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    Life Form
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    Life Form
    Unavailable
    Life Form
    Ebook105 pages2 hours

    Life Form

    By Amélie Nothomb

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Life Form, Amélie Nothomb's nineteenth novel is a smart, singular, surreal novel about personality and philosophy, trauma and healing, solitude and human connection from one of the most widely read and beloved authors working today. 

    One morning, the heroine of this book, a famous author named Amélie Nothomb, receives a letter from a fan, Melvin Mapple, an American soldier stationed in Iraq. Horrified by the endless violence around him, he takes comfort in eating. He eats and eats until his ever-growing bulk starts to suffocate him and he can barely fit into his oversized clothes. Disgusted with himself, but unable to control his eating, he labels his excess self Scheherazade as a type of coping mechanism.

    Repulsed but also fascinated by Mapple's story, Nothomb begins to exchange letters with him. She opens up to Melvin about the challenges of being in the public spotlight and about her artistic processes. An epistolary friendship of sorts develops, one that delves into universal questions about human relationships. The bond between Mapple and Nothomb will undergo a sea of change when the novelist discovers bizarre facts lurking behind Mapple's complex personal story.

    Life Form is a riveting and topical novel by an author who never fails both to delight and to surprise her readers.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEuropa Editions
    Release dateFeb 5, 2013
    ISBN9781609451073
    Unavailable
    Life Form
    Author

    Amélie Nothomb

    Amélie Nothomb nació en Kobe (Japón) en 1967. Proviene de una antigua familia de Bruselas, aunque pasó su infancia y adolescencia en Extremo Oriente, principalmente en China y Japón, donde su padre fue embajador; en la actualidad reside en París. Desde su primera novela, Higiene del asesino, se ha convertido en una de las autoras en lengua francesa más populares y con mayor proyección internacional. Anagrama ha publicado El sabotaje amoroso(Premios de la Vocation, Alain-Fournier y Chardonne), Estupor y temblores (Gran Premio de la Academia Francesa y Premio Internet, otorgado por los lectores internautas), Metafísica de los tubos (Premio Arcebispo Juan de San Clemente), Cosmética del enemigo, Diccionario de nombres propios, Antichrista, Biografía del hambre, Ácido sulfúrico, Diario de Golondrina, Ni de Eva ni de Adán (Premio de Flore), Ordeno y mando, Viaje de invierno, Una forma de vida, Matar al padre, Barba Azul, La nostalgia feliz, Pétronille, El crimen del conde Neville, Riquete el del Copete, Golpéate el corazón, Los nombres epicenos, Sed, Los aerostatos y Primera sangre (Premio Renaudot). En 2006 se le otorgó el Premio Cultural Leteo y, en 2008, el Gran Premio Jean Giono, ambos en reconocimiento al conjunto de su obra.

