{"id":307606,"date":"2018-01-22T19:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2018\/01\/22\/a-best-seller-should-be-divisive\/"},"modified":"2018-07-21T10:47:40","modified_gmt":"2018-07-21T14:47:40","slug":"a-best-seller-should-be-divisive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2018\/01\/22\/a-best-seller-should-be-divisive\/","title":{"rendered":"A Best-seller Should Be Divisive"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I came up with my plan of reading (and writing about) a new translation every week, I wanted to try and force myself to read books that I would normally just skip over. There are definitely going to be months filled with books by New Directions, Coffee House, Dalkey Archive, etc., but to write about just<\/em> those titles would be pretty short-sighted, and would overlook all the university press books, the books from parts of the world that I\u2019m much less familiar with (a.k.a. everything outside of Europe and Latin America), and those \u201chot\u201d books that people actually read and which brush up against the best-seller lists. Books like The Perfect Nanny<\/em> by Le\u00efla Slimani.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Perfect Nanny<\/em><\/a> by Leila Slimani, translated from the French by Sam Taylor (Penguin)<\/b><\/p>\n

This novel first came to my attention on Twitter when someone (Jeffrey Zuckerman?) was complaining that the translator, Sam Taylor, wasn\u2019t even referenced in this profile that the New Yorker<\/em><\/a> ran. The author of the piece had responded, half-defending herself (she had read the book in French, so the translation sort of slipped her mind), and saying they\u2019d add Sam to the online version. (Spoiler: They haven\u2019t.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s always nice when a publication with a massive readership covers international literature, but the fact that they wrote about Slimani\u2019s novel\u2014winner of the Goncourt, a \u201c#1 International Bestseller,\u201d a book about nannies and mothering fears that probably hit a lot closer to home for the New Yorker<\/em>\u2019s readership\u2014is in no way surprising. This is a book designed to start conversations and garner praise. Like an Imagine Dragons song, it feels at times as if it was crafted by algorithm, perfectly designed to press all the right buttons in a general reader.<\/p>\n

That said, it\u2019s a pretty good book. If you haven\u2019t read the jacket copy (or the aforementioned New Yorker<\/em> article), this is a novel about a \u201cperfect\u201d nanny who loses her shit and murders the two kids in her care and herself. All of that is explained in the opening pages (\u201cThe baby is dead.\u201d is the first line), and then we go back in time to see how the nanny came to work in this household, what sort of anxiety cracks were drawn on her psyche, the increasingly complicated relationship between Louise and her employers, before returning to that first scene in which there is blood, screaming, and dead babies.<\/p>\n

I suspect that description is intriguing enough to hook a lot of readers, but \u201ca lot\u201d isn\u2019t necessarily the sort of explosive hit that Penguin is hoping for.<\/p>\n

Chanson Douce<\/em> has been translated into eighteen languages, with seventeen more to come. The title means \u201csweet song,\u201d which was rendered Lullaby<\/em> for the British edition. The American one, which comes out in January, will be called The Perfect Nanny.<\/em> John Siciliano, Slimani\u2019s editor at Penguin, told me, \u201cI didn\u2019t want to call it Lullaby<\/em>, because that sounds sleepily forgettable, and my goal is to reach a big commercial readership.\u201d He name-checked Gone Girl<\/em> and The Girl on the Train<\/em> and said, \u201cWe\u2019re getting this book into places like Walmart and Target.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Although there\u2019s no way to know for sure<\/em> if a book is going to take off or not, there are certain criteria that give a title a leg up. The Bestseller Code<\/em><\/a> is an attempt to figure out some of the \u201csubtle cues\u201d that make certain books appeal to the masses while leaving others destined for the Great Remainder Pile in the Sky. I haven\u2019t read this book (sounds sort of interesting to me, but only in a Blinkist<\/a> version), and have no experience working on a best-seller, which is the perfect backdrop for some wild, unlearned speculation about why The Perfect Nanny<\/em> is going to take off.<\/p>\n

1) It\u2019s short and breezy. This book hardly fills its 220 pages. The chapters are short, there are a ton of blank pages, the leading is sizeable, the whole novel is readable in around four hours. This is good! Who wants to read a brick that they\u2019ll have to carry around for weeks and weeks? Something with a lot of words on the page? NERDS<\/span>. That\u2019s who.<\/p>\n

2) The style is from the Hemingway school of writing\u2014short, direct, concise, with little abstraction. People love this shit. For a book to be a best-seller, it has to be an entertainment first. And what\u2019s entertaining to the widest range of readers is a book that is solid, something you can easily envision, with sentences you never get lost in. (Having to reread a sentence or a paragraph would negate the gains found in point number one.) Here\u2019s a totally random example of Slimani\u2019s writing:<\/p>\n

