Book Review

The Story of Jane by Catherine Cusset

From Publishers Weekly
Set in the tangled groves of academe, this novel is focused on the love life of Jane Cook, who, like the author, is a young professor of French at an Ivy League college. Cusset has written four novels in French; this is her first to be written in English, though it was published first in France. The story begins when Jane finds a package with no return address on her doorstep. Inside is an unsigned manuscript, which turns out to be a novel about Jane herself her numerous love affairs and one-night stands, her failed marriage, even her friendships with a couple of female confidantes. As she compulsively reads, she becomes consumed by paranoia. Which of her lovers knows this much about her? Granted, she often confessed or told anecdotes about herself to others, sought comfort or advice, used someone as a sounding board for her frustration or rage. But no one person could know it all unless one of her lovers was a mad man who'd been stalking her for years in order to torment her with her own secrets before threatening her life. Unfortunately, Jane's story lacks variety; she's always either "bursting into tears" over a man or falling into bed with him. The literary device of a story within a story helps to sustain suspense, but abrupt changes between "then" and "now" create confusion. In France, this novel was Elle magazine's Book of the Year and a finalist for the prestigious Prix Medicis, but it may fall flatter on this side of the Atlantic.

After finishing the book I went over to Amazon to read the 6 customer reviews (with an overall 4 star rating). I’d say I’m with the 3 star people. Although the characters didn’t hold my interest, the book somehow did. And it wasn’t that I wanted to know *who* sent/wrote the manuscript. But something just kept me reading (unlike Vreeland's Forest Lover, which I am chucking. I just can't make myself read another page. Its just slow).

A few of the reviewers commended Jane on “not settling” for her super handsome, charming, got-a-good-job professor husband. Sometimes it seemed that she was so fixated losing him that she set up the circumstances to make it happen. And then sometimes it seemed like she just didn’t care how he felt (maybe for the “fear of settling” thing), but when you looked at what she had - a job she hated, tons of work, co-workers that hate her, and superficial friends (they seemed superficial to me, not Jane), I really don’t know which would have been the better or worse pick.

A couple more barriers for me were the many comparisons with famous old French authors/novels that I didn’t bother to ingest. I also could not sympathize with Jane and her struggle to publish or perish – it’s one of the main reasons I left University world. I did not want my job to be the main focus of my life.