiliğini oluşturmaya çalışan bir ergen. Kesinlikle okunası bir kitap...

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Normal One

Isidore Mazal (generally called Dory although he prefers Izzie) is the youngest child in a French family of six. His three eldest siblings all complete PhD's in the course of the novel: Berenice is an historian, Aurore a classicist, Leonard a sociologist. Jeremie, still in college, is a musician. Simone, the only one close to his age (in his early teens), fanatically studies literature. And Izzie? Though clearly bright—his narrative voice is consistently engaging—he is no academic freak. He is the normal one.

And he needs to be. Despite their reputation as super-achievers, this is a pretty dysfunctional family. All five elder siblings spend their time holed up in their rooms, and when they do have to interact with someone from the outside world, they behave with an arrogance that is funny for a moment—until you think how it would feel like to be on the receiving end. Isidore's life may be small potatoes, but at least he has one. We see his daily routine at school, his crush on a girl who has no interest in him, his friendship with another who is so depressed that she is given the ironic nickname "Sunshine," his contacts with his elderly German teacher Herr Coffin, and his kindness towards an inhabitant of their town who, at 111, is the oldest woman in France (not a very credible character, but essential to the texture).

Isidore also "runs away from home" several times. I use quotes, because these are generally excursions so short that his parents barely realize that he has gone. Towards the middle of the book, I was thinking I would review it as a French Catcher in the Rye, but then I realized that Bordas was in fact doing the opposite. Holden Caulfield in Salinger's novel sees himself as exceptional and an outsider; Isidore Mazal knows he is ordinary, and is a conformist at heart. But this is a problem: how can the author maintain interest in a life that is pretty much routine? I am not sure that she can. This was a book that I enjoyed a lot while I was actually reading—Isidore has an attractive voice, as I say, and Bordas gets into his mindset quite convincingly—but I had very little interest in picking the book up again once I had put it down. There was very little narrative thrust or sense of where the book was going. Only at the very end did I realize the opposite: where the book had gone. And with that, raised my tentative three stars to four.

======

I gather that Camille Bordas has written two previous novels in French; this is her first in English. It is a language that she clearly knows well, yet I had a curious sense that she does not entirely own it. It took me a while, for instance, to realize that we were in France, not America; she refers to small coins, for example, as "a penny and a dime." Then once I had realized the setting, I kept being aware of the ghost French behind some of her phrases. For instance, the Mazals keep referring to their paterfamilias as "the father." There is a reason for this, as he is mostly absent then dead, but it is much more idiomatic in French (as le père) than in English. Admittedly, these are small points, and one soon gets past them, but they did contribute to the slight sense of disengagement that kept me from fully inhabiting the novel.

