Just a little dinner by CécileTlili
French fiction
Orignal title – Un simple Dîner
Translator – Katherine Gregor
Source – Subscription copy
If you haven’t been following the blog for a while, you may not know that I am a keen fan of the new publisher, Foundry editions that have been bringing us a great selection of books from around the med and they all have a blue cover design with a motif in the design linked to the place the book is set this time it is Paris. This was the writer’s Debut novel and was shortlisted for the Goncourt Prize in the section for Debut novels. There was a review of this book in The Times, which is great to see a small publisher getting coverage in a significant newspaper rather than the same few books that every paper, reviewer, and so on, has to discuss. But the reviewer mentions a connection between friends for them and this book. Well, for me, the mention of a dinner party brings back one memory, and that is the closed room drama that is Abigail’s party. Well, this isn’t quite as brutal as that, but as the reflection of Britain in the seventies, one could say this dinner party and its guests reflect the Paris of their day.
Johar walks in the twilight. She asked her driver to drop her off a few blocks away from Étienne’s building. She needs some air before getting cooped up for the evening. She walks slowly, in no rush to arrive at this dinner party she wasn’t expecting and is already finding annoying. She takes her time to inhale the heavy scent of this summer evening.
The avenues here are wide. There are windows with striped awnings swaying gently in the breeze. The rustling of the trees accompanies her footsteps and their canopy forms a protective arch above her head.
Here she is already on Boulevard Raspail, outside Étienne’s building. She sits on a bench and takes a deep breath. A few swathes of grey have appeared in the sky.
Gusts of wind toy with the dry leaves, warm blasts of air hitting her in the face. A thunderstorm is badly needed to break this late-August mugginess at last and wash away the day’s sweat and weariness.
As Johar heads to the dinner this sticky evening how will it end !
The dinner brings together two couples: Claudia, the hostess of the party, a timid young woman who is very nervous about the evening, and her partner. She is a physiotherapist. She has settled into a way of life, the way it is and isn’t ambitious. Her husband, Etienne, has invited Johar, a woman in the business world, driven and fast-rising, who is soon to be the big boss of the company where he works. In turn, Johar has brought her husband, Remi. But as they gather around the table, the course of the evening will see the two women reevaluate their lives as they all have secrets about what the evening is all about, with Johar turning a blind eye to her home life in a way. Is Claudia pregnant? How will the evening end? The tension is there as we see how each person has a reason for the evening being there or not wanting to be their, daydreaming about another woman.
Étienne won’t stop talking about pottery. Johar was hoping that her interest in the pomegranates would create a diver-sion, but he has gleefully grabbed this opportunity to describe his tastes, his travels, and his encounters. As usual, Étienne talks about himself. He briefly goes into the dining room, but before Johar can enjoy a minute of peace, he returns, carrying a vase with a delicate blue pattern.
“Here, look. Hold it. Does it remind you of anything?”
“No. I don’t know. Did it use to be on this mantelpiece?”
“No, no – I mean the pattern. Surely you recognise it?” Johar mechanically runs her fingers over the vase, following the geometrical outline of the turquoise stars. Étienne can’t contain himself any longer. “Nabeul. It’s pottery from Nabeul.”
Think we’ve all had a situation where we get drawn into talking about something else !!
This is a book about how we sometimes fail to express ourselves enough until it is too late, and how modern relationships have evolved. As I mentioned, this is a portrayal of 21st-century Paris and urban life through the lives of these four characters. Just as Abigail’s party captured the spirit of the seventies dinner party, it also explores how men and women interacted in the seventies. Each time I read a dinner party from the formal affairs in Waugh’s books to the post-war dinner parties of writers like Updike and Bellow in the US of those boom years. Through Abigail’s PART Y AND THINGS LIKE friends to a 21st century Paris, and four people with different agendas for the evening, and what is going to happen. This is a tight work that builds well into the evening, reflecting each character’s actions, feelings, and motivations, as well as what they are trying to achieve or hide. Ultimately, it is Etienne who brings the two couples together. It captures this generation’s view of dinner parties and how they interact, as well as their lives. Do you have a favourite book with a dinner party?
