Fear and Trembling
SynopsisPlot
According to ancient Japanese protocol, foreigners deigning to approach the emperor did so only with fear and trembling. Terror and self-abasement conveyed respect. Amélie, our well-intentioned and eager young Western heroine, goes to Japan to spend a year working at the Yumimoto Corporation. Returning to the land where she was born is the fulfillment of a dream for Amélie; working there turns into comic nightmare.
Story
About this book
Amélie Nothomb's Fear and Trembling follows a young Belgian woman named Amélie who takes a one-year contract at a large Japanese corporation called Yumimoto. Born in Japan but raised in the West, Amélie arrives eager to reconnect with the country of her earliest years. What she finds instead is a workplace governed by codes she cannot master. The title refers to an old Japanese protocol requiring foreigners who approached the emperor to display terror and self-abasement as signs of respect.
Amélie begins at the lowest rung of the company and, despite her best efforts, keeps descending. She is assigned to deliver mail, serve tea, update calendars, and photocopy documents endlessly. Each task she attempts leads to a new misstep or breach of etiquette. Her situation grows more complicated when she develops an infatuation with her direct supervisor, Miss Mori, a woman described as composed, exacting, and unyielding.
The novel draws its energy from the gap between Amélie's earnest intentions and the rigid hierarchical world she has entered. Nothomb, a Belgian author who spent part of her childhood in Japan, grounds the story in specific office routines and workplace rituals rather than broad cultural generalization.
