The narrator reflects on her relationship with Xavier, a love affair that seems to have ended years ago—or perhaps never truly did. Thinking about Xavier leads her to consider all the other men who have shaped her life and the idea that, even after relationships end, we continue to carry those people with us. The novel unfolds as a series of reflections, repeatedly returning to Xavier and his persistent habit of sending flowers, a gesture the narrator alternately cherishes or resents depending on where she is in her life. The writing is deliberately repetitive, mirroring the cyclical nature of memory and unresolved emotions. While I understand the intention, I found the novel rather slow at times, and I often struggled to tell where I was in the narrative. In the end, I was left with fairly lukewarm feelings about it.
“Christmas is ridiculous. The way it is exactly the same year after year is completely ridiculous. The same decorations, the same clothes, the same songs, the same food, the same sentiments – you spend the year trying to improve your lot in one way or another and at the end of it you get walloped with all this unvarying rubbish again, it’s horrible – what a really perverse way of ending a year. It’s tedious and asinine yet everyone is trapped in it because nobody wants to let anyone else down, though if you ask anyone they’ll likely tell you they’d be very happy to spend Christmas day with five types of cheese and the curtains drawn.”