Customer Reviews

Chasing Cezanne

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

When Provence is his provenance Peter Mayle serves a 5-star feast. Toujours Provence and A Year In Provence were delicious.

Mayle's sixth presentation, Chasing Cezanne, is more of a satisfying deli sandwich, thick with slices of New York, Paris and the Riviera plus a side order of chicanery garnished with romance.

The Big Apple is where photographer Andre Kelly hangs his long lens when he isn't in lush locales photographing estates and their art treasures for a trendy design magazine, Decorating Quarterly. Nourished by Evian water and greed, his editor, Camilla Porter, is as sleek as her publication. Avarice is the bond she shares with one of her paramours, an art trader.

While on a photo shoot in the south of France, Andre drops by a billionaire's villa hoping to renew acquaintance with the magnate's attractively receptive daughter. Since the mansion is shuttered for the season, he is surprised to see what appears to be the family Cezanne leave in a "dirty blue Renault" plumber's van. Unable to forget this puzzling scene, Andre contacts an upscale gallery owner who deals in Impressionists, the patrician Cyrus Pine. (Think Peter O'Toole "in a gray tweed suit of European cut, a pale-blue shirt, and a butter-colored silk bow tie.") Having learned at Eton that "coming top" or winning is the only way to go, the dealer smells skullduggery and a whopping commission.

While Cyrus does some investigating, Andre warms himself during Manhattan's dank winter with his agent, Lucy, a Barbadian beauty sporting a mop of black curls and skin color "halfway between chocolate and honey."

The potage thickens when Andre's apartment is ransacked, and it is learned that the painting now hanging in the Cap Ferrat villa is a skillful forgery.

Deciding the copyist is Franzen, a corpulent Dutch forger living in Paris, Andre, Cyrus and Lucy head for the City of Light, where an elevator is "of that particular Gallic size which encourages close personal relationships."

Mayle is, of course, the most congenial of travel guides as the trio romps down the Boulevard Saint-Germain, up the Eiffel Tower and along the Seine. He's as urbanely witty as ever and still turns an intoxicating phrase: "...the sound of the cork being drawn, no louder than a sudden exhalation of breath, was followed by the whisper of bubbles rising in the glass."

Less adroit when describing the murderous Paradou who stalks the trio, the author cooks up a careening chase through Cannes, Antibes and back to Cap Ferrat.

With Chasing Cezanne Mayle brings to mind an accomplished boulevardier who has mastered each glance, inflection, and compliment. He knows he can easily charm, and he does.

I've enjoyed several of Mayle's other books, but this one is an amiable clunker. The mystery plot is buried under the guise of globetrotting and eating good food. The book would have read much better without the dumb chase scenes (the "hit man" following our narrator) and with more meals. After all, it's mood, ambience and food that Mayle specializes in, not characterization and plot, both of which are sorely lacking.

This book is so mediocre that it's not even a good beach read. You won't care much what happens in this "art" mystery because the plot is so thrown together. One gets the feeling his editor said, "Okay, we need a book in a week." I won't hold it against Mayle since his other books are much more charming, but this one is almost totally devoid of this usual charm.

Chasing Cezanne isn't Mayle's best book, but it's still vintage Mayle--a fun romp through the French countryside. And, as usual, Mayle brings his special brand of magic to this book as well--he captures the essence of Provence and somehow manages to convey it with crystal clarity and lots of laughs.

So I pick some no-brainers off the library shelf -- Deaver, Woods, Mayle, and a couple of lesser-knowns -- and "Chasing Cezanne" is so much fun, not to mention goreless and unperverted, that I can't bring myself to read the others. As much as I enjoy murder mysteries with psychological complexities, "Cezanne" has definitely put me off my feed. Like Rosemunde Pilcher's novels, it's a vacation to heaven. The plot of "Cezanne" is not overburdened but merely le moutard sur la viand of glamourous settings and eccentric characters who love themselves and life, sweet romance without graphic sex, and food, food, food. This novel is a salad course, a sorbet that clears a mental palette of sordid modern life. Its pace is much livelier than that of the Provence books -- which is appropriate, after all. I'm going back for seconds.

Years ago I read Mayle's Provence books and I can remember laughing out loud to his descriptions of the French people and customs. I borrowed this book the other day, and eventhough I wasn't expecting GREAT things, it still let me down a little. It wasn't a terrible book by any means, but it really has nothing to recommend it. The story is stupid and makes no sense... to me at least. It's neither suspenseful or terribly entertaining. It is missing the rich descriptions of food and lifestyle from previous books, or at least,the they just don't come together as well in this one. Borrow it from a friend or find it at a second hand store, but I would not pay full retail price for this book as a fan of the classic Peter Mayle Frenchie tales.

I thought this book was really fun and entertaining. It's been a few years since I've read it (I have all of Peter Mayle's books), and I think I'm going to reread it and enjoy it all over again. Those who think it's clumsily written are missing out on its sheer entertainment value. I thought it was great. I'd write something more specific, but don't remember enough details. Maybe I'll come back after the reread! But I would definitely recommend this as a fun departure from Mayle's typical "here's what I did with those silly French people" approach.

Chasing Cezanne illustrates the concept of doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. Too often people ignore the small details. If you've ever read the play Trifles by Susan Glaspell, you know the motivation for murder was covered up because people overlooked the small details. In Chasing Cezanne, Andre is unwilling to overlook the trifles he believes are out of sync with the world as he perceives it. It is this unwillingness to ignore the details that leads him to uncover a conspiracy to conceal art forgeries. Along the way, he discovers the importance of relationships in business and love. The author, Peter Mayle, doesn't slow the dialogue down with metaphorical language. His people move just as easily from one continent to another. So, if you're interested in mystery, intrigue, romance, and art, this is the book for you. It's Lawrence Sanders' McNally without the use of affectation; a grown up hero who can make decisions on his own without consulting pater or relying on alcohol to sustain him.

An enjoyable book, despite its limitations. Its a raconteur's culinary romp only thinly disguised as a mystery, too busy having fun restaurant-hopping and people-watching to make much effort at anything deeper. The characters are likeable, if somewhat two-dimensional, the story line is plausible, the satire palpable. The book pokes fun at the effette artistic pretenses and materialistic snobbery of the rich and famous, while drooling over the culinary escapades their incomes allow.

What it lacks in plot-layering and tension-building, it makes up for in the upbeat tempo of the bon vivant lifestyle. I could have done without the salacious innuendos and the veiled chauvenism, but it was mild enough, and in the end I just gave in to the gaiete de coeur.

I loved Mayle's "A Year in Provence" and "Toujours" and based on the pleasures of reading those two books picked up a $4 remaindered paperback edition of "Chasing Cezanne." What a disappointment! The characters are two dimensional; all dialogue is stilted and hackneyed. The plot is a fallen soufle. Mayle should stick to what he does best: non fiction travel writing.

This book gets one star and that's for Mayle's brief, veiled appearance in the character of Andre Kelly when he makes his prounouncement on "The French Paradox."

Andre, a magazine photographer finds himself embroiled in an adventure that includes a forged Cézanne, an immaculately attired magazine editor, her ruthless boyfriend, a beautiful woman, a dashing art dealer, Paris and lots of good meals. The prose is warm and friendly, enveloping the reader instantly, the plot is well twisted, and the characters appealing. The book races from one funny and enjoyable event to the next.

Sadly, instead of legging it past the finish line with a spectacular ending, Mayle shuffles and falls at the ending. It's almost as if he ran out of time and just ended the book. It doesn't match the pace and feel of the rest of the novel.

But, regardless of the watery ending, the book is solid, meaty and well worth reading.