5. Le Coeur découvert - Michel Tremblay
This is an odd book. It's set in Montréal in the 80s and is about two guys in a relationship, Jean-Marc is like forty and Mathieu is 24. The first two-thirds of the story is about them getting together and being together and then not being together and generally faffing about about being annoying. The last third gets more complicated as it involves their relationship with Mathieu's four-year-old son, his ex-wife and her new boyfriend, his family, his mum, Jean-Marc's friends... which is all much more interesting than the nonsense surrounding the feeble beginnings of their relationship. I suppose I must have liked something about it because I kept reading, but on the whole it was a bit dull. I don't see what the characters liked about each other. I didn't really like them. They were bland. They were beige. They were Belgium.
To be fair, in some ways it was really realistic, mostly because of the way the narrative veered off and the addition of details and anecdotes that didn't really have any point to them, but it lacked style. I have two more Tremblay books lying around that I've been meaning to read so I really hope this isn't his best...
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