The children come out of the water and run, naked, into their mother\u2019s arms. Louise starts cleaning up the bathroom. She wipes the tub with a sponge and Myriam tells her: \u201cDon\u2019t bother, there\u2019s no need. It\u2019s late already. You can go home. You must have had a tough day.\u201d Louise pretends not to hear. Squatting down, she continues scrubbing the edge of the bath and tidying up the toys that the children have tossed around.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

The whole novel is unchallenging in that way. It\u2019s the kind of writing that you can sort of relax into, the type of writing that lets you forget that your life is stressful and a struggle. I can see why this appeals to a lot of people\u2014it\u2019s the sort of writing that uncomplicates your consciousness as you read it.<\/p>\n

3) Ambiguous character motivations. Although people love prose that\u2019s concrete and unambiguous, they don\u2019t want the characters to be that simple. You\u2019re a fool if you think that this book is going to clearly, in logical, indisputable fashion, explain exactly what went wrong for Louise and what led her to kill Mila and Adam. What would be the fun in that? How can you even have a book-club discussion if you can\u2019t argue about the core part of the book. (\u201cWas she always dangerous and the stress put her over the edge?\u201d \u201cWas it because of her money problems?\u201d \u201cWas she resentful of Myriam and Paul\u2019s success and seeming disinterest in having more kids?\u201d \u201cDid Paul and Myriam force her into this situation?\u201d) If a book doesn\u2019t have that sort of ambiguity at its core, lots of readers will simply forget it.<\/p>\n

4) Going one step further, all the main characters should be both inherently sympathetic and, at the same time, somewhat evil. The scene when Paul blows up at Louise about putting makeup on Mila is a good example of this. Paul\u2019s a decent enough guy\u2014contrary to cliche, there\u2019s no sexual tension between him and his perfect nanny\u2014but not always. He loses his temper. He\u2019s not always in tune with his wife. He\u2019s loud when he\u2019s drunk. We don\u2019t always<\/em> like him. And for most of the book, Louise is incredibly sympathetic, especially as you find out about her estranged daughter\u2019s behavioral issues, the financial disarray her husband left her in when he died (thanks to his kooky belief that the best job in the world was firing off questionable lawsuit after questionable lawsuit), etc., even though, all along, from moment number one, you know that she\u2019s brutally murdered two kids.<\/p>\n

5) The fact that Penguin wants this book to be successful. If you throw enough money at it\u2014and stock it in Walmart and Costco and Wegmans\u2014you will be able to sell a boatload of copies. (And you\u2019ll be able to get it into the right hands so that it\u2019s \u201cNamed One of 2018\u2019s Most Anticipated Books by NPR\u2019s Weekend Edition<\/em>, Real Simple<\/em>, The Millions<\/em>, The Guardian<\/em>, Bustle<\/em>, and Book Riot<\/em>.) Sure, some books are flops, but when a corporate publisher puts their might behind something like this, a flop means they only sold 25,000 copies instead of 200,000. Sure, this isn\u2019t financially<\/em> successful for them, but getting that many people to read a given book seems pretty damn good to, I don\u2019t know, 99% of all writers? Success is relative.<\/p>\n

6) Also doesn\u2019t hurt that this book is available in 35 languages. On the surface, that wouldn\u2019t really seem to matter that much for readers here in the States, but at the same time, just think about the cumulative marketing efforts (money + manpower) taking place all over the globe for this book. There\u2019s some sort of publishing alchemy that takes place when so many partners around the globe are all focused on the same book.<\/p>\n

7) Disagreement about whether the book is good or not. Sure, this seems like a crazy statement, since word-of-mouth is generally predicated on the idea that people who love the book foist it on their friends and family, who also love it, tell their Twitter followers, and so on and forth. But a book that\u2019s universally liked is boring. When The DaVinci Code<\/em> first broke, I knew just as many people who hate-read it as those who read it because they actually thought it was a fun story. Dissention breeds interest.<\/p>\n

But would anyone really dislike The Perfect Nanny<\/em>? Sure, if you\u2019re a soon-to-be parent, you might be a bit wary about reading a book about dead babies (although people love books with dead babies? because it\u2019s shocking and disturbing?), but this book isn\u2019t really offensive.<\/em> At worst it\u2019s just a novel. Nothing mindblowing, nothing crappy. Just a book for the sake of book.<\/p>\n

At this moment, there are 39 reviews of this on Amazon.<\/a> Here\u2019s the breakdown by percentage: 5 Stars 23%, 4 Stars 18%, 3 Stars 10%, 2 Stars 28%, and 1 Star 21%. That\u2019s remarkably flat! All combining to give the book a very middling 3 stars.<\/p>\n

In the end, this might be a great thing for this book. It\u2019s not hard to envision a narrative about how the book is divisive, that there\u2019s no consensus on this \u201cshocking,\u201d \u201cthrilling\u201d novel that\u2019s become the \u201cmost talked about book of 2018.\u201d Cool. But whatever. I want to see what these 1-star reviews are all about!<\/p>\n

