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Claire Marvel
A young man and woman meet, love each other, and are consumed. It’s a story as old as romance itself, but in this enthralling novel John Burnham Schwartz tells it with heart-stopping new immediacy. In the middle of a rainstorm Julian Rose, a self-effacing Harvard graduate student, takes refuge beneath a girl’s yellow umbrella. The girl, the woman, is Claire Marvel, lovely, mercurial, mired in family tragedy. She is the last person someone like Julian should fall in love with. But he does.
What ensues is a great and difficult passion strewn with obstacles–not least those arising from Claire and Julian’s disparate characters. And as these young people find and lose each other, then seek each other anew, Schwartz places romantic love within an entire continuum of attachments that require the full reserves of our openness and courage.
What ensues is a great and difficult passion strewn with obstacles–not least those arising from Claire and Julian’s disparate characters. And as these young people find and lose each other, then seek each other anew, Schwartz places romantic love within an entire continuum of attachments that require the full reserves of our openness and courage.
336 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2002
11 people are currently reading
320 people want to read
About the author
John Burnham Schwartz
24 books127 followersJohn Burnham Schwartz grew up in New York City. At Harvard College, he majored in Japanese studies, and upon graduation accepted a position with a prominent Wall Street investment bank, before finally turning the position down after selling his first novel. Schwartz has taught fiction writing at Harvard, The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and Sarah Lawrence College, and he is the literary director of the Sun Valley Writers' Conference, one of the leading literary festivals in the United States.
He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife, screenwriter and food writer Aleksandra Crapanzano, and their son.
http://www.johnburnhamschwartz.com/
He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife, screenwriter and food writer Aleksandra Crapanzano, and their son.
http://www.johnburnhamschwartz.com/
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
December 5, 2017
If you are the author, please stop reading! Suffice it to say, I don't think you're a bad person or a bad writer, but I did not like this book and was not kind to it. Please turn back now.
If you're looking for an honest, if ornery, opinion about this book, I say: what a waste of time.
SPOILERS: Claire Marvel is an art student whose father is diagnosed with cancer not long after she meets Julian Rose. She goes to France and her father dies. She marries someone else. Claire has an affair with Julian. She gets pregnant, miscarries a couple times, leaves her husband and it’s believed she kills herself.
ANOTHER SPOILER: it was an accident, she was totally gonna get her act together and get back together with the nice guy.
That’s really most of what we learn about Claire in this book, named for her. But she’s a illusion chased by a butterfly catcher, when in fact it is she who should have been the narrator of this tepid tale of banality.
NOT A SPOILER: But then we could not have been shocked with the reveal that this is just the cruel hand that fate deals us! I was so angry when I finished this book.
I need to stop reading contemporary books that go for cheap thrills.
If you're looking for an honest, if ornery, opinion about this book, I say: what a waste of time.
SPOILERS: Claire Marvel is an art student whose father is diagnosed with cancer not long after she meets Julian Rose. She goes to France and her father dies. She marries someone else. Claire has an affair with Julian. She gets pregnant, miscarries a couple times, leaves her husband and it’s believed she kills herself.
ANOTHER SPOILER: it was an accident, she was totally gonna get her act together and get back together with the nice guy.
That’s really most of what we learn about Claire in this book, named for her. But she’s a illusion chased by a butterfly catcher, when in fact it is she who should have been the narrator of this tepid tale of banality.
NOT A SPOILER: But then we could not have been shocked with the reveal that this is just the cruel hand that fate deals us! I was so angry when I finished this book.
I need to stop reading contemporary books that go for cheap thrills.
April 17, 2007
THE BEST love story I've ever read... well actually in a tie with Nicholas Sparks' "The Notebook." Unlike that wonderfully sappy novel, the blueprint for which EVERY SINGLE BOOK he's written since has followed, this one is a heartbreaker from the first meeting of the male and female characters.
Schwartz's writing style is second to none when bringing you into the lives of his characters. None of the characters in this book will you take a liking to. If you are like me you will often times yell out loud at them for being so sophomoric and mentally impotent. That is what makes this book so wonderful, as the chapters roll on you can't put damned things down to avoid the inevitable train wreck at the end. The story wraps up beautifully and you find yourself in limbo for a bit trying to sort things out inside yourself.
