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That Time of Year
Herman’s wife and child are nowhere to be found, and the weather in the village, perfectly agreeable just days earlier, has taken a sudden turn for the worse. Tourist season is over. It’s time for the vacationing Parisians, Herman and his family included, to abandon their rural getaways and return to normal life. But where has Herman’s family gone? Concerned, he sets out into the oppressive rain and cold for news of their whereabouts. The community he encounters, however, has become alien, practically unrecognizable, and his urgent inquiry, placed in the care of local officials, quickly recedes into the background, shuffled into a deck of labyrinthine bureaucracy and local custom. As time passes, Herman, wittingly and not, becomes one with a society defined by communal surveillance, strange traditions, ghostly apparitions, and a hospitality that verges on mania.
A literary horror story about power and assimilation, That Time of Year marks NDiaye once again as a contemporary master of the psychological novel. Working in the spirit of Leonora Carrington and Karen Russell, NDiaye’s novel is a nightmarish vision otherness, privilege, and social amnesia, told with potent clarity and a heady dose of the weird.
A literary horror story about power and assimilation, That Time of Year marks NDiaye once again as a contemporary master of the psychological novel. Working in the spirit of Leonora Carrington and Karen Russell, NDiaye’s novel is a nightmarish vision otherness, privilege, and social amnesia, told with potent clarity and a heady dose of the weird.
140 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1994
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About the author
Marie NDiaye
53 books374 followersMarie NDiaye was born in Pithiviers, France, in 1967; spent her childhood with her French mother (her father was Senegalese); and studied linguistics at the Sorbonne. She started writing when she was twelve or thirteen years old and was only eighteen when her first work was published. In 2001 she was awarded the prestigious Prix Femina literary prize for her novel Rosie Carpe, and in 2009, she won the Prix Goncourt for Three Strong Women.
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August 26, 2023
‘i've seen the fall, is this the price you have to pay?’
I’ve always found living in a summer town to be an apt metaphor for seasonal depression. Here on the lakeshore of Holland, Mi, we have quiet yet brutal winters of lake effect snow that suddenly burst into green and festivity with our spring Tulip Time festival when a revolving door of tourists flock into town and pack the streets until the end of the summer season. It is either sheer bleakness, or effervescent festivity that switches off and on like a lightswitch with the change of seasons. The well decorated French author and playwright Marie NDiaye, recipient of France’s highest literary honors--the Prix Femina and Prix Goncourt--illustrates life in a summer town as a cloying psychological horror in her 1994 novel That Time of Year. Translated by the wonderful Jordan Stump, NDiaye scratches at the idyllic surface of a French summer town to expose a Kafkaesque nightmare lurking beneath. This is a place where every congenial smile masks cruel intentions. A startling feast of atmosphere, That Time of Year examines a cloistered culture of strange traditions, oppressive surveillance and assimilation, and a hostility to outsiders all hidden behind the public persona of eminent hospitality.
The story is fairly simple: Herman and his Parisian family have decided to stay one day beyond the August 31st end of summer holiday in their summer tourism town but his wife and child have gone missing. Overnight, the paradisal town has turned from warm and sunny to nearly unrecognizable in a sudden onslaught of cold, grey and rainy weather--‘that abrupt drop in temperature put the finishing touch on his terror’--and the jovial residents' hospitable nature has gone from charming to ominously predatorial as they smile at him while ignoring his plight of missing persons. ‘They smiled when Herman looked back,’ she writes of a rain-soaked Herman shivering his way through the downtown beset by merchants faces watching from store windows, ‘but only with their lips, an almost urbane smile, excessively revealing their teeth.’ The police have no interest in helping Herman, and anyone to whom he tells of his plight smile and listen intently, but show little interest in assisting him. Only a local bureaucrat Alfred, who once suffered the same predicament as Herman, offers to help, but with such overinterest it is alarming. ‘become a villager,’ Alfred tells him, warning him of the disdain the villagers have for Parisians, ‘invisible, insignificant’. This is the only way to see his family again, he is told, and thus begins a slow and subtle turning of the screw as Herman’s will is squashed in the oppressive atmosphere and strange charms of city officials in this tucked-away French village.
‘Most of the people around here didn’t like outsiders experiencing autumn, which was in a sense none of those outsiders’ business, maybe they thought the intrusion into their mysterious post-summer life indiscreet?’
NDiaye builds an atmosphere in this novel that gives a fever-pitch terror to the strange and elusive events that transpire. It reads like a nightmare, just adjacent to reality in its surreal depictions of the town. There is an enormous City Hall built under a hill with an elaborate mechanism of its multitudinous employees, the hostile hospitality that reads with a shiver, and the strange traditions that just evade explanation. All the women, for example, either wear the same apple blossom print blouse that binds their breasts in or the city worker uniform complete with an arrangement of ribbons signifying their relationship status. No ribbons ‘meaning you can talk to her in a certain way, and she’ll answer the same way,’ Alfred tells Herman in an unsettling and overly indulgent way that impresses upon the reader this is a patriarchal society (later doubled down upon when a case of sexual assault alleged against a step-daughter is deemed as negative to her character more so than his). It is a town where everyone is always watching, always judging, and the only way to keep going is to bend to their ill will.
While written in 1994 (though not translated until 2020), which grants a timeless quality to the book where the lack of modern technology like easily accessible internet or cellphones is helpful in creating the sense that Herman has been shut away from the world, the ideas of surveillance that permeate the novel have become all the more relevant. There is no sense of private, personal space here and even locking one’s door is seen as indecent. Other villagers want to look into Herman’s room and to keep them out would be viewed as rude and trying to hide something. The whole invasive notion that surveillance--or even The Patriot Act here in the US--are only frightening if you have something to hide are depicted as the menacing, oppressive beasts they are. French philosopher Michel Foucault examines the social disciplinary society of the panopticon in his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Using Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon as it is used in prisons--a round room where everyone can view everyone else with a prison guard tower in the center. ‘the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment,’ Foucault writes, ‘but he must be sure that he may always be so.’ Knowing he is always observed, and often surprised to learn Alfred has known about his whereabouts before he even returns to their hotel, Herman’s will to be an individual and an outsider begins to crack. The constant observation ensures his docility and compliance with their culture.
