One can imagine that if Garp had described his world without Irving’s assistance, he would have done it with the same cautious curiosity and the same discreet elegance. An absolute must-read.--- L’Événement du jeudi . . . [T]his is what gives the book all its charm---to denounce stupidity and brutality, Olivier Targowla deploys a delicate irony and confers life and speech on this tightrope-walking character. A bit of the marionette, a bit of the imp, who could plausibly have sprung from a story by Robert Walser or from Ivan Goncharov’s novel, Oblomov. --- Art Press . . . [T]his fluid little narrative instills in the reader a sense of strangeness that gives it its value. --- Le Monde Strange tale of rehabilitation, a tightrope-walking exercise, a pleasing yet painful return to life. --- Libération Olivier Targowla had to keep his balance perfectly. His first novel is better than promising, it is deeply mischievous and nonetheless serious, well-constructed, well-written . . . Targowla has successfully brought off a bittersweet fable. He has created a character with a real existence, a slightly loopy fellow who in the end is not nearly as ill as a good many outwardly healthy people. --- Dernières nouvelles d’Alsace

ALL OF NARCISSE Dièze’s children had nurses for mothers. This was an acknowledged fact: he'd been living at the hospital for seventeen years. At age forty, he was the presumed father of thirty-five children. This precious piece of information was conveyed to him during a New Year's Eve party when several nurses—with whom he enjoyed fairly close relations—came to lift their glasses and wish him a happy New Year. He wanted to say, "How do you know?” but he didn't dare ask. He put on a knowing expression and blew into his champagne glass. A nurse called for silence and declared that Narcisse Dièze was actually the father of seventy-two children. She had this from a reliable source, and after all it was a very low figure when you considered the number of nurses who had passed through the hospital, in one unit or another, during the past seventeen years. Everyone thought about this. A quick mental calculation on that basis could easily support the conclusion that Narcisse was the father of one hundred and seventy-one children. And even that took account only of the nurses who had left the hospital on maternity leave and never returned. To Narcisse Dièze, the reasons that drove those nurses to get themselves pregnant by him seemed strange, to say the least; but he was so bored by the question that he made no effort to understand. The first nurse who seduced him had waited less than forty-eight hours to do it. She was young and lithe, and Narcisse, who had just arrived, had found her interest flattering. It wasn’t until six months later that he understood the goal of those maneuvers. Exhibiting her rotund stomach with a jubilation he found misplaced, Mademoiselle Dunant had announced that she was sleeping with him solely for the purpose of having a child without being stuck with a partner. His only response had been to gape at her. Naturally, he wasn’t taking any precautions and had not inquired about the contraceptive method that Mademoiselle Dunant might be using. That she used some method seemed self-evident, and it would have been unseemly, he felt, to quiz her about such matters. "But then what will I have to do for the child? "You'll never hear a word about it. You already have more than enough to worry about. And you'll have to spend a certain amount of time here before you can leave. You're pretty sick, after all.” "Isn't there a risk that the child will inherit my illness?” "Don't worry, I looked into it. Your problem is purely mental and it can’t be passed on." "Ah . . ." To Narcisse Dièze, Mademoiselle Dunant’s way of revealing her true intentions to him had been, to say the least, cavalier. Anyway, he sulked for several days, but being weak, he gave in again. Why does she continue to sleep with me, he wondered, since she’s gotten what she wanted? When Mademoiselle Dunant left on maternity leave several weeks later, he knew he would never see her again. He felt a vague regret with regard to the child, but as she had told him, he had his hands full just looking after himself. The staff noticed that he had long periods of fatigue, during which he slept a lot and ate sparingly, and others during which he was very excited, left his room and paced up and down the corridor. One morning, as he was stretched out on his bed, wondering whether he felt listless or energized, the nurse who had replaced Mademoiselle Dunant came in. He found her attractive, and he wondered if the little game would start over. He only had to wait until lunchtime for an affirmative answer. * Time was passing, nurses came and went. Some would read to him, others would teach him games, still others loaned him books. Everything considered, Narcisse Dièze found his life agreeable in comparison to other patients’ lives—he wasn’t suffering in any way—yet unsatisfying in relation to the lives of normal people—he didn’t go out, didn’t work. At regular intervals he swallowed impressive quantities of pills, which, according to Doctor Mauméjean, saved him from spending his life in a vegetative state. For that reason, he took them eagerly, and when he had violent stomach pains, he didn’t know whether to blame the hospital food or the build-up of medications in his system. The only moment of suspense in Narcisse’s life came during the seventh month of each nurse’s pregnancy. He knew that one day soon she would leave without notice—not one had forewarned him in almost seventeen years—and that he would then encounter a new young woman, a new nurse. Even so, it would be a mistake to suppose that all the nurses in the psychiatric care unit had seduced and then abandoned him. There were two marked exceptions. Several years before, a new nurse had come into his room. She was very beautiful. Narcisse was so delighted that his heart began racing. But she looked at him as if he weren’t there. As a result, he experienced serious doubts about the reality of his own existence. The situation lasted for six months, during which time Narcisse’s mental condition worsened alarmingly. This woman, whom he would never forget, was named Colette Minard. As soon as she opened the door, he would close his eyes. But he couldn’t keep them closed for long, for each day he was curious to see how she would lavish various services on him as if he didn’t exist. And every day it was heart-rending for him to see how adept Colette Minard was at doing what she had to do without anything in her demeanor suggesting that she was attending to a human being. Things were hardly any better with the next one. But all in all, Dièze still preferred the attitude of this Mademoiselle Dunyach, who approached him with an extreme aversion she didn’t try to conceal. He resorted to keeping a mirror on his bedside table to reassure himself after she had left. Some days Narcisse was convinced she was going to vomit on him, that’s how overpowering her disgust seemed to be. And yet—Narcisse had to give the woman her due—not once during the year Mademoiselle Dunyach took care of him did her feelings of revulsion spill out in that most tangible of ways.