Paris – MostlyFiction Book Reviews We Love to Read! Sat, 28 Oct 2017 19:51:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.23 LOVERS AT THE CHAMELEON CLUB, PARIS 1932 by Francine Prose /2014/lovers-at-the-chameleon-club-paris-1932-by-francine-prose/ Tue, 22 Apr 2014 13:05:02 +0000 /?p=25629 Book Quote:

“Dear parents,

Last night I visited a club in Montparnasse where the men dress as women and the women as men. Papa would have loved it. And Mama’s face would have crinkled in that special smile she has for Papa’s passion for everything French.

The place is called the Chameleon Club. It’s a few steps down from the street. You need a password to get in. The password is: Police! Open up! The customers find it amusing.”

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shtulman  (APR 22, 2014)

Early on in Francine Prose’s richly imagined and intricately constructed tour de force, Yvonne – the proprietress of the Parisian Chameleon Club –tells a story about her pet lizard, Darius. “One night I was working out front. My friend, a German admiral whose name you would know, let himself into my office and put my darling Darius on my paisley shawl. He died, exhausted by the strain of turning all those colors.”

History – and the people who compose it – is itself a chameleon, subject to multiple interpretations. Ms. Prose seems less interested in exploring “what is the truth” and more intrigued with the question, “Is there truth?”

The title derives from a photograph that defined the career of the fictional photographer, Gabor Tsenyl: two female lovers lean towards each other at the Chameleon Club table. His is one of five narratives that punctuate the novel. The showcase narrative – written as a biography by the grand-niece of one of the participants – focuses on Lou Villars, a one-time Olympic hopeful and scandalous cross-dresser who crosses over to the dark side and becomes a Nazi collaborator. The other four narratives are composed of devoted letters from Gabor to his parents; the unpublished memoirs of Suzanne, his wife; excerpts from a book by the libertine expatriate writer Lionel Maine; and finally, the memoirs of a benefactor of the arts, Baroness Lily de Rossignol. Each narrative plays off the others and provides subtle suggestions that the other narratives may not be entirely accurate.

What is the truth of this intoxicating time, when artists of all kinds gravitated to the Paris scene and when war with Germany was an increasingly sober possibility? Francine Prose suggests that the truth is fluid. Reportedly, Lou Villars was inspired by a real person named Violette Morris. There are more than a few hints of Peggy Guggenheim in Lily de Rossignol and Lionel Maine bears a resemblance to Henry Miller. How much is fact and how much is fiction?

And once the reader gets over that hurdle, how much of what is revealed by the fictional characters is distorted through their own lens? How much of that is truth and how much is perception? Can we ever know the real person who lurks behind the mask? As Francine Prose writes, “The self who touches and is touched in the dark ,between the sheets, is not the same self who gets up in the morning and goes out to buy coffee and croissants.

I’ve said little about plot and that’s deliberate: the unfolding of the plot is for each reader to discover himself or herself. I will say this: the writing is exquisite and in my opinion, elevates an already talented contemporary writer to entirely new levels. The ending is breathtaking in its audacity. The setting – Paris in the late 1920s – is mesmerizing. The themes touch on universal matters: getting in touch with our authentic selves, crossing society-imposed gender barriers, understanding the fluidness of morality, searching for love and approval in dangerous places, making sacrifices for art, and discovering that history is not immutable, but changes depending on who tells it.

I read Lovers at the Chameleon Club directly after another very disparate book: Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird. Interestingly, both tackle the meaning of truth from very different yet unique angles. This is a stunning book and I enthusiastically recommend it.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 13 readers
PUBLISHER: Harper (April 22, 2014)
REVIEWER: Jill I. Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Francine Prose
EXTRAS: Reading Guide
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

More 1920s Paris:

Bibliography:

Fiction:

Teen:

Nonfiction:

]]> ALL THE LIGHT THERE WAS by Nancy Kricorian /2014/all-the-light-there-was-by-nancy-kricorian/ Tue, 07 Jan 2014 13:00:26 +0000 /?p=23576 Book Quote:

“My mother said briskly, “After you take everything upstairs, Missak, you return the cart to Donabedian as soon as possible. Maral, put the spices in the jars, and the sugar on the top shelf. The rest goes wherever you and Auntie Shakeh find space.”

That was how our war began. It didn’t start with blaring newspaper headlines announcing a pending invasion, nor was it signaled by the drone of warplanes overhead. Our war commenced that afternoon when my mother stockpiled groceries so that, no matter what this new war might bring, her family would have something to eat.”

Book Review:

Review by Poornima Apte  (JAN 7, 2014)

The setting is World War II Paris — when the Germans begin their occupation of the city, the protagonist of this story is just turning sixteen. Maral Pegorian and her older brother, Missak, are part of an Armenian family displaced to France after the Armenian genocide. They are stateless refugees and have made the suburb of Belleville in Paris, their home. Maral’s father is a cobbler and owns a small shoe shop hoping to one day pass on his skills to his son.

Missak, on the other hand, has different plans. He is a skilled artist and wants to work as an apprentice at the local print shop while spending most of his time secretly helping the French resistance. As a girl from a fairly conservative family, Maral can’t do much to help her brother, even if she sometimes wishes she could. “Was this to be my lot? Stuck in an apartment knitting or sewing or cooking while waiting for the men to come back from some adventure? It made me want to take the kitchen plates and throw them out the window just to hear them smash into a thousand pieces on the cobblestones below,” she laments.

