More French bloggers on La Maison des Épreuves

“Labyrinth, monument, Pandora’s box… La Maison des Épreuves, Jason Hrivnak’s first novel… is, beneath its somber and depressed appearance, a beautiful response to the death drive and a stimulating ode to existence.”

— Eric Darsan, “La Maison des Épreuves, Jason Hrivnak”

Eric Darsan >

La Maison des Épreuves never ceases to surprise, accumulating puzzles, incantations and scenes of remarkable visual power, its gaze as much upon Poe, Burton and Lovecraft as upon the grammar of the most twisted horror films.”

— Cyril Tavan, “La Maison des Épreuves de Jason Hrivnak”

Les Carnets du Pr. Platypus >

“Translated by Claro, La Maison des Épreuves is an astonishing, disconcerting book in which the passion for death and failure appear much stronger and more singular than the search for happiness, as if consolation could only be derived from the products of sorrow.”

— Fabien Ribery, “Debout, au milieu du désastre”

Le blog de Fabien Ribery >

La Maison des Épreuves is a literary curiosity… We exit intrigued and at the same time marked by this difficult and fascinating reading experience, perplexed by our own feelings, as at the end of a disturbing and absurd dream.”

— Anne, “La Maison des Épreuves de Jason Hrivnak”

Textualités >

National press coverage in France

“The embryonic narratives formed into black and venomous little tales, recalling those of Edgar Poe… Like all new works, it does not subscribe to a genre but creates one if its own, a form never before seen, a precedent, perhaps, in the history of literature and it therefore seems necessary to me that it exists, that it can be read, even imitated.”

— Alice Zéniter, “Traduire, dit-elle”

Le Monde (paywall) >

“The first ordeal in this House is the act of reading. It presents us with a deforming (or true) mirror that reflects what we are determined not to see. But this atmosphere, which comes from Sade, from Kafka, from the great gothic and surrealist novels, engages us from the very start.”

— Alain Nicolas, “Quel cauchemar êtes-vous?”

l’Humanité >

“There is something astonishing in La Maison des Épreuves.”

— Mathieu Lindon, “Jeux Pernicieux Inc.”

Libération >