In the modern world, we are always observed as well. And this doesn’t just apply to video surveillance, though face recognition software has become readily available and sold to police and military forces, but to the ways our online life puts us constantly in the public eye. We never know who is looking at our photos or data, or when, but we are fully aware that it is happening. Just notice how highly specific some targeted ads on a social media feed can be. In an era of Surveillance Capitalism where personal data has overtaken oil as the world’s leading commodity our online presence becomes a form of social engineering that responds to our actions in real-time and corralls us towards consumer behaviors desired by corporations (I completed a degree in this, its wild and terrifying stuff).
Assimilation becomes the ultimate goal in this town, a flattening of personalities and otherness. Written by a Black woman, this adds an unspoken insidious element to a town described as entirely white and blonde (Alred has bleached his hair to fit in, but his ‘dark’ eyebrows and arm hair betray him--read into that as much as you will). As time passes, Herman forgets about life in Paris and even shakes in fear when--to accommodate Gilbert who wants to show him off as his ‘Parisian friend’ to gain social currency with a wealthy friend--travelling to the nearby town L. because he is afraid he is betraying the village.
The town breaks people down and keeps them stuck within it like a void. The families of those who stay seem to roam the town like ghosts, not answering to their names as they look forlorn at the gloomy landscape like souls awash in purgatory.
Despite their dislike for the high-manners and wealth of Parisians, upon whom their economy depends, the unnamed village has its own class system hinging on wealth. The merchants seem to cast a shadowy control over the town. ‘[T]he merchants of this place are a bad lot,’ Alfred warns, ‘dangerous, cunning, their tentacles go everywhere; they’re rich as kings but plead poverty.’ They hold the Mayor’s ear and he seems to be a puppet to the Chamber of Commerce. The inscrutable machinations of the city politics with their massive staff, hushed methods and disinterest in actually helping beyond faked smiles is what really takes this novel from seeming akin to the psychological horrors of Shirley Jackson right to Franz Kafka.
Now if you were to describe a town like the one in this novel: an oppressive summer town full of fake hospitality but really a nightmarish culture of traditions, surveillance and run by a shadowy, dangerous merchant mafia, I’d say “oh, I know that town, it’s where i live in Holland, Mi”. This book hit me HARD in that regard. It is a town where the downtown is mostly owned by the mother of Eric Prince (you know, the war profiteer who operated Blackwater) and Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy Devos, and the white, upper-class feel to downtown is very sternly maintained (oh, they also own a mega-church here). There is a joke about ‘West Michigan Niceness’ and LET ME TELL YOU it is real. This is a place where people tell you they ‘will pray for you’ as a way of letting you know they hate you and all you stand for, and fake smiles are basically the local motto. As an outsider to Holland, having moved here ten years ago from across the State, I stuck out and people made sure to let me know and I basically had to assimilate and Herman’s scary slide--he is described as literally melting--into it all seemed a parody of what I see here. Also there is a sense that villages assume big city folks look down on them as some country bumpkins, which is also fairly true of Holland. And also just fairly true, I once worked for a coffee company in a nearby town where the owner from Chicago outright said it all the time. Anyways, the fake smiles hiding devious intent in the book really reminded me of West Michigan vacation towns, and honestly this book could be set here (fun fact, all the creepy ‘present day’ parts of Station Eleven is set on the southwest Michigan lakeshore where I am stuck living).
NDiaye delivers an atmospheric treat with That Time of Year that will make anyone wary of overstaying their welcome on vacation. It was really charming to read this during the first week of September, when the novel is set, while also experiencing cold, rainy days while living in a town that reminded me so much of the book. It should be cautioned, however, that those who need resolution or to have major mysteries explained will likely not enjoy this book. At all. While it more or less thematically answers the big philosophical points of the book, the narrative is left pretty wide open. That sort of thing doesn’t bother me and honestly the abrupt end kind of really worked for me here. This is a book that would fit very well in the catalog of Dorothy Publishing Project but Two Line Press has done a really lovely job with it and I adore this compact hardbound edition. Also, this book has such great visual energy to the writing, you practically see the eerie film this would be perfect to make. Drawing on critiques of an oppressive surveillance culture, That Time of Year is a haunting delight that, while a bit sparse and swift, leaves a lasting impression.
3.5/5
‘Because what did they know of the fall around here, what did they know of these people’s ways once all the outsiders were supposed to have left?’
I’ve always found living in a summer town to be an apt metaphor for seasonal depression. Here on the lakeshore of Holland, Mi, we have quiet yet brutal winters of lake effect snow that suddenly burst into green and festivity with our spring Tulip Time festival when a revolving door of tourists flock into town and pack the streets until the end of the summer season. It is either sheer bleakness, or effervescent festivity that switches off and on like a lightswitch with the change of seasons. The well decorated French author and playwright Marie NDiaye, recipient of France’s highest literary honors--the Prix Femina and Prix Goncourt--illustrates life in a summer town as a cloying psychological horror in her 1994 novel That Time of Year. Translated by the wonderful Jordan Stump, NDiaye scratches at the idyllic surface of a French summer town to expose a Kafkaesque nightmare lurking beneath. This is a place where every congenial smile masks cruel intentions. A startling feast of atmosphere, That Time of Year examines a cloistered culture of strange traditions, oppressive surveillance and assimilation, and a hostility to outsiders all hidden behind the public persona of eminent hospitality.
The story is fairly simple: Herman and his Parisian family have decided to stay one day beyond the August 31st end of summer holiday in their summer tourism town but his wife and child have gone missing. Overnight, the paradisal town has turned from warm and sunny to nearly unrecognizable in a sudden onslaught of cold, grey and rainy weather--‘that abrupt drop in temperature put the finishing touch on his terror’--and the jovial residents' hospitable nature has gone from charming to ominously predatorial as they smile at him while ignoring his plight of missing persons. ‘They smiled when Herman looked back,’ she writes of a rain-soaked Herman shivering his way through the downtown beset by merchants faces watching from store windows, ‘but only with their lips, an almost urbane smile, excessively revealing their teeth.’ The police have no interest in helping Herman, and anyone to whom he tells of his plight smile and listen intently, but show little interest in assisting him. Only a local bureaucrat Alfred, who once suffered the same predicament as Herman, offers to help, but with such overinterest it is alarming. ‘become a villager,’ Alfred tells him, warning him of the disdain the villagers have for Parisians, ‘invisible, insignificant’. This is the only way to see his family again, he is told, and thus begins a slow and subtle turning of the screw as Herman’s will is squashed in the oppressive atmosphere and strange charms of city officials in this tucked-away French village.
