Katie Kitamura

I expected more to happen in this book. Which is my fault, not the book’s. Which is the marketing’s fault actually—psychological thriller? Not really.

It’s a smart book about how much we can know about one another, about how much we can connect to one another, the lies we tell ourselves and others in order to connect and in order to remain apart, free. The book’s intelligence comes from the juxtaposition of the MC’s love life and her professional life as a translator for crimes against humanity legal proceedings at The Hague. Her empathy gets all scrambled in her work …and maybe in her love life. Women in particular are wired to connect, to relate deeply…and it can make the world confusing and dangerous.

So smart. A smart book. But the relationship at the heart of the novel is boring? And even though she knows she’s pathetic, she’s still pathetic?

No. That’s not it. I have no beef with women who knowingly make bad romantic choices…I just don’t really like the main character. She’s dull. That’s the thing. That’s the thing. Smart book, dull MC.

The NYT review says, “ Though the words “emotional labor,” “feminism” and “colonialism” never appear, it is still deeply engaged with these grand social issues, while it also makes subtle comments on everything from art to jealousy to gentrification.” And it’s true.

This is a smart book. I don’t think the novel agrees with the MC’s choice at the end. I don’t think it disagrees. I think the novel is wise: given our wiring to attach and connect and bond in a dangerous world, we do the best we can.

I just wish the MC had a little more zest.… (meer)

[b:Intimacies|55918474|Intimacies|Katie Kitamura|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1605570704l/55918474._SX50_.jpg|87129689] is narrated by an interpreter working in the Court at The Hague. She tells us more of the back stories of her friends and lover than her somewhat mysterious self and the "strange intimacy" of her encounter with the accused former president of an unnamed African country in his cell or in the conference room with his lawyers. She translates from the French not his native Arabic, but he "sees" her in a way that frightens her as she ponders the power of language.
Another compelling thread of the book is her lover, Adriaan, who leaves her alone in his apartment for weeks while he goes to resolve his divorce with his wife in Lisbon. When will he return, or will he? Troubled by the adulterous affair of her friend Eline's bookseller brother who she espies in a restaurant, our unnamed heroine is uncertain of her own affair. She also questions her affinities with other people recently met in her move to Holland.
The book is well written in spare language and readable in short eventful chapters. I gobbled it up even though not entirely at ease with the ending.
Read Ron Charles review: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/katie-kitamura-intimacies-boo...… (meer)