PACHYDERME by Frederik Peeters reviewed by Brazos Price
PACHYDERME by Frederik Peeters translated from the French by Edward Gauvin Harry N. Abrams Press SelfMadeHero imprint, 88 pages Reviewed by Brazos Price A cinematic opening: a woman’s heeled boot, a 1950’s traffic jam in bucolic Romandie, a downed elephant. Carice Sorrel, a woman who “simply must get to the hospital,” to see her husband who has been in an accident, heads into the woods rather than wait for the elephant to be removed. In Pachyderme, by Frederik Peeters, this transition from the road – through the woods – and into the hospital, quickly feels like a trip into the subconscious. When Carice first sees the hospital, the reader sees her have something of an out of body experience. Ultimately, the image seems to suggest that she is replaying, reinterpreting, and reworking recent events while asleep or unconscious or insane or dead. She wanders through the hospital and her … chop! chop! read more!