Yiyun Li

Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised—the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story. As children in a war-ravaged, backwater town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves—until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune, and terrible loss. A magnificent, beguiling tale winding from the postwar rural provinces to Paris, from an English boarding school, to the quiet Pennsylvania home where Agnès can live without her past, The Book of Goose is a story of disturbing intimacy and obsession, of exploitation and strength of will, by the celebrated author Yiyun Li.

A Novel

The Book of Goose

Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised—the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story. 

As children in a war-ravaged, backwater town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves—until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune, and terrible loss.

Elisa

I did not tell Fabienne then that I thought our happiness should be like the pigeons M. Devaux kept. They went away, they came back, and what happened in between was no one's business. Our happiness should not be rooted and immobile.

But sometimes, one person’s death us another person’s parole paper. I may not have gained full freedom, but I am free now.

Am I making everything on this trip sound easy? Am I painting myself as, in M. Bazin's words, a natural — impersonating a child prodigy? But here is an explanation maybe, for the success of my trip. Life is most diffcult for those who know what they want and also know what makes it impossible for them to get what they want. Life is still difficult, but less so, for those who know what they want but have not realized that they will never get it. It is the least difficult for people who do not know what they want.

I did not know what I wanted on this trip to Paris. Perhaps it would not be an exaggeration to say that most of my life l have benefited from not knowing. Some people have to figure out what they want from a life before they commit to that life. Some, like me, can commit to anything, which is Iike committing to nothing. Perhaps that is why my American relatives call me passive. 

"Do I get to see Paris a little?" I asked.

"But yes, of course," Mlle Boverat said. "What do you want to see?"

What do you want to see? What do you want to eat? What do you want to know? These questions, seemingly innocuous, are more unreasonable than people realize. If you asked a cow, or a pig, or a chicken what it wanted to do with its life, it would have no idea how to answer, even if by some miracle it could understand and speak our language. If you asked a cow, or a pig, or a chicken how it would like to die, it would not fare any better.

Am I passive? I have noticed that Americans are quick to call a person passive, which is never meant as a compliment. Some of my husband's family think of me as passive. I am not what they thought a Frenchwoman should be like. As far as I can see, people handing out this verdict freely are those for whom any external movement is a sign of decisiveness, personal strength, virtue. But my chickens, with their small brains, never seem to tire of walking around, pecking, cooing, clawing. 

Sometimes you hear people say so-and-so has lived well and so-and-so has had a dull life. They are missing a key point when they say that. Any experience is experience, any life a life. A day in a cloister can be as dramatic and fatal as a day on a battlefield.

Some people only count what they seek as life: fame, wealth, adventure, happiness. What they make happen, to others and to thenselves, and what they make impossible, for others and for themselves. To me, anything that happens is life. A fly dropped dead in the soup is as strange and laughable as a marriage proposal from a mere acquaintance — both happened to me, neither sought by me.

(Bre)anne✨

“He makes himself sound more important,” Fabienne said. “Men always do that.”

Life is the most difficult for those who know what they want and also know what makes it impossible for them to get what they want. Life is still difficult, but less so, for those who know what they want but have not realized that they will never get it. It is the least difficult for people who do not know what they want.

If a man loves a woman and if the woman dies, will he love her ghost equally?

Some people are born with a special kind of crystal instead of a heart. No, I am not talking about witchcraft, but it is a mystery that these people, who look no different than others, can sail through life without illness, injuries, or broken hearts. There was not many of them around, but Fabienne is one. Was. Was one, until she was trapped by childbirth. 

That crystal in place of a heart—it makes things happen. To others.

Perhaps I should plan a visit to Saint Rémy. Earl would not grudge me the fare. If I lie on Fabienne’s stone, I wonder if I will feel the same heaviness as we once did. There will be no waiting for her to decide when to stand up and walk away. Any choice will have to be mine: to up and leave, or to remain immobile above her grave forever.

This paragraph…wow. Genuinely one of the most real depictions of grief I’ve read in a long time, and probably one of the best paragraphs I’ve ever read

It was October 1952. Fourteen years have passed since then. Soon I will be many decades removed from Fabienne. But years and decades were mere words, made-up names for units of measurement. One pound of potato, two cups of flour, three oranges, but what is the measuring unit for hunger? I am twenty-seven this year, and I will be twenty-eight next year. Fabienne was, is, and will always be twenty-seven. How do I measure Fabienne’s presence in my life—by the years we were together, or by the years we have been apart, her shadow elongating as time goes by, always touching me?

Fantastic. I adored the characters and their lack of development in this story. Not too much of a plot but some seriously intertwined minds between girls. 

Lily Dendy

I adored the characters and their lack of development in this story. Not too much of a plot but some seriously intertwined minds between girls. 

Beautiful and real young female friendship.

sarah nadon

Ghofran Mustafa 

“Can you grow happiness?” I asked.
“You can grow anything. Just like potatoes,” Fabienne said.

hovering between a 4.5/5 star read. it felt like slipping into warm water and read lushly. not an explosive book or plot by any means but it suited the girls very much. 

