Toda novela te pregunta si quieres seguir el viaje que está proponiendo, y tú lector decides si seguir o no. His quest to track down all copies of a particular edition of an unusual book occupies the rest of his free time. He enjoys her writing so much (and so, I suspect, will you) that he starts to perform extracts to the commuters on the 6. I was actually intrigued to see how the story evolved (cannot tell you detail here) but there is a glimmer of hope for this man. And his relationship with the previous operator of The Thing is simply wonderful – I raise a glass of champagne to Monsieur Vignolles and the discreetness of his unwavering emotional generosity.

Siempre me siento un poco culpable cuando puntúo tan alto un libro tan fino (187 páginas de relato con letra muy grande) que cuesta su precio (17 leuros y pico la broma). For all those fellow commuters, he was the reader, the bizarre character, who each weekday would read out in a loud, clear voice, from the handful of pages he extracted from his briefcase. Hatta Guylain'in arkadaşı Guiseppe'nin başından geçenler benim için ana karakterin önüne geçecek derecede, başlı başına bir konu. Nelagodno kašljucanje, tobože veselo zviždanje, povlačenje vode, svi oni zvuci što treba da priguše one iz treće kategorije, koji prate radnje: ispuštanje vetrova, brbotanje, pljuskanje, šum trenja o emajl, pad u vodu sa velike visine, odmotavanje toalet-papira, cepanje papira za brisanje ruku.

Not that it needs to be any longer or more convoluted than it is – once the author has set up his ingenious central conceit, it’s almost as if the narrative takes on a life of its own, freewheeling inexorably, enjoyably and even sometimes a little giddily towards its conclusion. Ponekad volim te ljude kad dolaze ovamo onako ranjivi u svojoj želji da olakšaju bešiku ili isprazne utrobu.

He counts amongst his friends, the guard in the guardhouse at work and a rather eccentric legless man that speaks in Alexandrines. Translated editions of The Reader won several international prizes, including the Grinzane Cavour Prize in Italy and the Prix Laure Bataillon in France. I really enjoyed the mixture of poetic tone and relatable humour in the book and thought it was a really easy and quick read.We also learn about the day-to-day shenanigans at the recycling plant, and we’re introduced to several of the eccentric characters in Guylain’s world. Before his death, Jean-Paul Didierlaurent had said, “Lots of people have told me that the novel reminds them of the films of Jeunet.