Product Description

This is the summer that Lewis Little, precocious thirteen-year-old, is spending in Paris with his mother, Alice. Alice is translating the latest medieval romance by Valentina Gavrilovich, the bestselling and exotic Russian emigre, Lewis is there to make his first acquaintance with one of the greatest cities in the world; neither can foresee the momentous events that lie in wait for them. Valentina slowly casts a spell over Lewis, but when her past begins to encroach on all their lives and, as this enchanted world is gradually lost, Lewis is driven on a terrifying quest.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #103449 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

About the Author
Rose Tremain lives in North London and Norwich, with the biographer Richard Holmes. Her books have won many prizes including the Whitbread Novel of the Year, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Prix Femina Etranger, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Angel Literary Award and the Sunday Express Book of the Year. Restoration was shortlisted for the Booker and made into a film; The Colour was shortlisted for the Orange and selected by the Daily Mail Reading Club. Her most recent collection, The Darkness of Wallis Simpson, was shortlisted for both the First National Short story Award and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Two of her books (The Colour and The Way I Found Her) are in development as films, and she is currently working on a TV screenplay to star Sir Ian McKellen.

Customer Reviews

A detective story written by a poet
The book is narrated by Lewis Little, a 13-year-old boy staying in Paris over the summer holidays whilst his mother, a translator, works on a book by Valentina Gavrilovich, a beautiful Russian author who writes popular Medeival romances.

Lewis and his mother stay in Valentina's spacious luxury apartment in the centre of Paris. Lewis kills time by taking Valentina's dog Sergei for walks, playing computer chess and reading. Lewis also develops a crush on Valentina, which grows as he turn's 14 and events escalate into full blown love.

One day Valentina dissapears mysteriously and Lewis sets his chess mind to unravelling the mystery and beating the police at finding her.The novel ends dramatically but I won't give it away in case you have not read it yet.

The novel's strong points are its evocation of a Parisian summer, its poetic, sparkling prose which succesfully transports; its luxurious theme, its occasional humour and as always with Rose Tremain a, sort of, deep symbolic poetry that opens, resonates and illuminates the readers understanding of the charcters and their emotions, and through them, the human condition in general.

It has been argued that Tremain failed in her ambitious attempt to successfully 'get under the skin' of an adolescent boy. Having been one myself I think this is too harsh a judgement. She understands male obsession very well and the narration is beleivable enough to work. Lewis's precocity is a little exagerated, perhaps. I found myself questioning whether a 13-14 year-old boy could be that wise or emotionally developed and thinking he would be rare individual, remebering how I and my peers behaved. Nevertheless, this did not spoil the story for me.

The novel's weekest point is its ending. It is almost as if Tremain lost her nerve. Once again I have to be careful or I will spoil it but all I will say is that it could have been 'better'.

A page-turner, but flawed
I enjoyed this book, but at the same time it frustrated and annoyed me. It's a thriller, with ample suspense and a thoroughly satisfying story and ending, a proper 'denouement' where all the loose ends come together in a satisfactory if not satisfying way.
But what annoys me is the way this female writer has tried to write about a young male teenager's thoughts, about his masturbation, physical stimulation, and his fantasies. Much of the detail just doesn't feel right. Am I the first person to review this book who is brave enough to say so? Or am I the first male reviewer?

However, it is a good read nevertheless, but not as good as Music & Silence which is my favourite book of recent years.

An infant phenomenon?
Rose Tremain has strewn no end of obstacles in her own path with this book by making her narrator a boy on the cusp of adolescence. She was obviously sensible in not tying down his interests to the fleeting fashions of childhood (he plays chess rather than Nintendo), but she is still stuck with a narrative voice incorporating limitations not just of insight but of vocabulary and linguistic interest. There is one marvellous metaphor when Lewis, out walking Valentina's handsome dog, says he feels like Arthur Miller with Marilyn Monroe, but these are few and far between. The plot developments that occur in the second half are exceptionally unconvincing, and the denouement is predictable (given an excrutiatingly clumsy bit of foreshadowing in the early pages of the novel). Is this unconvincingness intentional, I ended up wondering: are we supposed to see the second half as Lewis's fantasy? It doesn't seem very likely somehow.