[Hulyacln · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mazal ailesine merhaba deyin!
Gerçi bu merhabanız havada kalabilir, garip bakışlarla karşılaşabilirsiniz. Tamam belki o kadar da garip değiller; sadece nasıl desem biraz fazla zekiler-insanlarla konuşmak konusunda çok istekli oldukları da söylenemez.
Berenice-Aurore-Leonard-Jeremie-Simone ve en küçükleri Isidore (Dory).
Babaları sık sık iş seyahatine çıkıyor-mesafeli ve biraz soğuk; anne ılımlı, evcimen ve çok iyi bir gözlemci- her çocuğunu kendine özgü yetenekleriyle idare ediyor.
Ama biz Dory’yi dinliyoruz. Tez savunmalarıyla, doktoralarıyla meşgul, ortaokulda olması gerekirken liseyi bitirmeye hazırlanan diğer kardeşlerinin aksine.
6 kardeş de birbirinden farklı elbet, ilgi alanları-görünüşleri- sevdiği yemekler..
Dory’nin en ayırt edici özelliği ise insanlarla –kesinlikle bilinçli bir tercih olmayan - kurabildiği iletişim. İnsanları dinliyor, onları anlayabiliyor hatta tam da ihtiyaçları olduğu anda ihtiyaç duydukları konfor alanını sağlıyor onlara. Dory büyüyor, farkında olmadan,çevresindekilerle büyüyor.
Sevgi dolu Rose,intihara meyilli Denise,Fransa’nın en yaşlı kişisi Daphne yan karakterler gibi görünse de onlara da sarılıyoruz. Dory’nin yaptığı gibi..
.
Yaşam ve ölüm aslında aynı kaynaktan besleniyor. İstediklerin ve korktuklarının da aynı yerden kök salmaları gibi..Dory oluyoruz,evden kaçma girişimlerinde biz de çantamızı topluyoruz, ayaklarımızın buraya geri geleceğini biliyoruz. Çünkü gitmek istemediğinde,ne olursa olsun,o noktada kalmayı sürdürürsün.
.
Camille Bordas, kısa bir tanımlamayla ‘çok içten’! Gerek gündelik yaşamı anlatıyor gibi görünüp aslında varlığımızı sorgulatıyor olmasıyla ; gerek kızmamız gereken yerlerde empati kurmamızı sağlamasıyla..
Uzatmadan ama detayları da kaçırmadan kullandığı dili, kitaptaki tüm karakterlere karşı bir duygu uyandırması, karakterlere seçtiği isimler, kullandığı metaforlar hatta esprileriyle dahi! Son sayfasına gelene kadar farkında değildim biteceğinin,öyle içindeydim ki Mazal ailesinin. Tuhaflıklarının ne kadar insani, yaralarının ne denli bana da içkin olduğunu fark ettiğimden diye düşünüyorum bunun sebebini..
.
Betül Cevahircioğlu’nun güzelim çevirisi ve Nazlım Dumlu’nun şiir gibi kapak tasarımıyla~

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 5 out of 5]

via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
“Because what goes on in your head when you step out of the present is always richer and more satisfying than what you come back to when you’re done. That’s the sad part. That’s what’s at the core of melancholy, not the things you actually imagine. The present is disappointing in a way you can’t act upon while it’s happening. But once you’ve made a memory of something, you can throw away the meaningless parts and write better versions of it.”

I am in love with this novel. There, I said it. At 11 years old, Isidore “Izzie” Maza is the youngest of six children, all whose intelligent far surpasses his own. In fact, their intelligence surpasses most people, children and adults alike. Simone and he share a room, and though she isn’t much older, she is years ahead of him in school and already has plans for her success and has put Isidore in charge of collecting information about her to write her biography one day. While his siblings are in pursuit of vast knowledge and defending their dissertations, getting doctorates he is busy noticing all the details in life that are overlooked. Tragedy falls upon the family, but he is the only one that truly notices how it affects everyone. The siblings seem to go about life as usual, but there are cracks and Izzie is slipping in. Though he comes from a large family the house has never been one of excitement with his siblings living in their rooms in self-imposed exile. They have all the answers, but most of what Izzie knows are things his siblings don’t even realize they have missed. It’s a beautiful exploration on real intelligence and how striving to be the best comes at a cost.

When Izzie and Denise (another social outcast at school) become friends, the novel intensifies and breaks your heart at the conclusion. I felt sad for days after reading this gorgeous novel. It’s one of those stories that I don’t really care if anyone gets why I loved it. I think there is a bit of Izzie in all of us. He doesn’t know which way is up sometimes but he understands so much more than his older siblings do, yet he doesn’t even know he knows. I was thinking the author was going to fix people, and GOD I hate that. Real people know there aren’t any quick fixes for the big issues we face- death, depression, mental illness, old age. There is only learning how to go on carrying that weight, maybe hoping someone will come along and relieve it now and then. What happens with Denise was very well written, and terribly heart-wrenching. I read it two nights in a row, and losing sleep was no loss at all.