Whitley

A propulsive, gripping new novel about fate, art, exploitation, and intimacy from the award-winning author of Where Reasons End

** spoiler alert **
           This book is a poignant tale of friendship (and ex-friendship TT) through time. I like how distinct the characters are. Fabienne is on-your-face "I'm the main character" in capital letters type with a sadly realistic complex. Agnès is a creeping silently obsessive little robot who'd move only for a game played with Fabienne. At first, they acted like a single mind with 2 bodies, one torso with 2 feet. They'd lie and lie to build a scheme for a seemingly separate life, but led by both of them in concert (maybe with Fabienne as the captain). Unfortunately, as things got bigger, they had to separate, at first physically, and then emotionally. 

It's interesting to see how they both feel about their bond, their gradually singular life, and finally their fallout. I clutched my heart as they inched into that irreversible point. It reminds me of all the inevitable farewells I had to bid myself. Aren't friendship breakups the hardest??

Other things I like are their journey to become writers, the pensive writing, the tone, the first-person pov, and the time-lapse to the conclusion of this life-long tie. I'd be on the lookout for this author's other books!

the book of goose encapsulated perfectly a story about girlhood obsessions: very raw and unapologetically brutal story between two teenage girls. to be honest i want to like this more than i do (sort of what i expected when i dived and decided to read this book), but it turned to be.. an okay experience: i don't love it but i don't dislike it. it's just drive me into a little slump, tbh especially the part when moreau was in british boarding school. although my (slump, boredom) experience with that part didn't make me less wanting to finish the book: the lines of our heroines have are very excellent and raw and honest, and that's what made me stay. and i don't regret it.

Book of Goose

there are very few things in this world that can make my heart ache more than the reminiscence of childhood friendship. and oh, did it ache for agnès and fabienne.

‘the book of goose’ is more of a memory than a story. it’s the memories of adolescence and inseparable friendship amid a war-ravaged town, viewed from the now-grown agnès’ perspective as she relives the years of her youth with her now-dead friend, fabienne.

straight off the bat: there’s nothing wholesome or endearing about agnès and fabienne’s friendship. its innocence doesn’t lie in the typical “pure”-ness of their shining, sun-basked childhood; but instead in the callousness of their naivety, in how little consequence they think their actions have, and in their blind faith of how anything in the world was theirs to take. fabienne’s cruelty and careless disposition are enabled and embraced by agnès’ devotion and codependency, and from this dynamic, many of their “games” was born. one in particular, that became a major plot line for this book, is making up dark and sinister stories about their surroundings, with fabienne acting as the mastermind, and agnès, her scribe. these stories propel agnès into stardom, and ultimately with it, like the synopses said: comes the terrible heartache and loss.

agnès and fabienne’s friendship was not healthy. it was bordering on toxic, even. to be honest, i couldn’t put a finger on why i liked this book so much, at first. i knew that there's something about their unsettling friendship that intrigues me, but i couldn’t figure out //why// until i reached the very end. the conclusion i came about to answer these half-questions was: their friendship encapsulates devotion, unwaveringly and compulsively so—such devotion that, i think, is lost once one reaches adulthood (thank god). it’s not healthy, and if i have a baby cousin or siblings with friends such as fabienne, i—like any other adults in this book—would encourage them to find better friends.

agnès and fabienne both deserved better friends, in their own ways. but that’s the thing: they had no other friends, they didn’t want other friends. they wanted each other. i think their friendship, with all its jagged edges, all its carelessness, has a charm of its own. mostly, it reminds me of how carefree our childhood was, how easily we could be agnès or fabienne, and how temporary and fleeting it all was. such friendships should not be idealized or romanticized, but in literature, it was really interesting to see how Yuyin Li explores the darker themes of childhood friendship. very few things are allowed the audacity, the crass, the savagery of childhood friendships, and ‘the book of goose’ fully fleshed them out.

this is a complex book for which i have complex feelings about, and for that reason, i give it five stars.

jooooo-riaan

The Book of Goose neither sinks its teeth into you nor holds your hand. Instead, it grabs your arm and drags you until your mind catches up to the direction your feet are headed in.

lili🎐

Karis Ryu

received a free and signed copy of this book from yiyun li as part of the windham-campbell prize festival at yale! i am still carrying with me one of her responses to an audience question about grief and sadness in her writing: "none of my characters are unhappy. i write many characters who are sad."

as i sit here and ruminate on what has been a bedtime book for the past week(s?), a couple thoughts come to mind in response to this book:

1) legacy: a construct for fools. an obsession for what?
2) are those we love the most enigmatic to us? because our desire awakens us to all that we will never know of someone we want to know so desperately? can two people ever be apples together?

oh, to be a goose indeed.

charisa

i really wanted to like this, and to be fair, it was closer to a 3.5. definitely picked up on the european flavor, and li has this remarkable ability to describe environments in a deadpan, yet mystical way. but the pacing felt glacial and i guess i expected more madness, obvious obsession, and emotion in general? i liked agnes and fabienne together; their precarious dynamic reminded me of slightly dubious friendships in my own childhood. however, when apart from each other, the girls fell flat. infatuation can only carry so far across an epistolary form, and the fact that fabienne's eventual death was revealed so early on didn't help my waning interest in their diverging lives.

The Book of Goose A Novel

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