Original Title: La petite fille de Monsieur Linh

 

This story is only about 130 pages long, this means a lot is left for the reader's imagination. Where does Monsieur Linh precisely come from? But the story is a very beautiful and subtle one, focussing on how unfitting someone can feel in a new environment, if everything you knew has changed. I thought the 'conversations' between the two elderly men were touching, and then *BANG* there is the end. I didn't see that coming.

 

Note: I read a Dutch translation of this book.

Philippe Claudel's Monsieur Linh and his child is a wonderful, original and haunting study of an an elderly refugee from an unknown war torn country. His son and daughter-in-law have died in the war and he is left to care for their only child and his grand-daughter.

This a short book with only 130 pages and therefore not one sentence is wasted with unnecessary information. The remarkable story told within those 130 pages will stay with you long after you have finished the tale. Although I finished this book yesterday, I honestly cannot get the characters and story out of my head and find myself thinking about the story and analysing the places and characters.

I love how Claudel crafted the story and the mystery sense of time and place unknown, as we are not told the exact location and setting of the happenings within the story, we must work this out with clues that we are given throughout the story.
I enjoyed the fact that I had to think about this as I read the story.

This is a book where the less said about it the better as the reader is better going into this one blind as I did and I had no idea what the story was about.

An exquisitely crafted short story but a book of beautiful prose and a very thought provoking read.

a tiny gem...

a tiny gem...

The twist at the ending certainly elevates the book entirely. A very sad sad story.