Jason Furman's Reviews > First Blood

Remarkably thin. In some Amélie Nothomb novellas "remarkably thin" can be thought of as a positive, amazing how thin and intense it is. There is a bit of that here but much more that is merely, well, thin.

It starts out in a gripping manner with a twenty-eight year old man facing a firing squad and thinking back to the beginning of his life. But it never fills the promise of this start because it goes back and tells his life, through his eyes, with nothing resembling any sort of inevitability for ending up before the firing squad.

A few of the scenes are amusing, especially at the man's grandfather's country estate which is a mixture of old style wealth and current poverty along with literary genius and madness. But the more adult scenes of school and romance way too short to be engaging. And none of it fits together in terms of characters or pacing.

Note, it appears that this is largely the true story of Amélie Nothomb's father.