What do you think?
Rate this book
The Last Life
Claire Messud's piercing second novel asks questions most are too fearful to face. Moving between the South of France, the East Coast of the U.S., and Algeria, The Last Life explores the weight of isolation and exile in one French family. Of course, the adjective French is already inadequate, as at least some of the LaBasses still long for the paradise lost of Algeria. And Alex LaBasse's wife, Carol, try as she might with her Continental impersonations, will always be an American sporting a metaphorical twin set. The narrator, Sagesse, too, soon finds herself equally stranded. Only her autocratic grandfather, Jacques, is ostensibly comfortable with the identity he has wrought: successful owner of the Bellevue Hotel and head of his dynasty. It is thanks to this man that 14-year-old Sagesse comes to crave invisibility. Having lost all of her friends, she sees herself as "a member of the Witness Protection Program, surrounded by an odd human assortment chosen only for the efficiency of disguise; but somehow, nevertheless, inescapable."
The cause of this loss? Jacques, fed up with Sagesse and her pals' late-night noise at the hotel pool--or perhaps with their failure to take him seriously--shoots at one girl. This incident ruptures life for each LaBasse, the Bellevue no longer "their bulwark against absurdity." Looking back on the crucial two years following the patriarch's "target practice," Sagesse possesses both a teenager's slant self-interest and an older, acute eye for the mechanisms of shame. The Last Life is that rare thing, a fast-moving philosophical novel masquerading as a bildungsroman. In her efforts at identity and affection, its heroine is increasingly alive to the subterfuges of narrative, forcing herself to sort through versions of reality. Her grandmother, for instance, relates one myth about her husband, only to have Carol undercut it entirely. And Sagesse herself can't figure out whether Jacques is "sentimental or heartless." What if both, she realizes, are possible?
As Messud's narrator navigates her way through the past--and the Algerian sections are among the book's most extraordinary--there is everything to savor in her wavelike sentences, many of which possess a dangerously witty undertow. And the scenes of familial tedium are the opposite of tedious. The dialogue snaps with subverted emotion, anxiety, and irony. At one of the LaBasses' bleaker fests, much is made of the mouna, a special (if dry) Algerian cake. Nonetheless, the grandmother does her best to fob it off at evening's end. "I've never cared for it myself, although it's a lovely memory." Retrospect, as Sagesse realizes, is "a light in which we may not see more clearly, but at least have the illusion of doing so."
The cause of this loss? Jacques, fed up with Sagesse and her pals' late-night noise at the hotel pool--or perhaps with their failure to take him seriously--shoots at one girl. This incident ruptures life for each LaBasse, the Bellevue no longer "their bulwark against absurdity." Looking back on the crucial two years following the patriarch's "target practice," Sagesse possesses both a teenager's slant self-interest and an older, acute eye for the mechanisms of shame. The Last Life is that rare thing, a fast-moving philosophical novel masquerading as a bildungsroman. In her efforts at identity and affection, its heroine is increasingly alive to the subterfuges of narrative, forcing herself to sort through versions of reality. Her grandmother, for instance, relates one myth about her husband, only to have Carol undercut it entirely. And Sagesse herself can't figure out whether Jacques is "sentimental or heartless." What if both, she realizes, are possible?
As Messud's narrator navigates her way through the past--and the Algerian sections are among the book's most extraordinary--there is everything to savor in her wavelike sentences, many of which possess a dangerously witty undertow. And the scenes of familial tedium are the opposite of tedious. The dialogue snaps with subverted emotion, anxiety, and irony. At one of the LaBasses' bleaker fests, much is made of the mouna, a special (if dry) Algerian cake. Nonetheless, the grandmother does her best to fob it off at evening's end. "I've never cared for it myself, although it's a lovely memory." Retrospect, as Sagesse realizes, is "a light in which we may not see more clearly, but at least have the illusion of doing so."
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
173 people are currently reading
2028 people want to read
About the author
Claire Messud
45 books940 followersClaire Messud is an American novelist and literature and creative writing professor. She is best known as the author of the novel The Emperor's Children (2006).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 259 reviews
June 12, 2017
I stuck with this book through to the end (though I barely skimmed the last 20%) because I have great respect for thr author's talent. I found almost everything about this book to be screamingly, frustratingly unpleasant. I very much wanted to be interested in the subplot about the dissolution of French Algeria, the theme of which feels very relevant today. The characters were all unlikeable. The narrator was a navel-gazing teenager and my god she navel-gazed. Age appropriate, perhaps, but there is a reason I don't hang out with teenagers and in my limited reading time I am angry that I gave Sagesse so much of my headspace. Perhaps this book would speak better to a 17 year old grappling with ideas of identity and family in an insufferably self-important way . 20 years past that point in my life, I wanted anything to hook onto with my adult brain. Some scrap of humor would have been nice but there was a startling lack of any semblance anywhere in these pages. I endured this book, and I feel faintly beaten up by it. The editor who took this to press without crossing out fully 2/3rds of the adjectives should be fired. There is no, and I mean absolutely fucking zero reason to use "inundating chevalure" to describe "hair," let alone TWICE IN THREE PAGES. I am thoroughly disgusted with modern lit right now. Just- god. Give me a minute. I can't even.