If you want a true love story, not the fairy tale crap, pick this book up and give it a try:)
Schwartz's writing style is second to none when bringing you into the lives of his characters. None of the characters in this book will you take a liking to. If you are like me you will often times yell out loud at them for being so sophomoric and mentally impotent. That is what makes this book so wonderful, as the chapters roll on you can't put damned things down to avoid the inevitable train wreck at the end. The story wraps up beautifully and you find yourself in limbo for a bit trying to sort things out inside yourself.
If you want a true love story, not the fairy tale crap, pick this book up and give it a try:)
May 11, 2008
This is as fine a contemporary tale of blind devotion and betrayal as you'll find at bookstores or in your local library (that's where I found it, anyway).
Claire Marvel is a great read with a capital "G." Just writing about it makes me want to read it again, but I can't, at least not right now, because I have to reread another book in preparation for my next review. I will however, read a brief passage in an audioclip on this blog, so you can hear John Burnham Schwartz's prose. It will make you want to surf on over to BarnesandNoble.com. (I only plug Barnes & Noble because they allow our writing group to meet there twice a month for free.)
I remember feeling breathless at times, reading this novel. The main character, Julian, is passionate and intelligent and sensitive and a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard, and do men really get much better than that on paper?
Schwartz's writing liberally and lyrically surges and retrenches with Julian's moods, allowing us to see and feel what he does. I had a couple quick intakes of breath after reading certain passages. It had been months since I'd read anything that well written, and his craft startled me at times, much like having the wind knocked out of my lungs.
In the opening scene Julian is on campus, headed to see a professor, when a cloudburst traps him in front of a museum, where he shares an umbrella the color of buttercups with a beautiful, enigmatic woman named Claire Marvel. How's that for a character name?
Immediately I thought of the old Hollies song, "Bus Stop," wondering whether Schwartz heard it as a kid, too, stuffed it into his gray matter, then retrieved it for this book:
Bus stop, wet day, she's there, I say
Please share my umbrella
Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows
Under my umbrella
All that summer we enjoyed it
Wind and rain and shine
That umbrella, we employed it
By August, she was mine
Claire is lovely and mysterious, the kind of woman all women wish we were--but aren't. At the book's opening, it's pouring rain--a torrent--but she's still stunning, alluring, only slightly soggy, and sexy as hell. Though he's soaked to the skin, the reader feels Julian's naked want, seething, turning to steam under his drenched clothing.
I wanted to intensely dislike her right away.
However, the author is just too clever by half. He allows us in Julian's head with dispatch, so we begin to feel for her what he feels within the first five pages.
Claire is one of those women few men can figure out, and some die trying. Unpredictable, temporal, and ethereally beautiful, Claire is like a watercolor in a rainstorm. She is the watercolor in the rainstorm in Cambridge when she and Julian meet.
She's that stunning painting of a person one never forgets and to whom every other person will be compared thereafter because they were the first. The first truly beautiful consuming thing we experience when our neural paths are barely trafficked and so remain with us always.
Though how one makes it as far as a doctoral program at Harvard without being deeply affected by beauty, I'll never know.
That's part of why we like Julian. He is gentle and reaches out to people around him--and not just beautiful women. He has a tender friendship with quirky old lady on his block, to name one, but there are others.
Maybe I appreciated the book so much--I read it a weekend--because I can relate to Julian. Not because I have summered in Europe--I haven't. What Julian wants most will never be within his reach. Some of the emotional contortions I underwent while reading Claire Marvel arose from Julian's failure to obtain what I felt he deserved. And I'm not talking about wealth or fame. Just happiness, contentness. Simply being adored by the object of one's adoration.
I don't want to spoil the plot for you because it is rich and surprising, the kind of story in which dramatic irony is meted out with such cruelty, you not only know there's a sovereign power, but one who likes to move us around like chess pieces for sport.
If you want to see how soft and absorbent Puffs Plus really are, then read Claire Marvel. It's good for you...if cleaning out your tear ducts is a healthy thing. Just make sure you have your opiate of choice on hand--chocolate, gummi bears, Little Debbie's creme filled oatmeal cakes.
A handsome husband works well, too.
Claire Marvel is a great read with a capital "G." Just writing about it makes me want to read it again, but I can't, at least not right now, because I have to reread another book in preparation for my next review. I will however, read a brief passage in an audioclip on this blog, so you can hear John Burnham Schwartz's prose. It will make you want to surf on over to BarnesandNoble.com. (I only plug Barnes & Noble because they allow our writing group to meet there twice a month for free.)
