The Character of Rain

The Character of Rain
Author(s)	Amélie Nothomb
Original title	Métaphysique des tubes
Country	France
Language	French
Genre(s)	Novel
Publication date	2000
Published in English	2002
Media type	print

Métaphysique des tubes (2000) is a short novel by the Belgian author Amélie Nothomb originally written in French. The English translated edition of the novel was published by Faber and Faber under the title The Character of Rain.

Plot

The novel, apparently autobiographical, describes the world as discovered and seen by a three-year old child born in Japan to a Belgian family. It encompasses the themes of self-awareness, language acquisition, bilingualism, and developmental psychology.

The Japanese believe that until the age of three, children, whether Japanese or not, are gods, each one an okosama, or "lord child." On their third birthday, they fall from grace and join the rest of the human race. The narrator of the novel has spent the first two and a half years of her life in a nearly vegetative state until she is jolted out of her plant-like, tube-like state, and gains a peculiar but complete awareness of the world around her. Most fascinating to the narrator is the discovery of water in oceans, seas, pools, puddles, streams, ponds, and, rain - one meaning of the Japanese character for her name and a symbol of her amphibious life.