Read
November 23, 2023Now that there’s no one to tell me what to read & I don’t read for aspirational purposes, I have little patience for stories about the upper class. I find their struggles and lives less interesting than those of lower income people.
September 13, 2021
Messud is an author whose writing I greatly admire. Over the last few years, I have slowly been making my way through her back catalogue, and have thoroughly enjoyed each of her books. Messud, as an author, appears to me to be rather underrated. I rarely see reviews of her work unless I seek them out, and one of my absolute favourites amongst her novels - The Emperor's Children - seems polarising among readers.
One thing which I love about Messud's work is that each of her books is so different in subject matter. Everything which she writes about, from an obsessive female friendship in The Woman Upstairs, to a complicated relationship between two sisters living on opposite sides of the world in When the World Was Steady, is utterly compelling. The Last Life, her second novel, was published in 1999, and is certainly a book to savour.
The Last Life takes as its focus a fifteen-year-old girl named Sagesse LaBasse, who tells her story with a 'ruthless regard for truth'. She comes from a family of French Algerian immigrants who own a hotel, the Bellevue, on the French Riviera. This overlooks their old homeland. The family are 'haunted by their history' and, early on in the novel, they are 'brought to the brink of destruction by a single reckless act.'
Sagesse has an American mother, and muses throughout about her heritage, and what her mixed nationalities mean to her. The novel is told from a position of retrospect, from Sagesse's apartment in New York City; it opens: 'I am American now, but this wasn't always so.' A couple of paragraphs later, she reveals the following: 'I'm not American by default. It's a choice. But it is a mask. Who, in the thronged avenues of Manhattan, hasn't known this?' The grown Sagesse has reached a point in her life where she wishes to 'translate the world inside, beginning with the home that was once mine, on France's southern coast...'. So begins her story.
From the outset, everything about The Last Life intrigued me. Messud's prose is rich, and characteristically searching. The many descriptions which she gives throughout to situate Sagesse and her family are luscious, and incredibly evocative. Messud's attention to detail renders every landscape, every object, almost tangible to the reader. When living in the South of France, for instance, '... the days lingered like overripe fruit, soft and heavily scented, melting into the glorious dusk. We gathered by the hotel pool, on the clifftop, after supper, watching the sky falter into Prussian blue, to blue-black, and the moon rise over the Mediterranean, the sea spread out before us, whispering and wrinkled.'
In many ways, The Last Life is a coming-of-age novel; we watch the teenage Sagesse grow, preoccupied with stuffing her bra, and being around her peers rather than her family. There are moments of intrigue here, and others of surprise. The single incident, which serves to make the LaBasse family question so much, felt unexpected, as did Sagesse's expulsion from the family home soon afterward, to stay with her aunt in America. Messud demonstrates great insight throughout, especially on the many and varied experiences of being a teenager. I found Sagesse and her reactions to be thoroughly believable.
The storyline of The Last Life is an intricate one. The feelings of displacement, of 'otherness', ricochet through the novel, affecting many of the characters. When with her aunt in Boston, Sagesse comments: 'It dawned on me in those early days that I was, in this place, remarkably, a cipher. I didn't speak much. The tidal wave of American English was tiring for me, and it took all my energy to keep up, and anyway I felt that my personality didn't translate. I couldn't make jokes in English, or not without planning them out before I spoke, by which time they ceased to be funny and I couldn't be bothered to voice them... But because they didn't know me, my cousins didn't notice. They thought me reserved, perhaps, or pensive, or homesick (which I often was, but they didn't ask about my home), and each projected onto me the character she wanted or needed me to have.'
I have always found Messud's work to contain incredibly deep portrayals and explorations of the human condition. This novel is certainly no different; it is just as astute, direct, and thorough as I was expecting. I cannot fathom why Messud seems to be such an underappreciated author, and I hope that if you pick up The Last Life, or one of her books based on this review, that you enjoy her work just as much as I do.