There is a charater named Daphné in the novel, so old young children are terrified of her but she is popular and celebrated for living so long. His encounters with her are a gem too, and the saddest quote in the book is how she describes living so long. I caught my breath, because it is what I imagine one who has outlived so many loved ones would feel. Of course, I can’t share that quote because this novel isn’t out here until August 15th of this year and I read an uncorrected proof. For me, this novel is perfection. Everyone in it is awful and beautiful. There is snobbery and a coldness in his siblings brilliance, but they haven’t really touched life yet, so buried in their books, music, etc. Much of what meaning they strive for crumbles in eldest sister (the one everyone looks up to and tries to be) Berenice’s life in Paris. But only Izzy is privy to the decline.

There isn’t much I can write without ruining the story. It is a beautiful dissection of one gifted family, and there are so many flaws in their perfection. Izzie humanizes each of his siblings simply by being different from them all. While he may not have an ease with educational pursuits, he is brilliant in his humanity and has things to teach his siblings that professors and books never will. I can’t gush about this novel enough. Read it! I can’t wait to get my hands on more of Camille’s writing! I think I have a new favorite author.

Publication Date: August 15, 2017

Crown Publishing

Tim Duggan Books

[Nazife · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gerçekten de Salinger’ın Glass ailesi karakterlerini hatırlatıyor. Güzel geldi bana hafta sonu için. Aktı, gitti.

[Katy O. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quirky, French, intellectual and like no other story I have read in recent memory.

Thanks to Crown Publishing for providing me with a free finished copy of this book for review purposes - all opinions are my own.

NOTE: I'm not providing a summary - Goodreads did a great job of that!

You know how sometimes you just fall into a book and mark almost every single page and feel like this book was written FOR you? That's how I felt with this one. I had zero expectations going into it and was pleasantly surprised to be so captivated by this coming-of-age story narrated by a French preteen boy. I mean, who'd have thought this was my genre? I absolutely loved this family with all of their self-recognized pretentiousness, PhDs, dissertation defenses, their father they refer to as "the father", and most of all their mother. Oh, the mother. She is my new parenting hero with her gazillion kids and blatant love for them mixed in with benign neglect (this term being used in the most loving way). She says all the things I want to say in the way I want to say them - she's perfect.

And the children as a group reminds me, strangely, of my favorite childhood fictional family - The Melendy's of the Elizabeth Enright series. You know, THE SATURDAYS, THE FOUR STORY MISTAKE, etc. And if you don't know that series, well, that might explain it if you don't love HOW TO BEHAVE IN A CROWD as much as I do. I folded corners over on the majority of the book for passages I want to go back and savor and quotes I need to remember.

This was a very personal favorite read for me, and I know it's definitely not for everyone. But if you know and love (or know and hate) academia, and love France and innocent/astute observations on life, death and knowledge, grab a copy of this. If you're like me, you'll want it on your forever bookshelf.

[HajarRead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ce livre m’a fait penser à « Quand j’avais cinq ans je m’ai tué » d’Howard Buten, à « The perks of being a wallflower » de Stephen Chbosky et à « Catcher in the Rye » de J. D. Salinger, trois romans au narrateur jeune avec une voix presque enfantine, sensible, intelligente et triste.

[fatma · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know what to think of this book. It started out so strong, and I immediately loved it so much, and then it was as if a switch had went off: my fondness for it just completely evaporated. It felt like what had initially been a great book in the making had, at a certain point, taken a wrong turn and left its strengths far behind.

What initially struck me about this book—and what instantly drew me to it—was Bordas's ability to write observations. Keen, distinctive character observations can do so much for a novel. They let you see how characters sift through their realities, reveal what those characters consider worthy of sifting in the first place. And if done well, character observations are often what stay with me after I've finished a book. (Sally Rooney's novels in particular come to mind as examples of masterful character observations.)

Here are some examples from Bordas:

"I loved my family, I believe. Even though I'd known no other and couldn't really tell, I thought they were all right, decent people. But oblivious. They got lost in their thoughts. They had no sense of the other—of anyone outside our family, sometimes even me."

"My parents didn't look very much in love to me, and I thought it was my fault. I guess it's what happens when you're the only one to notice a thing: you feel responsible for it."