‘Most of the people around here didn’t like outsiders experiencing autumn, which was in a sense none of those outsiders’ business, maybe they thought the intrusion into their mysterious post-summer life indiscreet?’
NDiaye builds an atmosphere in this novel that gives a fever-pitch terror to the strange and elusive events that transpire. It reads like a nightmare, just adjacent to reality in its surreal depictions of the town. There is an enormous City Hall built under a hill with an elaborate mechanism of its multitudinous employees, the hostile hospitality that reads with a shiver, and the strange traditions that just evade explanation. All the women, for example, either wear the same apple blossom print blouse that binds their breasts in or the city worker uniform complete with an arrangement of ribbons signifying their relationship status. No ribbons ‘meaning you can talk to her in a certain way, and she’ll answer the same way,’ Alfred tells Herman in an unsettling and overly indulgent way that impresses upon the reader this is a patriarchal society (later doubled down upon when a case of sexual assault alleged against a step-daughter is deemed as negative to her character more so than his). It is a town where everyone is always watching, always judging, and the only way to keep going is to bend to their ill will.
While written in 1994 (though not translated until 2020), which grants a timeless quality to the book where the lack of modern technology like easily accessible internet or cellphones is helpful in creating the sense that Herman has been shut away from the world, the ideas of surveillance that permeate the novel have become all the more relevant. There is no sense of private, personal space here and even locking one’s door is seen as indecent. Other villagers want to look into Herman’s room and to keep them out would be viewed as rude and trying to hide something. The whole invasive notion that surveillance--or even The Patriot Act here in the US--are only frightening if you have something to hide are depicted as the menacing, oppressive beasts they are. French philosopher Michel Foucault examines the social disciplinary society of the panopticon in his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Using Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon as it is used in prisons--a round room where everyone can view everyone else with a prison guard tower in the center. ‘the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment,’ Foucault writes, ‘but he must be sure that he may always be so.’ Knowing he is always observed, and often surprised to learn Alfred has known about his whereabouts before he even returns to their hotel, Herman’s will to be an individual and an outsider begins to crack. The constant observation ensures his docility and compliance with their culture.
In the modern world, we are always observed as well. And this doesn’t just apply to video surveillance, though face recognition software has become readily available and sold to police and military forces, but to the ways our online life puts us constantly in the public eye. We never know who is looking at our photos or data, or when, but we are fully aware that it is happening. Just notice how highly specific some targeted ads on a social media feed can be. In an era of Surveillance Capitalism where personal data has overtaken oil as the world’s leading commodity our online presence becomes a form of social engineering that responds to our actions in real-time and corralls us towards consumer behaviors desired by corporations (I completed a degree in this, its wild and terrifying stuff).
Assimilation becomes the ultimate goal in this town, a flattening of personalities and otherness. Written by a Black woman, this adds an unspoken insidious element to a town described as entirely white and blonde (Alred has bleached his hair to fit in, but his ‘dark’ eyebrows and arm hair betray him--read into that as much as you will). As time passes, Herman forgets about life in Paris and even shakes in fear when--to accommodate Gilbert who wants to show him off as his ‘Parisian friend’ to gain social currency with a wealthy friend--travelling to the nearby town L. because he is afraid he is betraying the village.
‘[Herman] came to think that vitality is in no way a necessity, nor is a certain sort of happiness made up of varied activities, heart-felt affections, and a comfortable, discreet wealth...for the moment he was drawn to the possibility of an indolent but not ignoble, serenely oblivious degeneration.’
The town breaks people down and keeps them stuck within it like a void. The families of those who stay seem to roam the town like ghosts, not answering to their names as they look forlorn at the gloomy landscape like souls awash in purgatory.
Despite their dislike for the high-manners and wealth of Parisians, upon whom their economy depends, the unnamed village has its own class system hinging on wealth. The merchants seem to cast a shadowy control over the town. ‘[T]he merchants of this place are a bad lot,’ Alfred warns, ‘dangerous, cunning, their tentacles go everywhere; they’re rich as kings but plead poverty.’ They hold the Mayor’s ear and he seems to be a puppet to the Chamber of Commerce. The inscrutable machinations of the city politics with their massive staff, hushed methods and disinterest in actually helping beyond faked smiles is what really takes this novel from seeming akin to the psychological horrors of Shirley Jackson right to Franz Kafka.
Now if you were to describe a town like the one in this novel: an oppressive summer town full of fake hospitality but really a nightmarish culture of traditions, surveillance and run by a shadowy, dangerous merchant mafia, I’d say “oh, I know that town, it’s where i live in Holland, Mi”. This book hit me HARD in that regard. It is a town where the downtown is mostly owned by the mother of Eric Prince (you know, the war profiteer who operated Blackwater) and Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy Devos, and the white, upper-class feel to downtown is very sternly maintained (oh, they also own a mega-church here). There is a joke about ‘West Michigan Niceness’ and LET ME TELL YOU it is real. This is a place where people tell you they ‘will pray for you’ as a way of letting you know they hate you and all you stand for, and fake smiles are basically the local motto. As an outsider to Holland, having moved here ten years ago from across the State, I stuck out and people made sure to let me know and I basically had to assimilate and Herman’s scary slide--he is described as literally melting--into it all seemed a parody of what I see here. Also there is a sense that villages assume big city folks look down on them as some country bumpkins, which is also fairly true of Holland. And also just fairly true, I once worked for a coffee company in a nearby town where the owner from Chicago outright said it all the time. Anyways, the fake smiles hiding devious intent in the book really reminded me of West Michigan vacation towns, and honestly this book could be set here (fun fact, all the creepy ‘present day’ parts of Station Eleven is set on the southwest Michigan lakeshore where I am stuck living).
