Love, Despair, Separation, Deceit, Hope, and Forgiveness in The Yellow Eyes of the Crocodiles

The Yellow Eyes of the Crocodiles is special for me. For the first time since I have a notebook with sentences from books I have read, I wanted to rewrite almost every single sentence. The simple story of love, despair, separation, deceit, hope, and forgiveness in the contemporary French society is full of ideas about life, originally expressed, which I need to stick in my head. Of course, I limited myself to only several sentences, but still, it is worth mentioning that I took so much from that novel that I cannot be thankful enough to Katherine Pancol for writing it and to my doctor for recommending it to me.

What is the worst thing that you fear might happen to you? Your husband (boyfriend) leaving you for another (younger) woman and travelling with her to Kenya to take care of crocodiles? Your teenage daughter hating you for being so submissive, ugly, afraid, unorganized, and pathetic? Your sister using you as her shadow writer, giving you all the money for the book but than taking all the fame, respect, and adoration? Your ex-husband taking a loan from your common savings, which you then have to repay? Struggling with money matters and being unable to provide everything for your family as a single mother? Do you think you can survive this and find the strength within yourself to continue, to survive and to be happy? Well, all of this happens to Josephine, the extremely aimable and lovable heroine of The Yellow Eyes of the Crocodiles.

I thought I had many problems. I seriously did. And every time I encountered one, I chose the easy way around - I stuck my head in the sand and I waited for the storm to pass above me. I didn't attempt to fight because I was afraid I would fail. I was afraid I will not have the courage and the strength. I was afraid of others judging me, of my family not loving me, of that boy abandoning me, of not passing my exams, of turning into a complete failure despite all of the hopes put in me. When I read Jo's story, I saw in fact the woman I want to be someday. My friend told me "You are not like your parents. You can choose the person you want to be and be that person". "But I am afraid," said I. Jo is afraid as well but she did it.

At the beginning when her husband leaves her, her teenage daughters accuse her, her family despises her, Jo for the first time takes a look at what her life has become lately. She had stopped taking care of herself, life had been passing her slowly, and she was merely the audience and not the actor in whatever happened to her. At the beginning she was afraid to change something. At the beginning she was the Jo everyone felt sorry for, everyone ridiculed, everyone secretly feared of becoming one day. Pathetic, lonely, afraid, unattractive. Change doesn't happen overnight but it does happen indeed.

This is a novel about so many things. It's about Josephine's friendship with Shirley, her grounded in reality positive best friend. It's about Josephine's book about 12th century, which she writes so that her spoiled but beautiful sister can experience some fame and excitement in her life. It's about the end of a marriage and the feeling that you will never love or be happy again. It is about hope and the butterflies in your stomach, that signify that love is again around the corner. It is about the difficult relationships between generations; the clash between the teenager and the mother, the growing girl and the adult woman, the old and the new. It is about learning. From your friends, from your family, from your children even. It is about being patient. It is about facing your fears and realizing what you are really afraid of; then confronting them. It is about life in all of its forms. It is about dancing with life, falling, getting up, but never ceasing to love it. Mostly, it is a book that teaches you how to love yourself, how to embrace yourself when there is no one around, how to slowly build up your future. It doesn't matter who you used to be. There is always time to become who you think you must be.

There are of course other characters, despite Jo, who fight. There is Jo's stepfather, who has spend an unhappily married life to her mother, a manipulative mercantile egoist. His quest for happiness leads him to his much younger secretary, who, however, loves him and is willing to give him the child he always dreamt of. There is Jo's sister, Iris. Always the more beautiful, the more admired, the more successful, she feels empty in her marriage to the successful Philippe. Searching for something to fill in the void in her heart, she uses her sister's talent to achieve fame and admiration. This fleeting happiness doesn't fill the emptiness of her failed marriage, her lost talent, her dysfunctional relationship with her son, her unrequited young love. The swan suffers while the ugly duckling flourishes. There is also Jo's ex-husband Antoine, a successful businessman, who after being fired, falls into depression. In search for excitement, he even travels to Kenya with a much younger woman, but his impatience, his lack of initiative, his boredom with life, his ignorance of his own characters, doesn't allow him to find peace.

