On dit souvent qu'il existe des hommes à femmes, on peut considérer qu'Hector est un homme à objets. Bien loin de comparer la femme à l'objet, nous notons toutefois d'évidentes similitudes, et les angoisses de notre héros pourront se refléter dans les angoisses des infidèles, et de tous les hommes transpercés par la rareté féminine." Après avoir collectionné, entre autres, les piques apéritif, les badges de campagne électorale, les peintures de bateaux à quai, les pieds de lapin, les cloches en savon, les bruits à cinq heures du matin, les dictons croates, les boules de rampe d'escalier, les premières pages de roman, les étiquettes de melon, les œufs d'oiseaux, les moments avec toi, les cordes de pendu, Hector est tombé amoureux et s'est marié. Alors, il s'est mis à collectionner sa femme.

Déçue par ce livre....
Un début intéressant sur la folie d'un collectionneur compulsif, Hector. On se délecte de sa folie et l'écriture regorge de tournures originales et hilarantes. La description de la famille d'Hector, austère et moustachue est sublime.
Mais l'amour s'en mêle, et avec un lavage de vitre de trop tout se brouille.... la lecture paraît longue, une impression de baclée.
Je vous laisse juger. ( )

There's a certain species of English twat who likes to go on about the fact that the French (or the Americans) ‘don't get irony’. This is nonsense, obviously – although certainly no one else has made irony quite so central to the national consciousness as the English have. In France, the steady, systematic application of irony that the English love so much is referred to as talking au second degré. Indeed if you're being especially meta or sarcastic you might be said to be talking in the third, or even fourth, degree. The French are perfectly well-practised at it, and this book is going to be my Exhibit A next time I have to have this argument.

The style is light and playful and allusive and never takes itself remotely seriously – as you can tell from the wonderful title (which the book doesn't quite live up to; but then what book could?). The paragraphs are short, the reported speech is minimal, and the plot is sketched out impressionistically through a series of internal dialogues and gently humorous set-pieces. It made me laugh out loud on the RER four times (although admittedly one of those was a deliberate attempt to annoy the woman sitting opposite me).

Hector, the hero, is a bumbling, anal-retentive, haplessly antisocial type – now I come to think about it, he kind of reminds me of Quoyle from The Shipping News. He has a bad case of collectionnite, which you might translate as ‘collectomania’ – accumulating beer mats, stamps, cocktail sticks, Croatian proverbs, melon labels, rabbits' feet – you name it, he'll collect it – all as a way of trying to avoid the complicated business of developing real human relationships. The highlight of his life so far has been coming second in a collectors' fair with a ‘Nixon is Best’ badge from the 1960 Republican primaries. He's a mess.

And then, he meets Brigitte. And they fall in love and get married. And as a way of trying to repress his urges, he shifts them on to her, and starts ‘collecting’ things that turn him on about his wife.

That's pretty much the whole plot. It works because the cast are cute and the style is so goddamn charming. The relationship between Hector and Brigitte is a little dysfunctional, but incredibly sweet.

“

Hector began to practically gargle with the phrase ‘my wife’. He used it in every possible variation. All someone needed to do was stop him in the street to ask the time, and he'd say, ‘I'm not sure…if only my wife were here…my wife has a lovely watch….’ Brigitte started to take on an air of Mrs Columbo.

Hector, par exemple, se gargarisait de l'expression « ma femme ». Il l'utilisait à toutes les sauces. Il suffisait qu'on lui demande l'heure dans la rue pour qu'il réponde « je ne l'ai pas, mais si ma femme était là… ma femme a une jolie montre… ». Brigitte prenait des allures de Mme Columbo. ”

Foenkinos uses his characters to explore the ways we need to learn to accept the people we're close to: Brigitte comes to understand Hector's penchant for seeing her clean the windows, and in return he agrees to do his best to fulfill one of her secret fantasies – thus setting up a finale that I thought was very funny and very touching.

Foenkinos is a big seller in France, and I have a niggling suspicion that if I were a native speaker I'd look down on him slightly for being a bit populist. Luckily I'm not one, so I can just enjoy it. In summary: funny, adorable, titillating, and displaying enough coolly-controlled irony to satisfy any national tastes.

( )

Un collectionneur de piques apéritif, badges de campagne électorale et autres étiquettes se soigne en découvrant son fantasme de voir son épouse laver les vitres (!). Un roman pseudo sensuel qui ne mérite guère mieux qu'un dimanche après-midi de pluie... ( )

I read David Foenkinos' Delicacy (or Nainen, jonka nimi on Nathalie as it's called in Finnish) some time ago. I liked it, but my expectations for another book of his were low. I guess I thought I'd get something very similar and Delicacy just isn't the kind of book I'd read twice. Surprisingly, Erotic Potential of My Wife turned out to be something quite different and I liked it even better.

Hector is an obsessive collector. He collects everything, things you wouldn't think were collectible. He knows it's a problem and tries to quit but like with any addiction, it's easier said than done. When he meets Brigitte and falls in love things finally take a turn for the better, until one day something she does reawakens his obsession.

Reading this novel was like watching a two hour film. With a few well chosen words and sentences Foenkinos creates a mood and paints vivid images into reader's mind as if he were a film director instead of a novelist. The Finnish translation supports the whole beautifully. All in all, Erotic Potential of My Wife is a charming, slightly absurd and incredibly funny novel. The only letdown was the ending that felt a bit flat, but I guess the author wanted to make one more joke about obsessive collecting. ( )