Book Review #4 - Delicacy

If ever I chose the right book to read at the right time, this book was it. I’ve been muddling through books for what seems like years, liking some well enough and recognizing some that deserve to be categorized as amazing (i.e. Unbroken) but, it’s been a long while since I’ve picked up a book that I didn’t want to put down. It seems even longer than that when the book also qualifies as great.

Even so, I’m nervous giving this an “amazing” rating but...I’m going to! Because, I loved it. It’s easy to read and funny and sad and unusual and interesting and thought provoking and exactly what I felt like reading.

I read a translation from the original French and there were only a few times when it really felt like a translation. The rest of the time, I felt like the english language was used perfectly. As a brief plot summary, Natalie, a beautiful French woman marries the perfect man for her who then dies. The rest of the book deals with how she moves on and how others treat her.

Except it’s more than that. I copied and pasted this from dictionary.com.


del·i·ca·cy   [del-i-kuh-see]
noun, plural -cies.
1.
fineness of texture, quality, etc.; softness; daintiness: the delicacy of lace.
2.
something delightful or pleasing, especially a choice food considered with regard to its rarity, costliness, or the like: Caviar is a great delicacy.
3.
the quality of being easily broken or damaged; fragility.
4.
the quality of requiring or involving great care or tact: negotiations of great delicacy.
5.
extreme sensitivity; precision of action or operation; minute accuracy: the delicacy of a skillful surgeon's touch; a watch mechanism of unusual delicacy.

It’s about all of these things!  Foenkinos takes each meaning of the word and layers his story with various situations requiring one or more of the definitions.  It is perfectly titled - one of my very favorite things in literature.  I almost feel annoyed when I read other reviews or, worse, the book jacket and it is simplified as a sweet romance.  Because it’s really about how and why people feel and think and do.  It just also happens to be sweet.

Such a pleasure to read.  I guess a movie is coming out as an adaptation of this book soon.  I have no idea how that will work because, in my opinion, this book’s strength is not its plot or even its characters.  It’s beauty is in the unspoken thought, reaction or motivation.  How they’ll translate that into a screenplay is beyond me.  Maybe it’ll work.  But, I doubt it’ll be anywhere close to as captivatingly delicate as the book.