Toru Dutt: The Diary of Mademoiselle D'Arvers

I tried my luck with the Blog a Penguin Classic site. Like probably many others, I got a book I wouldn't otherwise have read. Toru Dutt is an 19th century Indian author and a poet and this book is the first novel from India written in French. This novel was written in secret and discovered by the author's father after her very early death.

As the title says, it's a diary. Mademoiselle Marguerite D'Arvers is a 15-year old girl, home from her convent education. At home she finds her childhood friends, the young count, his brother and the handsome Captain Lefèvere.

Marguerite loves one of the men, but which one of them loves Marguerite? As you can imagine, the network of relationships is somewhat complex and complicated and finding true love and happiness isn't obvious. Eventually Marguerite is married and begins the domestic life as a wife to man - but which one?

This is not my kind of book, really. I found Marguerite's naïve narration (she's constantly excited! and ecstatic! and thank God for that! Praised be Virgin Mary!) annoying and even though something actually happened in the story, I still found it boring rather than poignant. [ The Diary of Mademoiselle D'Arvers (Modern Classics (Penguin)) at Amazon.co.uk ] [ The Diary of Mademoiselle D'Arvers at LibraryThing ]