The Reader on the 6.27

Jean-Paul Didierlaurent

This book is the antidote. To cynicism, to the everyday drudgery of existence. I cannot recommend this book enough to you, my reader.

“The Reader on the 6.27” will reignite your hope and redeem every bad book, every disappointing ending; every over-pretentious pit-stain of a novel you have ever had the misfortune to encounter. This book will remind you of your faith in literature.

Guylain Vignolles hates his job; Guylain works in a book-pulping factory. His only joy is his morning ritual, where he boards the 6.27 train and reads from the fragments of books he has saved from the teeth of the monster. He reads aloud to his fellow passengers, who “show him the indulgent respect reserved for harmless nutters”. Nevertheless, he is the ray of sunshine that briefly illuminates the dullness of their 9-to-5’s.

“He was the reader, the bearer of the good word.”

Guylain appears to be suffering from the Nausea, as Sartre would define it: that indefinable feeling deep in your gut that life is pointless. Then one day, he happens upon a USB memory stick that changes his life forever. What is on the USB? The diary entries of a 28-year-old toilet attendant, named Julie.

How, you might ask, can this bored young woman, who sits outside toilet cubicles all day, help Guylain? How can accounts of what other humans are literally experiencing in their guts save him? Isn’t she just another sufferer of everyday drudgery, like him? Well, Julie is no ordinary toilet attendant.

Humanity abounds – glorious, at times stupid and disgusting, but glorious humanity. There is nothing high-flown about this honest, forthright account of how words can, sometimes, save people. Of how people can save each other.

This book is the antidote to modern life.

I spend a lot of time on trains in my life and I read almost this entire book on a train. I was desperate to finish it the same way, if only to satisfy the romanticism of this particular reader. Unfortunately, my train pulled in when I had four pages to go. So I read as I walked down the street, almost walking into other pedestrians and walls in my eagerness to finish before my journey home was completed. Almost there, two pages left. Then my Dad rings. He’s waiting in the car, so I’m obliged to pause. Load bags, sit down, seat-belt on. Read. Sprint. Before there’s another interruption, sprint to the end. But don’t miss a word.

I crossed the finish line. I closed the book and held it for a few seconds. Warmth spread through my whole body, as a smile spread across my face, and I felt content.