I recognize myself in all of these characters but I mostly loved Jo, and I doubt there will be anyone who will not love her. For what she was, for how she fought, for who she became. Because beauty, success, and love is only part of it. Most importantly, Jo became a person, who loves herself. Something, which should be our highest purpose. Beyond fame, admiration, money, and success, there is the love for that special you that keeps you going.

Unfortunately, the sequels of this amazing journey are not translated and my French is still poor to read them in original. But if there is one thing this novel taught me, that is to be patient. I will be. For Pancol's following books. And for other things, which I have been waiting for for a long time.

All Those Things We Never Said - Mark Levy Follows the Trouble Relationship between a Father and a Daughter

What would you do to hold again someone who has left you for good? Where would you go to reconnect with your father, whom you have missed all of your life? Do you need this katarsis - all the things you wanted yo say but you never did because you were too proud, too hurt, or because you felt you still had the time? And when once of a sudden this person is no longer alive, would you take the chance of spending one more week with him just to hear his explanations and excuses?

Julia, a 30-something years old woman faces these questions on a very important day - her wedding day. All of her life she didn't have a father - he was the always busy and successful businessman. She saw him only in between his business trips and she always felt his absence. Years later they lost touch but Julia expects him now to take her down the aisle to her future husband. However, her father still finds a way to ruin her celebration. He dies several days before her wedding and his funeral is on the worst possible day- Julia's wedding. Is it a mere coincidence or is her father trying to change her life once again?

Devastated, Julia doesn't know how to react. She doesn't cry but she feels the emptiness of losing her father. Until she finds a strange box in her living room. Her rich father has found a way to spend six more days with her and to tell her all those things he was too busy to tell before. Of course, only if Julia wants to listen. If not, she can easily turn him off and send him back. No, he didn't send her tapes; he send himself in the form of a high-tech android, who astonishingly resembles, talks, and behaves like the original. Julia is faced with a difficult choice - should she allow the robot to fill the void left by her father all those years or should she just reject it and continue with her life. Julia's decision takes her on a tender and unforgettable journey through Canada, Paris, and Berlin. As she gets to know her father once again she learns more about his mistakes in the past, his feelings towards her mother, and his love for his daughter. Along with that, Julia discovers a secret her father has kept for nearly 20 years; a secret connected to the love of her life, the German Tomas, whom she taught to be dead.

Is Julia brave enough to go after her teenage love? Most importantly, is her father's sudden death a few days before her wedding a sign that she shouldn't marry Adam, her boring, but gentle and secure fiancee? And what is the role of Julia's father in all of this? Mark Levy takes us through the story of two different generations and how they choices affected their actions. The author elaborates on the extremely difficult relationship between father and child, still showing that it is never too late to try to understand, to ask for forgiveness, and to receive it. It is also never too late to find the one love, whom you have been missing for 20 years.

This is a tender fantastical novel, which will move you and prompt you to think about your own relationship with your parents. Sometimes they do what they perceive to be beneficial to their child and often subconsciously make mistakes. Children, on the other hand, blame their parents for these mistakes and for their failures and exclude them from their lives. But all our parents want is for us to be safe and happy. They don't find the right means of communication and as Julia father says: "I wanted to be your friend, your accomplice, your trustee, but I was only your father and I will remain your father forever".

And the ending...well the ending is unbelievable. Levy shows the extreme actions, which a father will undertake to help his daughter make the right choices. Because no matter how we feel at times, all our parents want is to see us happy. Julia's father is a definite example of that, and safe to say, the girl understood and forgave. As we all should do. Since there are miracles in the world and all one should do is open his/her eyes and see them.

Hunger

Hunger. Not just nutritional hunger. Hunger for life, for excitement, for change, for passion. Hunger – a devastating feeling of vacuum, as if something vital for living is missing. Hunger – takes away your soul and your personality and turns you into a shadow of a human being. What would we do without hunger? Hunger is the driving force in the universe, something that prompts people to search for greater possibilities, to abandon their trivial existence and to fight for something more instead. People that do not experience hunger are doomed. They can never feel the painful need of something, they can never be obsessed with an idea, and they can never desire fireworks. They are bored. They just exist because the driver of change has been taken away from them. Abundance is destructive. Hunger is constructive.

Amelie Nothomb, the somewhat weird Belgian writer, discusses the nature of hunger in her novel The Life of Hunger. She starts by giving a short description of hunger and why it is so important. Without nutritional hunger, there can never be anything. Satiety kills ambition, drive, strength, desire. Wars, conquests, struggles, all have been caused by hunger. Starving people are the strongest people. They know something is missing inside of them, they feel the painful contractions of their stomach, and they search for food to fill that emptiness.

The Life of Hunger is a semi-autobiographical novel, where Nothomb shares parts of her childhood. Her father worked as a consulate, so she spent her childhood in Japan, China, USA, Laos, Bangladesh, and Burma. She came from a wealthy family so she never actually experienced the nutritional hunger. But little Amelie was always hungry for something. She felt something important was missing in her life, something that needed to be filled up. Food and water were not enough; Amelie needed cataclysms, catastrophes, and devastations in order to feel alive. The notion of hunger is extended to a desperate compulsion to fill that void.

When you read The Life of Hunger you can almost sense Amelie the anorexic. Her father was bulimic so the girl was exposed to the issues of eating disorder. However, she realized that overabundance with food doesn’t fill that void inside. At 15 years the writer was bored. She felt her life has already passed by. Leaving countries and people behind, Amelie felt a sense of abandonment and loneliness. People, situations, events, nothing seemed to fill her desperate hunger. She was hungry for living and when she couldn’t get it she became hungry for food. She decided to stop eating for good. Her personality started changing. Amelie was no longer a person; beyond continuous hunger what we call soul gradually disappears. The nutritional deprivation becomes a mental one. Amelie recedes and isolates from people in her small world of literature. When she cannot eat food, she eats letters. The girl attempts to find a meaning to life beyond what is happening around her.

The Life of Hunger is philosophical, slightly humorous, and extremely profound. It attempts to decompose hunger into its main components and to show that nutritional hunger is merely a symptom that something is ingeniously wrong. Nutritional hunger signifies the search not for some utopian pleasure but for the simple quest for something to appear, where previously there was nothing. Life of Hunger is not simply about nutritional anorexia. It is about the anorexia we experience in life when we feel we have been deprived from our driving force. Physicists have attempted to discover this driving force, the one thing that forces people to continue searching, to continue fighting, to continue being. Nothomb finds the answer to this question. Hunger. Hunger determines the battle, hunger leads the battle, and ultimately hunger wins the battle.

In Amelie’s case, hunger helped her write. Every September, Nothomb’s fans are expecting another novel from the brilliant Belgian writer. She writes simply and understandably about life. She doesn’t pretend to be deeply philosophical but she is engaging and entertaining. Her novel Life of Hunger is for all those people, anorexic, bulimic, or whatever, who have felt a desperate hunger that they couldn’t fill. For all those people that realize that hunger must not be fought but instead used as a driving force towards a better tomorrow. Because how you act today determines how you are going to live tomorrow.

PS: While reading The Life of Hunger I also felt the hunger for excitement, for drama, for cataclysms in my life. The saying "Be careful what you wish for" is absolutely relevant in this case. Minutes after I wrote this post I fell on the street on my chin, I started bleeding like a dead pig on Christmas day, and I had to go to the emergency. I wished for something to happen and well, it did happen. On Friday, 13th.

Laurent Gounelle and Dieu Voyage Toujours Incognito

In the spirit of Christmas, one of the most sacred Christian holidays, I wil talk about God today. Most specifically, about God, who always travels incognito. I am not a passionate Christian; in fact I rarely go to a church. I do not believe in God in the religious sense; yet I believe in the power of the human mind. I believe that God dwells in us as us (as Elizabeth Gilbert said in her Eat Pray Love). All we have to do is find that inner strength of ours and apply it. Sometimes, though, people need a bit of help. And that is when God appears in the most unexpected ways.And as Laurent Gounelle points out, Dieu Voyage Toujours Incognito.

Laurent Gounelle managed to become one of my most favorite authors with exactly two books. Both focused on the spiritual search of happiness and stability; both featuring the difficult, yet incredible paths one must travel to reach one's dreams. In Dieu Voyage Toujours Incognito (God Travels Always Incognito) Alen Greenmore is a 24-years-old desperate man on the verge of a suicide. Grown up without a stable father figure, trapped in a job he doesn't like, and left by his beloved girlfriend, Greenmore doesn't see any reason to continue living. He decides to commit suicide in the most "fashionable" Parisian way - jumping off the Eiffel Tower. That is when he meets God (or in his case an old man), who offers him a deal. The stranger promises to save Alen's life in exchange of the man's strict subordination. Alen starts the journey of his life, trying to overcome his fears and to transform himself into a confident and stable individual. The tasks given by the stranger seem easy; however they affect the weakest aspects of Alen's character, prompting him to take risks, to realize his own potential, and to bravely follow his dreams. Who is this old man and what is his motive behind helping Greenmore? Gounelle gives the actual answer at the end of the book and the spiritual one in its title.