One thing which I love about Messud's work is that each of her books is so different in subject matter. Everything which she writes about, from an obsessive female friendship in The Woman Upstairs, to a complicated relationship between two sisters living on opposite sides of the world in When the World Was Steady, is utterly compelling. The Last Life, her second novel, was published in 1999, and is certainly a book to savour.
The Last Life takes as its focus a fifteen-year-old girl named Sagesse LaBasse, who tells her story with a 'ruthless regard for truth'. She comes from a family of French Algerian immigrants who own a hotel, the Bellevue, on the French Riviera. This overlooks their old homeland. The family are 'haunted by their history' and, early on in the novel, they are 'brought to the brink of destruction by a single reckless act.'
Sagesse has an American mother, and muses throughout about her heritage, and what her mixed nationalities mean to her. The novel is told from a position of retrospect, from Sagesse's apartment in New York City; it opens: 'I am American now, but this wasn't always so.' A couple of paragraphs later, she reveals the following: 'I'm not American by default. It's a choice. But it is a mask. Who, in the thronged avenues of Manhattan, hasn't known this?' The grown Sagesse has reached a point in her life where she wishes to 'translate the world inside, beginning with the home that was once mine, on France's southern coast...'. So begins her story.
From the outset, everything about The Last Life intrigued me. Messud's prose is rich, and characteristically searching. The many descriptions which she gives throughout to situate Sagesse and her family are luscious, and incredibly evocative. Messud's attention to detail renders every landscape, every object, almost tangible to the reader. When living in the South of France, for instance, '... the days lingered like overripe fruit, soft and heavily scented, melting into the glorious dusk. We gathered by the hotel pool, on the clifftop, after supper, watching the sky falter into Prussian blue, to blue-black, and the moon rise over the Mediterranean, the sea spread out before us, whispering and wrinkled.'
In many ways, The Last Life is a coming-of-age novel; we watch the teenage Sagesse grow, preoccupied with stuffing her bra, and being around her peers rather than her family. There are moments of intrigue here, and others of surprise. The single incident, which serves to make the LaBasse family question so much, felt unexpected, as did Sagesse's expulsion from the family home soon afterward, to stay with her aunt in America. Messud demonstrates great insight throughout, especially on the many and varied experiences of being a teenager. I found Sagesse and her reactions to be thoroughly believable.
The storyline of The Last Life is an intricate one. The feelings of displacement, of 'otherness', ricochet through the novel, affecting many of the characters. When with her aunt in Boston, Sagesse comments: 'It dawned on me in those early days that I was, in this place, remarkably, a cipher. I didn't speak much. The tidal wave of American English was tiring for me, and it took all my energy to keep up, and anyway I felt that my personality didn't translate. I couldn't make jokes in English, or not without planning them out before I spoke, by which time they ceased to be funny and I couldn't be bothered to voice them... But because they didn't know me, my cousins didn't notice. They thought me reserved, perhaps, or pensive, or homesick (which I often was, but they didn't ask about my home), and each projected onto me the character she wanted or needed me to have.'
I have always found Messud's work to contain incredibly deep portrayals and explorations of the human condition. This novel is certainly no different; it is just as astute, direct, and thorough as I was expecting. I cannot fathom why Messud seems to be such an underappreciated author, and I hope that if you pick up The Last Life, or one of her books based on this review, that you enjoy her work just as much as I do.
September 20, 2007
Like The Emperor's Children, The Last Life created its distinct seductive mood, while still providing recognizable (and relatable) details of, in this case, the life of a teenage girl forced to think for herself. Though I enjoyed, and perhaps related more to, the satire of literary academia in The Emperor's Children, The Last Life was a deeper, and sweeter read.
January 8, 2010
The Last Life was movingly written; not happy, but deeply affecting. The last third of the book was the best, as the protagonist reflects on what has happened and the personalities and motivations of family members driving the story's action.
For me as a young middle-aged adult, the book raised a lot of interesting -- sometimes painful, but also hopeful -- questions about identity, choice, 'starting fresh,' and many other issues. Sagesse, the narrator, did a beautiful job of communicating the (often frustrated) desire to have others 'do what they say they're going to do, and be whole.'
I was also struck by the truths, which many of us in our independence-minded society are loathe to admit, that 'freedom is a terrible thing...,' that 'we long to be sentenced,' and that 'our constrictions define us.' Lots of food for thought and feeling here.
For me as a young middle-aged adult, the book raised a lot of interesting -- sometimes painful, but also hopeful -- questions about identity, choice, 'starting fresh,' and many other issues. Sagesse, the narrator, did a beautiful job of communicating the (often frustrated) desire to have others 'do what they say they're going to do, and be whole.'
