"The Orient is an imaginal construction, an ensemble of representations from which everyone picks what they like, wherever they are."
Erudite and idiosyncratic novel about, well, many, many things. The protagonist is an anxious, insomniac musicologist in love with a brilliant academic. The book is about the interactions and interplay between West and East and the construct of the "Orient" (see Edward Said) and how it has been a source of fear, fantasy, and inspiration for centuries. There are dozens of names of people and places and it can be easy to get lost if you're not reading carefully. But it's dazzlingly intellectual and brings in so much history and so many ideas that you'll feel like you've just eaten a big, rich meal. Translated from French.