This is the first Amelie Nothomb's book that I have read.I discovered a cynical and very vivid type of telling stories.This book is about a man, so ugly and repulsive that he's been named Quasimodo.Of course he falls in love with the prettiest of all ladies...and that is the start of a genius and very unusual relationship.Through the world of theatre and fashion our heroes will reveal their weakness, their love for the inner beauty and ugliness.This might sound very predictable, but Nothomb tells the story like a surrealistic painter would colour his canvas.
She is truely an amazing writter using a very spontaneous and raw yet subtel vocabulary.Nothomb is for me the best Belgian writter along with Thomas GUNZIG, and as a Belgian myself I can only proudly recommend them to you.This review reefers to the french version-the original language of this book, but I'm pretty sure it has been very well translated into English or Spanish.
Philippe-Nicole's Husband.

Esta suerte de autobiográfía infantil está tan libre de segundos análisis que pareciera escrita por la niña de siete años con la que termina la historia, de no ser por las frecuentes menciones de Wittgenstein.
Como siempre, la coleccion de Anagrama, Panorama de Narrativas, brinda los mejores autores no hispanos contemporáneos.

The authors use of diction in juxtaposition with his syntax creates a linguistic reality all religious people should worship. Amelie shines with luminous beauty creating a colorful rainbow in her novel, The Character of Rain, as the stunning end becomes more rewardfull than any pot of gold. I recommend all fall to their primitive desire to make sense of this world, and worship the rain, because it can be incredibly refreshing after many a dry book.

I have to believe that it was the publisher, and not the translator, who took the wonderful (and easily translatable)title of the French edition and turned it into something that sounds like the title of a police procedural (set in Seattle starring Andy Garcia, that you would avoid if you were to stumble past it on HBO), rather than the original and beautiful thing it is.

This is one of my favorite books. No summary will do it justice.

I went back to the re-read the French edition (currently known in America as "the freedom edition") and found that the important chapter about the character of rain appears two thirds of the way through the book and it is NOT central. The discussion of tubes at the beginning and end of the book (as related to the godlike infant/narrator and to her pet koi) are the meat of the story.

This is a pet peeve of mine (or more correctly, a black beast [bete noire] of mine). Why the prejudgement among American publishers that their readers will react violently against philosophy? Thank god they didn't spot the Kierkegaardian echoes in her "Stupeur et Tremblements" or they would have found something different than "Fear and Trembling" for the American edition. It's not just here and with Scholastic's change of the Philospher's Stone to the Sorcerer's Stone either; there is a general dumbing down of titles when they cross the Atlantic.

This wonderful book deserves its real title.

In the beginning before there is an Amélie, God exists as a tube eating, breathing, and excreting. However, the creators are a bit unhappy that this baby behaves more like a vegetable so these parents nickname the tube "la Plante". However, two years later la Plante abruptly moves and cries. Then the Tube's Belgium grandma arrives with the most devastating poison known in the universe, white chocolate. The Tube tastes the sweetness and a new conscience has metamorphosed. Life in the tube has turned quite sweetly though the awakening of Amelie makes her realize that paradise will be lost.

This unusual autobiographical tale first is told in the third person until the pivotal moment in history, the infamous chocolate incident, when the plot is written as a first person narrative. Not everyone will want to read this metaphysical story, but those who do will find a clever, witty, and intelligent tale that even makes the earliest of days come across realistically. Except for the title, fans will appreciate Amelie Nothomb's work that does not miss a beat in the translation from the original French MÉTAPHYSIQUE DES TUBES.

Harriet Klausner

I have been living and working in Japan for almost 8 years, in Tokyo, Osaka and Kobe, for Japanese and foreign companies. Like so many foreign residents here, I was shocked by the simplistic way Ms. Nothomb looks at Japanese society and business environment. A reader wrote he/she was shocked by the way Japanese punished her just because she showed some initiative. Come on!!! In any of our Western countries, an intern making half of her mistakes and showing half of her stupidity would have been fired in a matter of days! Saying she admires Japanese housewives for not committing suicide just shows how much she does not understand the country. DO NOT BELIEVE HER!!! I honnestly have trouble believing she does speak Japanese because her "analysis" is one that could have been written by any tourist trying to work there for 5 weeks: superficial, frustrated by the culture gap and lack of proper communication. I know that because I used to think her way during my first two years in Japan! Ms. Nothomb has just written an extremely easy and commercial book which aim was to shock and astonish people not familiar with Japan. Her book comforts readers in what they may have thought Japan was like, it is in NO WAY to be taken as an analysis or testimony by someone reliable. Entertaining because of the sterotypes yes (hence one star), but please, do not believe what she writes. I invite readers to stop and think about the huge mistakes she made when trying to work in a Japanese company and ask to reconsider if this writer can be considered smart enough to give a faithful picture of what Japanese society may be. This book is only HER testimony, it would be a pitty to draw conclusions about Japan from this simplistic book.

My first outing with Ms Nothomb turned out to be quite the ride. This book presents a semi-autobiographical look at Nothomb's experiences in Japan's business world, and it is a journey like no other. Nothomb, a Belgian national born and raised in Japan, offered services as a French and English translator for a large Japanese business in the heart of Tokyo; before long, because of a series of cultural and business faux-pax, she finds herself on a year-long contract cleaning lavatories. Her plights are unenviable, to say the least.