"[Leonard] had said...that Flaubert and Bourdieu were the two smartest men who had ever lived. I was four when Leonard made that speech, and the reason I remember it is because I hadn't really been aware that anyone existed outside of our family before that, and hearing that there not only were other names than ours (Flaubert, Bourdieu) but that they belonged to smarter people than my parents, that no one around the table—not even my parents—objected to it, made me panic and I started crying."

"Unlike the kids I went to school with, the adults in the church looked friendly, and sad, and all in all it was a good experience. I'd always thought I was the saddest one in my class (except for Denise Galet), and to see that sadness might become a normal trait with age left me feeling hopeful."

What's remarkable about these moments, for me, is that they're at once ordinary and monumental. In her novel, Bordas continually dips in and out of these two; her characters live out the mundane, only for it to be subsumed by the existential; they ponder the existential, only for it to deflate into the mundane. Bordas carries this specific tone throughout her novel: this sense that characters are simultaneously in and out of their lives, so absorbed in their routines that they can see nothing else, or else so far outside those routines that they can think of nothing but the absurdity of their lives outside them.

All of this is to say, How to Behave in a Crowd is what you would consider a "quiet novel." Things of consequence to the plot do happen, but that's not really the point. Rather, it's more about how characters navigate—or don't navigate—their way around those things.

Despite all of this, though, Bordas's novel doesn't work—at least not for me. Yes, her characters' observations are keen, but keen character observations do not a great novel make. Where How to Behave in a Crowd falls short, I think, is in its lack of cohesion. There is no dynamic quality to this narrative; characters are written into one scene then another with no sense of development. Effectively, the novel ends up feeling like a series of one-note, albeit well-written, tableaus: independently, they are good enough, but in a genre that needs to have some semblance of an interconnected narrative, these tableaus just don't cut it.

I know I said Bordas's writing is strong—and it is—but it is also inconsistent frequently enough to notice. At times her observations are written with clarity and authenticity, and at other times they are so implausible and irritating in ways that you just cannot overlook.

1) Things of the implausible variety - Bordas's characters are far too mature for their age. I tried suspending my disbelief; certainly there are plenty of precocious kids and teens out there. But Bordas was really straining the limits of believability here.

2) Things of the irritating variety - Lines like these: "'I tried wearing some [red nail polish] for the defense . . . It looked like I'd scratched my way out of a rape attempt." I'm sorry—what the fuck ? Sometimes I read lines like these and I cannot understand for the life of me how an author could think 'yeah, it's a good decision to keep that line in my novel.'

Or else lines like these: "'I don't know about that Denise chick,' she said, 'but Sara Catalano is a dumb bitch, Dory. The last one in a long line of dumb bitches.'" Are we gonna address that? No? Ok.

On a final note, Bordas does not make it easy for you to sympathize with her characters. I'm tempted to say these characters were "hard to love," but honestly a bigger part of me just thinks that they were straight-up assholes. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, I really did, but they were so unrelentingly unpleasant and judgmental that when they did have vulnerable moments—which were very few and far between, by the way—those moments did nothing to temper their overwhelming shittiness.

How to Behave in a Crowd had the parts of a good book, but it failed to put those parts together into the shape of a good book. And I think that's why I felt so ambivalently about it. It's a novel that was well-written and -observed, but also one whose characters were flimsy, pretentious, implausible. That is to say, it's a novel that could've worked, but ultimately didn't.

[Fulya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goodreads'te bu kitabın sıcak bir aile kitabı olduğuna dair bazı yorumlar okudum. İlginç. Çünkü ben bu kitabı en başından beri soğuk ve kuru buldum açıkçası. Anlatılan aile ilginç bir aile olmasına rağmen, karakterlere ısınmam mümkün olmadı; dolayısıyla da hikaye beni içine çekmesi gerektiği kadar çekemedi. Ölüme, hayata, acıyı sağaltmaya dair olan bu kitapta belki Simone dışındaki kardeşlere biraz daha yoğunlaşabilseydik en başından atmosfer daha farklı olabilirdi. Karakterlerden Izzie dışındaki hiçbirini inandırıcı ya da derin ve çok boyutlu bulmadım. Ancak, eğer böyle karakterler var olsaydı ancak böyle var olabilirlerdi.