I remember feeling breathless at times, reading this novel. The main character, Julian, is passionate and intelligent and sensitive and a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard, and do men really get much better than that on paper?
Schwartz's writing liberally and lyrically surges and retrenches with Julian's moods, allowing us to see and feel what he does. I had a couple quick intakes of breath after reading certain passages. It had been months since I'd read anything that well written, and his craft startled me at times, much like having the wind knocked out of my lungs.
In the opening scene Julian is on campus, headed to see a professor, when a cloudburst traps him in front of a museum, where he shares an umbrella the color of buttercups with a beautiful, enigmatic woman named Claire Marvel. How's that for a character name?
Immediately I thought of the old Hollies song, "Bus Stop," wondering whether Schwartz heard it as a kid, too, stuffed it into his gray matter, then retrieved it for this book:
Bus stop, wet day, she's there, I say
Please share my umbrella
Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows
Under my umbrella
All that summer we enjoyed it
Wind and rain and shine
That umbrella, we employed it
By August, she was mine
Claire is lovely and mysterious, the kind of woman all women wish we were--but aren't. At the book's opening, it's pouring rain--a torrent--but she's still stunning, alluring, only slightly soggy, and sexy as hell. Though he's soaked to the skin, the reader feels Julian's naked want, seething, turning to steam under his drenched clothing.
I wanted to intensely dislike her right away.
However, the author is just too clever by half. He allows us in Julian's head with dispatch, so we begin to feel for her what he feels within the first five pages.
Claire is one of those women few men can figure out, and some die trying. Unpredictable, temporal, and ethereally beautiful, Claire is like a watercolor in a rainstorm. She is the watercolor in the rainstorm in Cambridge when she and Julian meet.
She's that stunning painting of a person one never forgets and to whom every other person will be compared thereafter because they were the first. The first truly beautiful consuming thing we experience when our neural paths are barely trafficked and so remain with us always.
Though how one makes it as far as a doctoral program at Harvard without being deeply affected by beauty, I'll never know.
That's part of why we like Julian. He is gentle and reaches out to people around him--and not just beautiful women. He has a tender friendship with quirky old lady on his block, to name one, but there are others.
Maybe I appreciated the book so much--I read it a weekend--because I can relate to Julian. Not because I have summered in Europe--I haven't. What Julian wants most will never be within his reach. Some of the emotional contortions I underwent while reading Claire Marvel arose from Julian's failure to obtain what I felt he deserved. And I'm not talking about wealth or fame. Just happiness, contentness. Simply being adored by the object of one's adoration.
I don't want to spoil the plot for you because it is rich and surprising, the kind of story in which dramatic irony is meted out with such cruelty, you not only know there's a sovereign power, but one who likes to move us around like chess pieces for sport.
If you want to see how soft and absorbent Puffs Plus really are, then read Claire Marvel. It's good for you...if cleaning out your tear ducts is a healthy thing. Just make sure you have your opiate of choice on hand--chocolate, gummi bears, Little Debbie's creme filled oatmeal cakes.
A handsome husband works well, too.
February 4, 2008
i got more from this book than i'd expected. at first there was nostalgia to hold onto, of cafe pamplona and casablanca and the fogg (where i did meet someone that changed everything). yes, this was all very labial, as my boyfriend put it, but i enjoyed living through these moments and recalling these places nonetheless. and i even relished schwartz's portrait of the relationship between professors and student, master and slave. it almost made up for the time i'd felt used, to know this was a tradition.
but the problem with claire marvel was claire marvel. she was never credible, nothing to hold onto, she was just a shadow (the author so loved this metaphor) and she never came to life on the page, even as i know people who remind me of her. and perhaps the problem is that schwartz was too ambitious, to attempt to capture someone who couldn't be, to make tangible someone eternally ephemeral. without her, this is a strong coming-of-age story, but with her, this is a mediocre attempt at light.
but the problem with claire marvel was claire marvel. she was never credible, nothing to hold onto, she was just a shadow (the author so loved this metaphor) and she never came to life on the page, even as i know people who remind me of her. and perhaps the problem is that schwartz was too ambitious, to attempt to capture someone who couldn't be, to make tangible someone eternally ephemeral. without her, this is a strong coming-of-age story, but with her, this is a mediocre attempt at light.