Easily the smartest in the family, Maral goes through school even with the war progressing all around her, and towards the end of the story, graduates with an offer of admission to one of France’s most prestigious universities.

The Pegorian family’s fate is not unique to Paris or even to Armenians. Their neighbors, the Kacherians (also Armenian) are scraping the barrel to get by as are the many mixed families (including Jewish folks) in the neighborhood. Food is hard to come by — it’s mostly bulgur and turnips that the Pegorians manage to finagle with their ration card. There’s hardly any butter or meat to be had and even onions can be a rare delicacy. Despite the evident sufferings of the citizens during the Occupation, the children somehow manage to be themselves. Maral, in fact, falls in love with Zaven, one of the Kacherian sons, and Missak’s best friend. The two meet surreptitiously and pledge themselves to each other. Yet the best laid plans don’t always come to fruition.

Zaven and his older brother, Barkev, are swept up by the force of history and spend time in a German camp which changes them forever. The war crimes they witness leave permanent scars on their psyches — and ripples from these will eventually touch everyone they know including Maral.

History plays out in more than one way in this touching novel by Nancy Kricorian. With the weight of the Armenian genocide on their shoulders, the Armenian families in All The Light There Was, only want to lie low and not be subject to more tragedies. Maral’s parents have witnessed the horrors of the massacre personally and understandably it defines their life perspective in many subtle ways. When a Jewish family next door is rounded up by the Germans, the Pegorians hide the youngest girl in that family in their own apartment until the child is ready to be shipped to her aunt in Nice.

The Armenians in Maral’s generation might be removed from the immediate horrors of the Armenian genocide but they use the lessons learned from it to know that survival depends on many complicated factors. They are not ready to judge when they see their fellow brethren wear the American or the German uniform in the war.

In the end this story is a coming-of-age tale about Maral, a girl of promise at the novel’s start but who gradually gets worn down as the story moves along. “This is the story of how we lived the war, and how I found my husband,” Maral says at the beginning. The path toward finding her husband is not necessarily the most optimal but of course this is wartime and everyone’s lives are shaped by it. For someone who was fairly strong-willed at the beginning, it is a little frustrating, if understandable, to see Maral give up her education and instead fall into what comes more easily.

All The Light There Was is told through Maral’s voice and her perspective. In one sense, since she doesn’t do much except to bear witness to events that happen around her, this point of view feels limiting at times. The lens is never trained away from Maral and it occasionally gets claustrophobic. Yet it is precisely because the story is told through Maral’s voice, that the reader gets to feel what life was like for everyday citizens in occupied Paris. You realize that even during the worst wars, life can plod along — and even shine through — with grace. The beautiful cover art in this book drives home the point gracefully. Maral and her boyfriend are up front, lost in each other, while the rest of Paris goes on around them. You realize that while teenagers are often self-centered anyway, in times of war, this can be an essential mechanism to get through its many tribulations.

Ultimately the story ends with a ray of hope. “This world is made of dark and light, my girl, and in the darkest times you have to believe the sun will come again, even if you yourself don’t live to see it,” Maral’s father once tells her. As the reader turns the last page, you hope that the sun will indeed come again and shine down on the young and vibrant Armenians.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 57 readers
PUBLISHER: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (March 12, 2013)
REVIEWER: Poornima Apte
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Nancy Kricorian
EXTRAS: Reading Guide
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More Armenian history:

More occupied Paris:

Bibliography:

]]> THE PARIS ARCHITECT by Charles Belfoure /2013/the-paris-architect-by-charles-belfoure/ Sun, 08 Dec 2013 17:07:18 +0000 /?p=23580 Book Quote:

“Before I give you information about the project, let me ask you a personal question,” Manet said. “How do you feel about Jews?”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perskie  (DEC 8, 2013)

It is Paris in the spring of 1942. Paris, the glorious “City of Lights” is even more wondrous in the springtime….but not for the French, not in 1942. It is the second year of the victorious Nazi occupation, and the French are struggling to get by. There are economic problems with the payment of the costs of a three-hundred-thousand strong occupying German army, which amounts to twenty million Reichmarks per day; lack of food for French citizens – the Germans seize about 20% of the French food production, which causes severe disruption to the household economy of the French people; the disorganization of transport, except for the railway system which relies on French domestic coal supplies; the Allied blockade, restricting all imports into the country; the extreme shortage of petrol and diesel fuel; (one walks or rides a bike); France has no indigenous oil production and all imports have stopped; labor shortages, particularly in the countryside, due to the large number of French prisoners of war held in Germany. And then there was the Jewish problem.

Approximately 49 concentration camps are in use in France during the occupation, the largest of them at Drancy. In the occupied zone, as of 1942, Jews are required to wear the yellow badge. On the Paris Métro Jews are only allowed to ride in the last carriage. Thirteen thousand one hundred fifty-two Jews residing in the Paris region are victims of a mass arrest by pro Nazi French authorities on 16 and 17 July 1942, known as the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup, and are transported to Auschwitz where they are killed.

Parisian Lucien Bernard is a struggling architect, trying to make a name for himself. He is just trying to earn a living, gain some respect in his chosen field and stay alive. He hates the Germans but has little feeling for the plight of the Jews. Since the German occupation, all work has dried up unless it is for the Nazis.