NDiaye delivers an atmospheric treat with That Time of Year that will make anyone wary of overstaying their welcome on vacation. It was really charming to read this during the first week of September, when the novel is set, while also experiencing cold, rainy days while living in a town that reminded me so much of the book. It should be cautioned, however, that those who need resolution or to have major mysteries explained will likely not enjoy this book. At all. While it more or less thematically answers the big philosophical points of the book, the narrative is left pretty wide open. That sort of thing doesn’t bother me and honestly the abrupt end kind of really worked for me here. This is a book that would fit very well in the catalog of Dorothy Publishing Project but Two Line Press has done a really lovely job with it and I adore this compact hardbound edition. Also, this book has such great visual energy to the writing, you practically see the eerie film this would be perfect to make. Drawing on critiques of an oppressive surveillance culture, That Time of Year is a haunting delight that, while a bit sparse and swift, leaves a lasting impression.
3.5/5
‘Because what did they know of the fall around here, what did they know of these people’s ways once all the outsiders were supposed to have left?’
August 30, 2020
3.5 August is women in translation month, so I thought I would end the month with one such book. This one comes from France and the author is a best selling author whom has won many prestigious literary awards in that country. It is a very strange little book, a novella, not a full length novel.
For ten years Herman, his wife and young son has spent summers in their country house, in a little village outside of Paris. In all previous years the family has left before September 1st, but this year they stayed a few days later. A big mistake, as the town and it's people, even the weather takes a disastrous turn. Now unbelievably cold, constantly raining, his family missing, the usual amiable townspeople seem unwilling to help him in his search. He is told that all will become clear in time.
A waking nightmare, because little in this town is as it seems. Soon Herman will find this out for himself, but but then he too has become a different person. A great story for an episode of the Twilight Zone, a low level, a low simmering of horror. It also shows how easy it is to accept the abnormal as normal. How easy the unreal can become a new reality. I enjoyed this but not too sure about the ending,that was strange even for this strange little book.
ARC from Edelweiss.
For ten years Herman, his wife and young son has spent summers in their country house, in a little village outside of Paris. In all previous years the family has left before September 1st, but this year they stayed a few days later. A big mistake, as the town and it's people, even the weather takes a disastrous turn. Now unbelievably cold, constantly raining, his family missing, the usual amiable townspeople seem unwilling to help him in his search. He is told that all will become clear in time.
A waking nightmare, because little in this town is as it seems. Soon Herman will find this out for himself, but but then he too has become a different person. A great story for an episode of the Twilight Zone, a low level, a low simmering of horror. It also shows how easy it is to accept the abnormal as normal. How easy the unreal can become a new reality. I enjoyed this but not too sure about the ending,that was strange even for this strange little book.
ARC from Edelweiss.
September 9, 2020
For ten years, Herman – a Parisian teacher – and his family have been spending the summer months in their rural second home. They always leave on the 31st of August; this year, they stay on for a few days. This might seem like no big deal, but in That Time of Year the date, which represents the transition from summer to autumn, takes on an eerie, symbolic significance. ‘Because what did they know of the fall around here, what did they know of these people’s ways once all the outsiders were supposed to have left?’
On the evening of the first day of September, Herman’s wife Rose and their eight-year-old son don’t return from a trip to a nearby farm. When Herman attempts to get the local police to search for them, he’s met with indifference. Instead, he’s encouraged to stay in the village, take a room in a shabby hotel, and settle there for an indeterminate period of time. Against his initial wishes, he gradually finds himself assimilating.
While this is a new translation, it’s not a new book – it was originally published in 1994. That accounts for the lack of mobile phones and internet, which helps to give the story a sense of timelessness. Adding to this are the peculiar customs of the village. For example, all women wear a version of the same blouse, patterned with apple blossoms; the arrangement of lace details indicates their marital status. The exaggerated contrast between the village and Herman’s home city of Paris is both comical and deeply sinister.
Several times in the past, I’ve read an advance copy of a book and, in the absence of any other information about it, have been unsure whether something is missing. When I got to the last page of That Time of Year, I stared at it for several minutes, thinking, surely that can’t be it?! I thought some pages had accidentally been omitted. Thankfully, there are a few English-language reviews of the original available online, and these confirm that the non sequitur of an ending is, indeed, the ending. So, you know, be prepared for that.
I recently read another book in which characters travel to an isolated location and find themselves frequently hindered by the eccentric locals: What Happens at Night by Peter Cameron. It addresses similar themes more effectively, and That Time of Year suffers by comparison to it. This is the first thing I’ve read by NDiaye, and I have a sneaking suspicion it isn’t the best introduction to her work. I will read more by the author, but if you’re looking for a book about outsiders in a strange, remote community, I’d recommend What Happens at Night over this.
I received an advance review copy of That Time of Year from the publisher through Edelweiss.
TinyLetter | Linktree
On the evening of the first day of September, Herman’s wife Rose and their eight-year-old son don’t return from a trip to a nearby farm. When Herman attempts to get the local police to search for them, he’s met with indifference. Instead, he’s encouraged to stay in the village, take a room in a shabby hotel, and settle there for an indeterminate period of time. Against his initial wishes, he gradually finds himself assimilating.
While this is a new translation, it’s not a new book – it was originally published in 1994. That accounts for the lack of mobile phones and internet, which helps to give the story a sense of timelessness. Adding to this are the peculiar customs of the village. For example, all women wear a version of the same blouse, patterned with apple blossoms; the arrangement of lace details indicates their marital status. The exaggerated contrast between the village and Herman’s home city of Paris is both comical and deeply sinister.
Several times in the past, I’ve read an advance copy of a book and, in the absence of any other information about it, have been unsure whether something is missing. When I got to the last page of That Time of Year, I stared at it for several minutes, thinking, surely that can’t be it?! I thought some pages had accidentally been omitted. Thankfully, there are a few English-language reviews of the original available online, and these confirm that the non sequitur of an ending is, indeed, the ending. So, you know, be prepared for that.
I recently read another book in which characters travel to an isolated location and find themselves frequently hindered by the eccentric locals: What Happens at Night by Peter Cameron. It addresses similar themes more effectively, and That Time of Year suffers by comparison to it. This is the first thing I’ve read by NDiaye, and I have a sneaking suspicion it isn’t the best introduction to her work. I will read more by the author, but if you’re looking for a book about outsiders in a strange, remote community, I’d recommend What Happens at Night over this.
