Customer Reviews

City of Light

5 star:		(64)
4 star:		(51)
3 star:		(29)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I guess you could pick apart the writing and say that Belfer is not the most literary genius in the history of literature, but I have to confess that I could not put this book down. The plot was engrossing from start to finish -- I had to stay up till 2am to finish it which says something for her writing level. It's a combination of Jack Finney's Time and Again (in terms of the quality to recreate a city, in this case Buffalo, in the early 20th century) and Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day (a repressed narrator who manages to rationalize any hints of emotion).

Ms. Barret, the protagonist, narrator, and headmistress of the Macauley School in Buffalo (based on the Buffalo Seminary School for girls) leads us through the maze of her charges at school, her goddaughter, a murder mystery, the invention and propagation of electricity, etc... all against the backdrop of the falls (Niagra Falls, of course). We see everything through her eyes: the conventions of the day, the politics, the intrigue, the mystery. I didn't solve the central mysteries, but that's not to say other more mystery oriented readers might not. The point is that this novel is well paced, well rendered and extremely readable. Absorbing actually would be a better way to describe it. The characters are based in many cases on real historical characters. Once you read this book, I guarantee you'll never look at Grover Cleveland the same way.

It's hard to believe that this is the author's first novel. She weaves a well-researched and authentic tale that will keep you up late into the evening trying to tie together all the loose ends.

What I think a lot of the previous reviewers, particularly those who didn't like this book, miss is the fact that this is an HISTORICAL novel. It gives not only a picture of another time but also the feel of it: the difference in sensibility and expectations, the difference in writing style (what a pleasure to read something NOT influenced by television and the movies), the refreshing lack of the all-pervading irony we must live with. This novel is written in the form of a woman's memoirs, a woman who lived at the turn of the century. Naturally it would be written differently than what one would write now. Those who complain that the book moved too slowly shouldn't expect a fast-moving hard-boiled modern thriller. It isn't that kind of book. I loved it in the same way I loved "Ragtime" or "Voyage of the Narwhal" or "Kalimantaan" or "Lidie Newton" or "Cloudsplitter." And I was very impressed at Belfer's neat trick of keeping an essentially passive character--one who is acted upon rather than acts--continually interesting. Of course there are flaws. What first novel doesn't have one or two? But none are worth mentioning. I look forward to more from Lauren Belfer.

In Lauren Belfer's stunning first novel, powerful local families are used to dictating Buffalo's social and economic future, but by 1901 the city is spinning out of their control, thanks to the advent of the nation's first electric generating plant at Niagara Falls. An ambitious chief engineer wants the plant to produce free electricity for the masses rather than just make a profit selling electricity to factories -- and the city fathers (and investors) turn on him, as do anti-electricity preservationists fighting to protect the raging the beauty of the Falls. All is observed through the keen eyes of Louisa Barrett, headmistress of the local girl's school charged with educating the city's elite. "Miss Barrett" ends up in the middle of this power struggle, a keen observer as well as an increasingly skillful player in her own right. Small-town secrets and intrigue test her mettle, and she proves equal to every challenge.

This densely plotted novel captures the waning days of the Victorian era and the birth pangs of modern industrial America. The deft combination of personal stories, physical description, and details of industrial development, with real historical figures and events woven in, provides a satisfying picture of the brief time in which Buffalo was the most celebrated city in America. Belfer captures the essence of this city flush with wealth and a seemingly boundless future, and shows us how that future could not have possibly been sustained, how it contained the seeds of its own tragic ending.

The book has a particularly "Buffalo" resonance to me. Ghosts of the city's wealthy past are everywhere, from mansion-lined streets that now house nonprofits to shuttered factories that have sat vacant for 30 or more years. The political small-townishness and self-dealing so vividly portrayed in this novel continues to plague Buffalo. Elitism and factionalism among ethnic groups blocks the more far-sighted coalition-building that turned around other rust-belt cities such as Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

The book is a cautionary tale about rapid economic growth: not all bright promise can be sustained. That the personal tragedies of Ms. Barrett and those close to her manage to quietly echo this larger truth is a tribute to Belfer's clearsighted grasp of her hometown's history and legacy.