As the book opens he is on his way to an appointment when a Jewish man is gunned down by a German soldier right in front of him. His main concern is that he not be splattered with blood because he has an important appointment with Auguste Manet, a potential client and wants to make a good impression. He also wants to arrive on time.

“Lucien had learned early in his career that architecture is a business as well as an art, and one ought not look at a first job from a new client as a one-shot deal but rather as the first in a series of commissions.”

This job has much potential. “Monsieur Manet had money, old money. He was from a distinguished family that went back generations.” And Manet was in an excellent position to obtain German contracts. Manet offers Lucien two commissions. He cannot take one without the other. One is for a large factory – to design a new Heinkel Aircraft Works, the other is to construct a secret room in which to hide someone. A room that will never be discovered no matter how well a house is searched; rather like the “priest holes” of yore. Lucien needs the money and wants the contracts that this relationship might bring. He accepts.

Lucien’s first hiding place is inside a Doric column. The actual work is carried out by a German named Herzog and another man. Both have worked for Manet for years and are entirely dependable. He begins designing more expertly concealed hiding spaces -behind a painting, within a column, or inside a drainpipe – detecting possibilities invisible to the average eye. But when one of his clever hiding spaces fails horribly and the immense suffering of Jews becomes incredibly personal, he can no longer deny reality.

Lucien’s Faustian bargain with the Third Reich is central to the plot. His moral dilemma between his art and his humanity leads him to decision making and life threatening choices. The architect is not the hero here. His actions are not heroic. He undertakes each “hidey hole” design project because he also receives generous monetary recompense and is awarded German engineering projects as a part of the bargain. The “heroes” are the individuals – a Catholic priest, a wealthy Jew, a Parisian fashionista and a German soldier, who, despite the risk of certain death, step up and do something/anything to thwart the actions of the Gestapo.

Lucien is a character who changes as the novel moves, but not without struggles and betrayals. What he is doing is very, very dangerous and there is one German who is determined to capture this man who tricks and deceives the Germans.  Lucien may be somewhat detestable in the beginning with his philandering, his off-handed anti-Semitism, and his greed, but he undertakes a monumental metamorphosis which strips the negative influences from his life and allows his true self to shine through. That may sound corny but it is true. In that aspect, The Paris Architect is a beautiful story of change and growth.

Charles Belfoure is an an author and an architect. Because of his architectural background and insight to the human soul and spirit, he has the ability to shape characters the same way he might craft buildings. The architect’s skill of seeing through to the skeleton of a building must have imbued him with the power to reveal the humanity in each of us.

Just a bit of historical information about the book. Mr. Belfoure has stated that he got his idea about the hidey-holes from Elizabethian England. Priest holes or hidey-holes were secluded or isolated places; hideaways. The term was given to hiding places for priests built into many of the principal Catholic houses of England during the period when Catholics were persecuted by law in England, from the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1558. The effectiveness of priest holes was demonstrated by their success in baffling the exhaustive searches of the priest-hunters. Search-parties would bring with them skilled carpenters and masons and try every possible expedient, from systematic measurements and soundings to the physical tearing down of paneling and pulling up of floors. It was common for a rigorous search to last a week, and for the priest-hunters to go away empty handed, while the object of the search was hidden the whole time within a wall’s thickness of his pursuers. He might be half-starved, cramped, sore with prolonged confinement, and almost afraid to breathe lest the least sound should throw suspicion upon the particular spot where he was immured. Sometimes a priest could die from starvation or by lack of oxygen.

I was immediately immersed in this unusual novel and highly recommend it.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 46 readers
PUBLISHER: Sourcebooks Landmark (October 8, 2013)
REVIEWER: Jana L. Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Charles Belfoure
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More on fiction based on historical Paris:

Bibliography:

Nonfiction:

]]> 13, RUE THERESE by Elena Mauli Shapiro /2011/13-rue-therese-by-elena-mauli-shapiro/ Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:18:58 +0000 /?p=16855 Book Quote:

“His eyes are slightly widened in the picture as if he is startled to find himself captured there. She is convinced that she sees the necessary gleam of yearning in those eyes; she thinks she can help this yearning.”

Book Review:

Review by Lynn Harnett  (MAR 25, 2011)

In Paris-born Shapiro’s first novel, a young visiting American professor, Trevor Stratton, catches the attention of his prospective Parisian secretary, Josianne, not for his scholarship in 19th-century French literature, but for his poetry translations: “A translator, caught in the space between two tongues.”

In hopes that he is a little different (and after an appreciative look at his photograph), Josianne places a box with a red-checked cover in an empty file cabinet in his new office.

Stratton will open the box and be increasingly enthralled by its contents – letters, mementos and photographs dating from the late 19th-century to WWII, mostly WWI and after – belonging to a woman named Louise Brunet.

A real woman, as it happens, and the box of keepsakes is real too. Shapiro grew up at 13 rue Therèse, downstairs from Louise Brunet, whose box she kept after the old lady died and no relatives arrived to claim it. The mementos illustrate the book, each appearing in color in the text as Stratton handles it. The illustrations can also be seen more crisply and in larger format at the novel’s website : www.13ruetherese.com, along with Stratton’s accompanying notes, and several brief videos and audio files.

This sounds gimmicky, but it works, particularly because the box is real, although Shapiro’s story is fiction. She was a little girl when she acquired the box in the 1980s and did not know the dead woman.