I received an advance review copy of That Time of Year from the publisher through Edelweiss.
TinyLetter | Linktree
June 15, 2020
the underlying sinisterism which pervades so much of marie ndiaye's fiction is absolutely irresistible. in her newest novel to be rendered from the french, that time of year (temps de saison)), ndiaye takes us to a provincial town well outside of paris, where her main character, herman (a math teacher), seems to have lost both his wife and their child during the final days of their summer holiday. are the townsfolk purposefully fucking with him? are they all in on a malevolent plot to rob parisians of their loved ones? why does everyone, from the shopkeepers to the mayor, have such a nonchalant attitude toward herman's predicament and his missing family?
with that time of year, ndiaye expertly crafts another tale rich in eerie atmospherics. with more than a dozen novels, short story collections, and plays yet to be translated into english, hopefully we're treated to ever more works of this immense talent for years and decades to come.
*translated from the french by jordan stump (toussaint, chevillard, simon, mukasonga, volodine, et al.)
with that time of year, ndiaye expertly crafts another tale rich in eerie atmospherics. with more than a dozen novels, short story collections, and plays yet to be translated into english, hopefully we're treated to ever more works of this immense talent for years and decades to come.
"everything's turned hostile all of a sudden," he groaned. "is it because i've seen the fall, is this the price you have to pay?"
*translated from the french by jordan stump (toussaint, chevillard, simon, mukasonga, volodine, et al.)
May 6, 2021
(prompt 2 of the storygraph's translation rc: a book written by a black woman in translation)
oh i loved this! can't stop thinking about how much of a disservice the cover does to the well-written, gloomy, and almost cinematically wicked atmosphere of this book which makes me want to forgive the dissatisfying ending.
“—exulted in feeling so tragic: had anyone ever thought of him that way, had he ever, even once, moved someone?”
personal note that i listened to this playlist while reading which exponentially increased my enjoyment of this book.
oh i loved this! can't stop thinking about how much of a disservice the cover does to the well-written, gloomy, and almost cinematically wicked atmosphere of this book which makes me want to forgive the dissatisfying ending.
“—exulted in feeling so tragic: had anyone ever thought of him that way, had he ever, even once, moved someone?”
personal note that i listened to this playlist while reading which exponentially increased my enjoyment of this book.
December 15, 2020
All tourists who remain past tourist season will be liquidated!
September 12, 2020
That Time of Year is the latest Marie Ndiaye novel in English translation (I've previously read 3 others) by Jordan Stump, although the original was written some 25 years ago.
Ndiaye explained in a recent interview:
The book tells the story of Herman, a Parisian maths teacher. He and his wife and son have a holiday home in a rural village, where they spend each July and August, always leaving on 31st of the latter month, along with the other Parisians.
But one year they decide to stay on a couple of days, and when they wake on the 1st September the weather has changed overnight from summer sun, to cold and rain:
For ten years they'd been coming to this place, and until the thirty-first of August Herman and Rose had known nothing but unending warmth. Only the sight of the pastures, dazzlingly green, almost artificial-looking, made them suspect that it wasn't the same all year round, but they never thought to ask anyone to confirm that lazy assumption.
To add to Herman's worries, Rose and his son had set off that morning on the short-trip to the nearest farm for some eggs but haven't return, and when he goes in search of them, no-one has seen them or knows where they are:
That abrupt drop in temperature put the finishing touch on his terror, convincing him that by waiting one day too long to go home and thus break-ing with a ten-year habit, by letting September come to them here when September was a month they knew only in Paris, he and Rose had laid themselves open to unknown tribulations they might not be strong enough to withstand. Because what did they know of the fall around here, what did they know of these people’s ways once all the outsiders were supposed to have left? The fact was that outside of summertime they knew nothing about the place at all.
As often with Ndiaye's novels this is a somewhat surreal and metaphorical tale. Herman attempts to rouse the local gendamarie and town authorities in the urgent missing person case but with little success, finding himself trapped in something of a Kafkesque nightmare. It's not that they don't believe him, rather they don't see two missing people as a particularly important or urgent issue for the next months, when compared, say, to the digitisation of the local survey maps, or the tradespeople who run the town totting up how much the tourists spent this year and how to fleece them for more next summer.
The villagers also happily acknowledge that the abrupt weather changes are an annual event - the sun and dry weather is only for the tourist season.
Herman ends up moving into the village and increasingly himself losing focus on his search. And he later learns that the disappearance is not the first (
Ndiaye, in Stump's striking translations, is always worthwhile and I found the premise of the novel fascinating. However, it didn't feel fully developed - in may almost have worked better as a short story or shorter novella - and I would still strongly recommend Ladivine or My Heart Hemmed In (earlier in translation, but later in Ndiaye's own career - over this). 3.5 stars
My reviews of other Stump translations of Ndiaye (year shown is original French publication date):
That Time of Year (1994): see above
My Heart Hemmed In (2009): https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Ladivine (2013): https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Cheffe (2016): https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Yet to read:
Self-Portrait in GreenSelf-Portrait in Green (2005)
All My Friends (2007)
Ndiaye explained in a recent interview:
At the time I’d recently moved to Cormeilles, a village in Normandy that gets a great many tourists from Paris and Great Britain in the summer. I had to learn to live in that village after the summer was over, after the bustle and the sort of artificial but still agreeable cheeriness that visitors bring with them. The idea of the novel grew out of that experience: How does one live in a village when nothing comes in from outside to provide some sort of diversion? This was long before the internet, so distractions and ways of escaping the little world of village were much more limited.
The book tells the story of Herman, a Parisian maths teacher. He and his wife and son have a holiday home in a rural village, where they spend each July and August, always leaving on 31st of the latter month, along with the other Parisians.
But one year they decide to stay on a couple of days, and when they wake on the 1st September the weather has changed overnight from summer sun, to cold and rain:
For ten years they'd been coming to this place, and until the thirty-first of August Herman and Rose had known nothing but unending warmth. Only the sight of the pastures, dazzlingly green, almost artificial-looking, made them suspect that it wasn't the same all year round, but they never thought to ask anyone to confirm that lazy assumption.
