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A review by lightfoxing
Lea by Pascal Mercier
3.0
Lea is Pascal Mercier's latest novel, a meditation on loss, intimacy, passion, family ties, and ambition. The story begins with Martijn Van Vliet encountering a recently retired surgeon whose own family ties are tenuous. He is divorced, he and his daughter have a cordial but not close relationship, and he has been feeling unmoored of late. In Martijn, the untethered surgeon discovers a sort of kindred spirit - Martijn is a widower, and he speaks of his daughter, his only child, in the past tense. Over the course of a handful of days, Martijn tells the story of his daughter, a tragedy, to the sympathetic surgeon, who becomes more and more involved emotionally in not only Lea's story, but in Martijn himself. Lea, reeling from her mother's death, discovers at ten the violin. Her drive to become a violinist, and perhaps to fill emotional voids, comes to overwhelm not only her own life, but Martijn's.
Overall, I found Lea to be a good read. I thought about saying enjoyable, but it wasn't. The story itself is compelling, human, and all too familiar to people who have known broken individuals, creative individuals, or lost souls who cling to hard to the things that might ground them. There is an uncomfortable sense of witnessing a trainwreck, as you know from the beginning that there will be no happy ending for Lea or Martijn. Mercier chooses to tell the story from a distance, as Lea's story is filtered through Martijn, through the surgeon. There is an uncomfortable sense of voyeurism, as though listening in on the therapy session of somebody close to you. It makes for an intriguing read, though, and I enjoyed the technique given the themes Mercier explores regarding intimacy, familiarity, and a sense of removal from those closest to you.
Overall, I found Lea to be a good read. I thought about saying enjoyable, but it wasn't. The story itself is compelling, human, and all too familiar to people who have known broken individuals, creative individuals, or lost souls who cling to hard to the things that might ground them. There is an uncomfortable sense of witnessing a trainwreck, as you know from the beginning that there will be no happy ending for Lea or Martijn. Mercier chooses to tell the story from a distance, as Lea's story is filtered through Martijn, through the surgeon. There is an uncomfortable sense of voyeurism, as though listening in on the therapy session of somebody close to you. It makes for an intriguing read, though, and I enjoyed the technique given the themes Mercier explores regarding intimacy, familiarity, and a sense of removal from those closest to you.