Stratton muses over each memento, Louise growing more real to him as he fits her story together in his mind, from the letters from a lover at the front in WWI, including a 1915 marriage proposal, and the photos he, her brother and her father sent of themselves in trenches, to the miniature appointment calendar from 1928 and a photo of her father in 1944, shortly before his death.

Stratton addresses his increasingly fevered notes to an unnamed “Dear Sir,” which seems an odd salutation, given his personal tone and his missives’ increasingly intimate nature. But the novel is a puzzle of sorts and all will come clear in the end, including Josianne’s motives.

Most of the action takes place in 1928, when a new family moves into the building. Louise, married to a nice, but not passionate man, already has a rich fantasy life. She sometimes goes to church to tell salacious lies to the priest hearing confessions and in 1928, fearful of being forever childless, Louise takes her longings a step further.

Or Stratton does. Their lives become intertwined so that the reader, immersed in Louise’s dangerous, romantic year, never really knows for sure if the story is hers or Stratton’s imaginings.

As events unfold, Louise’s thoughts range back and forth in time. Each memento takes on greater significance as deep emotional contexts are revealed, and the 20th century’s early history acquires flesh and blood.

The plot organization is complex and sometimes distancing, when the reader is reminded that the whole thing may simply be Stratton’s fevered imagination. This is risky, given the gut-wrenching revelations and growing personal intensity of Louise’s story. But Shapiro pulls it off; creating a dramatic, multi-layered, sexy story that should appeal to a wide range of readers.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 14 readers
PUBLISHER: Reagan Arthur Books; 1 edition (February 2, 2011)
REVIEWER: Lynn Harnett
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Elena Mauli Shapiro
EXTRAS: 13, rue Thérèse website

Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Another novel which uses photos to drive a story:

The Rain Before the Fall by Jonathan Coe

Three Farmers on Their Way to the Dance by Richard Powers

Bibliography:

]]> ENOUGH ABOUT LOVE by Herve Le Tellier /2011/enough-about-love-by-herve-le-tellier/ Fri, 04 Mar 2011 19:18:28 +0000 /?p=16407 Book Quote:

“ ‘No relationship with me, I’m already married.’… All at once the double meaning jumps out at him. The psychoanalyst laughs out loud.”

Book Review:

Review by Betsey Van Horn  (MAR 4, 2011)

Thomas loves Louise, a lawyer. Louise is married to Romain, a scientist. Louise loves Thomas. Yves, a writer, loves Anna. Anna, a psychiatrist, loves Yves, a man she finds “unsettling.” Anna is married to Stan, an ophthalmologist. Thomas is Anna’s psychoanalyst. No, this isn’t an LSAT logic problem or a torrid soap opera. These are the characters that comprise Le Tellier’s urbane, au courant Paris comedy, a droll romp that is nevertheless intimate and complex within the playful pages.

Lots of light, saucy bon mots flash through this story (“Everyone should have analysis. It should be compulsory, like military service used to be.”  Or, “She sees herself as slim, lives being slim as synonymous with being rigorous. Gaining weight, she is convinced, is always a lapse.”), but there are also small earthquakes that convulse now and then. At 228 pages and 51 short chapters (and an epilogue), most chapters are structured in pairs, such as “Thomas and Louise” and “Anna and Yves,” alluding to couples, as well as Abkhazian dominoes, a game that is close to Yves’ heart. “He is a writer who has readers, but not a true readership.” He may obscure himself further by titling his next novel after that titular game.

Throughout the wry novel, the coupling and uncoupling of husbands, wives, and lovers overlap and cross, and sometimes meet. The themes and ideas may be common but the characters are genuine and close. The dialog is inspired, not prepared or clichéd. The prose slides creamily off the tongue, like a filled croissant, and is peppered with paradox and the double entendre, pointed aphorisms and learned allusions. And life can be turned into aphorisms, instructs Thomas to his patient, Anna, a way of fixing life into words.

“…what attracts us about another person has had more to do with what makes them fragile…Love is kindled by the weakness we perceive, the flaw we get in through, wouldn’t you say?”

There’s a gravitas that manifests subtly, an accretion of observations and details that examine love from every curve and angle. You can visualize this dialog-heavy book as a film, or a play. There is no way not to compare Le Tellier to the best of Woody Allen–a little bit Lubitsch, a little bit Jewish, some Annie Hall, some Stardust Memories, a profusion of Freud. But this is French, and you will imagine that you are walking through Jardin du Luxembourg or running across the Quai des Grands Augustins on a grey, Paris day. It’s eclectic, though, with American as well as other infusions. The savvy prose serves up a savory atmosphere, drifting through outdoor cafés and public squares. Some of the time, though, you are indoors, near a bookcase, and often a bed…

Cultural icons, such as François Truffaut, are included, not just as a reference, but as meaning to the story at hand. Thomas emails Louise, after they first meet, that doesn’t a scene in Stolen Kisses anticipate the future of email? But the scene he shares, in detail, is the buttering of his desires.

There is even a postmodernish, double-column chapter; on one side is Yves’ dry, but increasingly inventive lecture of the word “foreign,” with emphasis on the fact that the French have only one word for it, l’etranger. Juxtaposed on the other side is the cuckolded Stan, seated in the back row, agonized in a stream of invective consciousness. The linguistic stunt work by the author is more than a showcase; it concludes in a probing, poignant place of alarm and discovery.