[Şafak Akyazıcı · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uzun zamandır bu kadar hoş duygularla bir kitabı okumamıştım. Sonu biraz hüzün barındırıyor olsa da hissettirdikleriyle yüzümde bir tebessümle bitirdim Birlikte Yaşamanın Yollarını.
Su gibi akan, hep elimde olsun istediğim içten, samimi bir kitap.
Bir aile hikayesinden ziyade kitaplara düşkün, doktora yapan, tez hazırlayan, dil öğrenen birbirinden zeki altı kardeşin hikayesi. Kitabın anlatıcısı da en küçükleri olan on üç yaşındaki Dory. En zekileri değil belki ama en iyi gözlem yapabilenleri ve her şeye, herkese en yakın ve en hakim olan. Dory’nin bu özelliklerini okurken fazlasıyla hissedeceksiniz ve kitabın sonunda kitabın en özel karakteri için şöyle yazılı; ‘O, diğer öznelerin umut ve teselli için yöneldiği kişi haline geldi.”
***
“Kadınlar güzel olmak isterler. Güzel olmayanlar, güzel olduklarını hissetmek için ellerinden gelen her şeyi yaparlar.
Durumu umutsuz olanlarsa toplumun kadınları nesneneleştirmesini eleştirebilmek için güzel kadınların fotoğraflarına bakmaktan hoşlanırlar ve tüm kadın dergileri bu yüzden hepsini tavlar.”
Syf.112
***
“ Utanç, bir şeyin son parçasını alıp yersen hissetmen gereken şeydi ve yaptığın şeyi daha utanç verici kılmanın tek yolu, X utancını bilinçli aldığını kabul etmek ya da o son parçayı senden çok isteyen birine şans tanımak için niyetini açıkça belirtmekti. Tabii bu asla gerçekleşmezdi çünkü çoğunlukla insanlar utancı başkasına satmaktan mutlu olurlardı.”
Syf. 185
***
“En kötü insanlar çoğunluğun objektif olarak kötü diye bellediği insanlar değil. Bence en kötüleri, bariz kötü insanlara saygı duyanlar.” Syf. 230

[Book Riot Community]

A moving story about a tragedy in a family and the young boy who thinks he can heal them. Isidore is the youngest of six successful siblings. Living in their shadows, he hasn’t received a lot of credit for also being his own person with his own skills and interests. But when a tragedy happens, Isidore feels he has the unique skills to help his family get through it – that’s if he decides he wants to help. It’s a lovely story about a boy learning that the adults don’t always know what is best, either.

Backlist bump: Margherita Dolce Vita by Stefano Benni, Antony Shugaar (Translator)



Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/listen/shows/allt...

[St. Gerard Expectant Mothers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up a galley copy of this at work and thought the premise was very interesting. How to Behave in a Crowd is a mixture of a quirky dark comedy combined with the dramatic elements of a dysfunction family story. Basically it is Augusten Burroughs' memoir Running with Scissors thrown with the film The Royal Tenenbaums.

In this novel, we meet the French family The Mazals, a six sibling unit with a neurotic mother and a distant father who range in age from adult graduate students to the youngest, Isidore "Dory", who begins the narration of the story at age eleven. Each of the children with the exception of Dory are prodigies, working on their doctorates, writing their memoirs or being offered a seat with the philharmonic. Dory is the odd one out. As the average child of brainiacs, he is the only voice or reason and reality among his family that isn't socially inept. When tragedy strikes the family, Dory demonstrates his ability for compassion and sets upon a journey to break the sad cycle of dysfunction that plagues his family. Does he succeed? That is all in a manner of perspective.