I was also struck by the truths, which many of us in our independence-minded society are loathe to admit, that 'freedom is a terrible thing...,' that 'we long to be sentenced,' and that 'our constrictions define us.' Lots of food for thought and feeling here.
June 13, 2008
I am in shock that more people did not find this book ridiculously boring. Seriously. I had the hardest time caring about any of the characters besides Sagesse and her brother. I cared a little bit about Sagesse's slutty friend, apparently more than she did; a bit about her summer paramour, again, apparently more than she did; her American cousins, see above. That the more engaging characters just sort of drifted out of the story really frustrated me, even though I know the book wasn't about them. I suppose, since the book was technically about the LaBasse family, I should have appreciated those characters a bit more, but the grandmother's stories? UNBELIEVABLY TEDIOUS.
January 18, 2008
It's a little hard to connect with Messud's characters. At her best, it's more like being benignly haunted than reading.
December 28, 2020
2.5 stars. Started so well but went steadily, boringly, downhill with each successive chapter.
January 10, 2011
So far, I am not that impressed. Messud shows a lot of skills, but her over-the-top prose (with many words you only come across when studying for your GREs) seems ill-fitting when writing from the perspective of a teenage girl. I find it hard to connect to the protagonist, and now at page 285, I have stopped caring to know anymore.
One of the few books I have abandoned.
One of the few books I have abandoned.
January 26, 2011
** “The Last Life” by Claire Messud: Fifteen year old Sagesse La Basse muses about her life and family to an extent that is occasionally interesting, but mostly boring and without a central theme. Her American mother and French-Algerian father are respectively looked down upon and dominated by her martinet paternal grandfather and his patrician wife. The grandfather immigrated to France from Algeria, along with wife and daughter, to open a small hotel on France’s Mediterranean coast. They left Algeria because of the coming war for independence from France, but Algeria always remains their hearts’ homeland and seems to have a central role in Sagesse’s understanding or misunderstanding of her father and grandparents. This is a coming of age story with some of the typical teenage angst and rebellion, but having neither the charm nor the drama of most enjoyable novels of that genre. For reasons I cannot understand, the New York Times found “The Last Life” to be “a large and resonant novel that is as artful as it is affecting.” Horse races.
August 14, 2013
Here is a soaring yet intimate epic about a half-French Algerian (or pied noir) and half-American family, continually reeling from the paternal side of the family’s exile from the former French department in the dying days of the Algerian revolution. The novel is narrated by the daughter, Sagesse, and through her, we delve into the family's Algerian past, catch glimpses of Sagesse's American future, and learn about the pivotal years at the family's Mediterranean resort when Sagesse was a teenager and two gunshots once again changed her family—and her own trajectory—forever. Sagesse's story and her family's overlays the experience of political violence and exile with everyday sensual and corporeal intimacies (with friends, family, and lovers) that make us whole again—or at least, that make us want to be whole again.
August 9, 2017
I have not finished it, but I have read enough of the reviews to know that what is frustrating me is not going to change. I might finish it, skim the rest, or give up entirely. There are some lovely worded phrases, but the story itself is not clear or compelling, the much hyped shooting doesn't really amount to much, the characters do not command my affection or interest, and sometimes her syntax is just too much work with little payoff in clarity.
At another time and with more patience with wealthy people who assume maids and nurses and servants at every turn, I might care.
In the mean time, there are books I will enjoy more just waiting for me to give them a chance.
LATER: Among those waiting was The Woman Upstairs, which I loved.
At another time and with more patience with wealthy people who assume maids and nurses and servants at every turn, I might care.
In the mean time, there are books I will enjoy more just waiting for me to give them a chance.
LATER: Among those waiting was The Woman Upstairs, which I loved.
October 15, 2017
A gift sent by dear TA, thanks you so much friend. Another book with a passport.
This is the story of a French Algerian family saga, told by her daughter Sagesse LaBasse.
She describes how they have beed discriminated by the French, how their culture overcome their difficult times after World War II. Camus is quite often cited along this book.
In order to regain her own identity, Sagesse decided to move to United States.
A very well written book, even if her first book (The Emperor's Children) was very badly criticized.
This is the story of a French Algerian family saga, told by her daughter Sagesse LaBasse.
She describes how they have beed discriminated by the French, how their culture overcome their difficult times after World War II. Camus is quite often cited along this book.
In order to regain her own identity, Sagesse decided to move to United States.
A very well written book, even if her first book (The Emperor's Children) was very badly criticized.
March 15, 2015
Racism, sexism, classism, adolescence, family, disability, national identity vs. personal identity, infidelity, and history. Oh my! Most of all, though, loneliness.
Wonderfully written.
Wonderfully written.
