Synopsis:
This Cosmetics of the Enemy demonstrates how true talents never cease to seek new horizons for their most enduring obsessions. In prose of a forcefulness unparalleled in today's European literary scene ("each sentence has the force of an aphorism," a French critic said of this book), Nothomb shows her extraordinary ability to expose the darkest and most disturbing part of our everyday world, even in the area where we feel the safest.
Businessman Jérôme Angust receives an announcement over the loudspeaker that his flight has an undetermined delay. To kill time, he immerses himself in reading the book he carries in his handbag, but an unexpected interlocutor, Textor Texel, will engage him in conversation despite his manifest resistance. Since this is a Nothomb novel, it is not surprising that the unwelcome Texel has something to tell that is far more terrifying, intriguing and suggestive than any book: over the course of his tale, rape and murder will loom ever sharper, and Textor will gradually become an abominable embodiment of all the ghosts of Angust, who will find his unremarkable wait for a delayed flight turned into an ominous, hallucinatory adventure, a nightmare in the warm wakefulness of an airport terminal.
Review:
How to tell you this story blew me away, but it super blew my mind.
This book is the first I've read by this author and I couldn't have been more pleased.
"Cosmetic. The man smoothed his hair with the palm of his hand.
He had to look presentable in order to meet his victim according to the canons."
So begins this book. The story is about a man named Angust who is forced to wait at the airport because his flight was delayed, and this is when a strange fellow named Texor Texel sits down next to him and starts talking to him.
Angust at first answers him curtly and tries not to pay attention to him pretending to read a book, but this stranger doesn't leave. He continues with his monologue to which Angust, already annoyed, begins to answer him in mocking or sarcastic ways, to which the stranger does not seem to bother him.
As the pages go by, everything becomes more uncomfortable and we realize that this guy is crazy. The topics of conversation range from bizarre traumas to chilling experiences such as rape and murder.
There comes a time when you don't know what is real and what is not, the author manages to trick you on several occasions giving extraordinary twists that will leave you with your mouth open.
It is written 98% in dialogue between Angust and Texor.
"-If I'm so detestable, kill me.
-I don't feel like it.
-How does it taste? You've never tasted it. Maybe you'll love it later."
At no point does the book let you predict the ending, indeed, at every moment we learn some things that you think "please Amélie, what an imagination!"
I got to know this book thanks to Booktube, and I swear that if I hadn't seen it there I would have never given it a thought, what a big mistake that would have been! And being such a short book and on top of that self-conclusive I looked in the bookstore to see if they had it to buy it, but seeing that it was so expensive I decided to read it by other means.
"It's funny how people have this need to accuse others of having to accuse others of having ruined their lives.
When in reality they are enough on their own without anyone's help."
The truth is that I was fascinated, I loved it, I loved it, I can't describe it. The ending is super dark and gloomy.
The next thing I will read from this author will be "Sulfuric Acid" and "Swallow's Diary", hopefully I won't be disappointed because with this first reading I have already set the bar very high.
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