“Hell is — other people!,” as a character in Sartre’s one-act play “No Exit” famously exclaims.
Yes, we are social animals, looking to others to give our lives safety and meaning. But there sure is such a thing as too much togetherness.
Writers and artists are particularly inclined to be introverts — it’s hard to make a masterpiece at a dinner party, after all. So I’m not surprised to see three lovely new chapter books from three different countries all singing the praises of good old-fashioned me time.
From “A Day With Mousse.”Credit…Claire Lebourg
In Claire Lebourg’s A DAY WITH MOUSSE (Transit Children’s Editions, 88 pp., $18.95, ages 4 to 10), translated from the French by Sophie Lewis, it’s not clear what kind of creature our green-striped, red-socked hero is. What is clear is that he has his routine dialed in. Every day is full of sweet rituals, like standing at the shore till “the moment when his paw tips start to go numb,” making coffee (I love when a children’s character makes coffee) and listening to the radio while watching the tide roll in.
Except the tide rolls straight into his living room, filling it with seawater. Mousse’s house is right on the ocean, and the ocean lets itself in, turning his home into a swimming pool that he dives into with delight.
When the tide rolls out, Mousse collects the ocean treasures left behind and sells them on the internet (don’t worry, he checks for inhabitants first). This is his life, a surreal and simple watercolor dream. Until one day it’s disturbed by Barnacle, an aptly named walrus who moves into Mousse’s bathtub.
