• Home
  • 1) The List of Novels
  • 2) Record of Votes
  • 3) Lost to Translation
  • 4) Experimental Writing

250 Novels

A growing list of books to have around you like old friends

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Vote Results for the Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon »

Review of La théorie des nuages by Stéphane Audeguy

January 22, 2011 by Nathaniel

C’est une histoire de culs, or it is a new way to make meteorology sexy. This first novel from Audeguy takes you on several historical journey’s all related one way or another with the way science has perceived clouds. The entire story is held together by the library of a Paris based Japanese fashion designer called Akira Kumo (reminds me a lot of Kenzo) and his librarian Virginie. Of course, Kumo was a boy living in Hiroshima during WWII, and one of the few survivors of that other man-made cloud. Kumo is the narrator and tells many meteorological stories, such as Luke Howard’s discovery in the early 1800’s, as the creator of all the names we use to this day for all the clouds in the sky.

The novel also has a number of other meteo-trivia, such as the refusal of Napoleon to listen to his Chevalier warning him of the snow clouds over Moscow, just before making thousands of his own French soldiers perish in “La Marche en Avant” through the Russian winter, or the role of (a fictional?) Richard Abercrombie, a meteorologist of the 19th Century who unintentionally assisted the science for military commanders to send gas clouds killing thousands of soldiers in WWI Europe, and his travels around the world to lose himself in the perfect cloud of the mind through the prostitutes of South East Asia. These anecdotes do hold together. However, the story of Kumo’s librarian, Virginie, was a bit weak; and more explorations of Kumo’s motivations in collecting thousands of works on clouds would make the reader care a bit more about his untimely end.

Posted in The List | Tagged La théorie des nuages, Review, Stéphane Audeguy | Leave a Comment

  • Projects

    • 1) The List of Novels
    • 2) Record of Votes
    • 3) Lost to Translation
    • 4) Experimental Writing
  • Tags

    A Fine Balance After the Fire Andric Automatic Boxer Beetle Béatrix Beck Chronicles of Travnik Cloud Atlas Danny Review David Mitchell Donna Tart Eucalyptus Evie Wyld Experimental Film Adaptation Gabriel García Márquez Harmony Silk Factory L'Enfant Chat La théorie des nuages Life of Pi Lost in no-translation Love in the Time of Cholera Magnus Margaret Atwood Mark Haddon Murray Bail Ned Beauman Oulipo Patrick White Pierre Michon Results Review Riders in the Chariot Rohinton Mistry Stéphane Audeguy Sylvie Germain Tash Aw The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time The Handmaid's Tail Timothy Mo Vies Minuscules Vote World Book Night Yann Martel Yu Hua
  • Blogroll

    • Book Reviews by Danny Yee
    • Lily's French Blog site
    • Novels you might want to read in your life time Facebook Group
    • Remue.net
    • World Book Night
  • Latest Comments

    • Nathaniel on A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
    • admin on Voting for the best contemporary Chinese novel

Get a free blog at WordPress.com

Theme: MistyLook by Sadish.