The Maid's Request

The Maid's Request, by Michèle Desbordes

"It is a simple story, possessed of the same quiet dignity as its two main protagonists – the maid and the elderly Leonardo Da Vinci. He is in France supervising the work of some of his pupils. Not a great deal happens. He helps his pupils, she cleans the house and prepares meals. Her son visits for a month, a donkey dies, she goes to her village for her son’s funeral. But mainly they spend their time in quiet contemplation of each other. Watching and waiting, both aware of age, its implications and their comparative closeness to the hereafter. Skillfully, Michele Desbordes draws you in, and builds up the tension by virtue of the anticipation of the maid’s request of the title. Yet, when it happens, it is unexpected and surprising. All of this is framed by wonderfully descriptive narrative, compellingly written. You will want to read this book again and again"

With The Flow - II

Finally the day had come to an end, under a lowering sky, he had had to trudge his way through the gusts of wind, splashing along in fondants of mud of sorbets of snow,, towards his lodgings and his restaurant; and lo and behold, to add insult to injury, dinner was aweful and the wine tasted like ink.

His feet frozen, squeezed into ankle boots that had started to warp in the deluge and the puddles, his cranium white-hot under the gas burner hissing over his head, he had hardly touched his food, and even now his bad luck refused to let go of him; his fire falterd, his lamp grew sooty, his tobacco was damp and kept going out, staining the cigarette-paper with a stream of yellow juice.

He was overcame by an immense sense of discouragement; the emptiness of his prison-like existence became evident, and, as he poked at the fire, Folantin, learning forward in his armchair, his foreead resting on the ledge of the fireplace, started to look back over the via dolorosa of his forty years, halting in despair as he came to each station of cross.

With The Flow

"With the Flow" by Joris-Karl Huysmans

"A Vau-l'eau" - Published in 1882.

An account of the experience of the vast majority of humankind. A precise account of the life of quiet desperation. "You have to let yourself go with the flow; Schopenhauer is right," he told himself.

Finally he resigns himself to being unable to affect his own life in any way: 'as he made his way back to his lodgings, he took in at a glance the desolate horizon of his life; he realised the futility of changing direction, the sterility of all enthusiasm and all effort. All efforts are inevitably doomed to failure. Boredom conquers all.