Cal Flyn at Literary Review:
Yoga, an exhilarating new work of autofiction by Emmanuel Carrère, opens in early 2015 as the French literary superstar prepares to participate in a ten-day silent retreat in rural France. This is far from Carrère’s first foray into the spiritual realm: for decades he has engaged in various forms of mystic navel-gazing and recently it seems to have been paying off.
If, as he suspects, he is an inherently melancholic and self-destructive individual, he has managed to suppress these instincts for a golden decade in which he has maintained a happy marriage and attained an unprecedented level of professional success. The book began life as an almost hubristic celebration of this breakthrough: ‘an upbeat, subtle little book about yoga’ that might serve as a chirpy guide to achieving happiness and clarity.
more here.