To add to Herman's worries, Rose and his son had set off that morning on the short-trip to the nearest farm for some eggs but haven't return, and when he goes in search of them, no-one has seen them or knows where they are:
That abrupt drop in temperature put the finishing touch on his terror, convincing him that by waiting one day too long to go home and thus break-ing with a ten-year habit, by letting September come to them here when September was a month they knew only in Paris, he and Rose had laid themselves open to unknown tribulations they might not be strong enough to withstand. Because what did they know of the fall around here, what did they know of these people’s ways once all the outsiders were supposed to have left? The fact was that outside of summertime they knew nothing about the place at all.
As often with Ndiaye's novels this is a somewhat surreal and metaphorical tale. Herman attempts to rouse the local gendamarie and town authorities in the urgent missing person case but with little success, finding himself trapped in something of a Kafkesque nightmare. It's not that they don't believe him, rather they don't see two missing people as a particularly important or urgent issue for the next months, when compared, say, to the digitisation of the local survey maps, or the tradespeople who run the town totting up how much the tourists spent this year and how to fleece them for more next summer.
The villagers also happily acknowledge that the abrupt weather changes are an annual event - the sun and dry weather is only for the tourist season.
Herman ends up moving into the village and increasingly himself losing focus on his search. And he later learns that the disappearance is not the first (
Ndiaye, in Stump's striking translations, is always worthwhile and I found the premise of the novel fascinating. However, it didn't feel fully developed - in may almost have worked better as a short story or shorter novella - and I would still strongly recommend Ladivine or My Heart Hemmed In (earlier in translation, but later in Ndiaye's own career - over this). 3.5 stars
My reviews of other Stump translations of Ndiaye (year shown is original French publication date):
That Time of Year (1994): see above
My Heart Hemmed In (2009): https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Ladivine (2013): https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Cheffe (2016): https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Yet to read:
Self-Portrait in GreenSelf-Portrait in Green (2005)
All My Friends (2007)
June 29, 2020
As if Midsommar and Fever Dream were on Zoloft. Absolutely perfect.
September 10, 2020
A cool, hazy little nightmare of a novel. Deliberately murky but written in crystal-clear prose. This is my first NDiaye book but it won't be the last.
February 7, 2021
A man's wife and child disappear after they stay too long after vacation in a village that suddenly turns rainy and cold and hostile. Hostile in a smiley and friendly way as the villagers tell the man not to worry, that these things happen and he should relax and accept the fact. He gradually comes under the spell of the bureaucratic village (yes, Kafkaesque in its meetings and rules and inaction) where everybody is watched (curtains must be open) and there seem to be ghosts around. A chilling black comedy.
A kind of Stepford Wives/The Prisoner (British TV series)/Kafka mash up, smoothly written/translated.
A kind of Stepford Wives/The Prisoner (British TV series)/Kafka mash up, smoothly written/translated.
December 16, 2020
To be discussed in December's Literary Horror Monthly Read.
August 22, 2024
"The cold, the rain, this sinister town. I've never seen anything like it. It's as dark as midnight!"
Another book that I've decided to read based on the cover. I didn't know what it was about but the cover drew me in. I know, I know. Shame on me but at least I'm honest about it.
This was an okay read that was slow all the way through. It was that slow-burn kind of creepy that didn't fully hit you until after you finished it. I enjoyed it but not one I would read again.
Another book that I've decided to read based on the cover. I didn't know what it was about but the cover drew me in. I know, I know. Shame on me but at least I'm honest about it.
This was an okay read that was slow all the way through. It was that slow-burn kind of creepy that didn't fully hit you until after you finished it. I enjoyed it but not one I would read again.
March 6, 2022
Na een weifelend beginnen lezen toch meegesleurd in het verhaal. Maar dan valt plots het doek en de pauze blijft eeuwig duren. Vreemde ervaring, komt er ooit een vervolg?
Dit is geen open einde, het is een open midden. Frustrerend...
Dit is geen open einde, het is een open midden. Frustrerend...
October 18, 2020
End of the summer season in a tourist town can be a strange time, and never stranger than here, in NDiaye’s rural invention.
I have to admit, this premise fascinates me. I write this review from such a place, Tresviso in the Spanish Picos, and live in such a place, in the Lake District. Indeed, one of my favourite authors, Magnus Mills, writes about it in the excellent All Quiet On The Orient Express. A couple of nights ago I enjoyed a film set in the same situation at a Cornish sea-side resort, Make Up.
Here, NDiaye opts for the undertone of horror (as with Make Up), but, like Mills, there is a wry humour to the writing also, as well as a metaphysical eeriness.
As every year Herman, a maths teacher from Paris, spends the month of August with his wife and their young son in a small country village where it is always warm and sunny, but, this year, they stay a day longer, into September. The weather changes abruptly to cold rain and the daylight hours are suddenly much shortened. His wife and child go to get eggs from a farm, and never return - when he attempts to report their disappearance, he is met with politeness, but complete indifference.
I’ve read NDiaye before, and struggled, but not here. She dispenses the particulars in a pragmatic tone that belies the unusual circumstances.
Any search for deeper meaning fell on stony ground for me, at the conclusion I found it like trying to make sense of a nightmare. Certain situations have a variety of explanations. It is the sort of literary horror that some may find frustrating, but I found it innovative and refreshing.
I have to admit, this premise fascinates me. I write this review from such a place, Tresviso in the Spanish Picos, and live in such a place, in the Lake District. Indeed, one of my favourite authors, Magnus Mills, writes about it in the excellent All Quiet On The Orient Express. A couple of nights ago I enjoyed a film set in the same situation at a Cornish sea-side resort, Make Up.
Here, NDiaye opts for the undertone of horror (as with Make Up), but, like Mills, there is a wry humour to the writing also, as well as a metaphysical eeriness.
As every year Herman, a maths teacher from Paris, spends the month of August with his wife and their young son in a small country village where it is always warm and sunny, but, this year, they stay a day longer, into September. The weather changes abruptly to cold rain and the daylight hours are suddenly much shortened. His wife and child go to get eggs from a farm, and never return - when he attempts to report their disappearance, he is met with politeness, but complete indifference.
I’ve read NDiaye before, and struggled, but not here. She dispenses the particulars in a pragmatic tone that belies the unusual circumstances.
