nd, as intimate as a whisper, this alternating montage of ""luminous memories"" of Anne Philippe's follows the death of her...

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LONGER THAN A SIGH

nd, as intimate as a whisper, this alternating montage of ""luminous memories"" of Anne Philippe's follows the death of her Byronically romantic husband, who perhaps did not have quite the passionate vogue here that he did in France. These butterfly-winged thoughts are inconsecutive, from the time when she was first told he had six weeks, or six months, to live. ""The past tense; the tense of death"" is conjugated variously-- you will die- you are dead. There is the interference of certain images (the encroachment of his disease- of decay), the superimposition of others, their house, their garden, their children. Then too, there is the anesthetic aftermath, the despair, the resentment, the finality of never again. Intimations of mortality, these betray a world that died when a life ended; they also reveal the exclusiveness of a relationship while barely exposing it to public view. In spite of the excellence of the translation, it is eminently French in sensibility.

Pub Date: Aug. 28, 1964

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: theneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1964

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