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Shipwreck: A Novel
A mesmerizing novel of deception and betrayal from the acclaimed author of Wartime Lies and About Schmidt .
John North, a prize-winning American writer, is suddenly beset by dark suspicions about the real value of his work. Over endless hours and bottles of whiskey consumed in a mysterious café called L’Entre Deux Mondes, he recounts, in counterpoint to his doubts, the one story he has never told before, perhaps the only important one he will ever tell. North’s chosen interlocutor–who could be his doppelgänger–is transfixed by the revelations and becomes the narrator of North’s tale.
North has always been faithful to his wife, Lydia, but when one of his novels achieves a special success, he allows himself a dalliance with Léa, a starstruck young journalist. Coolly planning to make sure that his life with Lydia will not be disturbed, North is taken off guard when Léa becomes obsessed with him and he with her elaborate erotic games. As the hypnotic and serpentine confession unfurls, we gradually discover the extraordinary lengths to which North has gone to indulge a powerful desire for self-destruction.
Shipwreck is a daring parable of the contradictory impulses that can rend a single soul–narcissism and self-loathing, refinement and lust.
John North, a prize-winning American writer, is suddenly beset by dark suspicions about the real value of his work. Over endless hours and bottles of whiskey consumed in a mysterious café called L’Entre Deux Mondes, he recounts, in counterpoint to his doubts, the one story he has never told before, perhaps the only important one he will ever tell. North’s chosen interlocutor–who could be his doppelgänger–is transfixed by the revelations and becomes the narrator of North’s tale.
North has always been faithful to his wife, Lydia, but when one of his novels achieves a special success, he allows himself a dalliance with Léa, a starstruck young journalist. Coolly planning to make sure that his life with Lydia will not be disturbed, North is taken off guard when Léa becomes obsessed with him and he with her elaborate erotic games. As the hypnotic and serpentine confession unfurls, we gradually discover the extraordinary lengths to which North has gone to indulge a powerful desire for self-destruction.
Shipwreck is a daring parable of the contradictory impulses that can rend a single soul–narcissism and self-loathing, refinement and lust.
243 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
11 people are currently reading
147 people want to read
About the author
Louis Begley
45 books85 followersLouis Begley is an American novelist.
Begley was born Ludwik Begleiter in Stryi at the time part of Poland and now in Ukraine, as the only child of a physician. He is a survivor of the Holocaust due to the multiple purchases of Aryan papers by his mother and constant evasion of the Nazis. They survived by pretending to be Polish Catholic. The family left Poland in the fall of 1946 and settled in New York in March 1947. Begley studied English Literature at Harvard College (AB '54, summa cum laude), and published in the Harvard Advocate. Service in the United States Army followed. In 1956 Begley entered Harvard Law School and graduated in 1959 (LL.B. magna cum laude).
Upon graduation from Law School, Begley joined the New York firm of Debevoise & Plimpton as an associate; became a partner in January 1968; became of counsel in January 2004; and retired in January 2007. From 1993 to 1995, Begley was also president of PEN American Center. He remains a member of PEN's board of directors, as well as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
His wife of 30 years, Anka Muhlstein, was honoured by the French Academy for her work on La Salle, and received critical acclaim for her book A Taste for Freedom: The Life of Astolphe de Custine.
His first novel, Wartime Lies, was written in 1989. It won the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first work of fiction in 1991. The French version, Une éducation polonaise, won the Prix Médicis International in 1992. He has also won several German literature prizes, including the Jeanette Schocken Prize in 1995 and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Literature Prize in 2000.
His novel About Schmidt was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jack Nicholson.
Begley was born Ludwik Begleiter in Stryi at the time part of Poland and now in Ukraine, as the only child of a physician. He is a survivor of the Holocaust due to the multiple purchases of Aryan papers by his mother and constant evasion of the Nazis. They survived by pretending to be Polish Catholic. The family left Poland in the fall of 1946 and settled in New York in March 1947. Begley studied English Literature at Harvard College (AB '54, summa cum laude), and published in the Harvard Advocate. Service in the United States Army followed. In 1956 Begley entered Harvard Law School and graduated in 1959 (LL.B. magna cum laude).