July 14, 2019
Een boek dat ik nooit gelezen zou hebben als mijn moeder (Claire hoe toepasselijk) er niet was geweest. Afkomstig van haar stapel boeken op haar nachtkastje toen ze overleed. Daarom een verrassing, wat een mooi boek. Mooi verhaal en mooi geschreven. Dank je wel Mam voor dit boek.
January 26, 2009
I think this was supposed to be some type of love story, but the characters were too stupid to figure out how to be together. They made me want to pull my hair out.
November 24, 2017
Prachtig geschreven!
February 2, 2011
A few year’s back I read Jonathan Burnham Schwartz’s devastating novel Reservation Road and was really impressed. So I was really looking forward to reading Claire Marvel. The book’s opening lines: “There was before her and now there is after her and that is the difference in my life” promised great things- but I’m not sure Schwartz actually delivers.
The book is narrated by Julian Rose, a grad student at Harvard who meets and falls immediately in love with Claire Marvel during a rainstorm. The book traces their relationship through all the requisite romantic obstacles and I suppose I can fairly say that the only thing that prevents this book from being totally been there, done that is the quality of Schwartz’s prose.
As Julian chases and abandons and chases and abandons the love of his life - we are never really certain of her and, in fact, even though the book is named after her - we really come to know very little about Claire as a person.
Members of my book club loved this book…but I found it somehow unsatisfying.
The book is narrated by Julian Rose, a grad student at Harvard who meets and falls immediately in love with Claire Marvel during a rainstorm. The book traces their relationship through all the requisite romantic obstacles and I suppose I can fairly say that the only thing that prevents this book from being totally been there, done that is the quality of Schwartz’s prose.
As Julian chases and abandons and chases and abandons the love of his life - we are never really certain of her and, in fact, even though the book is named after her - we really come to know very little about Claire as a person.
Members of my book club loved this book…but I found it somehow unsatisfying.
February 25, 2022
This story is very emotional and real. It is also very well written and something I could see myself reading a few more times over the years. I really enjoyed the story.
The majority of the story is written from Julian's point of view and I do wish that more of it could be from Claire's point of view to understand the depth of their relationship. With how deeply Julian loves Cliare, it is frustrating as a reader to see how emotions can destroy a relationship--but that also makes this story extremely relatable.
I rated this 4/5 stars mainly because as a reader, you don't learn too much about Claire Marvel, only Julian's perspective of her. I would have liked to learn more about her character as the story progressed and why she did certain things in her life. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good romance novel
The majority of the story is written from Julian's point of view and I do wish that more of it could be from Claire's point of view to understand the depth of their relationship. With how deeply Julian loves Cliare, it is frustrating as a reader to see how emotions can destroy a relationship--but that also makes this story extremely relatable.
I rated this 4/5 stars mainly because as a reader, you don't learn too much about Claire Marvel, only Julian's perspective of her. I would have liked to learn more about her character as the story progressed and why she did certain things in her life. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good romance novel
September 27, 2009
I didn't necessarily like the story, however I loved Schwartz's writing. The character of Claire was a bit too much to believe in, but I found I was rooting for these two crazy kids. Another reader's review of the book was "Story of an unnecessary love obsession." I might have thought that about this book had I not just come off the heels of reading Love in the Time of Cholera, and I found this love story 20 times more palatable than that one. Forgive me, Mr. Marquez!
November 1, 2009
I thought this was a love story but it was more of a tragedy. It's really a book about not being able to let someone go, even if they have chosen to be with someone else. Really, let go and move on!
July 2, 2008
Story of an unnecessary love obsession.
February 8, 2016
As a person who has studied and lived in and around Harvard Square, I found the dialogue and characters to be unrealistic.
February 1, 2017
Blah blah blah. Had great hopes based on the review of a GR friend that i have never met and I rarely disagree with but this was so average .........NEXT
December 23, 2025
"Break a person's heart and you become a kind of amnesiac killer. All the empathy you possess is momentarily held in abeyance while you address yourself wholeheartedly to your own emotional survival. You're just doing what you have no choice but to do, you think. You're just living.
Then it's over, and standing and the wreckage of your life you remember."
