A rich and layered love story that begins in innocence and moves through hardship toward a broad humanity.
Hero of the French Resistance, diplomat, and two-time recipient of the Prix Goncourt under two different pen names, Gary (1914-1980; The Life Before Us, 1975, etc.) examines the fates of young love, naiveté, and idealism in his final novel, set in France during World War II and being published in English for the first time.
Ludo Fleury, an orphan raised in Normandy by his eccentric kite-building uncle Ambrose, suffers like the rest of his family from "an excess of memory." As a boy he falls desperately in love with a Polish nobleman's daughter, the beautiful and spirited Lila de Bronicki. Ludo visits the Bronicki estate in Poland ("a country accustomed to being reborn from its own ashes"), discusses politics with Lila’s brother, and competes with her German cousin Hans and a musical prodigy named Bruno for her affection. But war is looming, and the lives of all five become inexorably entangled in it. Gary, a Lithuanian Jew whose real name was Roman Kacew and whose life story reads more like fiction, writes with knowledge and empathy about occupied France and the struggle of ordinary people to resist. " 'Sensible' men...printed and distributed papers in which they spoke of 'immortality,' a word they employed frequently, despite the fact that they were always the first to die." The Fleurys' neighbor, a famous chef accused of collaborating, insists that just by setting foot in his restaurant, "any German with a shred of sense...can see he's dealing with supremacy, with historical invincibility." Ludo sustains himself with detailed memories of his time with Lila, though a fellow Resistance fighter warns him that when he sees her again she will have changed: "Even ideas stop resembling themselves when they're embodied." Gary's nuanced story avoids easy dichotomies. Ludo can't shake the idea that "the Nazis were human. And what was human about them was their inhumanity." Finding a dying German soldier, he thinks at first he recognizes the man, then realizes "what was familiar to me was the expression of suffering...German or French, in those moments, it's interchangeable."
A rich and layered love story that begins in innocence and moves through hardship toward a broad humanity.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8112-2655-4
Page Count: 375
Publisher: New Directions
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
........ is a disquieting examination of a central, contemporary issue, and substitutes political conscience for the spiritual concern of Greene's recent vela but the battleground is still a highly personal terrain- and an individual is the chief casualty. Tom Fowler tells the story, in an attempt to exercise his guilt, and Fowler is an Englishman, a man of middle years, of few scruples, of even less courage, and disillusioned to the point of diffidence. It is in Salgon where he is stationed as a reporter that he meets Alden Pyle of the American Economic Mission, an innocent and an idealist, who belongs to ""a psychological world of great simplicity, where you talked of Democracy and Honor without the 'u'"". They have only one thing in common-Fowler's mandarin mistress Phuong whom Pyle is ready to marry. Fowler's first act of betrayal is toward Phuong- as he conceals from her the fact that his wife- in England- will not free him. His second is toward Pyle who has been engaged with a small time local General in an attempt to back a Third Force against the Communists, and when a bomb demonstration misfires, Fowler is equally responsible for the retaliation which leads to Pyle's death... A morality tale of these times- of impulsive idealism which is often ignorance on the one hand, up against the moral inertia of the rest of the world. Indochina, and the shabby, shoddy accent of the East sharpens the background for a novel which is an effective entertainment as well. It should assure a wider audience than Robert Shaplen's A Forest of Tigers (Knopf) which deals with this theme and this part of the world.
Pub Date: March 9, 1956
ISBN: 0143039024
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1956
Expect readers of this unpleasant hate poem to Budapest to cancel any plans they've made to travel there.
Budapest in 1995 is supposedly on the brink of post-communist economic revival, but the American expats who inhabit Keener’s second novel (Night Swim, 2013) can neither adjust to the city’s deep-seated complexity nor escape the problems they hoped to leave back home.
Annie and Will arrive with their adopted baby, Leo, so Will can pursue a startup creating “communication networks.” Unfortunately, Will, as seen through Annie’s eyes, is a research nerd with little aptitude for entrepreneurship. Annie hopes to escape what she considers intrusive involvement by the social worker who arranged Leo’s adoption. A one-time social worker herself (an irony Annie misses), she makes ham-handed attempts to help the locally hated Roma population. After eight months, Will has yet to close a deal when his former boss Bernardo, a glad-hander Annie doesn’t trust, shows up with an enticing offer. Bernardo hires Stephen, another expat, who has moved to Budapest to connect with his parents’ homeland; they fled Hungary for America after the 1956 uprising but never recovered emotionally. The story of his father’s suicide touches a chord in Annie, herself haunted by a tragic accident that destroyed her family’s happiness when she was 4. Meanwhile, 76-year-old Edward is in Budapest to track down his late daughter Deborah’s husband, Van. Edward believes Van murdered Deborah though the official cause of death was related to her multiple sclerosis. The only character besides Annie with a revealed inner life, Edward is embittered by his experience as a Jewish WWII soldier. He disapproved of Deborah’s hippie lifestyle and her attraction to men he considered losers, like Van. Over Will’s objections, and the readers’ disbelief, bleeding-heart Annie agrees to help Edward find Van. A bad idea. As for Budapest itself—polluted, in physical disrepair, plagued by an ugly history, and populated by rude, corrupt, and bigoted locals—the author strongly implies that the misery and mayhem Annie experiences are the city’s fault.
Expect readers of this unpleasant hate poem to Budapest to cancel any plans they've made to travel there.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61620-497-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
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