Upon graduation from Law School, Begley joined the New York firm of Debevoise & Plimpton as an associate; became a partner in January 1968; became of counsel in January 2004; and retired in January 2007. From 1993 to 1995, Begley was also president of PEN American Center. He remains a member of PEN's board of directors, as well as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
His wife of 30 years, Anka Muhlstein, was honoured by the French Academy for her work on La Salle, and received critical acclaim for her book A Taste for Freedom: The Life of Astolphe de Custine.
His first novel, Wartime Lies, was written in 1989. It won the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first work of fiction in 1991. The French version, Une éducation polonaise, won the Prix Médicis International in 1992. He has also won several German literature prizes, including the Jeanette Schocken Prize in 1995 and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Literature Prize in 2000.
His novel About Schmidt was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jack Nicholson.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
May 23, 2017
”The conclusion I reached came down to this: none of my books, neither the new novel nor any I had written before, was very good. Certainly, none possessed the literary merit that critical opinion ascribed to them. Not even my second novel, the one that won all the prizes and was said to confirm my standing as an important novelist. No, they all belonged to the same dreary breed of unneeded books.”
The trouble with John North, as it is for most of us, is in his head. It is the spectre of self-doubt that begins to violate his normal sensibilities regarding himself and his work. Every award he has ever won has been pandering. Everything he has ever created is far short of where he wishes it could be. He is in the midst of a full blown mid-life crises.
We first meet John North when he encounters a man in a café called L’Entre Deux Mondes. Over numerous hours and too many bottles of whiskey North relates what he calls the story of his life to this man. It isn’t his entire life for he is mostly obsessed with only a few months of his life. In this short span he learns more about himself than he has in all the rest of the years of his life put together. Louis Begley leaves it up to the reader to determine if the man in the bar is really there or a doppelganger. I like to think that North is slowly getting completely smashed and telling his story back to himself. He is a writer after all. He naturally must analyse what he knows. How could he possibly help but change the narrative?
As doubt is wrapping itself around all that he believes about himself, he meets a journalist in Paris. He is there to do some interviews around the coming film based on his first book. Léa, works for Vogue, but fashion isn’t really her game. Her main preoccupation seems to be in collecting interesting, successful men. ”I had taken stock of her skin, nose, and pouting lips. Now with her opulent blond mane so close to my face, as I stared at those fabulous legs and imagined the shape and heft of her breasts, I became aroused. There was no doubt about it: she was truly beautiful. And seductive beyond what I had imagined.”
Beauty, so easy to come by when one is still blooming. Lust, so easy to inspire when one is unhindered by the passing of decades. Desire, so easy to achieve when genetics gives one universal appeal. A word of caution though, everything in this world is on a lend lease contract.
North is old enough to be Léa’s father which is immaterial to anything, after all he doesn’t want to marry her. He only wants to borrow her exuberance, her taut skin, and feel the allure of youth again. The point is that this is to be an affair, a short lived affair.
No one need find out.
He is, after all, happily married to his accomplished, desirable, and devoted wife Lydia. He is reassured by the fact that Léa tells him about all the ongoing affairs she is having with various men she has met while doing her job. This can all be justified.
”People are most often wrong about sex. As you have probably guessed, I opened this parenthesis, which I will soon close, to demonstrate that, contrary to ignorant middle-class prejudice, which holds that men become ‘fucked out,’ intense and inventive lovemaking with a woman who is a great lay...rebounds to the sexual benefit of the wife. The husband’s interest in women, and in the unbeatable pleasure to be found in fornication, rises sky-high.”
So really he is having sex with Léa to improve the already (he admits this) wonderful sexual relationship he has with Lydia. I would have more respect for North if he would just admit that he wants his cake and be able to eat it, too. He wants to feel more alive. He wants to steal some inspiration from Léa and hopefully improve the way he feels about himself.