September 26, 2024
I enjoyed this moving and illuminating literary novel, The Last Life, by Claire Messud. It focuses on French Algerian emigrants, the LaBasse family living in Colonial Algeria, the south of France, and NewEngland. I learned so much from this interesting story told through the voice of the 14 year old daughter....Messud nails her so well. Messud must have teenagers or recent teens or just knows them deeply. She shows us the moody, flippant, egocentric, full-of-angst teenager, coming of age in many ways and desires. Through her voice we learn about her imperfect parents and grandparents (hotel owners), and her friends and cousins. We learn also about many lies and deceptions in a directly, roundabout way.
I listened to this on Audiobook and the narrator Saskia Maarleveld, as usual, is great.
If you’re looking for a rich, multileveled story, with viewpoints of 3 different generations, this is for you. I enjoyed learning more about the French Algerians history, and I always enjoy a good novel set in France and New England. Parts of this novel are marvelous and so beautifully written, that I could have reread it. I also found that some other parts dragged a bit and, since it's a lengthy novel...it was tedious, but don't let that deter you because the "golden gems" of her writing are just that.
Publisher's Blurb: It features the "LaBasse family, whose quiet integrity is shattered by the shots from a grandfather's rifle. As their world suddenly begins to crumble, long-hidden shame emerges: a son abandoned by the family before he was even born, a mother whose identity is not what she has claimed, a father whose act of defiance brings Hotel Bellevue--the family business--to its knees. Messud skillfully and inexorably describes how the stories we tell ourselves, and the lies to which we cling, can turn on us in a moment."
I listened to this on Audiobook and the narrator Saskia Maarleveld, as usual, is great.
If you’re looking for a rich, multileveled story, with viewpoints of 3 different generations, this is for you. I enjoyed learning more about the French Algerians history, and I always enjoy a good novel set in France and New England. Parts of this novel are marvelous and so beautifully written, that I could have reread it. I also found that some other parts dragged a bit and, since it's a lengthy novel...it was tedious, but don't let that deter you because the "golden gems" of her writing are just that.
Publisher's Blurb: It features the "LaBasse family, whose quiet integrity is shattered by the shots from a grandfather's rifle. As their world suddenly begins to crumble, long-hidden shame emerges: a son abandoned by the family before he was even born, a mother whose identity is not what she has claimed, a father whose act of defiance brings Hotel Bellevue--the family business--to its knees. Messud skillfully and inexorably describes how the stories we tell ourselves, and the lies to which we cling, can turn on us in a moment."
February 9, 2009
I really ought to give up on Claire Messud. She writes about big issues I am interested in - the fallout from the French leaving Algeria in this book - but somehow deals with them in such a way that I find I care less at the end of the book than I did at the beginning. Contrast the Michael Haneke film Caché, that dealt with the same subject so much more powerfully. I think, perhaps, it's that she doesn't take many risks as a writer, doesn't let the really powerful undercurrents rise up into her prose.
May 13, 2012
Claire Messud is a beautiful writer so it pains me to say I did not enjoy The Last Life. Maybe it is because this is outside of my usual genre but I was very bored during this read. I love the fact that Claire was weaving the histories of many different generations into what could have been a very inspiring story, but I found myself skimming chapters and even skipping some all together because I just couldn't get into it.
I gave two stars because you can't ignore her talent and I think if she worked on a story with an interesting plot line Claire could be phenomenal.
I gave two stars because you can't ignore her talent and I think if she worked on a story with an interesting plot line Claire could be phenomenal.
July 10, 2011
Claire Messud is a gifted writer and every line is crafted. I found myself unable to put this book down because of her beautiful prose, but the storyline utself was mediocre. I found the same kind of letdown at the end of this novel as her previous novel, "The Emperor's Children". What was it really all about in the end and what larger truth about life was revealed? I'm still not sure, but would probably still read her next book to see if her stories can grow as compelling as her writing.
September 8, 2018
Can’t say that I actually enjoyed this novel but I still think Messud is an impressive writer. I find it hard to respond emotionally to most of her stories, though possibly that is changing with time. Couldn’t get past the first 100 pages of The Emperor’s Children (ugh, perhaps my least favorite regardless of high reviews), whereas I quite liked The Woman Upstairs. Who knows? I may eventually love something she writes.
May 26, 2016
I almost gave up on this book. I thought the writing style was overly descriptive. It would've taken me forever to finish if I looked up every word that I had never seen before. I like books that challenge me but the vocabulary of this book just seemed unnecessary. Every once in a while though, there would be a great sentence that made you stop and re-read it, appreciating it's meaning.