The characters in these triangular love affairs share universal elements– sex and death, guilt and virtue, grief and ecstasy, illusion and certainty, passion and ennui. And, of course, love. But enough about love.

Eminent credit goes to Adriana Hunter for her luminous translation from the French.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-5from 12 readers
PUBLISHER: Other Press (February 1, 2011)
REVIEWER: Betsey Van Horn
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Hervé Le Tellier
EXTRAS:
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More “love:”

Partial Bibliography:

]]> THE PARIS WIFE by Paula McLain /2011/the-paris-wife-by-paula-mclain/ Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:44:07 +0000 /?p=16381 Book Quote:

“With Hadley, things felt right almost all of the time. She was good and strong and true, and he could count on her. They had as good a shot at making it as anyone did, but what if marriage didn’t solve anything and didn’t save anyone even a little bit? What then?”

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shtulman  (FEB 24, 2011)

Before Ernest Hemingway was ERNEST HEMINGWAY – one of the most revered, studied, analyzed, and parodied authors of American literature – he was a young man with a burning talent, staking his claim to a bright future.

And part of this future included Hadley Richardson, his first wife, a woman who was his equal in many ways – a risk-taker, adventurer, and copious drinker. Paula McLain – in an addictive and mesmerizing debut book – breathes life into their life together in Paris in the 1920s, when everything was just starting to come together.

It was a golden time in Paris. Ernest Hemingway was a writer on the cusp; he was championed by Sherwood Anderson — whom he eventually turns on – and he hung out with expatriates Gertrude Stein and Alice Tokias, Ezra Pound and his lover, Shakespear (no “e” at the end), and later, with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and Gerald and Sara Murphy. He eagerly sought advice, learning to fine-tune his craft, especially with the guidance of Gertrude Stein: “She’d hit on something he’d recently begun to realize about directness, about stripping language all the way down.”

Yet the book is always, definitively, Hadley’s to narrate – and indeed, she does so quite sympathetically, in the first-person. In many ways, it is a re-telling of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, as Ms. McLain pushes deeper into the lives of her characters while remaining true to the facts.

Hadley meets Ernest not long after the death of her overprotective mother, and marries him after a short courtship. Nearly a decade older than her new spouse, she lets him lead the way; when Sherwood Anderson convinces him to go to Paris, she gladly signs on. In many ways, she becomes the personification of Hemingway’s famous “True Woman” – someone who is true and gentle and good and strong – without losing her essence.

As their life becomes more and more colorful – ski trips, visits to Ezra Pound at Rapallo, wasted drinking weekends at Pamplona for the running of the bulls, Hadley asks one of their friends, “What is it we want, exactly?” The answer, “Everything, of course. Everything and then some.” Hadley retorts, “If this is a festival, then why aren’t we happy?”

Happiness is hers in fleeting moments, as Ernest begins to attract attention for his work, after her son is born, on skiing and hiking jaunts, and when she loses herself in her piano playing. But Hemingway is crippled by what would now be diagnosed as PTSD as a result of his war years, and is way too self-destructive. Followers of Hemingway know that he will leave her for another woman — the hypocritical Pauline Pfeiffer, who embraces them both, calling them “her cherishables” and “her dears.”

Hadley is, of course, immortalized for the famous lost manuscript incident. When her husband was covering the Lausanne Peace Conference, Hadley paid him a visit by train and packed all of his manuscripts including the carbons in a small valise, which was stolen and never recovered. This is but one of the story lines depicted in this page-turning debut.

With a few missteps – a little too much foreshadowing and sometimes, an over-awe of her subject – Ms. McLain eloquently captures the innermost feelings of Hadley as well as the Paris life at a heady and exhilarating time. Years later, Ernest Hemingway – who married four times in all – writes of Hadley, “I wish I had died before I loved anyone but her.” I closed the pages of this book wondering how much better his life might have turned out had he remained with the woman he called “the best and truest and loveliest person I have ever known.”;

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 1,615 readers
PUBLISHER: Ballantine Books (February 22, 2011)
REVIEWER: Jill I. Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Paula McLain
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: A decade later in Paris:

Bibliography:

Nonfiction:

]]> PAGANINI’S GHOST by Paul Adam /2011/paganinis-ghost-by-paul-adam/ Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:55:51 +0000 /?p=14948 Book Quote:

“Yevgeny passed the violin back to me. I held the instrument up and studied it carefully from all sides. My fingers were trembling slightly, my heart fluttering. Il Cannone had been Paganini’s violin for nearly forty years. It was with him throughout his entire mature career, through all the triumphs as he set Italy, and then Europe, ablaze with his dazzling virtuosity. There was history in this violin. What tales it could tell, I thought, if it had a human voice, instead of just a musical one.”

Book Review:

Review by Terez Rose  (JAN 05, 2011)

Cremona, Italy. On the eve of an important performance, local luthier Gianni Castiglione is called on to examine Il Cannone, the violin once played by Niccolò Paganini, which would be played that night by competition winner Yevgeny Ivanov. A minor adjustment is made and at the recital both violin and musician perform flawlessly. The next day, however, a concert attendee, a French art dealer, is found dead in his Cremona hotel. Two items are noted among his possessions: a locked golden box and a torn corner of a music score from the night’s previous performance. Gianni’s police detective friend, Antonio Guastafeste, enlists his help and the two soon find themselves on an international chase, on the trail of not just a murderer but of a priceless historical treasure, one worth killing for.

