A review by jesuisgourde
Funeral Rites by Jean Genet

5.0

For some reason I thought I wouldn't like this one as much as I've loved The Thief's Journal or Miracle of the Rose or Our Lady of The Flowers, but wow, this is an absolute masterpiece. The depths of grief and love and intimacy and betrayal and existentialism are all explored in this in such incredible ways. As always, Genet's ubiquitous flower symbolism goes through many shades, but I think this novel might be his most romantic. And Genet's usually stream-of-consciousness style is so extreme in this novel, it forces you to experience the erratic nature of grief and memory and symbolic association alongside Genet, and yet as with all his novels, from the distance he always remains. I get the sense, when reading Genet, of a more extreme version of the end of this novel: someone spilling all their most intimate thoughts and feelings and secrets, but doing so in a language you aren't very fluent in, and while sitting across the room from you, so that while you get the sense of the intense emotion, you are not privy to all of the context, all the exact associations, the full context of what is being felt and described. I absolutely adore Genet, and I'm fascinated by him, and I think this was my favourite of his novels.