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    Reviews for Life Form

    3.5/5

    74 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Here's the Amelie I love, edgy and weird but also sensitive and insightful while still tough as nails. What a strange little novel, destined to provoke consternation and conversation everywhere it lands.
    • 4/5
      This short novella is a quick and interesting read, although ultimately it does not feel fully successful to me. It largely consists of an exchange of letters between "Amélie Nothomb" and Melvin Mapple, who claims to be a soldier in Iraq. The letters start short and oddly with Mapple saying that only she can understand him, but then they start to get longer as he explains that in an act tantamount to sabotage he and his "buddies" are rapidly gaining weight. He tells her that he imagines that the new 200 pounds in him is a separate person, a woman called Scheherazade, and that he is regularly going through new army uniforms. The letters are interspersed with Nothomb in the first person reflecting on the letters, her letter writing in general, and projecting her naive attitudes towards America, the corn belt, and the Iraq war onto her correspondent--while being aware of the naivety of her views. Eventually we find out the correspondent is not what she thinks but instead of being turned off Nothomb's enthusiasm, interest and caring grows.I found Life Form to be a page turner, but I kept hoping something more interesting would come of all of it. But still, is an interesting novella about the impact that writing has, obsession, obesity, the European perception of America, and much more.
    • 4/5
      Amelie Nothomb is known for her letters writing - and it is not surprising that she turns to such a familiar topic for one one of her latest novels (latest in English but I think that she managed to get some more published after this one...)The novel is almost a nod to the old epistolary novels - the heart of the story is the letters exchange between Amelie Nothomb (which shares the name and the habits of the author but is not exactly her) and Melvin Mapple - an US soldier in Iraq who has a curious problem - he had become obese as a result of being a soldier and as an act of an active sabotage. And that's how the story unfolds - with Melvin writing long letters, Amelie answering in short (and very positive) letters. And somewhere there, between the letters are the thoughts of Amelie about the situation, about letters and about writing in general - which change the perspective. Because a lot of the letters she sends are not what she would have sent if she had decided to send her own thoughts - they are more diplomatic that anything else. And her thoughts are showing an European thinking about USA that still exists - even if it is not as prevalent as it had been 20 years ago, it sounds almost logical for someone that does not use computers.The turning point of the novel does not come as a complete surprise... even if it is a surprise for our Amelie. And her last action makes one almost laugh - especially if they had been through US Immigration a few times (and no, the outcome won't be what our protagonist expects). It is a nice story about the almost forgotten art of letter writing and about the creative process of a writer; about identities and the lies that can be said when the only connection between people is a string of letters. A story of self-image and self-loathing and of what people would do just so they can get some company... In today's digital world, letters are not something that people spend time on and not knowing how your friend is for weeks and months is something almost foreign. And yet... the story hits that little seed of remembrance from the past days - when internet was too young to be useful and people were using the good old snail mail. But something is still disconnected - for some reason, the book feels more like a plan for novel than a proper novel...
    • 4/5
      This short novella is a quick and interesting read, although ultimately it does not feel fully successful to me. It largely consists of an exchange of letters between "Am̩lie Nothomb" and Melvin Mapple, who claims to be a soldier in Iraq. The letters start short and oddly with Mapple saying that only she can understand him, but then they start to get longer as he explains that in an act tantamount to sabotage he and his "buddies" are rapidly gaining weight. He tells her that he imagines that the new 200 pounds in him is a separate person, a woman called Scheherazade, and that he is regularly going through new army uniforms. The letters are interspersed with Nothomb in the first person reflecting on the letters, her letter writing in general, and projecting her naive attitudes towards America, the corn belt, and the Iraq war onto her correspondent--while being aware of the naivety of her views. Eventually we find out the correspondent is not what she thinks but instead of being turned off Nothomb's enthusiasm, interest and caring grows.

      I found Life Form to be a page turner, but I kept hoping something more interesting would come of all of it. But still, is an interesting novella about the impact that writing has, obsession, obesity, the European perception of America, and much more.
    • 4/5
      Amélie Nothomb was born in Japan to Belgian parents, lives in Paris, and writes about the United States' war in Iraq. That's the kind of worldliness I like for an Around the World for a Good Book selection. Nothomb creates a fictional version of herself in this novel (how true-to-life, I do not know) in which she carries on a correspondence with an American soldier in Iraq, Melvin Mapple. The soldier is aware that Nothomb (the fictional one, at least) responds to letters from her readers and that she may be a sympathetic voice. Over the course of the letters, Mapple reveals that he and other soldiers react to the war through eating and enormous weight gain. Mapple sees it as a means of protest, forcing the military to pay for food and increasingly larger clothing. As the correspondence continues, the absurdity increases so that Mapple's obesity is treated as an artistic statement. Nothomb creates in herself an unsympathetic sounding board for the pathetic and grotesque Mapple. The book works well both as a satire of American foreign policy and obesity problem, but also is a gripping read with a number of interesting twists. On a literary level it works with the ideas of language and reality.
    • 2/5
      An und für sich eine gute Idee für einen Roman: Ein amerikanischer Soldat kompensiert seine Kriegserfahrungen mit Fresssucht und ist zum Teil auch noch stolz darauf. Er beginnt einen Briefwechsel mit der Protagonistin, deren Name derselbe ist wie jener der Autorin (es ist also schon davon auszugehen, dass hier Autobiografisches im Spiel ist). Nothomb beschäftigt sich leider 142 Seiten hauptsächlich mit sich selbst, mit ihrer Manie, Briefe zu schreiben und das Internet zu negieren. Wir erfahren viel von ihrer Sichtweise des Schreibens, hauptsächlich ist das Buch aber eine Gebrauchsanweisung, wie man Frau Nothomb am besten einen Brief schreibt (z.B. doppelseitig, damit die Umwelt geschont wird). Der Text hat wenig Tiefgang, die Wendung für alle Mitdenkenden wenig überraschend und das Ende zwar offen, aber übertrieben skurril. Da hilft es auch nichts, wenn die Autorin explizit auf ihre Verkaufserfolge verweist.