A great read!

I started reading City of Light with some misgivings, due to the over-enthusiastic flap copy. Almost immediately, it was easy to recognize the forced effort of an amateur-although Ms. Belfer has great promise. She needs several more efforts under her literary belt before she truly comes into her voice, her rhythm, her pacing, and her style. She also needs a far sharper editor, one who will encourage her to tighten up both her style and her plotting.

This novel was far too long, saying in over 500 pages what could have been more succinctly yet still beautifully written in about 300. The main culprit in this case was the meandering descriptions, similar to those found in 19th century novels.

There were too many plot twists and characters to make for easy remembering. The entire scenario regarding the power station lost me, quite frankly, in its rather dramatic devices. Too many characters spoil the storytelling broth.

As far as the mystery part of the book, let me simply say that sometimes less is more. And the "final answer" need not be quite so common! Characters can be neatly disposed of in more than one way.

The main character, Louisa Barrett, drove me nuts with her overly dramatic pronouncements, her sanctimony, and her spinelessness when it came to anyone else, or any other issue, than her Macauley girls. I stopped rooting for her less than a third of the way through.

The characterizations overall were interesting, however, and the view into lives other than those of the rich and white was very welcome. I adore anything to do with the turn of the century, and 1901 Buffalo was meticulously depicted, which rendered it quite real to me. Bravo on the exhaustive research done on that era.

I will likely read another book by Lauren Belfer, in hopes that as she comes into her literary voice, her writing will grow sharper and more lucid.

Lauren Belfer is a Buffalo native who has done a service to my fellow native Buffalonians who suffer from the recent decline in prominence for this once-great city. In 1900, Buffalo was the gem of the Great Lakes, a booming industrial power, the home of recent president Grover Cleveland, and host to the great Pan American exposition. Niagara Falls electricity created a new future for industry and home life, but not without its conflicts and environmental concerns.

Belfer creates Louisa, a fictional schoolmistress at a pretigious private girls' academy (based loosely on Buffalo Seminary), whose life becomes wrapped up in the electrical revolution. And Louisa has a secret, in fact several secrets. And along with the tragedy of the failed exposition and the assassination of President McKinley, suffers personal tragedies of her own.

This is a "woman's" book, written by a woman, with a woman as the central character abnd voice of the novel. Yet even hardended readers of "male" novels will generally enjoy the history and intrigue.

Lauren Belfer taught me more about the history of my hometown than any text book could. As she described the streets and parks, I began imagining how Buffalo looked before all the highways. Her incredible knowledge and portrayel of a city 100 years ago pulled me in--and the plot and cast of characters kept me reading. I have about 50 pages left, and I'll be sad when the story ends. I'm going to lend this book to all my friends!

I bought this book after I noticed it was a Costco Wholesale Book Club Selection. I ignored it for weeks and finally began reading and then couldn't put it down! Ms. Belfer has a seamless knack for blending fictional and real characters against actual happenings. Turn-of-the-century events of harnessing hydroelectric power at Niagara Falls may sound dull, but I found it fascinating. The story line is captivating and Ms. Belfer gives a wonderful picture of the social world of those times. I highly recommend this book, and look forward to her next.

What to say about the City of Light? Simply saying it was one of the best books I've read just doesn't seem emphatic enough!

I had read favorable reviews of it, but it never sparked my interst. Turn of the century Buffalo, the PanAmerican Exposition, a headmistress and the Niagara Falls electric company just didn't sound like my kind of book. But then, a good friend recommended it--she has read it twice--and I thought I'd give it a try 'cause we have similar reading tastes.

I read the first page, and my opinion began to change. I eagerly turned to the next page, and the next, and. . . I became obsessed with Lousia, and the world around her, with the events that began with her or ended with her or just involved her. All weekend I read until I couldn't focus, needing to read, to know, to be a part of her world. Toward the end of the book I was torn between hurrying through to see how it would end, and dallying, to make it last.

I don't know how to describe this book, how to sort it neatly into a genre. There is mystery and history, inspiration and romance, fact and fiction--it's all there. But more importantly, there is life, in the plot, the characters, the conflicts and the conclusions.

