As you might have guessed (because if it's not forbidden, there's nothing to get so worked up about, you're just going to the cinema), we're talking about an affair. In its most widespread and tragic form: adultery with a profound disagreement over the desirable outcome. Nothing to do with conservative or religious values here, but rather two psychic structures in conflict. From the very first minute, there was no point of agreement between Joseph and me on the definitions of love, happiness or risk.

As The Eagle Flies is narrated by a woman in her mid 30s in 2019, looking back on her relationships over the last 10 years, including her marriage in 2009 with Igor, 20 years her senior and recently widowed, with whom she had two children, and Joseph who she had an affair with, starting in 2016 and eventually breaking up with in 2018.

As the opening quote suggests this is a rather banal tale of adultery and a love affair, although one that comes with heavy laced with psychology. This passage is from her analysis of her marriage to Igor, who still refers to his late first wife as 'my wife':

The difficulties of our relationship — his grief, the existence of his two grown-up children and the birth of our own two — took up all my energy for years. For a long time, I felt some kind of thalassotherapy special offer for the bereaved. It took me a good two or three years to soothe my jealousy over the fact that I hadn't been chosen over his wife, but to take care of him in her absence (and even then, not really chosen: I just happened to be in the office next door wearing a short skirt). A further year or two to stop feeling the need to put her down in my head. And then years more to feel affection for her and, finally, to relate to her.

Most of the story though concerns her obsessive thoughts about her on-off relationship with Joseph (guilt as to her rather patient husband and young children rather absent), who himself seems a master of gas-lighting. The blurb describes this as Woody Allen meets Annie Ernaux, although Joseph reminded me more of a Houllebecq character, and the narrator herself does make that comparison towards the novel's end. Indeed this is a book also steeped in literature, Russian novels and poetry in particular.

Overall - this wasn't for me - I really didn't want to spend 200 pages in the narrator's company but it is well written and the literature and psychological references elevate it above the rather well-trodden path of the story. 2023 sub-peirene-2023-3 sub-roc-bookclub-2023-128 s SamB157 10

I'm a sucker for anything this - French people having affairs and spending 150 pages thinking about it a lot, yes please.foreign peirene-press6 s Nicola11 Read

As The Eagle Flies is an introspective study of an affair. Our unnamed narrator has been with the much older, widowed Igor for seven years and they share two children, but a conversation with Joseph, a colleague at her magazine, catapults her into a passionate, intoxicating affair: “My face felt it was sizzling; sparks were falling into my plastic cup of red wine. The conversation lasted twenty minutes, and it was something was gently squeezing my insides the whole time.”

Their relationship overtakes every aspect of her life, although she is with him so little. For all the highs, there is much pain, anxiety and waiting: “When Joseph, fresh from the hairdresser’s, broke up with me by the Assembleé nationale, I felt a drugged-up dog abandoned by the side of the road after crossing Spain in the back of a dealer’s speeding car.” any drug, Joseph takes time to recover from, and the relationship still limps along, off and on, for a few further years.

Beautifully written, witty and entertaining, this novel explores the inner experience and dynamics of passion (I hesitate to call it love), and explores how someone can lose themselves in another, even if they only ever see and experience a tiny part of them (hence, perhaps, why the narrator is unnamed). Of course we only ever really hear one side of the story, but we maybe see more than the narrator that it is Joseph who always dictates the terms of the relationship. What understanding she has only comes much later: “… his technique involves showing the worst of yourself at a point when the other person isn’t yet susceptible to getting upset about it. You can then consider them to have been warned. Declare all future complaints null and void. Wash your hands of it. In short, what I had taken for flirtatiousness was in fact part of his modus operandi.”

This intelligent, perceptive and evocative story was a wonderful read. 1 Regan474 22

I didn’t really love the parts about the affair (this book is at least 80% about the affair) but I did end up enjoying the novel immensely overall— which just goes to say that Le Blevennec’s voice is incredible, so many clever, funny moments, so candid and full of witty & thoughtful references. Would love to see more of her work translated into English!! (Amazing job by madeleine rogers)contemporary foreign-or-translated not-ya2 s Clare363 8

Just brilliant and hilarious skewering of an affair in 150 pages.1 Adrian782 19

I just feel exhausted with these tales of multiple complicated relationships - how does anyone have the time! 1 Anna407 12

This is the kind of book I really have no interest in. It is French, about an illicit affair, and uses a lot of social science theory. The kind of love described - destructive, passionate, hurtful - just seems very melodramatic to me.

Nevertheless, I d the book much more than I would have thought from its bones, and that is due to Nolwenn Le Blevennec's prose. While the narrative started to drag after the first third, I really enjoyed the narrative voice. The observations are intelligent and some descriptions just read very true.

So - it's okay. It is a good book, but I will not read it twice, prose be damned.1 Zuki21 4

J'ai passé la dernière moitié du roman à me demander si j'allais le noter 2 ou bien 3 étoiles. Peut être que la petite vanne raciste sur le viol page 120 y est pour quelque chose
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