book review

[Guest guest]

I just read a book I really enjoyed: " Stupeur et tremblements " by

Amélie Nothomb, available in English as " Fear and Trembling " and also

as a film.

Amélie is a young Belgian woman, born in Japan. She takes a job for

a year in a large Japanese company. It is authoritarian and

hierarchical. Everybody is her boss and she is nobody's. The

harassment starts immediately. She makes some errors, and things get

worse. She spends the last part of her year in the lowest job

imaginable, cleaning the toilets.

Amélie manages to protect her spirit from this. She does what a

Japanese would do. After she sank as low as was possible, the

hierarchy had no more power over her. The story is filled with humor

that is especially delicious to me, because Amélie's situation had

much in common with experiences I have had in both the USA and in

France.

This is a poignant exposition of how a rigid, autocratic society

makes all its people suffer, and how they manage to survive and take

their small revenges.

- Dan