the may magazine.

Featured

Je Ne Comprends Pas

KATIE BROWN — 15 OCT 2025

If you are familiar with the utter delight that is French film Amélie (or Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain for the purists), you might recall the fabulous voyage of Amélie’s father’s garden gnome, prised secretly from his garden one night by Amélie Poulain herself, that worker of secret miracles. In the arms of Amélie’s flight attendant friend, the gnome travels around the world, his journey documented by Polaroid photos that Amélie’s father, Raphael Poulain, receives in the post.

Raphael is bewildered. First, his beloved gnome disappears, and then he reappears in photo format in the post. More, the gnome appears to be living the jet-setting and adventurous life Raphael, stoic, risk-averse, and preferring to keep his world small, controlled and therefore safe, could never be bold enough to live himself.

“Je ne comprends pas,” he mutters. “Je ne COMPRENDS pas.”

I don’t understand.

Read more

Book Review: Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

Reading Sally Rooney’s latest, Beautiful World, Where Are You (BWWAY), struck a familiar chord and I found myself thinking about Lena Dunham’s show, Girls (2012—2017). In the HBO show’s sophomore season finale, Marnie reads the first sentence of Hannah’s eBook— ‘a friendship between college girls is grander and dramatic than any romance.’ She smiles wanly. It’s a summation of the tumultuous road of Marnie and Hannah’s friendship, which over the course of the first two seasons goes from peacefully spooning in bed, sharing cupcakes in bathtubs, to hurling insults and toothbrushes, ignoring phone calls, hiding from one another, as they drift into a constant state of flux which becomes the series status quo until its conclusion. 

Read More