Culture

Running Away by Jean-Philippe Toussaint

Running Away (Belgian Literature) BY Jean-Philippe Toussaint. edited by Matthew B. Smith (translator). Dalkey Archive Pr. Paperback, 120 pages. $12.
Cover of Running Away (Belgian Literature)

Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s wonderfully stylized new novel, “Running Away,” begins with a question: “Would it ever end with Marie?” That’s only fitting for a book that leaves so much unanswered — we never learn the narrator’s name or occupation or, indeed, why his relationship with Marie, his Parisian girlfriend, is tanking. Those aren’t the only riddles, either.