BOOK REVIEW #15: VERS LA BEAUTE BY DAVID FOENKINOS

Vers la Beauté by David Foenkinos has a deeply distrubing Russian doll approach to beauty and tragedy, the closer you are to it, the more unjustly you will suffer.

Based in Paris and Lyon with classical museums and deep appreciation for art as its background, it can be read quickly, but the overall poignancy of life and death, the inhumanity of some, and the tender poetic artistry of others remains with the reader.

The style is subtle and melancholic just like the book’s main protagonist, Antoine Duris, a professor turned museum guard who lies when he is bored to escape meaningfulness, and who is often misunderstood himself, which makes him nearly understand a young student drowning in trauma.

It’s about varying degrees of different types of relationships he has with others, and how immersing oneself into art is only a temporary refuge.

Foenkinos is a master craftsman of light literature and societal storytelling, well worth a detour for many of his publications, including this one.