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The Character of Rain: A Novel

"In the beginning was nothing, and this nothing had neither form not substance -it was nothing other than what it was." I read the opening sentence of Amlie Nothomb's, The Character of Rain (Mtaphysique des Tubes), and was hooked. I was not disappointed. Using a Japanese belief that children are gods until age 3, at which time they fall and become human Nothomb constructs a brilliant study of infancy. Deeply autobiographical, like all her work, and deeply philosophical, like all her work, what amazed me most was how completely she captured or imagined the self-preoccupation that is early childhood. Any child will believe it is the center of the universe (and why not an infant must be watched and waited on), and yet the same child will experience "the fall," the recognition that he or she is not a god, is not the center of the universe. Nothomb's ability to recognize this essential problem of being a child and tease out of her own experience the joys and pains of existence in a way that is as imminently and entertainingly readable as it is philosophical is where her genius lies. I've never read anything like it.

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