Of course, there is guilt; it is hard to escape the gloom of remorse. There is also fear, the nerve jangling anxiety of Lydia finding out. Léa, as it turns out, knows a lot of people that know him. How quickly the jubilation over his conquest is replaced with the trepidation over the possibility of being caught. Misgivings are flooding his mind even before the soiled sheets of his hotel bed can be changed.
Part of the attraction of the luscious Léa is her easy availability. North didn’t have to chase. He simply had to take advantage of her enamored view of him. He had to allow himself to be collected, to become a notch on her bedpost, a small part of her unpublished memoirs of the men she had seduced. Another calculating aspect to this situation is that this is a woman who is used to mencumming coming and going out of her life.
She won’t be any trouble.
In his overall assessment of the situation, his own arrogance may have miscalculated the possibility that she might become obsessed with him.
North is brimming with arrogance, hopeful, blessed arrogance that he will manage to extract himself with his superior wit mingled with a heavy dose of dumb luck. As it turns out, he may have to resort to much more sinister scheming as his desperation becomes more acute.
Skimming through a few other reviews, it seems that people are struggling with the fact that North is not a likeable character. I must say he can’t help that... he “was drawn that way.” Of course, that was Begley’s intention to create this man so truly misguided, so bored with his own successes, so deluded by childish logic, and so unbelievably self-centered that by the end of the novel whatever sympathy or dollop of respect you might have for the man will easily float in the neck of a freshly opened bottle of whiskey. The Begley writing, as always, is superb. You want to like North just because he is allowed to express himself so well. He might even convince you, briefly, that his rationales are...well..rational. North is a wonderful character study that might even convince a few men to not put their pet bunnies at risk of being found on the kitchen stove in a hot pot.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
The trouble with John North, as it is for most of us, is in his head. It is the spectre of self-doubt that begins to violate his normal sensibilities regarding himself and his work. Every award he has ever won has been pandering. Everything he has ever created is far short of where he wishes it could be. He is in the midst of a full blown mid-life crises.
We first meet John North when he encounters a man in a café called L’Entre Deux Mondes. Over numerous hours and too many bottles of whiskey North relates what he calls the story of his life to this man. It isn’t his entire life for he is mostly obsessed with only a few months of his life. In this short span he learns more about himself than he has in all the rest of the years of his life put together. Louis Begley leaves it up to the reader to determine if the man in the bar is really there or a doppelganger. I like to think that North is slowly getting completely smashed and telling his story back to himself. He is a writer after all. He naturally must analyse what he knows. How could he possibly help but change the narrative?
As doubt is wrapping itself around all that he believes about himself, he meets a journalist in Paris. He is there to do some interviews around the coming film based on his first book. Léa, works for Vogue, but fashion isn’t really her game. Her main preoccupation seems to be in collecting interesting, successful men. ”I had taken stock of her skin, nose, and pouting lips. Now with her opulent blond mane so close to my face, as I stared at those fabulous legs and imagined the shape and heft of her breasts, I became aroused. There was no doubt about it: she was truly beautiful. And seductive beyond what I had imagined.”
Beauty, so easy to come by when one is still blooming. Lust, so easy to inspire when one is unhindered by the passing of decades. Desire, so easy to achieve when genetics gives one universal appeal. A word of caution though, everything in this world is on a lend lease contract.
North is old enough to be Léa’s father which is immaterial to anything, after all he doesn’t want to marry her. He only wants to borrow her exuberance, her taut skin, and feel the allure of youth again. The point is that this is to be an affair, a short lived affair.
No one need find out.
He is, after all, happily married to his accomplished, desirable, and devoted wife Lydia. He is reassured by the fact that Léa tells him about all the ongoing affairs she is having with various men she has met while doing her job. This can all be justified.
”People are most often wrong about sex. As you have probably guessed, I opened this parenthesis, which I will soon close, to demonstrate that, contrary to ignorant middle-class prejudice, which holds that men become ‘fucked out,’ intense and inventive lovemaking with a woman who is a great lay...rebounds to the sexual benefit of the wife. The husband’s interest in women, and in the unbeatable pleasure to be found in fornication, rises sky-high.”