I fear I may have misjudged what this book was about. I thought the romance was the point but it's clearer to me now that this book is about love. Constipated love, to be specific. It seems to me that most every character in this book suffers from a love with nowhere to go, no one to receive, or one incapable of receiving at that point in time. The first half of the book somewhat lures you into believing that this will be a slow burn romance; the missed moments between two souls who very obviously deserve each other but only manage to sync up once or twice before it all comes crashing down. But by the start of the second half it becomes clearer this is not the case. The love will no longer be able to be fully reciprocated, even if both parties feel the same way. And the rest of the character's inability to fulfill this same want, need, becomes clearer and more parallel to our main character's plight. With that, I think this book has some pretty bleak views on love. I don't think there's a single relationship in this book where two characters are in love with one another fully and without restraint. I think the only time we could possibly come close to observing this is Claire and Julian's first go-around. But then again maybe that's what the book is about. Exploring unrequited, or unrequiteable loves, and what that can do to the psyche and to one's future relationships.
Then it's over, and standing and the wreckage of your life you remember."
I fear I may have misjudged what this book was about. I thought the romance was the point but it's clearer to me now that this book is about love. Constipated love, to be specific. It seems to me that most every character in this book suffers from a love with nowhere to go, no one to receive, or one incapable of receiving at that point in time. The first half of the book somewhat lures you into believing that this will be a slow burn romance; the missed moments between two souls who very obviously deserve each other but only manage to sync up once or twice before it all comes crashing down. But by the start of the second half it becomes clearer this is not the case. The love will no longer be able to be fully reciprocated, even if both parties feel the same way. And the rest of the character's inability to fulfill this same want, need, becomes clearer and more parallel to our main character's plight. With that, I think this book has some pretty bleak views on love. I don't think there's a single relationship in this book where two characters are in love with one another fully and without restraint. I think the only time we could possibly come close to observing this is Claire and Julian's first go-around. But then again maybe that's what the book is about. Exploring unrequited, or unrequiteable loves, and what that can do to the psyche and to one's future relationships.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 22, 2021
I loved the feeling I had while reading this novel, thanks to the author's beautiful prose. That being said, I was frustrated with Julian that he didn't have more confidence in himself in his relationship with Claire. He never stepped up to the plate when she needed him to be bold. He stayed perpetually on the sidelines. When Claire's father got cancer and then died, Julian felt he'd be intruding, didn't know if he would be overreaching, by attending the funeral. So he didn't go. And he was not attuned to his professor's all-too-obvious attraction to Claire; what happened in my eyes was a foregone conclusion. Julian was too enamored of his egotistic professor even though he didn't agree with him politically.
There were so many missed opportunities in Julian and Claire's relationship. Though Julian loved Claire with every ounce of his being (or so he said), he just couldn't muster up the courage to show her how much he cared. And her love for him seemed ever-tentative too. It came as a surprise how much feeling each of them eventually revealed they had for one another. The reader was never sure exactly how Claire felt about Julian through most of the book, so no wonder Julian never felt secure in her love for him.
I loved the story nevertheless, especially the descriptions of the encounters and the landscape in France. I felt like I was right there, and I loved how it felt.
There were so many missed opportunities in Julian and Claire's relationship. Though Julian loved Claire with every ounce of his being (or so he said), he just couldn't muster up the courage to show her how much he cared. And her love for him seemed ever-tentative too. It came as a surprise how much feeling each of them eventually revealed they had for one another. The reader was never sure exactly how Claire felt about Julian through most of the book, so no wonder Julian never felt secure in her love for him.
I loved the story nevertheless, especially the descriptions of the encounters and the landscape in France. I felt like I was right there, and I loved how it felt.
July 10, 2024
I tried to like this book, but i couldn’t even get past the first 30 pages. It was so boring, and there was no build up to their attraction, they met once and the next day they see each other, they ended up kissing out of nowhere on the street, it’s not realistic at all so it just makes their “love story” not make any sense. It also just bounced around to what they were doing, it was not clear to where they were in the story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 15, 2018
This was a simply story told with enthralling details and all too real emotion. It was a lot more to digest than I had expected, and that's a good thing. I wasn't sure about the writing style early on as it seemed more flowery than necessary at times, but as the story went on I rather enjoyed the artistic quality of the book and came across some very beautiful passages.