May 3, 2009
I found little to like about this book. The story is depressing, the writing style and use of language distracting, and not one of the characters likable. It took me forever to read, I kept hoping something redeemable would happen, I was disappointed all the way to the final page.
March 28, 2010
Really depressing and I didn't like her writing. I got so I would read the first line of paragraphs and skip to the next just to move the book along. I read it to help learn about French/Algerian history, which I did, but I just didn't like the book.
Read
February 9, 2021This was a lot a lot like “The Lying Life of Adults” (which is a lot a lot like “My Brilliant Friend”), and also like "Atonement," with a bit of "Children's Bible" wafting in here and there (although noticeably more European than American). It's a book about loss and disillusionment and coming to terms with unfortunate realities—histories, presents, and futures. If you like watching angst develop in real time in teenaged girls trying to figure out how the world works, this is one to try. It's complicated and imperfect and uncomfortable, and it contains more questions than answers, and I'm not sure if I *liked* it as much as I appreciated it (although I appreciated it a whole lot; the author has a fascinating mind), and I can't think of any specific person I'd recommend this to, but maybe you'll like or appreciate it too?
Here are some killer vocab words, followed by some quotes that capture the big-smallness/close-vastness of the book's arc:
cicatrise: to heal by scar formation
bibelots: small, decorative ornaments or trinkets
pullulate: multiply or spread prolifically or rapidly, or to be full of or teeming with
chevelure: head of hair
soughing: making a moaning, whistling, or rushing sound, as of the sea
shantung: a type of silk weave fabric
estival: belonging to or appearing in summer
tentacular: equipped with tentacles
medusa (adj): like a free-swimming sexual form of a coelenterate such as a jellyfish
marabout: a shrine marking the burial place of a Muslim holy man or hermit
nacreous: having a play of lustrous rainbow colors, like mother-of-pearl
flense: to slice the skin or fat from a carcass
abscission: the natural detachment of parts of a plant, typically dead leaves and ripe fruit
"But fourteen is not an age a which you ask outright for answers: not yet. Those in-between years are a haze of second-guessing and dialogues entirely of the mind. The possibility of human proximity seems greater than it ever will again, trailing still the unreflective clouds of childhood, the intimate, unsentenced dialogue of laughter or of games. Children do not have the words to ask and so do not imagine asking; not asking and not imagining, they eradicate distance: they take for granted that everything, someday, will be understood. // Adolescence, then is a curious station on the route from ignorant communion to our ultimate isolation, the place where words and silences reveal themselves to be meaningful and yet where, too young to acknowledge that we cannot gauge their meaning, we imagine it for ourselves and behave. Only with the passage of years, wearied, do we resort to asking. With the inadequacy of asking and the inadequacy of replies comes the realization that what we thought we understood bears no relation to what exists, the way, seeing the film of a book we have read, we are aghast to find the heroine a strapping blonde when we had pictured her all these years a small brunette; and her house, which we envisaged so clearly and quaintly on the edge of a purple moor, a vast, unfamiliar pile of rubble with all its rooms out of order."
"When you are fourteen—or fifteen, or sixteen—none of it on such a morning after seems at all possible....Blithley to say it seems unreal is not to capture the complexity of the state: what has come before hovers like a dream, and what is yet to come is unimaginable. The future stretches far to the horizon, but between now and it a chasm has opened, for which no possible bridge can be seen. This was my second encounter with such rupture, and already I was learning that such times, when all that was fixed is suddenly inchoate, are perhaps more real than any other: the passage of time inflicts itself in each ticking of the clock, the light is brighter, the outlines of objects painfully distinct. And mixed with fear and dismay lies an undeniable, glittering anticipation, a detached curiosity: something must happen that I cannot foresee; none will come, and evening, and tomorrow; that bridge from here to there must be built and must be crossed, and when I turn back from the other side, the very chasm will have closed up as if it had never been."
"I wanted, really, to write an essay about what it was like to be penned into a corner where every choice was wrong, where nobody would trust you and where the truth could not be told because it didn't exist. Camus knew it, and in my little way I knew it too. We all knew it, in my house, but we didn't talk about it."
"Words, meaningless though they might ring, as wrongly as we may interpret them, are the only missiles with which we are equipped, which we can lob across the uncharted terrain between our souls."
"I was asked why I had done it [jumped into a fountain at age four]. I announced—and it was true; I remember precisely the instant of teetering—that, aware I was going to fall willy-nilly, I had assumed my fate by making it my intention. What I actually said was simpler, of course: 'I was falling, so I jumped.' // Already at four, from somewhere, I had faith in intention—as if the fact that it had been willed altered the quality of my wetness, and the cold that ensued....And that, always, was the lesson of my family's stories....The implication was clear. Severance, departure, once mooted, must be seen as inevitable: that has always been my unquestioned belief. If choice is illusory, the aim must be to keep the illusion intact. With this corollary: there is no returning. We need the might-have-been because we know it will not ever be; the imaginary is our sustenance, but the real is where we live, a reality of fragments. We move the pieces when movement is possible, because possibility and necessity, on some plane, are one; because what is fated and what will be are inescapably the same, and the illusion our only choice, choice our illusion."
