In umbra voluptatis lusi: My Review of Pascal Quignard’s A Terrace in Rome

To read any work by Pascal Quignard whether fiction or non-fiction, is to experience philosophical and literary reflections on sex, love, shadows, art and death.  A Terrace in Rome, his novella which won the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie Française prize in 2000, explores all of his most favored themes and images via the fictional story of Geoffroy Meaume, a 17^th century engraving artist whose illicit love for a woman causes him horrible disfiguration, pain and suffering. The year is 1639 when twenty-one-year-old Meaume, serving an apprenticeship as an engraver, first lays his eyes on Nanni, the eighteen year-old blond beauty who is betrothed by her father to another man. For a while Meaume is happily absorbed in this secret affair and playing in umbra voluptatis (in the shadow of desire.)

Meaume and Nanni’s love affair comes to an abrupt and tragic end, but through his art, his memories and his dreams he is always seeking that same feeling of desire he felt for her as a twenty-one-year-old apprentice. Meaume says in his own words: “I have never found joy again with any woman other than her. It is not joy I miss, it is her. And so have I, all my life, etched the same body moving in the intensity of passion of which I never stopped dreaming.” Each of the forty-seven chapters in the book are succinct– most are only a page or two—as Quignard is a master at composing a tightly woven narrative which lends the feeling that every word, every character, every image has been carefully placed on the page and is of the utmost importance.  For those who are new to Quignard’s philosophical and roving style of writing, A Terrace in Rome is a perfect first, short piece to begin an exploration of his writings.   For those of us who are familiar with his other books, especially his non-fiction—The Roving Shadows, The Abysses, The Sexual Night, Sex and Terror—we find some familiar themes personified in the character of Meaume and his life of shadows, desire, sex and art.

Read my full review of A Terrace in Rome in 3:AM Magazine.  Special thanks to the fabulously talented book review editor, Tristan Foster, for giving me this opportunity.