Any search for deeper meaning fell on stony ground for me, at the conclusion I found it like trying to make sense of a nightmare. Certain situations have a variety of explanations. It is the sort of literary horror that some may find frustrating, but I found it innovative and refreshing.
October 11, 2020
What becomes of a perfect vacation town once summer is over? What becomes of a happy place where you chose to linger? What if your welcome overstays itself and idyll turns into a sort of Kafkaeque nightmare? Well, then, it must be that time of the year. The protagonist of this all too short/perfectly succinct novel has his life all planned out, for years now he takes his wife and child to a small charming village for summer vacations. And then on August 31st they leave it all behind, three months of happiness, relaxation and peace, and go back to the hectic city life. This is the year the scenario doesn’t go to plan, for suddenly the end of summer comes and his wife and child disappear, the weather turns nasty and rainy and there seems to be nothing to do but stay and look for them. Time to really get to know the village and the villagers in it, with their pitchforked kindness and oppressive quicksand style welcome customs. Now a place for happy summer frolics any longer, it’s a labyrinth of impossible bureaucracy, bizarre social practices and infuriating obfuscations. A place seemingly designed to induce a claustrophobic helpless despair that leads to reluctant merging in with the populace. A strange place and a strange story, for sure, but absolutely mesmerizing in a way, there’s a dark magic at work here, the same sort that works on the most creative nightmares, with complimentary night paralysis included, for there’s nowhere to go now, there’s only the village and, for lack of options, it can become the entire world. So how to classify a novel like that…is it a dark dramedy with magic realism elements or a work of the literary horrific realm? I’m go with the latter, because the story takes you beyond general creeping eeriness into the downright psychologically terrifying places. The desperation motivated assimilation alone…scary, scary business. There’s so much here for such a slim page count, but mostly it’s a mood driven work and at that it is strikingly effective. Quite an odd sort of book, definitely somewhat experimental, but oh so good. Deliciously strange nightmare. Recommended.
December 31, 2021
A creepy and eerie horror story that considers what one must give up to fit in, what one is willing to do for family, the ennui that can set in when things seem unbelievable yet are normalized, and what a place you think you know is like when you're not there. I am left wondering if this is an allegory--for fleeing a place for whatever reason? For having a seriously ill family member? Because honestly I think I could argue for either of those--but maybe it is meant to be something else? Or whatever the reader sees in it?
———
Herman and his wife and child have spent summers at their property outside a small town in France for ten years. This year they are heading home to Paris on September 2--they have always left in August before. But then it begins raining nonstop, and when Herman's family does not come back from a short walk their is little concern in town. He begins adapting to his new situation.
———
Herman and his wife and child have spent summers at their property outside a small town in France for ten years. This year they are heading home to Paris on September 2--they have always left in August before. But then it begins raining nonstop, and when Herman's family does not come back from a short walk their is little concern in town. He begins adapting to his new situation.
December 28, 2020
It is said that you can't judge a book by its cover. But I should have been forewarned at least when I saw this cover. The book is just like a bad French film: highly recommended by the critics, obscure, constantly promising to get better, never going anywhere, and finally ending without any resolution. Herman and his wife and child stayed at their vacation village just one day past summer for the first time and quickly discovered that when vacation is over, you'd best go home and not linger.
His family disappears and when he tries to find them he is given a series of nonsensical directions leading him to take a hotel room in the center of the village where he apparently beds another woman or two (it's hard to figure out) and searches for his family the way you would in a dream sequence where you're trying to get to the airport but you never get there. I cry "uncle".
His family disappears and when he tries to find them he is given a series of nonsensical directions leading him to take a hotel room in the center of the village where he apparently beds another woman or two (it's hard to figure out) and searches for his family the way you would in a dream sequence where you're trying to get to the airport but you never get there. I cry "uncle".
June 1, 2020
This was interestingly weird, though I wish it had gone somewhere. Somewhere as in anywhere. Anywhere at all.
Herman’s plight isn’t a completely new one, but this is a fresh framing of the idea, an absurdist cautionary tale about conformity and obedience.
The point of the novella is a good one, as is the structure, at least in a conceptual sense.
While the style and plot don’t dictate that the reader will get a true solve or resolution in the end, I found I still missed any hint of denouement in the story, even if the concluding aftermath of it remained open ended.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
Herman’s plight isn’t a completely new one, but this is a fresh framing of the idea, an absurdist cautionary tale about conformity and obedience.
The point of the novella is a good one, as is the structure, at least in a conceptual sense.
While the style and plot don’t dictate that the reader will get a true solve or resolution in the end, I found I still missed any hint of denouement in the story, even if the concluding aftermath of it remained open ended.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
December 7, 2020
Well written but I can't say that I liked it. Absurdist fiction isn't really my thing. The story telling was very distant, removed and somewhat muffled by the plot of strange townsfolk in a strange town. Probably a good book but not for me.
October 31, 2024
الكتاب فكرني بأحلام قيلولة بعد العصر 🙄🙄.
الرواية مملة بشكل رهيب ماسطة ما فيها حتى قيمة مضافة كان وقتي الي ضاع وانا نقرا فيها.
لكلها تخلويض في تخلويض لا فهمتها ديستوبيا لا فهمتها في عالم موازي. غير مقنعة وغير مفهومة.
علاه ربحت جايزة وعلاه ترجموها مانعرش 😏😏
الرواية مملة بشكل رهيب ماسطة ما فيها حتى قيمة مضافة كان وقتي الي ضاع وانا نقرا فيها.
لكلها تخلويض في تخلويض لا فهمتها ديستوبيا لا فهمتها في عالم موازي. غير مقنعة وغير مفهومة.
علاه ربحت جايزة وعلاه ترجموها مانعرش 😏😏
April 15, 2017
Vom Genre her ist das Buch schon mal schwierig einzuordnen, meiner Meinung nach fällt es klar in den Bereich phantastische Literatur. Das Setting hat mir sehr gut gefallen: Ein Ehepaar bleibt anders als die Jahre zuvor einen Tag länger im Sommerurlaub im üblichen Dorf. Mit dem 1. September verändert sich der Ort aber fundamental und noch dazu sind auch Frau und Kind des Lehrers verschwunden. Er bleibt im Dorf und macht sich auf die Suche nach seiner Familie, wird dabei von den Dorfbewohnern aber nur halbherzig und freundlich-abweisend unterstützt. Insgesamt gleitet die Szenerie schnell ins Surreale und Unlogische ab, der Protagonist scheint dies aber nicht wirklich zu bemerken und gibt sich der einlullenden und vernebelten Dorfwelt hin.
