From Publishers Weekly
"I quit watching television." Thus begins this amusing, absurdist seventh novel by Toussaint (The Bathroom; Monsieur), in which an academic on sabbatical in Berlin struggles to shut off his set, only to become hyper-attuned to the medium's pervasiveness. With his pregnant girlfriend and son off to Italy on vacation, the unnamed narrator is free to devote himself to his monograph on Titian. Or so he believes, but he is distracted by doing nothing ("Doing nothing, contrary to what people rather simplistically imagine, is a thing that requires method and discipline") and exhausted by watching the French Open ("I was no longer physically up to five sets of tennis"), finally realizing that he must give up television. This doesn't help him make much progress on his monograph, but it does give him time to muse on his nonviewing: he reads the television listings, watches himself in the reflection of the darkened screen and realizes that Titian's initials are T.V. To read Toussaint's episodic, curiously mesmerizing tale is like channel surfing, as the narrator moves from precise descriptions of the "lacquered pedestal" on which the television sits to slapstick scenes of everyday life. Like a good producer, Toussaint knows when to roll the credits, and his short novel integrates sharp insight with gentle humor. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Toussaint's humor is always welcome, especially in contrast to the seriousness of most recent French literature. Here his protagonist is in Berlin on a grant to write a monograph about Titian's German connections, but he is continually distracted by television. While his pregnant wife and child are traveling in Italy, he stops watching, but then begins to view the world as an ongoing TV show in which he half-participates. Neighbors ask him to water their plants while they are away, and he neglects the plants for weeks. His few interactions with others--including a naked walk through a clothing-optional park with his grant donor and Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom--are truncated, almost soundless, and entered unwillingly. He loosens his conception of "working" to the point where anything, including swimming laps, is considered valid, as long as he is thinking about his project. Toussaint's speaker's tone throughout is charmingly flat, with bursts of drollery, making this an easily digested but memorable walk through contemporary life. Max Winter
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The self-possessed protagonist and narrator of Jean-Philippe Toussaint's novel is an acedemic on sabbatical in Berlin. He plans to write a groundbreaking study of Titian, but after a couple of months, all he's completed is "When Musset." He blames his obsession with watching TV for preventing him from writing more, so he decides to stop watching television all together (after the end of the Tour de France, of course). Still unable to write his book, he is haunted by television, from the video surveillance screens in a museum to a moment when it seems everyone in Berlin is tuned in to Baywatch. One of Toussaint's funniest antiheroes, the protagonist of Television turns daily occurrences into comic nightmares about the influence of television on our lives.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

"I quit watching television." Thus begins this amusing, absurdist seventh novel by Toussaint (The Bathroom; Monsieur), in which an academic on sabbatical in Berlin struggles to shut off his set, only to become hyper-attuned to the medium's pervasiveness. With his pregnant girlfriend and son off to Italy on vacation, the unnamed narrator is free to devote himself to his monograph on Titian. Or so he believes, but he is distracted by doing nothing ("Doing nothing, contrary to what people rather simplistically imagine, is a thing that requires method and discipline") and exhausted by watching the French Open ("I was no longer physically up to five sets of tennis"), finally realizing that he must give up television. This doesn't help him make much progress on his monograph, but it does give him time to muse on his nonviewing: he reads the television listings, watches himself in the reflection of the darkened screen and realizes that Titian's initials are T.V. To read Toussaint's episodic, curiously mesmerizing tale is like channel surfing, as the narrator moves from precise descriptions of the "lacquered pedestal" on which the television sits to slapstick scenes of everyday life. Like a good producer, Toussaint knows when to roll the credits, and his short novel integrates sharp insight with gentle humor. Agent, Georges Borchardt. (Nov. 16) Forecast: This surprisingly accessible little book has the potential to become a bookseller favorite, and even a Christmas stocking stuffer if enthusiastically hand-sold. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Belgian-born photographer and film director Toussaint here offers a highly original commentary on modern society. An anonymous academic spends a summer sabbatical in Germany, aiming to write a monograph on the artist Titian Vecellio. After he resolves to renounce watching TV, the novel pursues his rather mundane routine-e.g., swimming, going to the park, and sunbathing-in short, managing to do everything but write his study. The more the passive, narcissistic procrastinator tries to evade the TV, the more ubiquitously he ends up getting involved in its simulacra, from windows to computer screens to swimming goggles; even the initials of his monograph's subject remind him of his obsession. In the end, he capitulates by buying a second TV set. Toussaint's fourth novel to be translated into English, this work boasts minimalist language laced with humor if not absurdity; like a TV series, it has parallel or mirrored scenarios, and the author's life is as superficial as TV itself. This inventive tale is recommended for public libraries and for academic libraries that don't have the French original.-Lawrence Olszewski, OCLC Lib., Dublin, OH Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews