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Amélie Nothomb: L’impossible retour [The Impossible Return]
Amélie Nothomb was born in Belgium but has claimed metaphorically that she was born in Kobe, Japan. She went to Japan at a very young age as her father was a diplomat there. She spent the first five years of her life there, before her father’s career moved on. She went back again as a young adult , having decided that Tokyo would be her chosen place. The gods did not concur with this judgement and sent her off to first to Brussels and then to Paris where she was initially like a bird in a country of cats. Nevertheless she has stayed there and is happy there. She has travelled though people ask her why would she want to travel when she lives in Paris. She did go back to Japan where a film was being made about her.
In 2021 her friend Pep Beni won the Niépce Prize. This site indicates that in 2021 the prize was won by Grégoire Eloy so we must assume that Pep Beni is fictitious. Her prize was two tickets to any destination served by Air France. She opted for Japan and chose Nothomb as her travelling companion, not least because Nothomb knew the country and be her guide and could speak the language. She was unsure about being anyone’s guide and had doubts as to whether she had retained her knowledge of Japanese.
Matters were not helped by covid which delayed the flight.
Eventually they get a flight but Amélie, as she apparently always is before leaving, is nervous,not helped by the fact is two hours longer thanks to the Ukraine War and flights being diverted around Russia. It is made even worse when the onboard film is Paris Memories about the terrorist attack in Paris.
On arrival in Kyoto she remembers the city but not how the different parts connect to one another. During the stay, Pep is dicovering the city while Amélie is reconnecting with the culture of her youth. However it is Pep who is very keen to immerse herself into Japanese culture, trying the various foods and soon declaring herself more Japanese than Amélie.
The cultural differences are soon very apparent. The many Japanese schoolchildren being shepherded round the temples are much better behaved than Western children would be and, of course, staff in restaurants and hotels tend to be politer though when Pep freaks out when she hears voices in her room and wants to change rooms at 1.30 a.m., the landlord tries to help but is not happy about it.
We also get fun facts such as the fact that the US planned to do A-bomb tests on Kyoto but backed off because the the Secretary of War had honeymooned in Kyoto and had fond memories of it. Amélie sarcastically congratulates him for not honeymooning in Acapulco.
Amélie had lived here for the first five years of her life and had returned later. She recalls both visits to the temples with her father and notes little has changed. She inevitably makes a comparison between this visit and the previous ones.
They are then off to Tokyo which is, of course a very different place. Amélie had lived there from the age of twenty-one to twenty-three (recounted in her Stupeur et Tremblements (Fear and Trembling), to which she refers more than once). It was not always a happy experience. It also seems that she did not do all of the obvious tourist things.
This time Pep once again shows her neuroses, but also shows that she is bolder in experiencing Japanese culture than Amélie. There are the usual cultural clashes. However Amélie decides to stay in touch with French culture by reading HuysmansÀ rebours (Against Nature). She also continues to mourn her father and feels that, when he died, it disconnected her from Japan and its culture.
The two women stay in the Ginza to be nearer the action. Yes. they go drinking, though whiskey and Guinness rather than sake. We also get the profound comments (Tokyo is a form of hyperamnesia).
They do get out of Tokyo and head for Mount Fuji with French friends who live in Tokyo and love it. There are discussions. as to which is the best view of the mountain.
As they depart and return to Paris, there are more profound analyses (Every trip impoverishes me) and she admits that it takes time to get back to being her Parisian self.
It is an enjoyable book, if not her best, as we renew her relationship with Japan, with the addition of also seeing it not just through Amélie’s eyes but also through the eyes of her somewhat noeurotic but also more adventurous friend.
Publishing history
First published in 2024 by Albin Michel
No English translation