A dead cat floats in the harbor in the opening scene of this novella length parody/tribute to the noir genre. A black cat, naturally, as black clouds slowly move overhead, allowing pale moonlight to reveal the murder. For surely it was a deliberate killing, our narrator thinks, an act somehow connected to the fact that his old friend Biaggi, whom he has come to this village to see, though he is avoiding Biaggi now that he has arrived, has been stalking him through the village, keeping watch on him, even taking a room in the same little hotel.

Every minor event is drafted into the service of this suspenseful game of cat and mouse. Our narrator turns snoop, stealing Biaggi's mail, slipping into Biaggi's house
unseen. Or has Biaggi in fact been watching every one of these moves?

Perhaps all will become clear at the end, on a deserted beach in the pale moonlight, a lonely lighthouse flashing monotonously. ( )

Er gebeurt bijzonder weinig in dit boek – misschien wel niets – en tegelijkertijd is het één van de spannendste boeken die ik het voorbije jaar heb gelezen. Ook op het eind van het boek blijft de onzekerheid over de gebeurtenissen hangen, – er valt voor meerdere interpretaties wel iets te zeggen, en tegelijkertijd laat ook elke keuze nog zoveel ongezegd … als lezer vul je het verhaal, de motivatie, de personages, de setting … graag en gretig aan … en al snel blijk je zowaar nog wilder op je eigen gedachten vooruit te lopen dan dat het hoofdpersonage dat doet …

Het ganse dorp, het ganse boek ademt bij momenten de sfeer van A Tell Tale Heart van Poe, maar eventjes knipperen met de ogen is voldoende om die sfeer te laten oplossen – en meteen is er niet meer dan een vader en zijn zoontje in een hotel.

Een voltreffer is De aarzeling evenwel niet. De achterdocht van het personage is af en toe nogal ongeloofwaardig & de herhaling is te opzichtig, waardoor de spanningsboog slap gaat hangen. Maar dat ik meer van Toussaint zal lezen, staat wel vast. ( )

Very quick read and I was engaged throughout. I read it in one sitting. It has left me confused and pondering certain aspects for days, especially as the narrator leaves his infant son alone for hours. Will read more by Jean Toussaint. ( )

A charming but also chilling little jeu d'esprit. I haven't read any other Toussaint, and get the feeling this is intentionally 'minor,' but it's very entertaining and extremely clever. Toussaint uses a very restricted symbolic palette (cats, light, the color grey, that's about it) and a very restrained narrative voice to more or less drag you to hell and back, even though at any given moment you just feel like you're reading a very mild memoir of a moderately intelligent man going about his business.

And suddenly you think holy shit, this guy is a crazed murderer! Wait, no he's not, he's 'just' a paranoid delinquent! Wait, no he's not, he really is a crazed murderer! Oh my god the world is just death and ugly cars! Oh no, it's all okay.

It's like Henry James' 'The Jolly Corner' 'Moby Dick' set in the bleakest, most economically depressed tourist town you can imagine. Occasionally hilarious, occasionally terrifying. ( )

At the beginning of this somewhat mysterious novella, the narrator observes a dead cat in the water of the harbor in the small town he and his infant son are visiting, and believes the cat has been "murdered." At the end of the novella, the mystery of the cat's death is solved. In between, the narrator goes about his business, seemingly viewing none of his very strange actions as anything other than ordinary. He becomes obsessed with the idea that a man named Biaggi, a man who is apparently his friend and who apparently he has come to see, is following him and observing him, and goes to great (and illegal) lengths to try to catch Biaggi in the act. He tends to his son, and then at other times leaves him by himself in the hotel room. He reveals something which may be true or may be entirely in his imagination. His behavior throughout is extremely peculiar and, though he is obviously an extremely unreliable narrator, it may in fact be what he really did because he seems to have no awareness that his behavior is so peculiar.

Is he reticent about visiting Biaggi properly? Is he reticent about telling the readers the "truth"? Although I was mystified by this book, it was a quick read and I enjoyed it.