Das Buch ist kurz und kompakt, demzufolge wird auch nicht alles erklärt, was aber gut zur surrealen Atmosphäre der Geschichte passt. Die Autorin verfolgt in ihrem Roman mehrere Motive: Das Fremdsein, den Kontrast von Stadt und Land, die Anpassung an Förmlichkeiten und Konventionen, die Lust am Passiven, und noch ein paar mehr. NDiaye schafft ein überaus dichtes Bild des vom Dauerregen eingeschlossenen Dorfs, wo die Hauptperson versucht, durch Anpassung an die Dorfgemeinschaft seine Familie wiederzufinden. Die abgeschlossene Dorfgemeinschaft hat mich übrigens sehr an an Frank Herberts "Die Leute von Saratoga" erinnert, auch wenn Herbert näher an der Logik bleibt und NDiaye stärker ins Transzendente gleitet.
Bis kurz vor dem Schluss war ich sehr begeistert von dem Buch. Leider hat sich die Autorin für die letzten Seiten ein Ende ausgedacht, das mich weder mitgenommen noch in irgendeiner Form aufgeklärt hat. Es erfolgt ein Bruch, neue Personen werden eingeführt, und das Ende ist offen. Nicht dass ich offenen Enden nicht mag, aber hier passt es meiner Meinung nach gar nicht zu den Motiven und Gemütslagen, die in 90% des Buchs den Grundtenor ausgemacht haben. Ich denke hier hat sich die Autorin zu stark verkünstelt in dem Versuch, noch eine Schippe draufzulegen und ein kleines Meisterwerk zu schaffen. Das ist wie ich finde aufgrund des seltsamen Ausklangs nicht ganz gelungen. Trotzdem bleibt ein dichtes, intensives, teilweise mulmig machendes Werk, mit dem Freunde des phantastischen Genres und von anspruchsvoller Literatur nichts falsch machen können.
Das Buch ist kurz und kompakt, demzufolge wird auch nicht alles erklärt, was aber gut zur surrealen Atmosphäre der Geschichte passt. Die Autorin verfolgt in ihrem Roman mehrere Motive: Das Fremdsein, den Kontrast von Stadt und Land, die Anpassung an Förmlichkeiten und Konventionen, die Lust am Passiven, und noch ein paar mehr. NDiaye schafft ein überaus dichtes Bild des vom Dauerregen eingeschlossenen Dorfs, wo die Hauptperson versucht, durch Anpassung an die Dorfgemeinschaft seine Familie wiederzufinden. Die abgeschlossene Dorfgemeinschaft hat mich übrigens sehr an an Frank Herberts "Die Leute von Saratoga" erinnert, auch wenn Herbert näher an der Logik bleibt und NDiaye stärker ins Transzendente gleitet.
Bis kurz vor dem Schluss war ich sehr begeistert von dem Buch. Leider hat sich die Autorin für die letzten Seiten ein Ende ausgedacht, das mich weder mitgenommen noch in irgendeiner Form aufgeklärt hat. Es erfolgt ein Bruch, neue Personen werden eingeführt, und das Ende ist offen. Nicht dass ich offenen Enden nicht mag, aber hier passt es meiner Meinung nach gar nicht zu den Motiven und Gemütslagen, die in 90% des Buchs den Grundtenor ausgemacht haben. Ich denke hier hat sich die Autorin zu stark verkünstelt in dem Versuch, noch eine Schippe draufzulegen und ein kleines Meisterwerk zu schaffen. Das ist wie ich finde aufgrund des seltsamen Ausklangs nicht ganz gelungen. Trotzdem bleibt ein dichtes, intensives, teilweise mulmig machendes Werk, mit dem Freunde des phantastischen Genres und von anspruchsvoller Literatur nichts falsch machen können.
November 7, 2020
This is more of a novella, brief but unfortunately not to the point. It is kafkaesque and the ending has me flummoxed. The main character, Herman, has overstayed at his vacation home in the mountains. He would like to return home to Paris but he cannot find his wife, Rose, and their unnamed child. The village which seems so familiar in August literally becomes a strange place. Herman notices the conformity of the inhabitants, the weather immediately turns inclement. Life as he knows it changes. He doesn't go home to Paris. And the ending???? Trapped in a car with his in-laws?????
August 24, 2021
When Herman's family stays one day later than usual in a small tourist town, the wife and son disappear.
This sounded like an intriguing twisty story (Kafkaesque - yay!) but it ended up being a confusing, dream-like surreal tale that I did not enjoy. It pushed my believability level at the very beginning too much: if your wife and son disappeared, there's no way you'd just sit around and be tired. I wasn't impressed by the descriptions and think that the translation may have not held up well for this novella. The ending truly irritated me - I felt betrayed after having read the book.
This sounded like an intriguing twisty story (Kafkaesque - yay!) but it ended up being a confusing, dream-like surreal tale that I did not enjoy. It pushed my believability level at the very beginning too much: if your wife and son disappeared, there's no way you'd just sit around and be tired. I wasn't impressed by the descriptions and think that the translation may have not held up well for this novella. The ending truly irritated me - I felt betrayed after having read the book.
July 27, 2020
I think this book has not translated well to (this) english audience. Although the writing is interesting, I also do not find it either plausible in reality nor gripping enough to be a good fantasy. The book is to be released later this year.
December 31, 2020
“‘Have you noticed, Monsieur Herman, you can’t even see the hills anymore! By the eight or ninth of September the horizon disappears, everything’s gray; this is nowhere, we’re in the very middle of nowhere!’”
October 23, 2019
65/100
December 28, 2020
Dark, frightening and insidious. Kafka lives on!
January 24, 2021
I was hoping for something spooky but instead got a “if Paulo Coelho was more bleak” vibe.
December 13, 2022
J'ai tellement aimé pour des raisons que je vais entièrement pas spoil, mais la fin est...vraiment pas mauvaise mais...faut je laisse ça mariner dans les prochains jours lol
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