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Lädt ... The Reinvention of Love (2011)von Helen Humphreys
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Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest. Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. Well-written enough that I wanted to keep reading, but I found the parts narrated by Adèle much more interesting than those narrated by Charles. ( ) Helen Humphreys is one of my favourite authors. She can spin a phrase that makes you weep with the glory of it, can break your heart in a sentence, change your mood in a paragraph. The reinvention of love is a book filled with such moments. We are taken to the France of Victor Hugo, cholera, revolutions, and Napoleon, to witness a literary competition wrapped in a love affair. Every character is carefully explored, every moment enhanced. The story itself, centred around Charles Sainte-Beuve, pulls you along through the tides of history, stopping here and here for a dip into one literary salon or another. It all makes me wish that I could have lived in Paris back then, smelly sewers and intrigue and all. What a magical time that was! Let Humphreys take you for an exploration of this time and the depth of human love. This little novel was surprisingly engrossing. The narrative centres on Charles Sainte-Beuve, a poet and critic in mid-189th century France. He falls in love with Adele Hugo, the wife of novelist and poet Victor Hugo. Their affair causes ripples through both of their lives that last a lifetime. It’s hard to describe why this story is so engaging, but I think it comes down to the writing. It is descriptive without being overly flowery, and evokes the literary scene of that period in France, which produced not only Hugo but George Sand, Dumas, Balzac, and others. The social and political atmosphere also play a distinct role, shaping the story as Victor Hugo runs afoul of Napoleon III and his entire family pays the price even as his fame grows. Anyway, at the core of this novel is a love story, and it is elevated because of the players, who reflect deeply on the very nature of love even as they are caught up in its web. This novel tells the story of the unusual love affair between Adele Hugo, wife of the famous 19th century French novelist Victor Hugo, and the journalist and much less well known writer Charles Sainte-Beuve. The bulk of the book is taken up by sections told from their respective points of view as their lives intertwine then separate over the course of several decades. In its essence, though, the novel is really about the effect that Victor Hugo as a giant of French literature and culture for five decades had on those around him, an effect that in some ways damages and even destroys most of their lives. The affair, not unsurprisingly, affects Victor's friendship with Charles, and also tears Adele Hugo apart emotionally as she finds she cannot leave her children for the sake of her lover. Of Victor's four children, only his younger daughter Dede (Adele) outlived him and she was in an insane asylum for 40 years. Her growing dislocation from sanity is probably the saddest thread in the novel. Part of the reason for it was the effect of the tragic death of her elder sister in a boating accident with her new husband, when Dede was still a child. Victor's two sons and Adele follow him into exile in the Channel Isles after he falls foul of Napoleon III and this prevents them from taking places in French society and they waste away their lives. It is almost as though Victor Hugo is a such a colossally bright figure that those around him wither away or burn up. An interesting and slightly unusual novel.
It is a testament to Humphrey’s skill that Victor Hugo should emerge as a mountain of bombast and self-absorbed genius, and yet never overpower in our minds the unimposing figure of Charles. Helen Humphreys has no need to feel insecure about The Reinvention of Love, an entertaining novel at the same time as it is emotionally harrowing. The work is a triumph of lucid, vigorous, suspenseful narrative, a historical fiction that wears the author’s knowledge of the past lightly, a convincing study of character that could be set in almost any civilized era. History, that incubator of stranger-than-fiction stories, provides the plot outline for Humphreys’ intriguing new novel set in the literary ferment of 19th-century Paris. Its focus is the doomed affair between journalist and literary critic Charles Sainte-Beuve and Adèle Hugo, the wife of Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve’s friend and neighbour. It’s a tale whose potential scope is as epic as a Hugo novel, given the sensational details. Cross-dressing! Hermaphroditic genital malformation! Social climbing at the court of Napoleon III! Literary rivalries! Insanity!...Yet Humphreys, a nuanced, evocative writer, chooses to fill in the bold outline gently, even pallidly, with pastel hues, alternating Charles’s and Adele’s voices over 30 years.... Auszeichnungen
Married to a great man, in love with a man like no other . Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
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