Attack (Nothomb)

Attentat is a novel of Amélie Nothomb published in 1997.

Synopsis

Presentation of the editor:

Épiphane would Otos be condemned by its ugliness to live excluded from the company of the men and prohibited love? Dvenu the star - paradoxical of an agency of signal-model, Épiphane will be very with turn martyr and torturer, ambassador of the international monstrosity… and in love with divine Éthel, a young actress moved by her ugliness.

In Attack , the novelist proposes two original characters to us. On a side Épiphane Otos, monster of ugliness but lit, fine and delicate spirit. Other Éthel, young astute actress but especially of an incredible beauty. The history is that of the Love that Épiphane dedicates to Éthel. It is also and especially a pretext to develop the idea of standard.

As in all the books of Amélie Nothomb, the literary references (Notre Dame de Paris for example), philosophical and artistic abound.

The use of a common vocabulary is not very also an essential feature of the style of this novelist.

Brief analysis

All the matter of auteure holds in the debate that she proposes to us on normality. What is what a standard? Which is the part played by the company, volunteer or not, in the development of that Ci? Beauty and Ugliness, by the dialog of Epiphane and Ethel, are the instruments chosen by Amélie Nothomb for its demonstration: we are ballotés by the glance of the others, worked by him. More largely, through the philosophy of Epiphane Otos, Amélie Nothomb invites us to call in question our certainty and to raise the question: is the opinion that I have on a thing, a fact, an idea, the fruit of a personal reflection or the absorption of a design which the company proposed to me and which I did not disavow?

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