Gianni, appearing in author Paul Adam’s well-received The Rainaldi Quartet (2007), is a warmly sympathetic character and a compelling, often philosophical narrator. All the characters are well developed, giving the story a depth and sense of humanity not always found in mysteries and thrillers. Classical music lore and historical detail spring to life, as do descriptions of Paris, London and the Italian countryside. A side plot in which Gianni befriends Yevgeny Ivanov is charming and effective and deepens the mystery—might Yevgeny or his overbearing stage mother be involved in the nefarious goings-on? The story offers the reader insight into the life of a young career musician, the grind of it, the competitions, the grueling performance schedule. As well, a romantic angle to the story helps flesh it out—Gianni’s developing relationship with Margherita Severini, his musings over his first wife who died several years earlier, both of which are presented with a warm, realistic touch.

Paganini’s Ghost is sure to appeal to the music history reader who normally doesn’t “do” mysteries, as well as providing a palatable dose of history to readers who tend to gloss over “those boring details” to get to the action. Adam has a great eye for detail, is economical with his words, uses humor sparingly, which makes it all the more entertaining and delightful when it does appear. Some passages are worth reading and rereading for their subtle artistry, such as the following, which I found myself reading aloud to anyone who would listen:

“He was a short, goatlike man with crooked, slightly buck teeth, a shock of untidy grey hair, and a covering of pale fluff on his chin that was too insubstantial to warrant the term beard. He gave the impression of good-natured affability, until you looked into his eyes. His eyes were cold and cloudy, like chips of frosted glass.”

No, this is not searing, literary fiction that will forever haunt you. It is not high stakes, high-octane thriller writing. It’s better: an engrossing, intelligent, satisfying page-turner I’d recommend to almost anyone, and a “you’ve got to read this” to music history or classical music fans. A great follow-up to The Rainaldi Quartet. This is book two in the series; here’s hoping we will see much more of Gianni and Guastafeste.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 9 readers
PUBLISHER: Felony & Mayhem (December 16, 2010)
REVIEWER: Terez Rose
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Paul Adam
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:The Rainaldi Quartet

Bibliography:

Gianni Castiglione and Antonio Guastafeste series:

Max Cassidy Series:

]]> FOREIGN BODIES by Cynthia Ozick /2010/foreign-bodies-by-cynthia-ozick/ Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:43:38 +0000 /?p=13671 Book Quote:

“And still it was the return to the quotidian; to the life before. Before what? Bea contemplated it. She had journeyed out as a kind of ambassador, she had turned into a spy against every ingrained expectation, and it was true: sometimes an ambassador serves as a spy, sometimes a spy is appointed ambassador. She had gone roving for Marvin to begin with – for Marvin, yes, but was it only for Marvin? Something had altered. She had a stake in it, she was embroiled. It was no longer Marvin’s need. The world was filled with need – wherever she looked, need!”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody  (NOV 19, 2010)

Cynthia Ozick, author of The Shawl and Trust, two of my favorite books, has written a gem of a novel in Foreign Bodies. A slithering and taut comedy of errors, this book examines issues of betrayal and trust, literal and emotional exile, regret and rage, Judaism in post-World War II Europe and the meaning of art in one’s life. While based on themes similar to Henry James’ The Ambassadors, this novel is distinctly and uniquely Ozick’s.

It is 1952 and 48 year-old Bea Nightingale has been teaching English to boys in a technical school for decades. They are more interested in other things than Shakespeare and Dickens but Bea gives it her best shot each semester. Once briefly married to Leo, a composer and pianist, Bea has been divorced for decades and Leo has gone on to do very well as a composer of scores for Hollywood movies. After Leo left Bea, he also left his grand piano which takes up a huge place in Bea’s small Manhattan apartment. Leo was supposed to pick up the piano and never did. It has sat untouched for years, an homage to Bea’s anger and loss, along with its symbolic meaning of art as creation.

One day, out of the blue, Bea gets a letter from her semi-estranged brother, Marvin, asking her to to find his son Julian, an ex-pat who took a college year abroad and has not returned after three years. Marvin is a legend in his own mind, an arrogant, controlling, rude man who has made his fortune in airline parts in California. His wife Margaret, is a blue-blood who Marvin met at Princeton when he was there on scholarship. She is now in a rehab center ostensibly because the loss of Julian has sent her over the edge. Julian was always the lost child, the one who Marvin considered a loss. He had his head in the clouds and his desire was to write though Marvin wanted him to become a scientist. He has one other child, Iris, who is on the mark and following Marvin’s goals for her to become a scientist. Marvin tells Bea in his letter, that he knows she is going on holiday to Paris and he’d like her to look up Julian and get him to come home. He feels that she must do this for what else does she do in her life but teach thugs. (As a matter of clarity, Marvin’s last name is Nachtigal and Bea’s is Nightingale. She changed her name because she thought it would be easier for her students to pronounce).

