Book: The Moustache by Emmanuel Carrère

The summary of this book is in itself good enough to pique your curiosity:

One morning, a man shaves off his long-worn moustache, hoping to amuse his wife and friends. But when nobody notices, or pretends not to have noticed, what started out as a simple trick turns to terror. As doubt and denial bristle, and every aspect of his life threatens to topple into madness – a disturbing solution comes into view, taking us on a dramatic flight across the world.

This is a sub 200 page novella that can qualify as a quick read. This book puts you in the POV of a questionable narrator as he himself is unsure of what’s happening while you as the reader are unsure of what to believe.

What starts off seeming like an elaborate prank, iteratively descends into a pit filled with questions. Unfortunately, you won’t find any answers in this book. So if ambiguity is something that frustrates you, then it might feel like a party dinner without the dessert to wash it off. In turn it throws the spotlight on the nature of memories and perception. Through a large part it felt the narrator was going through bouts of Alzheimers as the walls of reality start collapsing around him one by one. Slowly cornering him into a world alien to him, banished to a detached existence.

The pacing is a bit odd at times, it ramps up slowly to suddenly hit breakneck speed. Only to squander that pace in the third act where it exists in a metaphysical void than any progression of plot. It took me a couple of tries where I’d pause and restart reading it, only to finish the second half due to a long train journey. (Which although, probably says a lot more about my now-stunted attention span than the book itself.)

Would recommend worth a read, if a disturbing psychological horror and questioning the nature of memory/reality is your thing.