Review · Lily Lit · personal literary blog
Close together, unable to speak
A mixed response to the alternating inner voices of Le Sourire de Mariam and the couple’s tragic failure of communication.
- Credited to
- lilylit
- Publication
- Lily Lit · personal literary blog
- Source date
- 25 October 2022
- Published language
- French
- This page
- English source guide
Works discussed
Original English editorial guide to the attributed French-language source. The critic’s interpretations remain theirs; the full source stays with its publisher.
The reader hears both sides
The reviewer follows the four alternating monologues of Ozra and Issah, their memories crossing the immediate concerns of a precarious household. Hearing both sides reveals wishes for closeness that neither partner recognises clearly in the other. The reader occupies a position of painful knowledge between them. Source 1
Gossip, crowded accommodation and fear enlarge that private difficulty. The review also draws a parallel between the failing relationship and a country whose promises have receded. This remains the blogger’s interpretation of the novel’s structure and setting. Source 1
A reservation about the reading
The response is not wholly favourable. The reviewer finds the shifts between times and people sometimes difficult to follow and questions the repeated delay before revealing the full weight of a sad memory. Those formal devices occasionally interrupt rather than intensify the emotional experience. Source 1
The published pseudonym is retained without inventing a real-name byline. This signed personal-blog response sits beside Benoit’s more enthusiastic account of the same French translation, allowing a reader to encounter disagreement about how the novel’s alternating voices work. Source 1
Sources & credits
- lilylit · Le Sourire de Mariam
Signed personal literary-blog review, 25 October 2022. The published pseudonym is retained; no real-name identity is inferred.