On death: "Even now, when I lock myself out of my apartment, and yet can see, in my mind, the exact position of my keys on the kitchen counter, ready to be snatched up—I cannot quite accept that those keys are inaccessible to me, that in the instant in which I slammed the door they became irretrievably, unsalvageable distant, on the other side, in the might-have-been, the ought-to-have-been; and it is only belatedly and with greater reluctance that I summon the super, or the locksmith—depending on the hour—admitting thereby that I cannot will the keys—and yet I see them, so exactly, and can feel their slippery coldness, their jagged runs—into my present pocket; that my error cannot be undone."
Here are some killer vocab words, followed by some quotes that capture the big-smallness/close-vastness of the book's arc:
cicatrise: to heal by scar formation
bibelots: small, decorative ornaments or trinkets
pullulate: multiply or spread prolifically or rapidly, or to be full of or teeming with
chevelure: head of hair
soughing: making a moaning, whistling, or rushing sound, as of the sea
shantung: a type of silk weave fabric
estival: belonging to or appearing in summer
tentacular: equipped with tentacles
medusa (adj): like a free-swimming sexual form of a coelenterate such as a jellyfish
marabout: a shrine marking the burial place of a Muslim holy man or hermit
nacreous: having a play of lustrous rainbow colors, like mother-of-pearl
flense: to slice the skin or fat from a carcass
abscission: the natural detachment of parts of a plant, typically dead leaves and ripe fruit
"But fourteen is not an age a which you ask outright for answers: not yet. Those in-between years are a haze of second-guessing and dialogues entirely of the mind. The possibility of human proximity seems greater than it ever will again, trailing still the unreflective clouds of childhood, the intimate, unsentenced dialogue of laughter or of games. Children do not have the words to ask and so do not imagine asking; not asking and not imagining, they eradicate distance: they take for granted that everything, someday, will be understood. // Adolescence, then is a curious station on the route from ignorant communion to our ultimate isolation, the place where words and silences reveal themselves to be meaningful and yet where, too young to acknowledge that we cannot gauge their meaning, we imagine it for ourselves and behave. Only with the passage of years, wearied, do we resort to asking. With the inadequacy of asking and the inadequacy of replies comes the realization that what we thought we understood bears no relation to what exists, the way, seeing the film of a book we have read, we are aghast to find the heroine a strapping blonde when we had pictured her all these years a small brunette; and her house, which we envisaged so clearly and quaintly on the edge of a purple moor, a vast, unfamiliar pile of rubble with all its rooms out of order."
"When you are fourteen—or fifteen, or sixteen—none of it on such a morning after seems at all possible....Blithley to say it seems unreal is not to capture the complexity of the state: what has come before hovers like a dream, and what is yet to come is unimaginable. The future stretches far to the horizon, but between now and it a chasm has opened, for which no possible bridge can be seen. This was my second encounter with such rupture, and already I was learning that such times, when all that was fixed is suddenly inchoate, are perhaps more real than any other: the passage of time inflicts itself in each ticking of the clock, the light is brighter, the outlines of objects painfully distinct. And mixed with fear and dismay lies an undeniable, glittering anticipation, a detached curiosity: something must happen that I cannot foresee; none will come, and evening, and tomorrow; that bridge from here to there must be built and must be crossed, and when I turn back from the other side, the very chasm will have closed up as if it had never been."
"I wanted, really, to write an essay about what it was like to be penned into a corner where every choice was wrong, where nobody would trust you and where the truth could not be told because it didn't exist. Camus knew it, and in my little way I knew it too. We all knew it, in my house, but we didn't talk about it."
"Words, meaningless though they might ring, as wrongly as we may interpret them, are the only missiles with which we are equipped, which we can lob across the uncharted terrain between our souls."
"I was asked why I had done it [jumped into a fountain at age four]. I announced—and it was true; I remember precisely the instant of teetering—that, aware I was going to fall willy-nilly, I had assumed my fate by making it my intention. What I actually said was simpler, of course: 'I was falling, so I jumped.' // Already at four, from somewhere, I had faith in intention—as if the fact that it had been willed altered the quality of my wetness, and the cold that ensued....And that, always, was the lesson of my family's stories....The implication was clear. Severance, departure, once mooted, must be seen as inevitable: that has always been my unquestioned belief. If choice is illusory, the aim must be to keep the illusion intact. With this corollary: there is no returning. We need the might-have-been because we know it will not ever be; the imaginary is our sustenance, but the real is where we live, a reality of fragments. We move the pieces when movement is possible, because possibility and necessity, on some plane, are one; because what is fated and what will be are inescapably the same, and the illusion our only choice, choice our illusion."
