The Most Beautiful Book in the World: Eight Novellas

Although labeled "novellas" in the subtitle, these eight pieces are true short stories; each one contains only a few key characters and spans roughly twenty pages. In the broadest sense, these stories uncover the hidden sources of humanity's best qualities: happiness, forgiveness, love, and generosity. Schmitt's tormented characters stumble upon these redemptive qualities in the unlikeliest of places, often despite their own reprehensible behavior. In "Wanda Winnipeg," a wealthy divorcée anonymously gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to her destitute first lover in an uncharacteristic showing of generosity and consideration. In "A Fine Rainy Day," a "cynical and disenchanted" widow discovers her buried optimism. An ironical deathbed gift turns into a much-needed fortune in "The Forgery." All eight stories in The Most Beautiful Book in the World are tightly constructed and concise without sacrificing a deep sympathy for humanity's dark moments and a celebration of its redeeming acts. Schmitt's simple and artful prose captures his characters' most intimate and raw moments without melodrama. In this example from "Odette Toulemonde," Balthazar, a wildly successful novelist, recognizes the falsity of his life: "[H]e owned an apartment in the center of Paris which left many people feeling envious, but did he really like it? There was nothing on the walls, windows, shelves, or sofas that he himself had chosen: a decorator had done it all. In the living room there was a grand piano that no one played, a laughable symbol of social rank; his study had been designed with magazine publication in mind, because Balthazar actually preferred to write in cafes. He realized he was living in a décor. Worse than that--a décor that wasn't even of his own making." Schmitt relies too often on tidy endings--several stories involve conveniently-timed medical emergencies, for example--but such occasional contrivances cannot overshadow this collection's masterful depiction of the messy but wonderful human condition.

Isn't the title of this book compelling? Wouldn't it enable you to pick it up and read it? Well, that is what I did when I saw this at the bookstore shelves. The Most Beautiful Book in the World features eight memorable stories centered on women and the choices they make in their lives, some for the better, but others for the worse. Either way, their decisions end up changing someone's life, just not necessarily their own. "Wanda Winnipeg" stars a rich and glamorous woman with a humble past. "A Fine Rainy Day" features a cynic married to a man who loves life. "Odette Toulemonde" is about a woman in love with an author who has received negative reviews (the most romantic story in the book). These, along with "Every Reason to be Happy," "The Barefoot Princess," and "The Most Beautiful Book in the World," are stories centered on personal growth and making a difference in one's or other people's lives. But there are two stories that have a darker theme. "Forgery" has a woman who, disillusioned with life after an affair gone wrong, decides to take her anger and revenge out on a tenant, with ironic results. My favorite story in the book is "The Intruder." This story is dark, compelling, complex and quite moving. Its haunting ending will floor you. All in all, this is a fine collection. Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt is a great writer and I'm glad that Alison Anderson has translated his stories for us to read. I very much recommend this.

The Most Beautiful Book in the World: 8 Novellas is a collection of eight modern fairy tales. In each of the novellas, a sense of the fantastic intertwines with the mundane, sometimes enchantingly, sometimes crudely but still beguilingly. The title story, for instance, transports the reader into the midst of a women's gulag during Soviet rule. Tatyana and others who bunk together are determined to smuggle out messages to their children -- all daughters, coincidentally or not. The women naturally worry about what they should write their children who are now most likely wards of the State. With a limit on the precious amount they may write, they agonize over what is most important. Then, the prisoner considered by the others to be "the most scatter-brained of them all, the most sentimental, the least headstrong" stuns everyone by being the first to get her message down. She is at utter peace with her choice of words. The others can't help feeling jealous and very curious. What did she write? "The Most Beautiful Book in the World" packs a nice emotional punch. The conclusion, in its Epilogue in the year 2005, imparts a fitting epiphany about how we human beings can communicate immensities with but a few choice words. It is a lovely comedy in the classic definition of the term: there is a triumph over adverse circumstances. Immediately before the gulag folktale, the collection's longest selection (thirty pages) has its turn. The title character in "Odette Toulemonde" has "a talent: joy." Odette excitedly goes to a bookstore to buy the new book of her favorite author, Balthazar Balsan, and to have him autograph it for her. Odette, a lower middle class widow with two jobs gets so tongue-tied when she meets him that she can't even speak her own name properly. Balsan's books, she believes, showed her that " ' in every life, no matter how miserable, there are reasons to be happy, to laugh, to love.' " Balthazar, a wealthy man with a troubled marriage and young son who is taking too much after his old man, goes through his own identity crisis soon after this book signing. In true fairy tale form, he and Odette meet again. But when their attachment may be going too far, Odette tells Balthazar, " 'Our paths may cross, but we can no longer meet each other." Will that be the end of them, or are they destined for more? "Odette Toulemonde" tries to point the way to balanced living. In "Every Reason to be Happy" a woman discovers her husband isn't the man she thought and she has to decide how she will handle the startling revelations. In "The Forgery" the ability to trust is tested by two women with very different results. And what would any set of fairy tales be without "A Barefoot Princess" who may not be what she seems? The leitmotif being forwarded in THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOOK IN THE WORLD by the author, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, is, arguably, that regardless of our histories, regardless of our economic status, regardless of our pettiness and self-ce

Stumbled upon this in the bookstore; this is not a book for everyone, for sure. It is delicious, like something unexpectedly tasty, sweet and wonderful. "Novella" was misleading to me; I would think they are short stories. I greedily anticipate finding his other books and cannot wait to devour them...