Gounelle, a writer and a psychologist, continues the amazing trend set by L'Homme Qui Voulait Etre Heureux. While his first literary piece was short and more philosophical, the second one resembles more a novel. Still, the author adresses the metaphysical questions of stability, inner piece, and happiness. In a unique and enthralling way Gounelle presents us with a story of a human quest towards self-understanding. Lately, I am more and more into philosophical books and I am exploring different cultures and nations. So far Gounelle's style is the closest to my character. I just love the simple and understandable way in which the author tracks the changes in his characters. Greenmore transforms from a weak and insecure man into a mature and strong individual. His meeting with "God" helps him discover his potential. It makes him more confident in approaching other people, in defending his opinions, and in following his dreams. After all, that is what all of us attempt to do.

Going back to the subject of God and Christianity, I must admit I believe in God. I believe in that person (whether it is someone else, or I myself) who will be there for me to help me and take me down the right path. So far, there are no suitable candidates so the strength is left to myself. It is good though that I have the help of my books on the way. In fact, I liked Gounelle's novel so much that I decided to follow the strange man's advice. As if I am Alen Greenmore on the top of the Eiffel Tower and I meet my God, who takes me on a journey. The only thing missing is love.

Laurent Gounelle Teaches Us How to be Happy

My quest for self-understanding and happiness continues and it takes me again to Bali. Laurent Gounelle's The Man Who Wanted to be Happy is the first book I bought from the Sofia Book Market. It is only 130 pages, which I read for exactly 4 hours. I couldn't let go of the book, I was a human possessed. Gounelle's style is simple and easy to follow. The book is a light reading on a very difficult issue - the issue of individual happiness.

Laurent Gounelle is a famous French writer and psychiatrist. He has travelled the world, meeting with different people to discuss the problem of human behavior and balance. It is safe to say that his novel is as close to an autobiography as it can possibly be. L'Homme Qui Voulait Etre Heureux (I just love the French title) combines a novelist story with popular psychology to arrive at a story that is familiar to each and every one of us. After all, the quest for happiness is why we live on Earth. Many people though mistakenly believe they are happy because they possess material goods that society claims to be vital. Gounelle shows us that true happiness can be achieved only when an individual acts according to his or her moral principles. In that way and in that way only happiness and balance will become an integral part of our life.

The protagonist is spending a few weeks in Bali, when he decides to meet with a popular local healer. Even though his health is in good shape, Julian is not happy. He has been trapped in the reality of his perceptions and beliefs, which interrupts his ability to be content. The healer invites him on journey of self understanding, which shows to the American tourist that the world he has come to percept is not real. What's more, the way he percepts himself affects his relationships and his successes.

Gounelle uses simple examples to illustrate the main flaws of contemporary society. People tend to believe something about themselves, which is often destructive and unreal. Whether they believe they are beautiful or ugly, boring or interesting, thin or fat, these beliefs tend to shape their reality. People start perceiving the world according to this modified reality of theirs. This tendency to believe fallacies about ourselves may be caused by a troubled childhood, by problems with friends and relatives, or by several failures.Through several straightforward examples and stories the healer changes Julian's view of the world. He shows him that reality depends on your attitude towards it. If people are positive and happy, they tend to see the beauty of the world around them. If they are scared and suspicious, this will affect negatively their relationship with others and with the world.

I really loved Gounelle's novel because of the simple way the author describes all these ideas. I came to the understanding that I know all of these staff but in reality I fail to apply them. I lack to a large extent confidence in myself, which badly affects the way I behave towards other people. I am mostly negative and thus I tend to notice only the problems in my life. That is why I fail to see how many things I need to be grateful for and I mistakenly claim life to be terrible and unfair. This simply theory of how to be happy is not so simple to apply. What I (and people in general) need to do is change my attitude. I remember last summer, when I was positive and inspired. I liked communicating with people and I wanted improve my skills and to meet new people when I was an intern. Thus, my whole summer was a paradise, where I achieved what I wanted and I liked my life. Similarly, the following year I had some issues and I started perceiving everything in gray colors. I was disappointed by my failures and I believed I will always fail. Thus, I saw only my issues and I hated my life.