So really he is having sex with Léa to improve the already (he admits this) wonderful sexual relationship he has with Lydia. I would have more respect for North if he would just admit that he wants his cake and be able to eat it, too. He wants to feel more alive. He wants to steal some inspiration from Léa and hopefully improve the way he feels about himself.
Of course, there is guilt; it is hard to escape the gloom of remorse. There is also fear, the nerve jangling anxiety of Lydia finding out. Léa, as it turns out, knows a lot of people that know him. How quickly the jubilation over his conquest is replaced with the trepidation over the possibility of being caught. Misgivings are flooding his mind even before the soiled sheets of his hotel bed can be changed.
Part of the attraction of the luscious Léa is her easy availability. North didn’t have to chase. He simply had to take advantage of her enamored view of him. He had to allow himself to be collected, to become a notch on her bedpost, a small part of her unpublished memoirs of the men she had seduced. Another calculating aspect to this situation is that this is a woman who is used to men
She won’t be any trouble.
In his overall assessment of the situation, his own arrogance may have miscalculated the possibility that she might become obsessed with him.
North is brimming with arrogance, hopeful, blessed arrogance that he will manage to extract himself with his superior wit mingled with a heavy dose of dumb luck. As it turns out, he may have to resort to much more sinister scheming as his desperation becomes more acute.
Skimming through a few other reviews, it seems that people are struggling with the fact that North is not a likeable character. I must say he can’t help that... he “was drawn that way.” Of course, that was Begley’s intention to create this man so truly misguided, so bored with his own successes, so deluded by childish logic, and so unbelievably self-centered that by the end of the novel whatever sympathy or dollop of respect you might have for the man will easily float in the neck of a freshly opened bottle of whiskey. The Begley writing, as always, is superb. You want to like North just because he is allowed to express himself so well. He might even convince you, briefly, that his rationales are...well..rational. North is a wonderful character study that might even convince a few men to not put their pet bunnies at risk of being found on the kitchen stove in a hot pot.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
November 8, 2018
Starts off as well-written smut and then continues to be well-written but also becomes a slog. The ending, as endings tend to do, brings us back on course. The story itself is predictable, as a romance spirals out of control and leads us to a climactic ending of disaster and (you guessed it) shipwreck.
Overall, the positives outweigh the negatives. Begley's choice of locales is first rate: Hamptons, NYC, Martha's Vineyard, Paris, Vienna and Spetsai. The beautiful scenery, however, really just serves as attractive decor for a flawed storyline.
Other positives include a narrator that is most likely North's doppleganger and (perhaps) an example of how writers take fact and create fiction. Methinks this novel is much more intelligent than people give it credit for.
My feelings on this novel are undecided. Might have to return to this review after letting things percolate a bit. Might even have to read it again. It's certainly good. Maybe, with time, I might think it excellent. For now, 3 stars.
Overall, the positives outweigh the negatives. Begley's choice of locales is first rate: Hamptons, NYC, Martha's Vineyard, Paris, Vienna and Spetsai. The beautiful scenery, however, really just serves as attractive decor for a flawed storyline.
Other positives include a narrator that is most likely North's doppleganger and (perhaps) an example of how writers take fact and create fiction. Methinks this novel is much more intelligent than people give it credit for.
My feelings on this novel are undecided. Might have to return to this review after letting things percolate a bit. Might even have to read it again. It's certainly good. Maybe, with time, I might think it excellent. For now, 3 stars.
November 18, 2010
I think I'm going to enjoy writing about Louis Begley's Shipwreck more than I enjoyed reading it. Probably a lot more. There's so many ways to describe why I was so disappointed in this book.
The main character, and essentially the narrator of the story (though it's told through the filter of a mostly-silent third party), is John North. North is a published author of several novels of critical success and a faithful, loving husband to Lydia. Faithful, that is, until he meets young journalist Lea and begins an affair with her.
The disappointing part was that this had potential to be a good story - potential that went unrealized for the most part. Shipwreck has a good ending, I will give it that, but getting there is simply a chore, and the payoff isn't worth the extra effort.