On death: "Even now, when I lock myself out of my apartment, and yet can see, in my mind, the exact position of my keys on the kitchen counter, ready to be snatched up—I cannot quite accept that those keys are inaccessible to me, that in the instant in which I slammed the door they became irretrievably, unsalvageable distant, on the other side, in the might-have-been, the ought-to-have-been; and it is only belatedly and with greater reluctance that I summon the super, or the locksmith—depending on the hour—admitting thereby that I cannot will the keys—and yet I see them, so exactly, and can feel their slippery coldness, their jagged runs—into my present pocket; that my error cannot be undone."
October 4, 2010
I've never been a fan of philosophy, and tend to find French writers to be philosophical. Claire Messud is a philosophical French writer. The Last Life was both sprawling and fragmented, and if I were more interested in the main character's story it would've been easier to follow.
Sagesse is a French teenager. Her father is Algerian, her mother American, and her younger brother Etienne suffered brain damage at birth and is wheelchair bound. The family business is the Bellevue Hotel Sagesse's grandfather built and runs. Sagesse and her bratty pack of teenager friends (some tourists, some children of hotel employees) commandeer the hotel pool every evening, making a general nuisance of themselves until one night the grandfather can't take it anymore and comes out and threatens them with a gun. Parts of the book are pre-shooting, some post-shooting; some during the grandfather's youth, some the father's; Sagesse spends a summer with American relatives, she goes to her grandfather's trial, she becomes an American herself - but nothing happens in chronological order.
Albert Camus the philosopher is brought up a lot, he's pied-noir too (French-Algerian).
Sagesse is a French teenager. Her father is Algerian, her mother American, and her younger brother Etienne suffered brain damage at birth and is wheelchair bound. The family business is the Bellevue Hotel Sagesse's grandfather built and runs. Sagesse and her bratty pack of teenager friends (some tourists, some children of hotel employees) commandeer the hotel pool every evening, making a general nuisance of themselves until one night the grandfather can't take it anymore and comes out and threatens them with a gun. Parts of the book are pre-shooting, some post-shooting; some during the grandfather's youth, some the father's; Sagesse spends a summer with American relatives, she goes to her grandfather's trial, she becomes an American herself - but nothing happens in chronological order.
Albert Camus the philosopher is brought up a lot, he's pied-noir too (French-Algerian).
Read
August 21, 2024I was deeply affected by this story - no doubt influenced by having myself lived in Algeria very shortly after independence and then, later on, meeting displaced French pied noirs in France and America as well as experiencing the viewpoint of the Algerians with whom I was friends and worked with. My favorite novels are those that are multi-layered exposing cultural biases and our own inability to always be aware of implicit biases and to see that manifested in others. I was particularly moved by the later chapters in the book where different viewpoints of the "Algeria experience" came to light. I did not want the book to end.
January 18, 2015
I don't often give up on books, but nothing of interest had happened by page 150 or so. Because of that and because of all of these poor goodreads reviews, I gave up. The shooting incident was not at all dramatic, and I didn't care about the main character. I skipped ahead to see if it was going to get more interesting, and it didn't seem so. There are so many good books; why should I waste time on this one?
April 18, 2012
This was very readable, with some beautiful prose, but it didn't quite soar for me. It read like it had been slightly unnaturally translated, although as far as I can make out Claire Messud writes in English. Like many new books I read now I felt it could have done with a good edit.
August 6, 2008
Exceptionally well-written; richly describes contemporary Algerian history from the perspective of priveledged French teenager. Messud is impressive.
January 31, 2022
Only the beginning is interesting; the tale is long, drawn out, and uninspiring.
April 11, 2020
This was the first, but won't be the last, Messud book I read. A beautiful writer, she expertly creates characters with deep personalities and backstories. Slow to unravel, and gently looping through time and various characters' stories, the novel took, and deserved, time to explore its intricacies and language. I frequently say the stories of "the old person remembering life" are lazily written and terribly structured, and The Last Life is evidence to support my belief. Messud moves seamlessly through generations, weaving stories, echoing histories and creating new ones. The reader learns of generations of stories, woven through time, organically. In this time of 'stay-at-home' life, this novel was a treasure to savor.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 259 reviews