ALL THE WORLD’S MORNINGS by Pascal...

ALL THE WORLD’S MORNINGS by Pascal Quigard, translated from the French by James Kirkup (Graywolf Press: $9; 96 pp., paperback original). Alain Corneau’s critically acclaimed film, “Tous les Matins du Monde” was based on Quignard’s spare novel. The minimal prose mirrors the life of the reclusive composer/cellist M. de Sainte-Colombe, who has built a life around his almost religious search for musical purity. The arrival of Marin Marais, a promising but worldly young man, disrupts the isolated world Sainte-Colombe has built for himself and his daughters in a bleakly elegant study of the conflict between the active and contemplative lives.