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Simply, put, Jean-Philippe Toussaint is one of the most original novelists working today, and will almost undoubtedly go down as one of the great comic writers of our era. Toussaint has been likened to some diverse artists (Jim Jarmusch, Samuel Beckett, Nicholson Baker), but perhaps the most apt com [...]
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Simply, put, Jean-Philippe Toussaint is one of the most original novelists working today, and will almost undoubtedly go down as one of the great comic writers of our era. Toussaint has been likened to some diverse artists (Jim Jarmusch, Samuel Beckett, Nicholson Baker), but perhaps the most apt comparison is to Charlie Chaplin, for a few reasons. 1) Like Chaplin, he turns regular-life situations into comedy by the slightest and subtlest exaggerations; 2) He loves "stills," moments when our attention freezes on some detail of everyday life and it strikes us as ridiculous; 3) His stories move from scene to scene with often only the flimsiest excuse for an over-reaching plot, although what we come away with is not just a patchwork of set pieces but rather a surprising feeling of melancholy. Toussaint's contemporary existentialism is as poignant as it is funny. As the narrator of Toussaint's novel Monsieur says in his closing line: "Life, mere child's play, for Monsieur."