On Bea’s trip to Paris, she makes two minor attempts at the end of her trip to contact Julian but is unsuccessful. He has already left his apartment and his where-abouts are unknown. Bea returns to New York and gets a scathing letter from Marvin all but ripping her to shreds. How she is able to stand his abuse is a comment on her own sense of self-deprecation. Marvin has a new idea. His daughter Iris is close to Julian and knows him well. He will send Iris to Bea’s for a few days and she will tell Bea all about Julian and then Bea will again venture to Paris “knowing” Julian and better able to find him. What ends up happening however is the beginning of a long line of betrayals for which Bea is responsible. Iris does come to New York but instead of Bea going to Paris, Iris goes and Bea makes up a story to Marvin about what is happening. Whatever Bea touches comes back inside-out.

Iris writes to Bea and tells her she plans to stay in Paris. Bea goes back to Paris, this time in search of Iris as well as Julian. What Bea finds in Europe is that Julian is married to Lili, a Romanian holocaust survivor several years older than him. He works part-time in cafes and lives on the money that Marvin sends him. Julian and Iris want nothing to do with Bea and give her the cold shoulder. Instead of returning to Manhattan, Bea impulsively flies to California and contacts her ex-husband, starting off a chain of events that leads to artistic obsession. She also contacts Margaret in her rest home which also leads to dire consequences.

Bea’s betrayals are numerous and though often done with good intentions, end up with horrible repercussions. She is passive in her life but feels like she is able to take control when it comes to others. She has this grandiose sense of what is right for those around her. Bea gives a lot of thought to exile and sense of place and these themes resonate throughout the book. While Julian has chosen to exile himself from his father emotionally and as an ex-patriate, Marvin then chooses to exile Julian from his life unless Julian is willing to take a bribe and come home. Bea again intervenes and betrays Marvin. It is hard to see what is going on in Bea’s mind but there are a lot of deep feelings, especially anger, rage, and regret. While her actions might seem magnanimous to her, they often seem controlling, misguided and horrific to the reader.

Cynthia Ozick has created a small treasure with this novel. Its twists and turns, keeping the reader enthralled and emotionally transfixed. We are led through a maze of human frailty, often disguised as strength, as we are swept away with the undercurrents of duplicity and displacement. This is a must-read for Ozick fans and, for those not familiar with her writing, a good place to start.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-5from 58 readers
PUBLISHER: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (November 1, 2010)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia on Cynthia Ozick
EXTRAS:
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Essays:

E-Book Study Guide:

]]> THE CORAL THIEF by Rebecca Stott /2009/coral-thief-by-rebecca-stott/ Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:41:29 +0000 /?p=6063 Book Quote:

“ Although I was beginning to question everything I had ever known, even the definition of species, the full implications of transformism still alarmed me. Without belief in order and structure and providence, where would we be? The imagined godlessness of such a world frightened me.”

Book Review:

Review by Poornima Apte (NOV 01, 2009)

Well before Charles Darwin presented the theory of evolution in 1859, there were scientists who thought along similar lines—who believed that species “were mutable and that Nature was on the move.” Much like scientists who came even earlier and set forth what were considered equally radical ideas, these people too—many of whom were in France—were labeled godless heretics.

When Daniel Connor, a freshly minted medical student, travels to Paris in July 1815, his professor in Edinburgh had already warned him about these “heretics”—also known as transformists. “Paris is riddled with infidels, Professor Jameson had warned me back in Edingburgh. ‘They are poets, those French transformists, not men of science,’” Connor recalls.

Connor is on his way to learn from the giants in science who teach and conduct research at France’s famous Jardin des Plantes—“a garden for the enlightenment of the people.” Specifically, he has recommendations from his professor and some corals and fossil specimens, he hopes will impress Cuvier, a leader in the field of anatomy.

But before he can even get to Paris, a beautiful French woman, Lucienne Bernard, dazzles him and ends up stealing his journals and scientific specimens. As it turns out, Lucienne too has been schooled in the essential principles of transformist theory and has even worked in the fields for a prominent French scientist in the field, Professor Lamarck.

Once in Paris, Connor runs into Lucienne over and over again and slowly falls for her. Lamarck and Cuvier are at odds with each other about their scientific views—Cuvier, for one, does not buy into the principles of evolutionary theory but Lamarck does. “Lamarck’s world of change and flux and progress was revolutionary, a world of horizontals and possibilities, whereas Cuvier’s was a world of fixed and vertical hierarchies. Politically, they were absolutely opposed ways of seeing,” the author, Rebecca Stott, explains. It follows that their followers, Lucienne and Connor, also differ in their views of this science and therefore argue with each other about is finer aspects.

Slowly, even as he begins work in the Museum of Comparative Anatomy, as a naturalist’s aide to Professor Cuvier, Lucienne’s transformist theories begin to lodge themselves in Connor and he begins to question his own way of thinking. Even if he “had been taught that questioning the truth of the Bible had eternal consequences.”

“Science isn’t about making things fit with the Bible. Genesis was written two thousand years ago by men who didn’t know what we know. They weren’t trying to explain how the world began, not scientifically. It’s a creation story,” Lucienne explains once.

All well and good. About a third of the way through though, Lucienne suddenly morphs into a plain vanilla thief and for various reasons, has to steal the precious Satar diamond from the Jardin des Plantes (with Connor’s help of course). After this, the book reads like a Parisian version of “Ocean’s 11”—a heist plotted out well and executed smoothly—almost.

The seductive allure of Paris is on full display here and it is as much a central character in the story as any. Rebecca Stott, who wrote the beautifully atmospheric, Ghostwalk, does a good job of painting the smallest historic details of Paris of the early 1800s. Her recounting the fate of Napoleon—who has just been defeated at Waterloo—in very short chapters, especially helps create the atmosphere. These chapters are intermingled with the main story.