The story is basically a character study, but the main problem is that John North isn't an interesting enough character to merit a study of such length. North is neurotic and arrogant and prissy, which would all be fine if he had something interesting to say - but he doesn't. He questions and doubts and bends over backwards trying to gaze into his own navel constantly. His neuroses infect every aspect of the story and his passions are as tepid as the coffee you forgot to drink earlier this morning.
North cannot seem to say something straight out - he wanders from point to point as he tells his tale, bouncing off tangential stories often. This reminded me of the wanderings of Jose Saramago, who often rambles on as well. The sharp contrast is that Saramago wanders into flights of fancy and imagination crafted in language that makes you want to weep, while North, in Begley's hands, rambles deeper and deeper into the mundane. One makes the tangents worth reading on their own merit, the other makes them feel like roadblocks to the story.
There's nothing special about the craft of 'Shipwreck' either. The language is nothing to brag about and the story structure in linear and predictable. I suspected the ending would be at least a high point of the book, and I was at least right in that, but as I say, getting there was much, much harder than it needed to be.
Comparisons leap to mind. If Shipwreck was a piece of music it would be most likely heard in an elevator, unobtrusive background noise played through tinny speakers. If it were a meal it would be vaguely satisfying but bland, something slightly greasy purchased at a drive-up window. If it were a razor blade it would be dull from use and irritating on the skin. If it were a painting it would be something seen on the wall of a hotel room - flat colors depicting a generic landscape, something safe and unoffensive.
There are better books along these lines - Susan Minot's Rapture, for example, is a much more engaging story and told very thoughtfully, and actually expresses real passion and emotion without overplaying it. Put simply, Shipwreck looked to be a story about hidden passions and life-changing decisions, but instead was an examination an uninteresting, neurotic, and ultimately cowardly character.
And yes, writing about it was far more fun than reading it.
The main character, and essentially the narrator of the story (though it's told through the filter of a mostly-silent third party), is John North. North is a published author of several novels of critical success and a faithful, loving husband to Lydia. Faithful, that is, until he meets young journalist Lea and begins an affair with her.
The disappointing part was that this had potential to be a good story - potential that went unrealized for the most part. Shipwreck has a good ending, I will give it that, but getting there is simply a chore, and the payoff isn't worth the extra effort.
The story is basically a character study, but the main problem is that John North isn't an interesting enough character to merit a study of such length. North is neurotic and arrogant and prissy, which would all be fine if he had something interesting to say - but he doesn't. He questions and doubts and bends over backwards trying to gaze into his own navel constantly. His neuroses infect every aspect of the story and his passions are as tepid as the coffee you forgot to drink earlier this morning.
North cannot seem to say something straight out - he wanders from point to point as he tells his tale, bouncing off tangential stories often. This reminded me of the wanderings of Jose Saramago, who often rambles on as well. The sharp contrast is that Saramago wanders into flights of fancy and imagination crafted in language that makes you want to weep, while North, in Begley's hands, rambles deeper and deeper into the mundane. One makes the tangents worth reading on their own merit, the other makes them feel like roadblocks to the story.
There's nothing special about the craft of 'Shipwreck' either. The language is nothing to brag about and the story structure in linear and predictable. I suspected the ending would be at least a high point of the book, and I was at least right in that, but as I say, getting there was much, much harder than it needed to be.
Comparisons leap to mind. If Shipwreck was a piece of music it would be most likely heard in an elevator, unobtrusive background noise played through tinny speakers. If it were a meal it would be vaguely satisfying but bland, something slightly greasy purchased at a drive-up window. If it were a razor blade it would be dull from use and irritating on the skin. If it were a painting it would be something seen on the wall of a hotel room - flat colors depicting a generic landscape, something safe and unoffensive.
There are better books along these lines - Susan Minot's Rapture, for example, is a much more engaging story and told very thoughtfully, and actually expresses real passion and emotion without overplaying it. Put simply, Shipwreck looked to be a story about hidden passions and life-changing decisions, but instead was an examination an uninteresting, neurotic, and ultimately cowardly character.
