Amélie Nothomb - The Book of Proper Names

Another wonderfully tart Nothomb fable - they slide down so easily, and I suspect them to be addictive (I don't know how I'm going to cope with losing the near-instant gratification of all literary desires provided by the university library systems). This seems to be her latest (it's certainly her latest in English translation), and she's shucked off much of the annoying preciousness which marred her earlier writing. As a result, the book (at 122 widely-spaced pages, it's hardly a novel) is pleasingly taut - slender and well-formed, or words to that effect - and the moments of whimsy work better (including the amusing, unbalancing metafictional entry of Amélie Nothomb late in the piece). The flipside is that it's slightly lacking in zest, but tis still très bien.