La intrusa
Éric Faye
Publicado: 2010 | 59 páginas
Novela Drama Psicológico

De profesión meteorólogo, Shimura lleva una vida solitaria y metódica que transcurre con precisión milimétrica entre el trabajo y su casa, un microcosmos de orden y pulcritud a las afueras de Nagasaki. Sólo el canto ensordecedor de las chicharras es capaz de alterar una rutina tan previsible hasta el día en que Shimura cree percibir pequeños cambios en la impoluta organización de su hogar. No parece obra de un ladrón, pues todos los objetos de valor siguen en su sitio. Shimura instala una cámara en la cocina y, perplejo, descubre la presencia de una mujer desconocida, una intrusa que lleva un año viviendo en un armario de la casa. Obra ganadora del Gran Premio de la Academia Francesa, esta novela de Éric Faye —autor reconocido por plantear con sencillez los grandes temas que afectan al hombre moderno— se basa en un caso real para explorar el influjo que la memoria de los lugares que habitamos ejerce sobre nuestra conciencia.

De profesión meteorólogo, Shimura lleva una vida solitaria y metódica que transcurre con precisión milimétrica entre el trabajo y su casa, un microcosmos de orden y pulcritud a las afueras de Nagasaki. Sólo el canto ensordecedor de las chicharras es capaz de alterar una rutina tan previsible hasta el día en que Shimura cree percibir pequeños cambios en la impoluta organización de su hogar: un yogur que desaparece de la nevera, el zumo de naranja que se evapora, la tetera fuera de su lugar habitual. No parece obra de un ladrón, pues todos los objetos de valor siguen en su sitio. ¿Se trata, pues, de una amante despechada, de un espíritu en busca de venganza, o incluso peor, de una alucinación? Para dilucidarlo, Shimura instala una cámara en la cocina y, perplejo, descubre la presencia de una mujer desconocida, una intrusa que lleva un año viviendo en un armario de la casa. Al exponer con exquisita sensibilidad los vericuetos de su mundo interior, la historia de Shimura adquiere una resonancia universal. De manera casi imperceptible, la novela cuestiona nuestra manera de vivir y de relacionarnos con los demás, y su lectura perdura como un temblor de tierra, inofensivo pero indeleble.

I received an ARC copy of the e-book version of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A very interesting story set in, as you can guess, Nagasaki. Our protagonist lives alone, by design rather than necessity. Alone, a cog in a much larger machine, a low level and low pay grade meteorologist who creates comfort, without any attempt at meaning or fulfillment in his life, by the strict adherence to routine. He avoids the company of workmates because that would disrupt his daily structure. He doesn’t trust anything or anyone outside himself anyway and minimizes all contact with people in the workplace or outside. It has been over a year since he has seen a member of his own family. At work he immerses himself in weather patterns; at home his nightly rituals.

He is an island.

Until he realizes that he isn’t alone. Someone is in his home. Eating his food. Walking his house. Invading his world. He is no longer alone. He has been violated.

If this story were written by an American author the story would have gone one way. Probably the confrontation of the individualist (we all think of ourselves that way, right? even though it is the punchline from a joke—sure, you are unique, just like everybody else) with the intruder. Gogol or Kafka would have gone another way—the inevitable violation of the individual by a stronger force. But this story is set in Japan and it is very different in ways that I did not expect. Much more personal. Much more moving. With a perspective shift (which often don’t work but this time does very well) near the end that makes us re-evaluate our feelings toward the entire story.
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> Nagasaki, par Eric Faye. — Un homme mène une existence tranquille jusqu'au jour où il découvre qu'une femme habite clandestinement chez lui depuis un an.
Inspiré par un fait divers japonais, Nagasaki, distingué par l'Académie française en 2010, relate l'histoire d'un quinquagénaire célibataire dont la tranquille vie quotidienne va être bouleversée par l'intrusion - toute discrète - d'une chômeuse de 58 ans dans son pavillon. Après l'arrestation de la squatteuse, victime d'une société en proie à la crise et aux égoïsmes, le salaryman semble perdre tous ses repères. Les démons du passé resurgissent, la culpabilité l'envahit... Un récit tout en subtilité et finesse, à l'instar de L'Homme sans empreintes, du même auteur, également réédité en poche.
—L'Express

> Nagasaki by Éric Faye
Se reporter au compte rendu de Chris REYNS-CHIKUMA
In: The French Review, Vol. 85, No. 3 (February 2012), pp. 591-592

How do bitter and twisted, lonely, emotionally crippled older men start out? Men whose relationships, if any, have always soured early, men whose jobs are all that sustain them, mediocre jobs with colleagues who never become friends. Men whose strict weekend routines stop loneliness from being more than an uneasy feeling which never quite comes to the surface. Never quite acknowledged.

They start out as bitter and twisted Youth. In this novel by Coetzee, we see the establishment of such a being, a young man who thinks somehow that his cold alienating ways will make him a poet. When it turns out that he has nothing more in him than the capacity to be a computer programmer, and an undistinguished one of those, he sees his future as a hollow meaningless thing. We do not find out if his life remained the mean and nasty existence he portended.

Enter Nagasaki. Here we meet a man who might be the person Youth foresaw. Towards the end of his nondescript career he is alone, as far as we know he has never had a meaningful relationship with anybody, including his relations. When not at work he is at home, when at home, the person he talks to is himself. He has no friends, no interests, nothing about him justifies his carbon footprint. Like Youth, he is given the opportunity to live, to behave with largesse, to give. Like Youth he cannot do that. Both of them experience discomfort, unease at their utter meanness of spirit, but neither is capable of being a new person.

Is this inevitable? Enter Mr Stone of Mr Stone and the Knights Companion.

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