First published in France in 2012; published in translation by Other Press on May 23, 2017

Michèle lives in fear, sometimes in a state of panic. She believes in signs and portents that she sees everywhere. She receives anonymous texts that might be perceived as threatening, and she assumes they came from her rapist. Michèle treats the rape as a fact of life, in much the same way as she regards less significant events in her life.

The forces that shaped Michèle quickly become apparent. Michèle’s father has served thirty years in prison for a monstrous crime that occurred during Michèle's childhood. Her mother is paying young men for sex. Michèle isn’t pleased that her mother wants her to visit and forgive her father.

Michèle’s job is to evaluate screenplays. She doesn’t like Richard’s, a subject she danced around during the years they were married. Michèle left Richard before he learned about her affair with Robert, husband of her best friend Anna. Her son Vincent has been rude to her ever since the divorce. Vincent’s girlfriend Josie is pregnant by another man.

All of this we piece together in the first thirty pages of a novel that is largely based on Michèle’s fragmented thoughts. She is surprised when a rivalry develops between Richard and her married neighbor Patrick, with whom she’s thinking of having an affair, although she’s also thinking of ending her affair with Robert. As the novel moves forward, Michèle makes some decisions, defers others, and allows some decisions to be made for her. In other words, her life proceeds as lives do, although hers is more dramatic than most.

Michèle is a woman of moods. She wants to sleep with Patrick and then she doesn’t and then she does and so on. She hates her mother and then loves her and then hates her and so son. Sometimes she thinks she should change her ways; other time she looks forward to having more “unusual adventures” (i.e., sleeping with married men). Eventually (and I write this as a warning to sensitive readers) she indulges in rape fantasies that become realities.

There were several times when I thought (as I suspect many readers will), “Why is she doing this?” But it’s clear that Michèle doesn’t always know why she behaves as she does. The closest she comes to an answer is, “sometimes people would do just about anything to feel a tiny bit better.” And “just about anything” can include behavior that might seem rewarding in the moment even if, viewed later with a more rational mind, the behavior is self-destructive. As she tells her cat, “It’s a little complicated to explain,” probably because we can’t explain what we don’t understand.

To her credit, even when the circumstances of her life have victimized her, Michèle does not play the role of victim. She uses adversity to learn truths about herself, not all of which are pleasant. She moves forward, and whether those moves are healthy or not, they are preferable to wallowing in self-pity. Michèle might not be an exemplary person, but she isn't a bad person. Her character is a reminder that people respond to difficult childhoods in many different ways. It would be easy to judge Michèle, but she doesn’t deserve to be judged. All of that makes her a strong literary character.

RECOMMENDED

I was attracted to this after spotting the film made from it a while ago (I had not seen the film but liked its theme) - and the novel itself is elegant and engaging like crazy. It reverses how a woman might be expected to feel after violence done to her - she is not a victim. And her maturity in the face of what is really common experience in big and small ways is intriguing.

One of the BEST books I've read in a long time. It was well written, clever, intense, and so thought-provoking. I would absolutely recommend ELLE to everyone - its a must-read!!

This is one hell of a twisted novel! I loved the eroitc and pshycho-thriller tones that it had. At times my skin was crawling and one night while reading it I was so entranced I became a little paranoid that I was being watched. Defintely worth it!

Originally called Oh... by Philippe Djian, this psycho-sexual thriller follows the aftermath of a rape. Michele is raped, laying on her floor. She gets up, clean up the mess and proceeds through her life.

Michele is not necessarily a likeable character. In fact, some will find her cold, heartless and...maybe a psychopath herself.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book.

“There is a line that must never be crossed.”

As an Isabelle Huppert fan, I was delighted to watch her in the recent film, Elle. She excels at playing difficult, non-mainstream women who have the tendency to go nuclear when things turn south. Elle was one of the more interesting French films I’ve seen lately, but the ending was a bit disappointing. I hoped the book by Philippe Djian would bring a little more clarity to the character of Michèle, and I was not disappointed.


The film is quite faithful to the book with just a few minor differences. In the film, Michèle owns a video game company and that job allows for a great deal of visual scope when exploring violence against women (and the violence of video games in general). The book, which depicts Michèle as the emotionless owner of a production company allows us to enter Michèle’s head and offers trains of thought that arguably explain her actions.

The book opens in the aftermath of Michèle’s brutal rape at the hands of a masked intruder. The shock of this act isn’t based so much in the aggression, but in Michèle’s actions afterwards. She doesn’t call the police. Instead she picks herself up, takes a bath and orders sushi for her son and his pregnant girlfriend.

This is not to say that Michèle isn’t shaken by the attack. She is. She buys Mace, changes the locks, searches the house with a meat cleaver, and becomes increasing aware of the vulnerability of living alone in a large house now that her grown son, Vincent and her ex-husband, Richard have left. It takes her a few days before she tells anyone, and it’s as though she hugs the information about the rape close. She can’t stop thinking about it, but at the same time she acknowledges that she’s “known worse with men I freely chose.”

I am very upset about the way I’ve reacted to this whole thing, about the confusion it’s caused in me, seemingly more unimaginable and obscure with each passing day. I hate having to struggle against myself, to wonder who I am. Not having access to what is buried, buried so deep inside me that only the tiniest, vaguest murmur can be heard far away, like some forgotten, heart-wrenching and totally incomprehensible song.

