THE NOVELIST Prosper Merimee said of the great historian Joseph- Arthur Gobineau: "He has the bump of comic observation." Sebastien Japrisot too was gifted with that bump, and he possessed several others - suspense, humour, and the twin bumps of grandeur and pity, vulgarity...

Paris. Gallimard. 2002. 178 pages. 14 [euro]. ISBN 2-07-076643-8 FICTIONAL WORKS proposing the depiction of contemporary history risk the criticism that, without the temporal distance of hindsight, they are little more than examples of a superficial literary opportunism. Sebastien Ortiz's novel Taleb,...

In the following review of La Passion des femmes, Mackey suggests that while much of the novel is captivating, it is, finally, not entirely satisfying.

Brookner is an English novelist, nonfiction writer, critic, and art historian whose books include Jacques-Louis David (1981) and the prizewinning novel Hotel du lac (1984). In the following excerpt, she focuses on the "clever" plot and the clear "narrative tone" of Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles.

In the following review of The Passion of Women, Watson focuses on how multiple narrators and a clear prose style effectively contribute to the mystery and suspense of the story.