To be honest, I have not and will not read this book. I am disgusted that anyone would be inspired to profit from the real life murder of two beautiful children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wouldn\u2019t read this evil drivel if Shakespeare had come back from the dead to co-author it. Judging from the other reviews, it\u2019s dull and poorly written on top of being evil. It\u2019s popularity in France just makes me think less of the French.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Evil! That\u2019s a pretty intense claim! And \u201cprofit from the real life murder of two beautiful children\u201d? I know the book was inspired by a nanny murder that took place in NYC<\/span> in 2012, but c\u2019mon. Not only is this book wildly different in terms of setting and situation, but Penguin didn\u2019t even use \u201cRipped from the Headlines\u201d on the cover. Does this reviewer hate all true-crime books as well? What is her motivation here?<\/p>\n

Shallow. Not well written. If I knew how shallow the book is I wouldn\u2019t have wasted $10+ to buy it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

That\u2019s what I say about local craft cocktails. \u201cThis Sazerac is shallow! If I knew how shallow it would be, I would\u2019ve saved my $10 for some Genny Light!\u201d<\/p>\n

Did not like it at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cool. That\u2019s some high quality critical work.<\/p>\n

Copied a real life tragedy without the family\u2019s permission. Very disheartening.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m curious\u2014was there some scandal surrounding this book related to the real-life crime? The only thing I could find in a cursory Google search was this bit from Marie Claire<\/em>:<\/p>\n

The devastating opening scene of the book is strikingly similar to the case of Manhattan nanny Yoselyn Ortega, who murdered two children under her watch\u2014Lucia and Leo Krim\u2014before attempting suicide by stabbing herself in the neck, though Slimani told The Telegraph<\/em> the plot of Lullaby<\/em> is entirely fictional.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I must be missing something . . . If this book were about a normal murder (like, a dude killing another dude because dude stuff) and based on an episode of Law & Order<\/em>, would people be upset? I kind of doubt it?<\/p>\n

The characters were never fully developed, and I cannot comprehend how The Nanny was able (allowed) to ingratiate herself so thoroughly
\ninto the lives and home of her employers. And what was the incident(s) that led her to ultimately kill the two children in her care? And on and on,
\nNot the best book I have read recently.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cReader\u201d\u2018s idiosyncratic approach to line breaks worries me.<\/p>\n

Before I read a book, I generally check the number of pages. It has been my experience that books with 300 plus pages have better developed characters. I should have applied my quirky rule to this book, a 236 page novel translated into English from a best-selling, award winning French author. [. . .] just as quickly as it began, I found myself at 96% complete not knowing enough about Louise to fathom why she killed the children. In fact, I thought the last few chapters about the police detective and recreation of the crime were just \u201cfill-in\u201d words but perhaps much of the meaning was lost in translation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are a few reviews that imply that the translation is to blame for Louise\u2019s motives never becoming completely clear. That clearly makes no sense. The whole point of the book is to raise questions and depict a horrible situation with no clear cause and effect that forces you to sort of examine your own beliefs and ideas. It\u2019s amazing that readers would assume that the French version has some magic paragraph that, when you read it, suddenly illuminates every little mad crevice of Louise\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n

The beginning of this book was promising. But as I read on, chapter after chapter, the storyline took on a very dark, depressing, sinister quality. [. . .]
\nThe author takes you down a path of deepening quicksand\u2026.and you feel heavier & heavier until you are completely submerged, and leaves you hanging.
\nDo not reccomend!!!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fucccck booooks that are daaark.<\/p>\n

If I had only known it was \u201cThe French Gone Girl\u201d I wouldn\u2019t have bought it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Interesting. And probably not a useful comment to most readers?<\/p>\n

And, finally, because why not:<\/p>\n

bq.SO DISAPPOINTED<\/span> \u2013 MORE<\/span> LIKE<\/span> TRASH<\/span>
\nCHARACTERS<\/span> NOT<\/span> DEVELOPED<\/span>
\nTRANSLATION<\/span> \u201cWANTING<\/span>\u201d
\nPOOR<\/span> ENDING<\/span> AND<\/span> SO ON
\nSORRY<\/span> I CHOOSE<\/span> TO PAY<\/span> FOR<\/span> IT.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I came up with my plan of reading (and writing about) a new translation every week, I wanted to try and force myself to read books that I would normally just skip over. There are definitely going to be months filled with books by New Directions, Coffee House, Dalkey Archive, etc., but to write […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":365076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[66836,11086,66876,1646,66866],"class_list":["post-307606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-2018-translations","tag-book-reviews","tag-leila-slimani","tag-review","tag-the-perfect-nanny"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307606"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332096,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307606\/revisions\/332096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}