Despite the dark overtone of the novel, the character of Dory is really the only one grounded in reality. While all his other siblings are too preoccupied with their academics, Dory is the only one that is truly living and experiencing the world around him. Very much like the Sheldon role in the television show The Big Bang Theory, each of his siblings exhibit some sort of arrogant autistic behavior that really stunts them. Thankfully, Dory is there to provide the comic relief and to hopefully give a teachable moment to his brothers and sisters.

The book is filled with tons of humorous moments which helps lighten the more serious moments of the story. As for the writing, I really enjoyed author Camille Bordas's style and she has a great way of telling the story from a young person's point of view.

I would certainly give this one a shot.

[Tuna Turan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Camille Bordas’ın Birlikte Yaşamanın Yolları adlı romanı, küçük bir şehirde yaşayan, yetenekli çocuklarla dolu bir evde geçen sıra dışı bir aile hikâyesini konu alıyor. Bu evde, dış dünyaya açılan kapılar kitaplar ve akademik tezlerle aralanıyor. Anlatıcı ise ailenin en küçük ve en sıradan bireyi Isidore. Onun gözünden, hem büyüme sürecine tanıklık ediyoruz hem de hayatın anlamına dair sorduğu esprili ama derinlikli sorularla hikâyenin içine çekiliyoruz.

Bordas’ın gerek dili, gerek anlatım tekniği, gerekse kurgusuyla dikkat çeken bu romanı; mizahi ama yalın diliyle okuru yanıltan, aslında oldukça hüzünlü ve karmaşık bir aile öyküsünü gözler önüne seriyor. Birlikte Yaşamanın Yolları, kaçırılmaması gereken, düşündürürken gülümseten ve dokunaklı bir roman.

[Melek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kitap 6 çocuklu bir Fransız ailesinin ilginç hayatına odaklanıyor. Ailenin ilk 5 çocuğu oldukça zeki ve çok farklı alanlarda yüksek lisans ve doktora yapıyorlar 25'lerine gelmeden. Ailenin babası sadece 'baba' olarak ifade edilen, haftasonları ya da tatillerde eve gelebilen birisi. Anne ise aşırı zeki ve asosyal çocuklarından sosyal olmalarını bekleyen hafif çatlak bir karakter. Kitabın anlatıcısı ise bu ailenin en sıradan sayılabilecek bireyi olan Isidore (Dory). Henüz 11 yaşında, kardeşleri gibi 3-4 sınıf atlayamamış olan Dory'nin sıradışı olan ailesi ile yaşamını anlatarak başlıyor kitap. Daha sonrasında ailenin babasının vefatı ile Dory hem kendi yas sürecini hem de kardeşlerinin sürecini günlük hayatları aracılığı ile anlatıyor.

Sade, akıcı ve bir o kadar da sorgulayıcıydı Birlikte Yaşamanın Yolları. Hayattaki varoluşunu sorgulayan Dory ile birlikte keyifli ama bir o kadar düşündürücü bir yolculuk yaşadım. Okurken hep kahkaha atıp hem de gözlerimin aynı sayfada dolabildiği özel bir kitap oldu.

Avrupa edebiyatının aile romanı yazmasındaki başarısını birkez daha görme şansımın olduğu bu eseri okumanızı tavsiye ederim.

[Lucille · Rating 3 out of 5]

What Salinger said. For real.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"'Fear of death is the only thing that doesn't abandon you as you age,' Daphne insisted, humidifying her lips with her tongue every five seconds or so. 'On the contrary, I would say. Death gets scarier every day. I'm so much more diminished now than even last year...this physical degradation...it's all a preview, you know? And the movie doesn't look good!"

http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifesty...

My Q&A with Bordas for the Chicago Tribune:

Camille Bordas' first two novels, "Les treize desserts" and "Partie commune," came out in France in 2009 and 2011, respectively. She has just released her first book in English, "How to Behave in a Crowd," a sharp, sweet and wry coming-of-age story in which an awkward and empathetic boy named Isidore has to find his niche in his large and idiosyncratic family of extremely smart misanthropes. About pretentious people but never pretentious, the story unfolds with humor and compassion.

