Fear and Trembling - Hardcover

Nothomb, Amelie

3.73

36,500 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312272189 ISBN 13: 9780312272180

Publisher: St Martin's Press, 2001

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Winner of the Grand Prix de I'Academie Francaise and the Prix Internet du Livre, this taut tour-de-force of a novel created a sensation in France, where it has sold nearly half a million copies. FEAR AND TREMBLING tells the story of Amelie, a young Western woman who spends a year working at a Japanese corporation. She soon learns that at the Yumimoto Corporation hierarchy means everything. Keep to your place and you survive; break ranks and you will be broken. The determined but hapless Amelie makes mistake after mistake, not least of which is deigning to sympathise with her immediate superior, the beautiful, effcient and ice-cold Miss Mori. A perverse process of ritual humiliation follows. But even as Amelie's life at the Yumimoto Corporation spirals inexorably and hilariously downward, what she learns about herself and her colleagues in this brilliant novel will alternately delight and outrage readers. Not since Marguerite Duras has a novelist so indelibly marked the difference between East and West, and with such seductive honesty.

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Product Description:

According to ancient Japanese protocol, foreigners deigning to approach the emperor did so only with fear and trembling. Terror and self-abasement conveyed respect. Am�lie, our well-intentioned and eager young Western heroine, goes to Japan to spend a year working at the Yumimoto Corporation. Returning to the land where she was born is the fulfillment of a dream for Am�lie; working there turns into comic nightmare. Alternately disturbing and hilarious, unbelievable and shatteringly convincing, Fear and Trembling will keep readers clutching tight to the pages of this taut little novel, caught up in the throes of fear, trembling, and, ultimately, delight.

Review:

"Elegantly written . . . Nothomb demonstrates a shrewd understanding of the intricate ways Japanese relationships are made and spoiled."--"The New York Times Book Review" "[A] polished little satire."--"The Wall Street Journal" "A scathingly funny novella."--"Newsday "(New York) "Amelie Nothomb adds humor, the ingredient most often missing in other writers from France of her generation, the ingredient most difficult to translate."--"Los Angeles Times" "An utterly charming, humorous tale of East meets West . . . Nothomb is a terrific writer whose writing style is simple, honest, and elegant. Very highly recommended."--"Library Journal" "A sharp, satiric new novel . . . Readers are sure to be won over by her spare, self-deprecating and wise tale."--"Publishers Weekly" "Highly entertaining . . . "Fear and Trembling" (a perfect title) is filled with both droll observations and wry bitch gags."--"Kirkus Reviews" "There can be no doubt about Amelie Nothomb's talent: her imagination, energy, facility, fertility, her edgy use of language all prove that she is a writer of enormous gifts. Her writing is as sharp as a whip, the perfect antidote to sleep-inducing novels. She wakes you up. She shakes you up . . . "Fear and Trembling" will keep readers entertained and on the edge of their seats until the final page."--"Le Figaro" "More than anything this is a beautiful love story--in which Sappho meets the Marquis de Sade."--"Le Nouvel Observateur" ""Fear and Trembling "is Nothomb at her finest. Never has she been so daring or inspired . . . This book is a small miracle. On second thought, no 'small' about it; it is plain and simple a miracle."--"Le Point"

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