October 4, 2020
Het is nog niet warm in dit deel van de wereld, maar wel minder koud. Het leven is niet meer zo’n veldslag als het was. Soms is het zelfs een tijdlang helemaal vrij van strijd, en dan voel ik op een onverklaarbare manier in mijn hart iets dat misschien hoop is, en dan breekt de zon door op plekjes waar, sinds jouw vertrek, alleen duisternis heerste.
December 1, 2023
A love story of thwarted love, of miscommunications, and of failures of character. The missed opportunities and fragile egos lead to divergence and angst. A tragedy of what ifs that is both sad and compelling.
June 7, 2017
The writer's ability to see in your mind what he describes in words is amazing. He does more than turn a phrase - he colors it and hands it to you! I loved this book and want more...
November 7, 2021
Slow start... but what an ending. Moving. Will read again.
September 28, 2022
C'était Claire.
Prachtig boek dat je laat wegdromen naar de Franse Lot, maar je ook met de neus op de feiten drukt.
Een oproep om eerlijk te zijn tegenover jezelf, je vrienden en geliefden 🍀
Prachtig boek dat je laat wegdromen naar de Franse Lot, maar je ook met de neus op de feiten drukt.
Een oproep om eerlijk te zijn tegenover jezelf, je vrienden en geliefden 🍀
February 13, 2024
Well, this book absolutely broke me. I may never recover. You should absolutely read it, but do so at your own risk.
February 4, 2011
Ik beleefde mooie uurtjes met 'Claire Marvel', een roman van de Amerikaanse schrijver John Burnham Schwartz uit 2002.
Het verhaal
Twee jonge mensen, de politicoloog Julian Rose en de kunsthistorica Claire Marvel ontmoeten elkaar bij toeval: in de stromende regen biedt zij hem een plekje onder haar paraplu aan. Al snel worden de twee vrienden. Ze hebben beiden een bijzondere relatie met hun vader. De vader van Julian is door zijn vrouw verlaten en hangt sindsdien een beetje rond, terwijl hij wanhopig probeert te begrijpen wat er toch gebeurd is. De vader van Claire is stervende als hij haar vraagt om naar de plek te gaan in Zuid-Frankrijk waar hij zoveel goede herinneringen aan heeft. Julian gaat met
haar mee, wat een nieuwe fase in hun vriendschap inluidt. De verlegen Julian merkt dat hij zeer verliefd is op Claire, maar zij prefereert zijn erudiete docent. Daarom 'vlucht' Julian naar New York, waar hij opgroeide, om les te gaan geven aan de middelbare school waar hij zelf opgezeten heeft. Pas als hij Claire jaren later weer tegenkomt, beseft hij dat hij eigenlijk altijd op haar gewacht heeft. Dan verdwijnt ze weer uit zijn leven. Het boek krijgt een indrukwekkende ontknoping in Zuid-Frankrijk.
Eigenlijk een simpel liefdesverhaal, maar het is geen suf boeketboekje, nee, in tegendeel, het is juist mooi. Eén minpuntje: het gaat hier en daar wel behoorlijk ver in het opnemen van allerlei politicologische beschouwingen waarvoor je behoorlijk ingevoerd moet zijn in de Amerikaanse politieke geschiedenis en de verhoudingen binnen de Amerikaanse politiek. Maar voor de lezers die momenteel de verkiezingsstrijd volgen is dit vast geen probleem.
-------------------------------------------------
Rain the size of Tic Tacs was pelting me; water was leakingout of my hair and down the back of my neck. I rubbed a sopping shirtsleeve across my face.
-------------------------------------------------
She'd sat beside his rented hospital bed in the living room of the Stamford house, se later told me, jotting down his memories. And what surprised her was how fresh it all still was to him, particular and distinct. As though is wasn't the past that had gotten abstracted and fragmented by life, but rather the present.
-------------------------------------------------
From a one-lane paved road we followed a dirt path in the direction of the ruin. The land here was desiccated and unforgiving, savage with stone.