And yes, writing about it was far more fun than reading it.
July 8, 2013
Shipwreck—review on Goodreads
Hawaiian vacation, day 5 of 6, third novel of three. From a stack of books in the rental cottage, all mysteries and spy thrillers. Had picked through what looked interesting or not previously-read. Gazed at the first few paragraphs of Shipwreck. Then the next few pages. Then was a quarter of the way through when the wife reminded me we were due for a sunset boat tour. Put the book down reluctantly.
Back from cruise, back to book. Next day, packed for return trip home, quickly, so I could read as much of book as possible before leaving. Before leaving, downloaded book to my e-reader. Finished book on plane.
Thus 4 stars. This is a dense little tome, the narrator’s prose style long and meandering, at points self-deprecating, but only barely so, hinting at a sense of shame if not outright guilt. The reader knows, fairly quickly, that something must go wrong. And then then reader guesses, and the rest is the intrigue and anxiety of finding out if you were right.
A main character you can sort of like if not respect, a lifestyle you can be envious of if not appreciate, all of it painted with an artistic disingenuousness. A heavy book for so few pages, a light book considering the subject matter. You won’t sink your teeth into it, as it were, but you’ll definitely get a taste for it.
Hawaiian vacation, day 5 of 6, third novel of three. From a stack of books in the rental cottage, all mysteries and spy thrillers. Had picked through what looked interesting or not previously-read. Gazed at the first few paragraphs of Shipwreck. Then the next few pages. Then was a quarter of the way through when the wife reminded me we were due for a sunset boat tour. Put the book down reluctantly.
Back from cruise, back to book. Next day, packed for return trip home, quickly, so I could read as much of book as possible before leaving. Before leaving, downloaded book to my e-reader. Finished book on plane.
Thus 4 stars. This is a dense little tome, the narrator’s prose style long and meandering, at points self-deprecating, but only barely so, hinting at a sense of shame if not outright guilt. The reader knows, fairly quickly, that something must go wrong. And then then reader guesses, and the rest is the intrigue and anxiety of finding out if you were right.
A main character you can sort of like if not respect, a lifestyle you can be envious of if not appreciate, all of it painted with an artistic disingenuousness. A heavy book for so few pages, a light book considering the subject matter. You won’t sink your teeth into it, as it were, but you’ll definitely get a taste for it.
September 22, 2024
I didn’t like this. This author liked to show off his vocabulary. Yes the main character is an author but still. The whole book is about his claiming to love his wife while carrying on an affair with a young journalist. That’s it. It ends in a bizarre way that left this reader flat. I thought the author could relate his feelings better as to why he would risk his entire life for a young piece of sn_tch. Sorry but she was. The things this woman would do to get any man to take care of her was disgusting. The H and OW would speak on her other lovers/great loves. I was waiting for his wife to find out but she never did. I don’t recommend.
November 22, 2017
I tried so hard to get to the end of this book. Truly. And was it worth it? Not even close.
The cover should have said it all-- anyone falling for that Photoshop is either seriously insecure or an incredibly thirsty old man. This book is meant to entertain people like North, ungrateful white intellects... There's no way anyone reads North as a character study.
My main problem, though, is Lea. She's SO DUMB! It's sickening. Her character allows North to think his actions are FINE, that hot young journalists don't HAVE to be anything than "a great lay" Whether you like it or not, this book is inherently sexist, and insultingly bad at hiding it. Apart from the few pages of fantastical eroticism, this book was a waste of time, space, trees, money, and paper shredding battery.
The cover should have said it all-- anyone falling for that Photoshop is either seriously insecure or an incredibly thirsty old man. This book is meant to entertain people like North, ungrateful white intellects... There's no way anyone reads North as a character study.
My main problem, though, is Lea. She's SO DUMB! It's sickening. Her character allows North to think his actions are FINE, that hot young journalists don't HAVE to be anything than "a great lay" Whether you like it or not, this book is inherently sexist, and insultingly bad at hiding it. Apart from the few pages of fantastical eroticism, this book was a waste of time, space, trees, money, and paper shredding battery.