Stott seems to have found her calling—in bringing the elements of science to literature. In The Coral Thief, however, it seems as if science sits on the bleachers much too often—allowing other elements of the story line: a romance, a heist, to take over the plot.

Stott tries to create a “beautiful savant” in Lucienne—a strong, mysterious woman. To some extent she succeeds. But the attempts at creating a woman who is haunting and mysterious actually backfires because Lucienne is a character who is never fully realized. In trying to create a woman of mystery devoted to science, neither science nor the woman ends up emerging strong.

“Today I am Dufour the locksmith. Tomorrow I am a linen dealer or a botanical illustrator or a printer’s assistant. In Paris I am many people,” Lucienne says. Therein lies the problem. All those avatars don’t make for an alluring heroine, just a frustrating one.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 15 readers
PUBLISHER: Spiegel & Grau (September 15, 2009)
REVIEWER: Poornima Apte
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Rebecca Stott
EXTRAS: Interview
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of Ghostwalk

More science in fiction:

Bibliography:

Nonfiction:

]]> STONE’S FALL by Iain Pears (1) /2009/stones-fall-by-iain-pears-eb/ Mon, 18 May 2009 21:39:34 +0000 /?p=1856 Book Quote:

“Money,” he said wearily, looking out of window as though he was seeing a golden age go by.  “All the world is now convertible to money.  Power, influence, peace and war.  It used to be that the sole determinant was the number of men you could march out to meet your enemies.  Now more depends on the convertibility of your currency, its reputation among the bankers.”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Eleanor Bukowsky (MAY 18, 2009)

Iain Pears’s Stone’s Fall opens in France in 1953 with the burial of Madame Robillard, who passed away in her eighties.  The first part of the book is narrated by Matthew Braddock who had met Robillard (then known as Elizabeth, Lady Ravenscliff) when she was in her forties.  The year was 1909, and twenty-five year old Matthew was a crime reporter for a London newspaper.  Elizabeth summons Matthew a fortnight after the death of her husband, John Stone, Lord Ravenscliff, who died after he fell or was pushed out of an open window in his study.  She offers Matthew a great deal of money to look into her husband’s professional and personal affairs.  There are a number of questions that she wants answered:  Was Stone’s death accidental or a result of foul play?  Why did he leave a huge bequest to a child, whom, he states in his will, “I have never previously acknowledged?”  

Why did Stone grant a legacy to Mrs. Esther Vincotti of Italy?   After examining her husband’s papers carefully, Elizabeth finds nothing to shed light on these matters.  She tells Matthew that, even after twenty years of marriage, she and her husband were very much in love and that he had not been in the habit of keeping secrets from her.  That is why she is willing to pay Matthew handsomely to dig deeper and give her the information that she craves for her peace of mind.

Thus begins a lengthy narrative that moves backwards in time.  Pears takes us to London in 1909, Paris in 1890, and finally, to Venice in 1867.  Part Two is narrated by Henry Cort, a shadowy figure who crossed paths with John Stone and Elizabeth and knows a great many of their secrets.  Part Three is narrated by Stone himself.  The first part is not that compelling and some will be tempted to put the book down after the first hundred pages.  Initially, it is difficult to care about the deceased and his wife, about whom we know little, or about Matthew, who barely makes a living as a journalist.  Matthew eagerly accepts Elizabeth’s generous stipend, hoping to improve his lowly financial position.  However, when he starts investigating and finds anomalies in Stone’s business dealings, his curiosity gets the better of him.   What he learns shocks and alarms him, and his continued involvement in the Stone case will put him in grave danger.

Pears takes a huge gamble, expecting the reader to keep track of dozens of characters, some of whom are not what they seem to be, and an incredibly convoluted plot.  The author assumes that we will be willing to stick with a narrative that moves in many different directions, and that hinges, to a large extent, on arcane details of banking and politics; not everyone will finds this subject matter particularly compelling or comprehensible.  Does Pears’s gamble pay off?  Yes and no. Until part three, Stone’s Fall is a tough slog.  There is a great deal going on but, for quite some time, the point of it all is elusive.  It is only in the third section of the book that the tale at last comes to brilliant life.  We get to know Stone intimately, discover how he becomes a captain of industry, and watch him commit grievous errors for which he will pay dearly.  At last, this cipher becomes human and the final pages are riveting.  Many hitherto undisclosed facts are revealed, finally enabling us to make sense of what has occurred in the previous sections.  The ending of Stone’s Fall, although not completely believable, is deeply poignant.  Pears explores a number of themes:  Men who are familiar with the intricacies of making money and the inner workings of government wield enormous power (a timely topic in our troubled times).  Without love, wealth and social status provide scant satisfaction.  A person is revered after his death not for his power and influence, but for his good works, compassion, and personal honor.  Although determined readers will diligently plow through this dense novel, Stone’s Fall will, alas, bring less hardy souls to their knees long before they reach the final page.  Still, the magnificent part three almost makes the whole task worthwhile.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 8 readers
PUBLISHER: Spiegel & Grau (May 5, 2009)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AMAZON PAGE: Stone’s Fall
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Iain Pears
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Review of The Portrait

Another review of Stone’s Fall

Bibliography:

Jonathan Argyll, Art History Mystery Series:

Other:

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