Five Photos Of My Wife by Agnes Desarthe is a quirky little book, very enjoyable. One of those discoveries you go into blind and discover a treat. Under the entertaining journey of this old man is a subtle look at love, grief, and the meaning of existence. It was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and she has also won the Prix du Livre Inter and Prix Renaudot in 2010.
Max Opass was married to Telma for over 49 years, and is feeling the pain of being separated from her since she died. Without many photographs of her he sets out to hire some artists to paint her portrait - first blindly choosing from the yellow pages, he hires a woman who does not paint, he selects a renowned International artist, sometimes answering a noticeboard card, or running into two art students. In all he commissions five paintings, with wildly varied results. The goal isn't the portrait, but his journey through grief, memory, loss, love, reinvention, and opening up to the world once again.
Charming throughout, well written/translated, with an unpretentious look at artists and other assorted characters in a city as varied as Paris. Along the way there is even time for romance, and while another novel might wrap it up in a ribbon, Desarthe surprises to the end.
...When he listened to an artist discuss portraiture, he is lulled, his nerves gradually dissolving, giving way to the charm of finding himself in totally alien surroundings, with each new sentence a new landscape sketched itself in his mind's eye, rediscovering the feeling of eternal calm experienced by a little boy crouching in his mother's farmyard in the high summer, he would hold out his hands to the boldest chicks and felt he had been adopted into the uncomplicated world of the poultry.
Recommended, and I would seek out other novels by Agnes Desarthe.
1998 (translated 20012) / Tradeback / 165 pages
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