Almost from the first page we know that Michèle is different, and that difference can be traced back to her relationship with her father who’s locked up for a horrendous crime spree, the nature of which is revealed as the book continues. Michèle’s 75-year-old mother is still alive, and although she’s supported by her daughter, she maintains a young lover and intends, to Michèle’s disgust, to marry him. In the past, Michèle has “eliminated” her mother’s suitors by telling outrageous lies, but this lover can’t be shaken off. Michèle thinks her mother is “a real slut.”

She looks like one of those terrifying old actresses-completely plastered over, breast lift at five thousand a pair, eyes all agleam, tanned to the hilt.

The rape occurs just before Christmas, and the novel unfolds over a short period of time with Michèle arranging a Christmas dinner to which she invites Richard and his new girlfriend, a hot, young thing, and the neighbours across the street, banker, Patrick and his wife, Rébecca. We see Michèle in the context of her complicated relationships with her ex husband, her best friend, Anna, Anna’s slimy “soulless” husband (and Michèle’s lover), Robert, Michèle’s son Vincent and his pregnant (by another man) girlfriend, Josie. Michèle has unemotional, but clinically proficient sex with Robert, and isn’t troubled by the fact that she’s banging her best friend’s husband. He was there at the right time and fills a need, but now she’s bored with him and wants to move on.

Everyone in Michèle’s life wants something from her. Her ex wants her to promote his lacklustre screenplays, her son “imbecile” Vincent who’s finally got a job at McDonalds wants financial support for himself, Josie, and the baby (whose father is in a prison in Thailand). Michèle’s mother also wants financial support, and Robert wants sex on demand regardless of Michèle’s mood or their location. It’s interesting that no-one wants affection or love, and that’s just as well as Michèle doesn’t have any to give away–well except for the cat. The novel excels by hinting at various motives behind Michèle’s behaviour, and it’s possible to walk away from the novel with multiple answers for what she does. For this reader this novel is much much darker than a revenge tale. Sometimes Michèle recalls her father–a man who seemed normal until he wasn’t. Similarly her rapist has “two faces” and in certain moments, she sees “a rather unfortunate overlapping of his two faces, which makes him at once attractive and repulsive, and not far from resembling my father.” We’ll never know what motivates Michèle, but for this reader, it’s a lot darker than the ‘cat-and-mouse’ suggested by the book’s blurb. The rape unleashes something in Michèle:

It’s this other me coming out, though I fight it tooth and nail. It;s a me that invites confusion, flux, unexplored territories

Elle will make my best-of-year list.

Emma’s review

Review copy

Translated by Michael Katims

Also by Philippe Djian & also recommended: Consequences

I saw the movie, but wanted to read the book, because the book is always better. I was not disappointed. The writing gives a deeper view into the psyche of the main character that you can't see on screen. I simply couldn't put the book down. I loved the writing. Elle terrifies me, the way she thinks, the way she acts as a mother, the way she makes decisions. You can see the connection to her father. The novel overall is full of dark and disturbing characters and I love them all.

This is a story of many facets. Dark and brooding, mysterious and psychological are just a few words I would use to describe it.
Difficult and unsettling at times but a rewarding read. The reader really knows Michele and the strength she shows despite the ordeals she is put through.
A enjoyable, compulsive read.

It's hard to describe the genre of this book, it is not completely a mystery, but there is a lot of psychological violence. Michèle is a successful woman with her own company, who supports her mother, her grown son and his girlfriend, pregnant by another man. Her father has been in prison for decades after murdering a group of children. She may be a psychopath herself, as she doesn't seem to have any strong feelings for anyone. Her family shamelessly takes advantage of her, her ex-husband is seeing another, younger, woman, and Michèle has just been raped. Now, most women would probably be distressed at such a violation, but not Michèle. This is just a week in her life. But if saying all this makes it sound like a boring read, it's quite the opposite. This is a complex, rich novel that almost reads as a stream-of-consciousness narrative. Michèle is not likable at all, but she is real and this novel is like being inside her head. It's a hard book to read, but rewarding and heart-breaking.

Like most people, I came to this after seeing the shocking, but excellent film version. Although the only other book by Dijan I've read was also due to it's film version (37°2 le matin, AKA Betty Blue), he is a novelist whose works continue to intrigue and astonish. This somewhat (pardon the expression), fleshes out the movie in important details, and makes somewhat more explicit what is only hinted at in the film. Well worth reading for the comparison. Thanx to Netgalley for the ARC.

I really enjoyed the film Elle and I was desperate to read the book it's based on, I don't read french though so it made me happy when I saw it was being published in English. The book does not disappoint, just like the film it presents a difficult story that elicits many feelings, some compassionate and some angry. Excellently written and from what I can tell very well translated. Great for fiction readers that like something a bit different and controversial.

Trying almost too hard to be controversial, this ends up being sexually grubby and unbelievable. That a woman who has been raped can then fall into consensual forced-sex games with her erstwhile rapist is a potentially fraught and interesting scenario - but this isn't the book to tackle it. There are too many distractions in this dysfunctional family to give much weight to the sexual theme and it's all treated in a cursory, detached way. Dare I suggest that a female writer might have given this a very different treatment? A brooding screenplay and charismatic actors might do much to retrieve this rather thin book as an art-house film.