The reader may find it a bit difficult to empathize with Amelie, particularly when she kowtows to a culture that demands, by its own admission, foreign adherence to its whims when its own people are not expected to reciprocate in any kind. When Amelie apologizes to Fubuki, the pseudo-nemesis of the story's protagonist, for committing "grave mistakes" that should have otherwise been excused or overlooked, I actually cringed. It was not until the final page that I felt I had a good grip on the author's intent in those passages.

Nothomb is an exquisite author, but I can only say this because of the magnificent translation provided by Adriana Hunter. Hunter gives us a sympathetic reading of Nothomb's nuances and intentions, and allows the reader to fill in the verbal gaps from the original French version.

This is a highly respectable (and very short) work, and well worthy of even the most cautious reader's eye.

This autobiographical novel gives us a very tarnished picture of the once so highly admired Japanese business culture and even of Japanese life in general.
In the course of one year Amélie Nothomb makes it from junior clerk to toilet cleanser. Why? By taking initiatives.
She gives us an impressive (very bleak) portrait of life in a Japanese business office: fear for colleagues, fear to lose a job or to miss a promotion, trembling before the hierarchy, bitter commpetition between the employees, suspicion and spying on everybody. As a matter of fact, the exact climate to stop all progress.
What are the employees waiting for after this terrible office hours: compulsive evening out with colleagues(?), hours in an overcrowded subway and finally an exhausted housewive. To quote another famous author: the air-conditioned nightmare.
She gives us an incisive picture of the condition of Japanese women: the author admires them because they don't commit suicide.
A compelling and eye-opening read.
For other impressive books on Japanese culture I recommend the works of Ian Buruma, and for the condition of Japanese women: Harriet Sergeant 'The old sow in the back room'.

This book has no beauty in it at all. Not in description or characters. Now I know why the French are so miserablés.

I only would like to say that even if this book is not the best of Amelie Nothomb 's book , it's still a great book . And we are here for speaking about books not for talking about stupid prejudices about French people .

i just want to precise that the author amelie nothomb is not a frenchwowan but belgian ! please don't amalgam

A very very funny book, where this girl tells us about her experience in a company in Asia ...
Very good sense of humor, using which she describes how she went from an intern to the person who cleans the toilets, just because she didnt understand the 'confusianism' of Asian people
really good book, if you can read it in french ...
Enjoy your reading !!

If you have never read a book in french but are willing to try, pick up this one. It may not be her finest work, but it's extremely funny and easy to read; you'll find yourself lol-ing and loving it. I've looked at the sample pages of the english translation, and they seem pretty good, but if you feel like improving your french, this copy is what you are looking for. It took me 2 long hot baths to finish it. Pure pleasure for the brain, wrinkles for my skin. In any case, she's refreshing.

Looking back I'm amazed at the vast diversity of emotions this short novel made me go through. The wholehearted laughter of the first pages led to genuine curiosity in the next that gave way to confused amazement and sheer astonishment. It makes you vibrate and the intense, absorbing dialogue between the two characters is compelling and transports you to a tension-filled word game rollercoaster that will make your skin itch. Easily read in less than two hours this is a bittersweet tale drafted in Nothomb's exquisite and captivating writing.

The narrator of Amelie Northomb's short novel is a young girl who has evidently been grossly ignored by her parents. She is the daughter of a diplomat stationed in China during the turbulent early 1970s -- her family, as well as the families of other foreign government workers, is isolated in what she calls a 'ghetto', cut off from the Chinese people. Her father's job is frustrating -- he is there to be the Belgian contact with the Chinese government, and to keep his country informed of what is going on in China, but the Chinese are not keen to let out much in the way of general information. Even the identities of Chinese cabinet ministers is treated as a secret.

In the midst of this atmosphere, young Amelie (and the author, in an afterword, maintains that the story is a true one, that even the names have not been changed) is pretty much left to fend for herself during the days. She rides her bicycle (she refers to it as her horse) through the Peking streets, offended that the Chinese guards at the compound gate do not see her as a threat to them. She has an active imagination -- one of the blessings of being seven years old -- and sees herself in vivid roles as a hero. The other children in the compound seem to be growing up the same way, and to amuse themselves, they engage in what they call a 'war' with the children of the East German diplomats.

With the arrival of a beautiful little girl named Elena, the child of an Italian diplomat and his South American wife, Amelie feels for the first time in her young life the magnetic pull of love for another person. She is entranced and obsessively infatuated with the little girl, who is cold and distant -- which only serves to make her more of an attraction. The lessons Amelie learns about love and friendship -- and the observations she shares with us of her world -- make this a touching, readable book. The feeling I was left with after reading it was one of sadness -- there's a lot of loneliness and heartbreak in this story, lessons that are tough to see a child learn by herself.

Nothomb's writing is a little choppy -- but that is most likely appropriate in this case, given the age of the narrator. In retrospect, I think it added some authenticity to that aspect of the story. I definitely want to read more of this author's work in order to gain a better perspective on her style and talents.

This is a very unusual auto-biography telling the story of a little girl from her birth untill she reaches four.
The beginning of the book is amazing, you really don't know where the writter is leading you-could this be reality, I mean is this every Human's reality or just a metaphoric approach of the beginning of our lifes...Are we just tubes that need a revelation to exist?
This would be the metaphysical part of the book-very exciting not all boring like it may seem- leading to a more "normal" yet very intriging story.
A fabulous tale written with an insatiable rythm inviting us into the world of a little Belgian girl born in Japan deeply touched by the grace and the culture of that country and surrounded by European and Japanese cultures in the same house.
I never thought a four year-old could have led such an interresting and sometimes so scary life.No violence, no blood only inner-fears we might all have felt one day.This reefers to the French version of the book.Phil-Nicole's husband.