Simple, isn't it? In The Man Who Wanted to be Happy Gounelle shares this amazing story to show the individual that he/she is the only barrier to his/her own happiness. Gounelle claims that the only way to find balance with yourself is to follow your dreams and to act according to your morals. Whenever you feel down, remember, that your thoughts and your beliefs shape your life and not the other way around.

In The Man Who Wanted to be Happy the setting of this quest for self understanding is again Bali. Just like in Eat Pray Love. I am seriously thinking that the first place I will visit when I have the resources will be indeed Bali. I just long to touch this spirituality myself and to feel what many writers have felt themselves. Maybe even I can then write a novel about my journey. Hopefully towards understanding who I am and what I want so that I can finally be happy.

L'Homme Qui Rit by Victor Hugo

L'Homme qui rit or The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo is a strange novel. Full of irony, sarcasm, symbolism, and hidden messages, it left me thinking about it long after I finished it. I still cannot make up my mind whether I like it or not. 

The Man Who Laughs or should we say the man who cries, the man who condemns, the man who criticizes, the man who laughs, the man who suffers, the man who grows. Many more can be said about the main character of the novel, Gwynplaine. As a child, he becomes a victim of a group called the Comprachicos (a word invented by Victor Hugo referring to child buyers). These criminals steal children and transform them into carnaval freaks, whose only purpose is to amuse and entertain the aristocratic English society. Gwynplaine has a grotesque face, which provokes laughter amongst the people, who see him. The boy is left as a little child and is grown up by the charlatan Ursus (latin for bear) and his wolf Homo (latin for man). Here Hugo demonstrates a great play of words, which I am going to discuss a bit later. The three of them, together with the blind orphan Dea, earn their living by performing on carnavals and fun fairs around England. Until Gwynplaine discovers he is the long lost son of a lord, an enemy of the king. The latter ordered the severe transformation of the boy as a revenge to his father. Now Gwynplaine enters a different world; he moves up the social caste, from a poor travelling performer to a wealthy and powerful member of the English aristocracy. 

The Man Who Laughs was written during Hugo's fifteen months exile in the UK due to his political beliefs. Through the character of Gwynplaine, the author condemns the current caste system in England. Victor Hugo is a well known socialist and idealist; he preaches democracy and social equality, an ideal which has transformed him from a well known romantic poet to a politically engaged individual. Still, the plot is typical for the Romanticism - unbelievable events, complicated situations, secret conspiracy, all around Gwynplaine and Dea's unearthly and sublime love story. Gwynplaine passes from the lowest to the highest social class to realize the immense injustice in the English political system - the poor are very poor and the rich are very rich. The latter explore the first, who suffer and die on the streets. Hugo's disappointment with a world, where democracy and freedom cannot exist is highly evident in his novel.

 To be honest, I started reading The Man Who Laughs two times before I managed to finish it. The reason - Hugo's EXTENSIVE descriptions. I had to CAPS LOCK this word because it is very typical for the French romanticist's way of writing. More than 1/3 of the novel is devoted to the norms and habits of the English aristocracy, which, although valuable to know, I found a bit boring and excessive. Thus, I was slightly tempted to skip pages (which I honestly didn't do) or to leave the novel for yet another time. I managed to finish it and I was really glad. The Man Who Laughs is worth reading because it demonstrates a view of social equality and freedom, which although highly idealistic, is desirable. What's more, Hugo's style (excluding the descriptions of course) is enthralling without being too serious. If you have been a religious reader of my blog, you might have deduced I like a bit of irony and sarcasm in the works I read. Even if they discuss urgent and pressing issues.

Another bonus of the novel is the extensive use of symbolism and word play. Take Ursus (bear) and Homo (man). The fact that the animal is named after the human, and the human after the animal, says a lot about Hugo's pessimistic view of contemporary society but I will leave the actual interpretation to each and everyone of you, through your own social and moral prism. Sadly, even an idealist, the author sees that his ideas are not applicable to the current political and social system. His exile to the UK is though a proof that Hugo stays strongly behind his views and is ready to defend them. Using literature as a main weapon of course.