La seducción y el asesinato, la belleza como peligro mortal, el talento individual como parte maldita, para decirlo con palabras de Bataille, son las constantes en la obra de Nothomb desde su sorprendente primera novela, Higiene del asesino (1992); a partir de entonces no ha dejado de tener un lugar central en la literatura actual escrita en Europa. Sin abandonar esas obsesiones, profundizándolas incluso, este Diccionario de nombres propios muestra cómo se combinan en Nothomb dos capacidades sorprendentes hoy en día: la de inventar historias a una velocidad casi mayor a la que cualquier escritura pudiera seguir y la de tener un control completo de su materia, como si cada una de sus novelas fuera una pieza dentro del vasto mundo que su obra está destinada a representar, como una Comedia humana del siglo XXI; es decir: fragmentaria, femenina, sin mayores certezas que sus ambigüedades. Un mundo narrativo que, por otra parte, carece de parangón en la literatura del momento. Se trata aquí de una niña llamada Plectrude -los nombres propios no carecen de significado en esta intensa fábula-, nacida en prisión de una madre de diecinueve años que asesinó a su marido, y padre de la niña, semanas antes de dar a luz. El destino de Plectrude será, en buena medida, el de una lucha contra la compulsión a repetir el destino maldito de su madre.
Seduction and murder, beauty as a mortal danger, individual talent as a cursed part, to put it in Bataille's words, are the constants in Nothomb's work since his surprising first novel, Murderer's Hygiene (1992); Since then he has continued to have a central place in current literature written in Europe. Without abandoning those obsessions, even deepening them, this Dictionary of proper names shows how two surprising capacities are combined in Nothomb today: that of inventing stories at a speed almost faster than any writing could follow and that of having complete control of his material, as if each of his novels were a piece within the vast world that his work is destined to represent, like a Human Comedy of the 21st century; that is to say: fragmentary, feminine, without greater certainties than its ambiguities. A narrative world that, on the other hand, lacks parallel in the literature of the moment. Here it is about a girl called Plectrude - proper names are not without meaning in this intense fable -, born in prison to a nineteen-year-old mother who murdered her husband, and father of the girl, weeks before giving birth. light. Plectrude's fate will be, to a large extent, one of a struggle against the compulsion to repeat the cursed fate of her mother.