-------------------------------------------------
Het verhaal
Twee jonge mensen, de politicoloog Julian Rose en de kunsthistorica Claire Marvel ontmoeten elkaar bij toeval: in de stromende regen biedt zij hem een plekje onder haar paraplu aan. Al snel worden de twee vrienden. Ze hebben beiden een bijzondere relatie met hun vader. De vader van Julian is door zijn vrouw verlaten en hangt sindsdien een beetje rond, terwijl hij wanhopig probeert te begrijpen wat er toch gebeurd is. De vader van Claire is stervende als hij haar vraagt om naar de plek te gaan in Zuid-Frankrijk waar hij zoveel goede herinneringen aan heeft. Julian gaat met
haar mee, wat een nieuwe fase in hun vriendschap inluidt. De verlegen Julian merkt dat hij zeer verliefd is op Claire, maar zij prefereert zijn erudiete docent. Daarom 'vlucht' Julian naar New York, waar hij opgroeide, om les te gaan geven aan de middelbare school waar hij zelf opgezeten heeft. Pas als hij Claire jaren later weer tegenkomt, beseft hij dat hij eigenlijk altijd op haar gewacht heeft. Dan verdwijnt ze weer uit zijn leven. Het boek krijgt een indrukwekkende ontknoping in Zuid-Frankrijk.
Eigenlijk een simpel liefdesverhaal, maar het is geen suf boeketboekje, nee, in tegendeel, het is juist mooi. Eén minpuntje: het gaat hier en daar wel behoorlijk ver in het opnemen van allerlei politicologische beschouwingen waarvoor je behoorlijk ingevoerd moet zijn in de Amerikaanse politieke geschiedenis en de verhoudingen binnen de Amerikaanse politiek. Maar voor de lezers die momenteel de verkiezingsstrijd volgen is dit vast geen probleem.
-------------------------------------------------
Rain the size of Tic Tacs was pelting me; water was leakingout of my hair and down the back of my neck. I rubbed a sopping shirtsleeve across my face.
-------------------------------------------------
She'd sat beside his rented hospital bed in the living room of the Stamford house, se later told me, jotting down his memories. And what surprised her was how fresh it all still was to him, particular and distinct. As though is wasn't the past that had gotten abstracted and fragmented by life, but rather the present.
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From a one-lane paved road we followed a dirt path in the direction of the ruin. The land here was desiccated and unforgiving, savage with stone.
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June 4, 2013
I was frustrated by this book, but it was so well written that I kept reading. There are some situations in life that just don't make sense, some things we do or do not do that go against all reason and logic, and yet that is how it goes. I cannot for the life of me truly understand how these two do not end up together, yet I know this is sometimes how it goes. In the end I guess he needed closure, needed to be free to let her go and he was able to achieve that. Not all stories have happy endings, but this one at least has an ending. I just felt bad for Laura, she got the short end of the stick and I found her to be such a likable character. Schwartz wrote a very poetically written story, even if I found the plot and characters' actions disappointing and lacking logic.
May 16, 2012
This was possibly the best book recommended to me by GoodReads to date. I don't usually enjoy anything labeled under the Romance genre but every once in awhile I find an author that can convey an intelligent message that makes it worthwhile reading. (I believe this came to me under Literary Fiction.) In "Claire Marvel," Schwartz shows how truly complex human emotions can be..."choices made, inexplicable mistakes"...simple? maybe, but definitely life changing. Each sentence in this beautifully crafted novel resonates with such strong feelings that I was totally enthralled from beginning to end with this sad but beautiful love story.
October 23, 2012
Here's the thing... if I am going to read a book that is devoted to a man's pining for a woman... I need to like the woman (and hopefully the man). I didn't care for either Claire Marvel or her swain whose name I've already forgotten. Oops.
This aforementioned man (AKA the narrator) did eventually marry a woman named Laura, and after a mere few pages of knowing her, I cared about and loved her more than anyone else in the book. If this story had been about Laura, I'm sure I would have liked it a lot more.
This aforementioned man (AKA the narrator) did eventually marry a woman named Laura, and after a mere few pages of knowing her, I cared about and loved her more than anyone else in the book. If this story had been about Laura, I'm sure I would have liked it a lot more.
July 3, 2014
This is my favorite book, and has been since the first time I read it maybe 7 or 8 years ago. The characters are well developed, and the plot is as rich as it is wonderfully frustrating. Each time I read this book (once every year or two), I attach a different meaning to it, as I find a different way to relate to the characters, primarily Claire.
The language is beautiful without being esoteric, although in order to enjoy the full experience of the novel, your vocabulary should be fairly advanced.
The language is beautiful without being esoteric, although in order to enjoy the full experience of the novel, your vocabulary should be fairly advanced.
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