August 2, 2011
Unfortunately I do not like books where I find the narrator annoying and arrogant. I know this is what the author intended but it didn't work for me. I also did not like the monologue style because afterall, who knew whether what he was saying was true at all (in the context of the story). So it become rather an exercise in self-indulgence.
July 8, 2015
I thought the main character was pompous and egotistical from the first page. I didn't like the situations he got into or his solutions.
July 1, 2023
John North has an enviable life. He is a successful author and is married to the love of his life, Lydia. They have an apartment in New York, a house on the Cape and another house on the shore. Lydia is a successful research doctor and money is never an issue.
But North is hit with midlife malaise. He starts to think that nothing he has is worth having and that he is an imposter who will shortly be revealed. His work he puts down as pedestrian and unworthy of the accolades he has received. When he goes to Paris to discuss business with his French agent, he is moody and unsatisfied.
Then he wins a major award while in Paris. His last book is optioned for a movie. Suddenly his fame and success has multiplied. He meets a journalist, Lea, and when she ends up at a dinner with one of his friends, he offers her a ride home and starts an affair with her. He intends it to be a fling but Lea is determined that it will be much, much more.
Suddenly, John is obsessed with Lea. He makes excuses, first to stay longer in Paris and then to make repeated trips there, telling Lydia it is all business. He spends hours in bed with Lea and the erotic delights she provides have him mesmerized. Lea begins demanding more and more of John. She wants to be invited to his home, to meet Lydia and become friends with her. How can this end well?
Louis Begley was born in what was then Poland, now part of the Ukraine in 1933. His family remained there throughout the war and afterwards lived in Paris before emigrating to the United States when Begley was eleven. He attended Harvard Law School and worked for many years as an attorney. His most famous works are the Schmidt trilogy. In this novel, he explores how quickly one can become obsessed with another person and how erotic love can lead to disaster. The beloved becomes the pursuer from which one finally only wants to flee. This was a new author to me and as his work has been reissued, I plan to read more by him. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.
But North is hit with midlife malaise. He starts to think that nothing he has is worth having and that he is an imposter who will shortly be revealed. His work he puts down as pedestrian and unworthy of the accolades he has received. When he goes to Paris to discuss business with his French agent, he is moody and unsatisfied.
Then he wins a major award while in Paris. His last book is optioned for a movie. Suddenly his fame and success has multiplied. He meets a journalist, Lea, and when she ends up at a dinner with one of his friends, he offers her a ride home and starts an affair with her. He intends it to be a fling but Lea is determined that it will be much, much more.
Suddenly, John is obsessed with Lea. He makes excuses, first to stay longer in Paris and then to make repeated trips there, telling Lydia it is all business. He spends hours in bed with Lea and the erotic delights she provides have him mesmerized. Lea begins demanding more and more of John. She wants to be invited to his home, to meet Lydia and become friends with her. How can this end well?
Louis Begley was born in what was then Poland, now part of the Ukraine in 1933. His family remained there throughout the war and afterwards lived in Paris before emigrating to the United States when Begley was eleven. He attended Harvard Law School and worked for many years as an attorney. His most famous works are the Schmidt trilogy. In this novel, he explores how quickly one can become obsessed with another person and how erotic love can lead to disaster. The beloved becomes the pursuer from which one finally only wants to flee. This was a new author to me and as his work has been reissued, I plan to read more by him. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.
March 14, 2018
A story of infidelity and remorse told as a dialog between two men in a bar over drinks. Although it's not a particularly long novel, there are no chapters or natural breaks of any sort which rendered it something of an uncomfortable read for me. I was all set to give it just three stars until the ending captivated my interest.
March 11, 2021
Begley is a good writer and the tale is absorbing.
March 11, 2008
I wouldn't give this book a stellar review, but it wasn't terrible either. One of the things that bothered me most was that there were no chapters or breaks in the narrative. It was hard to find a stopping place, and since it wasn't such a quick read that I could finish it in a day, I ended up having to skim back a few paragraphs each time I picked up the book.
