Isidore Mazal is eleven years old, the youngest of six siblings living in a small French town. He doesn't quite fit in. Berenice, Aurore, and Leonard are on track to have doctorates by age twenty-four. Jeremie performs with a symphony, and Simone, older than Isidore by eighteen months, expects a great career as a novelist--she's already put Isidore to work on her biography. The only time they leave their rooms is to gather on the old, stained couch and dissect prime-time television dramas in light of Aristotle's Poetics.
Isidore has never skipped a grade or written a dissertation. But he notices things the others don't, and asks questions they fear to ask. So when tragedy strikes the Mazal family, Isidore is the only one to recognize how everyone is struggling with their grief, and perhaps the only one who can help them if he doesn't run away from home first.
Isidore's unstinting empathy, combined with his simmering anger, makes for a complex character study, in which the elegiac and comedic build toward a heartbreaking conclusion. With How to Behave in a Crowd, Camille Bordas immerses readers in the interior life of a boy puzzled by adulthood and beginning to realize that the adults around him are just as lost.
"An utterly charming book—moving, witty, funny, and especially wonderful for the mature kind-heartedness of its view of humanity. Camille Bordas is an invaluable new voice." —George Saunders
"Even if Salinger's Glass family moved to rural France I doubt they would conjure a tale this funny, humane and slyly philosophical. Camille Bordas' first novel in English is charm itself!" —Zadie Smith @goodreads
I thought this book was wonderful! It has mixed reviews but I don't really care about that, I only care about what I think.
The first couple of paragraphs from the book had me choosing this one as my next blog book.
Excerpt
There was a darker brown stain on our brown suede couch. If I swept it one way with the palm of my hand, it almost blended in. I could squint and forget it was even there, but then a swipe in the other direction, and the stain reappeared, darker than I remembered, like I'd just fed it.
Everyone had a different story about the stain. Simone said I'd pissed the couch as a toddler, after running free from our mother's bundle of towels, just out of my bath. "You went straight for the couch, stood right there on the armrest, grabbed your half-inch wang, and aimed," Simone said. "I saw it, and Aurore and Jeremie, we never understood what came over you, Dory. It's like you were on a mission."
Yes, it is the oddball things that reel me in from time to time. I never said I was normal and normal is boring.
This story is unique, funny, sad and, well, real. The story is told through Isidore's (Dory) words. Not just him making commentary in his mind, there are real interactions.
He has 5 brothers and sisters: Berenice, Aurore, Leonard, Jeremie and Simone and they are all eerily smart. I say eerily because who has that many children that end up getting phd's and go in for more and oh anything you can think of that make them seem like robots. Not Dory, he's just a wonderful little kid that tries to take the world as it comes.
The book is funny in places and sad in others. The family as a unit is very strange. They call their dad "the father" it was something their mother cooked up. They only see him on weekends and certain times of the year because he travels a lot. Dory makes believe he's a spy. I felt sorry for Dory and I guess the whole family because the father was so distant and strange. The whole family is strange, they don't like anyone. (well the sibs)
Excerpts
The father and I were the only ones to actually go in the sea. He swam while I threw myself at oncoming waves, not too far from the shore, waiting for him to swim back to me. That's as close as I could get to sharing something with him, even though I was scared to go far out like he did.
My parents didn't look very much in love to me, and I thought it was my fault. I guess it's what happens when you're the only one to notice a thing: you feel responsible for it. They didn't really kiss, just a dry smack on the lips in the mornings when the father left for somewhere. They only seemed to exchange practical information about appointments or taxes, sometimes us. I thought they were waiting until I was old enough to move away to get a divorce.
There was an old lady that was a sort of celebrity in the story. Her name was Daphne and she ended up being 111 years-old. Dory and his mom would talk to her from time to time because most people didn't talk to her all that much unless she was getting an award for being so old or something. I liked their time with Daphne.
I believe it was 6 times in the book that Dory ran away. He went to see his older sister once, had a great conversation with a homeless man and a few other adventures. I loved Dory. He tried every thing.
Excerpt
I believed if I ran away from home, it would make my mother happy. She always complained we weren't adventurous enough, and while my siblings usually met her remark with the same indifference they granted statements of personal opinions in general, I, the youngest of the six of us, took it to heart. I didn't want to be blamed for others' quirks. I wanted to be my own man. To be different. I mean, I had no choice but to be different (I wasn't as smart or as good-looking as my brothers and sisters), but I had no particular idea what kind of person I should be either. I thought I could at least try what my mother had in mind and be adventurous.
One of Dory's sister had a penpal that came to visit, it was for school. She was ignored by the sister of course but Dory became a friend to Rose. I don't understand the rest of the family being the way they are to people. Even when something tragic happened, they were all weird about it and Rose was the only person that broke out crying. It was all strange. But I also felt that tragedy brought them together. They slept in the same room together for some time before going back to normal.
I could go on about the book forever and leave tons more excerpts but I will stop here. I love how everyone in the family started to be closer and talk to each other more closer to the end. Some of them even became human and not robotic. Either way, it was a lovely story and I enjoyed it so much. Dory is one of a kind.
Mel ♥
*Thank you to bloggingforbooks for a hardback copy of this book.*
GOODREADS REVIEW:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2115574905
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