Bordas, 30, who lives in Ukrainian Village with her husband, author Adam Levin, answered these questions by email. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and space.

Q: You were born in France, raised in Mexico City and Paris, and moved to Chicago in 2012 after you married Adam Levin. Why did your family divide its time between countries during your childhood?

A: Like the father in the book, mine was an engineer who traveled a lot for work, for two- or three- year "missions," except unlike in the book, he moved his family with him whenever possible. I still consider Paris my home, even after five years in Chicago. I do love Chicago quite a lot, but Paris still feels more human-scale to me. You can walk the length of it in a few hours, the width of it in three, and there are about a million different ways to go from one place to another. Chicago I feel is more meant for drivers than walkers. But Chicago has beaches and amazing Mexican food, two things Paris cruelly lacks. And autumn here is unreal, also. I'd never seen anything like it.

Q: What made you decide to write this latest novel in English?

A: I don't remember making a clear decision about it; it just happened. My husband doesn't speak French, and at some point he said he'd like me to try to write something in English, so that he could figure out what kind of person he'd married, I guess. I wrote a couple paragraphs, and he liked them, so I kept going. If you write with no big plan in mind, one sentence or a paragraph at a time, the prospect of writing a novel isn't too daunting. It basically was the same process for me, writing in English as writing in French, except I realized as I went that writing in a foreign language helped me create a sort of distance from myself that was actually very helpful to the work. You're a slightly different person in a foreign language.

Q: "How to Behave in a Crowd" centers on a young protagonist, Isidore Mazal, a thoughtful and sensitive 11-year-old, the youngest sibling in a family of six precocious kids. How did he emerge as a main character for you?

A: I knew I wanted him to be the heart of a novel that would concern itself with academia and highly intelligent but emotionally inept people. The plan wasn't always to write about such a big family as his, though. I kept adding siblings as I went, each working on more and more obscure subjects. I think if there's something autobiographical in this book, it's that I, too, am the youngest of many ("only" four in my case), and it was a weird position to navigate. I remember being like Isidore in that I had all these older people around me doing things that I didn't quite understand but that made sense to them. I wanted to go back to this feeling from childhood of having absolutely no idea what the people I shared a house with were up to, who these older people who were raising me were. Because I feel I was raised partly by my siblings, as well as my parents. And I've always felt like it would be a lifelong endeavor to try to get to know them.

Q: Often, books that focus on young characters end up positioned as young-adult literature. Did it ever occur to you that this book might be Y.A.?

A: It never occurred to me that it could be Y.A. for the simple reason that I didn't know what Y.A. was until about three months ago. I still don't quite understand what it is. I've been told it's literature for 12- to 18-year-olds, but I don't really see why 12- to 18-year-olds would need targeted literature. Growing up in France, there wasn't any literature marketed to teens specifically, so what kids who liked reading did, when they grew tired of children's books, was they picked up the grown-up books they'd heard of and read them. I remember being 12 or so and reading novels I didn't understand 50 percent of (often more) without being too bothered by it. It was actually what I liked about reading them: It gave me something to grow up for in a way, all these things I didn't get. Maybe we condescend to adolescents a little when we assume that they have to understand every last detail of a book and relate to the story 100 percent to enjoy it. My book is not Y.A., but I don't see any reason why a 12-year-old shouldn't read it.

Q: Why is the coming-of-age tale — especially in a dysfunctional family, like Dory's — such a popular one to tell through fiction?

