fathers and sons at getting
inside one another’s heads.
So what does this meet-
ing with a blind, crazy
astronomer mean for the
philosopher Leibniz? It is
quite wonderful to contem-
plate The Organs of Sense as
the tragicomic illustration
of Leibniz’s universe of self-
contained monads between
which no communication
is possible.
Arthur Willemse
University of Maastricht
Erik Martiny
Ne soyez pas timide
Paris. Pierre-Guillaume de Roux.
2019. 302 pages.
After a novel written in English, The Plea-
sures of Queuing (2018), Erik Martiny has
produced a French-language novel that is
somewhat similar in terms of its grotesque-
ly comic tone. The apparent protagonist
and narrator of Ne soyez pas timide ( D o n’t
be shy) is a fifty-year-old high school teach-
er who has an affair with one of his teenage
students. However, this initial storyline is
quickly overtaken by a subplot that grows
to the point of filling most of the novel and
brings the reader back to the Paris (and,
more surprisingly, Thailand) of the inter-
war years.
The writer and director
Jean Cocteau takes center
stage during much of the
oversized subplot, initiat-
ing a young and very shy
narrator into a world of
drugs (mostly opium), sex,
and bizarre social experi-
ments (including living as
a panhandler), all of which
is presumably designed to
shatter the narrator’s bour-
geois inhibitions and guide
him, however harshly and
awkwardly, toward his
emergence as a full-fledged
writer. The middle-aged
Cocteau as a literary men-
tor and sexual initiator to
inexperienced young men
is more than plausible. The
rest of the novel is an exer-
cise in Rabelaisian humor,
alternating between learned
disquisitions and outland-
ishly disgusting sexual and/
or scatological encounters.
Martiny lives in France
and teaches British and
American literature. Unsurprisingly, his
novel is full of references and allusions to
writers, such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Alex-
andre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Franz Kafka,
and Vladimir Nabokov. Greek mytholo-
gy is also referenced through a character
named Tirésias. As for the second narrator,
his ludicrous name is Thomas Corbillard
(hearse). The linguistic profusion favored
by the author regularly overtakes any notion
of narrative continuity. Seemingly intent on
providing advance warning as to his liter-
ary methods and objectives, the narrator
often appeals directly to the reader: “Don’t
hold it against me when I resort to puns, to
digressions”; “if you only appreciate friendly
and admirable characters, stop reading this
book.” The title of the novel itself can be
seen as an admonishment to readers, who
are called upon to transcend their shyness
and immerse themselves in
this raunchy, profane ver-
sion of a bildungsroman.
Edward Ousselin
Western Washington
UniversityMona Dash
A Roll of the DiceLondon. Linen Press.- 302 pages.
Mona Dash’s debut mem-
oir, A Roll of the Dice, isan odyssey of an invincible mother who,
despite her best efforts, loses her firstborn
son diagnosed with SCID (severe combined
immunodeficiency). The etiology of this
disease is perhaps not known yet, and,
therefore, the treatment is not possible in
India’s underdeveloped medical system. The
death of her son proves to be a cornerstone
of a decisive change in her life and perhaps
the genesis of this book. Knowing that if
she bears a child again, her next child may
well be inflicted with the same disease,
her intense desire to be prepared leads her
to London, where she procures a job and
makes a new home.
A Roll of the Dice is a story of the
glorious transformation of a woman; her
sense of unassimilable loss and abiding
hopes go hand in hand throughout the
book. Although the void of her first lost
child reverberates so often, her astute cir-
cumspection, conjectural observations, and
unwavering trust propel her toward becom-
ing a mother again. Dash’s story is emblem-
atic of life’s unpredictability, darting back
and forth between sudden delightfulness
and creeping despair.
Divided into six sections with an intro-
duction by Bobby Gasper, a professor of
pediatrics and immunology, the book
describes SCID in a meticulous fashion.
At some instances, the memoir reads like
a drab manual of medical science deal-
ing with diseases and prognoses. However,
the simple narrative tapestry of the book
is spun around the medical terms sprin-
kled throughout its pages. As a hawk-eyed
observer, Dash captures her surroundings
with detailed description as well as the
moments of her emotional stasis that situate
the reader in the poignant world she creates.
The book’s evocative vignettes carry
soul-stirring descriptions of the visceral
emotions of a mother for her child. As she
unspools her own personal experiences,
however, she articulates a woman’s crystal-
lized determination to struggle through the
precariousness of life.
Mohammad Farhan
Aligarh Muslim UniversityWORLDLIT.ORG 111