Amelie Nothombe «Metaphysics of pipes»

Amélie Nothombe literally burst into French literature in the 90s. Her temperamental, passionate writing, her frankness, the unexpected exoticism of themes and provisions immediately riveted the attention of the public.

Amelie’s father was a diplomat, and the family lived for a long time in Japan, a country with which Amelie’s first impressions of childhood are connected. Actually, this is what is discussed in the Metaphysics of Pipes. Nothombe begins the story from the first days of birth and ends the novel when the heroine is three years old. One can only marvel at the artistic courage of the author, who decided to depict a pre-conscious, pre-memorable period of his life. In Russian literature, perhaps, one can name only one author who went as far into the history of his «I». This is Andrei Bely, the creator of the autobiographical stories «Kotik Letaev», «The Baptized Chinese». Nothomb’s novel has its own intrigue, its own periods of formation. First — a two-year stay in a kind of coma, absolute indifference to the world: Nothombe manages to describe in detail here the infantile sensations and reactions, the self-immersion of the «I». Then — an unexpected awakening of vital energies and the acquisition of speech, more precisely, the discovery of a gift that already lived inside — to others. The artistic persuasiveness in Notomb’s depiction of the child’s perception of the world as a miracle, as a paradise cannot but surprise. Her heroine feels like a deity, the center of the universe, possessing unlimited power over others (the Japanese really treat a child under three years old as a deity). The author seems to resurrect the memory of forgotten meanings, of the «heavenly» signs that the world reveals to a small person. In Nothomb herself, this memory of the «Japanese paradise» was so strong that she returned to Japan as an adult, deciding that this was the country in which she was destined to live.

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