A: Even though there's obviously no one way to come of age, it's still the thing we've all had to do, and it's natural to want to see how other people (even fictional characters) managed it. "Coming of age" makes that time sound like a pleasant picnic, but more often than not, it's horrifying. You're basically smart enough to know that you don't know anything, and that in itself is a scary realization. Then you keep getting hit on the head with new responsibilities, your grades are not just grades anymore but start representing all the jobs you won't be able to get in the future, and someone breaks your heart for the first time, and your grandparents die, and you're lonely, you get sick and you have to go fetch the meds yourself, oh, and your body is changing, by the way, and you don't know if you're the only human who's ever had a hard time adjusting to any of this — you're basically an insane person at that point.

The coming-of-age story is the opposite of the superhero story in a way: You don't want the protagonist to get beat up by life, but you know it's coming for them, and that they probably won't come out of it undamaged. It may sound like I have nostalgia for my teenage years. I don't. They were horrible, and being an adult is better. But there's this transitional part between the two when you think they're both exactly as horrifying, and these intermediate states are always more interesting to read about than stories of perfectly adjusted, settled characters.

Q: What is something that you've always wanted an interviewer to ask you about, but they never have?

A: I pretty much always want to talk about soccer, actually. Or "The Sopranos." But I don't know what the questions should be. I guess it should be, for starters, "Who's your team?" and I would answer the Olympique de Marseille. And about "The Sopranos" I would just talk at length about how great James Gandolfini was. I do think he was one of the best actors of all time.

[belisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

nefisti, hiç sıkmayan keyifli bir anlatıydı...

diğer yazdıklarını da merak eder, okurum...

[Tonstant Weader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Isidore Mazal is the youngest of six children. He’s eleven and unlike his five older siblings, he is not going to be skipping four or five years of high school or getting his doctorate before he’s twenty-four. He is a moth in a family of intellectual butterflies.In a family that is all about intelligence, Izzy feels maladept. His siblings are even better at watching television than he, predicting the endings and analyzing them through the framework of Aristotle’s Poetics.

He does not have a plan for his future and so he decides he wants to be a German teacher, not for love of teaching or of German, but because the father loves German. Then the father dies. (Everyone, including his mother, call his father, “the father” all the time.) The family seems to handle their grief extraordinarily well, retreat back into their books and research, except Izzy who has no intellectual escape from life. Instead he pursues life, he sees and pays attention to people and their lives.

Izzy is a kind boy. He wonders why his siblings are often unkind since he thinks it’s so much easier to be kind. He’s not quite sure his best friend Denise is his best friend because he’s too kind to not be her friend. She is, he admits, a downer. He runs away frequently, but not so anyone notices. He is earnest with no irony. He is just a wonderful person who has no idea how special he is.

How to Behave in a Crowd is not just a good book. It is extraordinary. When I finished it, I was hesitant to start a new novel because it will suffer by comparison. Someone needs to invent a book palate cleanser so books this special don’t cast a shadow over the several books that follow in its wake. I started a huge nonfiction book so I won’t be looking for the kind of writing that raises goose bumps. From Simone’s funnel of life choices to Izzie translating bad news into German so that it seems more distant, there’s just so many wonderful ideas in this book.

Frequently quietly comical and infinitely kind, How to Behave in a Crowd is rich in characters and ideas. His siblings may intellectualize nearly every single thing, but you can feel their love for Izzy, even if he sometimes misses it. It’s hard to describe what this book is about. It just is. And it is loving, kind, humorous, and thoughtful book that I want everyone to read.

How to Behave in a Crowd will be released August 15th. I received an ARC from the publisher through a drawing at LibraryThing.

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[Rachel León · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4 stars, rounded up because the ending is perfect and English isn't the author's first language so deserves props there, too.)

I really enjoyed this novel and am excited to get the chance to interview the author. This novel is smart, funny, sad, and tender. There's not a lot to the plot, but the characters are great and everything is pulled together in a really admirable way. I found it brilliant.

[Gülüzar - Ertl · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grata sorpresa. Un buen ejemplo de aquello de que lo bueno, si breve, dos veces buenos. Una comedia inteligente con mucho fondo. Toca temas bastante interesantes como el duelo, la pérdida, la anorexia o el bullying. Una lectura amena en una edición chulísima.