The novel reads as if the protagonist is having a conversation with a reporter - it's written in the first person from the point of view of the reporter, but the novel is 100% focused on the person talking to the reporter, if that makes any sense. It centers on a semi-famous writer in a childless but very successful marriage who carries on an affair with a young French journalist. It's basically a journey into the writer's psyche. He feels remorse for participating in the affair, yet he does nothing to stop it. Although Begley (the author of the novel) is sensitive to the fact that there are many reasons people do what they do and many layers to each individual (basically, no one is 100% good or 100% bad), it's still difficult to like the protagonist. He's a pompous, selfish man with few redeeming qualities.
This book is worth a read if it's on your shelf, but I wouldn't seek it out.
The novel reads as if the protagonist is having a conversation with a reporter - it's written in the first person from the point of view of the reporter, but the novel is 100% focused on the person talking to the reporter, if that makes any sense. It centers on a semi-famous writer in a childless but very successful marriage who carries on an affair with a young French journalist. It's basically a journey into the writer's psyche. He feels remorse for participating in the affair, yet he does nothing to stop it. Although Begley (the author of the novel) is sensitive to the fact that there are many reasons people do what they do and many layers to each individual (basically, no one is 100% good or 100% bad), it's still difficult to like the protagonist. He's a pompous, selfish man with few redeeming qualities.
This book is worth a read if it's on your shelf, but I wouldn't seek it out.
September 3, 2013
Intriguing writing style, much like Jack Kerouac's On the Road, but far more intellectually challenging. The work surprises in that a few pages in, you realize it's all dialogue, mostly one sided, and there are no quotation marks. It's almost as if you are eavesdropping on a conversation in a bar…
Even though the ending is not obvious, the book comes to a conclusion that is inevitable which bathes the whole story in a new light when one finishes it. An outstanding performance of the writers' skill in managing the reader. I will look for more of Louis Begley's work.
Even though the ending is not obvious, the book comes to a conclusion that is inevitable which bathes the whole story in a new light when one finishes it. An outstanding performance of the writers' skill in managing the reader. I will look for more of Louis Begley's work.
September 11, 2009
I couldn't put this one down... Jammed through it in a weekend as it had a sort of stranglehold on me - which, is appropriate given that the narrator is describing an obsession (and subsequent debasement - though for the record, I was *not* debased by said literature). What did I Learn? Well, nothing that I didn't already know but it drove the point home: sex (or any of our God-given instincts for that matter), when misused, can kill.
November 15, 2025
Rich narcissist has affair, proceeds to wallow in self-pity. Fine concept, but dull characters and execution. Payoff is lackluster.
Story is told as a one-sided "conversation" in a bar. There are no chapters or section breaks of any kind—obviously a stylistic choice—but makes this annoying to actually read.
Story is told as a one-sided "conversation" in a bar. There are no chapters or section breaks of any kind—obviously a stylistic choice—but makes this annoying to actually read.
October 29, 2012
I found this novel riveting. A successful writer, happily married, allows himself to get involved with a beautiful young Parisian woman after she interviews him for a magazine. What will happen? A simple, "Fatal Attraction" kind of story told with great suspense and narrative drive.
May 30, 2014
An implausible event attempts to allow the second person narrative structure. While the voice is well enough crafted, the insertions of the listener are awkward. The story bogs down for the last quarter and the denouement is finally not remarkable.
September 6, 2014
I never thought a book about a love affair could be so dull but ... this one is a snoozer. 2/3 of the way through now and I don't know if I'll be able to finish. The attempt at a "2nd-person" narrative structure is weak at best.
December 28, 2007
Protagonist is wretched drunkard, coward and cheater-- and fiendishly good to read.
July 7, 2008
WONDERFUL READ
July 13, 2013
Great book, though not sure I like the new cover. Yes I do.
Read
August 14, 2013Carbon: read 243 of 258 pages. Published by Ballantine in New York City.
April 12, 2015
Flowed beautifully, def recommend
Want to read
December 29, 2018den bookcase
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