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My Heart Hemmed in
My Heart Hemmed in | Marie Ndiaye
9 posts | 4 read | 16 to read
Marie NDiaye has long been celebrated for her unrivaled ability to make us see just how little we understand about ourselves. My Heart Hemmed In is her most powerful statement on the hidden selves that we rarely glimpse-and are often shocked by.There is something very wrong with Nadia and her husband Ange, middle-aged provincial schoolteachers who slowly realize that they are despised by everyone around them. One day a savage wound appears in Ange's stomach, and as Nadia fights to save her husband's life their hideous neighbor Noget-a man everyone insists is a famous author-inexplicably imposes his care upon them. While Noget fattens them with ever richer foods, Nadia embarks on a nightmarish visit to her ex-husband and estranged son-is she abandoning Ange or revisiting old grievances in an attempt to save him?Conjuring an atmosphere of paranoia and menace, My Heart Hemmed In creates a bizarre, foggy world where strange coincidences, harsh cruelty, and constantly shifting relationships all seem part of some shadowy truth. Surreal, allegorical, and psychologically acute, My Heart Hemmed In shows a masterful author giving her readers her most complex and compelling world yet.
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quote
Bertha_Mason
My Heart Hemmed in | Marie Ndiaye

"In just the few minutes since the boat docked, the intense paleness of the sky has succumbed to the invasion of an azure so elemental that the paving stones on the dock and yellow-and-white façades beyond the port seem tinted blue by it, as if no surface could resist absorbing such vigor."

quote
Bertha_Mason
My Heart Hemmed in | Marie Ndiaye

"I‘d rather die than see those faces again—faces mine must look a little like now that I‘ve aged some—I‘d rather die than feel the pity the sight of abandoned, rejected old people always inspires, a pity mixed with remorse and nostalgia, because don‘t all old people, quiet and unassuming all their lives, have a bereft or pleading look that can make your heart ache even when they‘ve never done one thing to deserve your indulgence?”

quote
Bertha_Mason
My Heart Hemmed in | Marie Ndiaye

"Vast pools of shadow submerge the corners of the [train station lobby] in a vagueness that seems aswarm with activity, though I can‘t see a soul, and I tell myself that this darkness must hold the ghostly, agitated, unhappy trace of everyone who‘s passed through here all day, and then I wonder if they might still be there and I simply don‘t see them"

review
tholmz
My Heart Hemmed in | Marie Ndiaye
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Panpan

I‘ve never had a book grab me so quickly to let me down so wholly. What a bizarre, bizarre story. Beautifully written, but really not for me.

review
merelybookish
My Heart Hemmed in | Marie Ndiaye
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Pickpick

Well this book was a trip! It's weird and a bit uncomfortable, but also riveting. At first, I was like, "what the hell is going on?" But that's what the narrator is feeling too. Because suddenly her respectable life is crumbling and she doesn't know why, or doesn't want to know why.
Not quite magical realism, but more than a paranoid delusion, this story imagines someone paying a real price for past cruelties, lies and self-deceptions.

batsy Nice review, that's the sense I get from NDiaye. I've only read two books (one was a short story collection) and it's always like, we're headed towards unnerving psychological territory, but I'll gladly let her take me there. 7y
merelybookish @batsy This was the first I've read by her. It seems a little bit bonkers but then it's not...and yes, total psychological territory...to the point where I was left thinking about my own judgements and feelings of superiority. 😳 7y
63 likes5 stack adds2 comments
blurb
merelybookish
My Heart Hemmed in | Marie Ndiaye
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When all your library requests become available! 😀😮🤔 #bookhaul #wheredoistart?

DebinHawaii Rabbit Cake!!! 💛💛💛🐰🎂 7y
Crystalblu Isn't that the worst?! 7y
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merelybookish @Crystalblu I already know I'll need to do some renewing and hope nothing else I want comes in. 😉 7y
batsy Binet! NDiaye! I covet this stack 7y
merelybookish @batsy Started the NDiaye last night. Its... strange! 7y
70 likes6 comments
blurb
merelybookish
My Heart Hemmed in | Marie Ndiaye
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1) West of Denver
2) Idaho by Emily Ruskovich (I feel like a broken record)
3) The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
4) I Want to Go Home by Gordon Korman
5) Brideshead Revisited (young Jeremy Irons 😍)
6) My Heart Hemmed In by Marie NDiaye
@Liberty #letstalkaboutbooksbaby

batsy Ooh yes me too for the NDiaye 🙌 7y
61 likes1 comment
review
RebeccaH
My Heart Hemmed in | Marie Ndiaye
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Pickpick

This book is strange and nightmarish, and also beautiful and haunting. Also deeply psychological. An experimental novel about the mind and identity and how our pasts haunt us. Not for the faint of heart or the inexperienced reader, but also really great.

shawnmooney Sold! 7y
25 likes2 stack adds1 comment
blurb
RebeccaH
My Heart Hemmed in | Marie Ndiaye
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This book is seriously freaking me out. So nightmarish.

22 likes3 stack adds