As a sometime teacher of literature, I used to tell my students there were three kinds of novels: novels of incident, novels of character, and novels of ideas.

Lauren Belfer's City of Light is a novel of incident aspiring to be a novel of character. More disturbing, it has a rudimentary philosophical substructure that could qualify it as a novel of ideas if fully articulated, but, despite the obvious irony that permeates her central metaphor ("City of Light" = "City of Moral Darkness") the author is unwilling is descend to the bottom of the moral vortex she creates. She pulls her heroine back from the brink of realization that free will is a delusion--and so, too, heroism.

While Ms. Belfer deserves credit for extensive research (into the 20th-century history of Buffalo, N.Y.) and a fecund imagination that allows her to people the world she has created with a cross-section of social classes, her characters are developed, to the extent they are developed at all, without psychological consistency.

When an author chooses a first-person narration, the narrator at least must be all of piece. Louisa Barrett, however, makes a habit of greeting each new day with insouciance, only to encounter a series of distressing personal or societal circumstances: lecherous encounters, industrial accidents, explosions, drownings, fires, mistreated (even misplaced) babies, ethnic antipathies, racist graffiti, reckless endangerment, pornographic drawings, and both statutory and actual rape. Enough to make her wake and claw the sheets at night, one would think, but there is only one episode of her feeling even so much as sick to her stomach at living in this malign and chaotic universe.

"Nothing is what it seems," another reviewer has commented, perceptively. Yes, Belfer's moral universe is one of smoke and mirrors. Hence, the novel climaxes in Louise's realization that, despite all her bravery in the face of circumstance, she has been manipulated and deluded by the male industrialists who control her school board, her livelihood, her life--that she has been without free will, has been their pawn and tool. Such a revelation would send most of us staggering back from the abyss, determined to flee this "city of darkness." In a passage apparently without irony (p. 473), Belfer's Louisa shrugs it off, reflecting that whatever motives led to her headmistress-ship (a position analogized throughout to the madamship of a brothel), she has created a school the community can be proud of. So, too, the citizens of Buffalo, painted as a moral cesspool by Lauren Belfer, have expressed pride both in her and in her novel. I can only wonder--did they read the same novel I did?

From the prologue, which is written several years after the events the rest of the book will chronicle, you are warned that 700 pages hence, you will not be arriving at a happy ending, although you may still be surprised at how dismal it all turns out. This slow moving story tracks the unlikely adventures of a turn of the century spinster who is head of a prestigious girl's preparatory school in Buffalo. The general form of the book is to present an interesting bit of plot at the tale end of a chapter and then proceed to spend pages on dry historical information which bares little on the story before she manages to work in the next plot point. Examples of this are noting every single person and what they are wearing wherever she goes and it doesn't help that it seems she runs into every character in the book at each social function she attends. She also likes to explain the family relationships of characters who are never directly met by the heroine and have nothing to do with the story and endlessly detail the workings of power plants, which should have been interesting, but yet somehow she manages to drain all interest from the subject matter. About half way through the book the pace picks up although the author still can't restrain herself from such things as having her heroine pronounce right in the middle of suspenseful section that she needs a dark chocolate covered marshmallow bar and then has her head straight to the candy shop where she can spend several pages describing the shop and its contents. You get the distinct impression that the author had just read about candy at the turn of the century and had made a note to work it in.

But remove all of the unneeded dull description and you are left with an interesting plot that is marred only by its strange and non-historical underpinnings. For some strange reason she presents a world in which power is supposed to be only for the factories and for the most wealthy and her main character actually believes will never be for the common people. What history books the author read, I have not a clue. Thomas Edison, the father of electricity stated as his public goal in the 1880s "to make electric light so cheap that only the rich will be able to burn candles." By 1900 about the time this book takes place there were already 25 million electric incandescent lamps in use and homeowners had been introduced to electric stoves, sewing machines, curling irons, and vacuum cleaners. While it would another 28 years before the nationwide powergrid was set up and a bit longer before electricity reached all of the rural communities, to suggest that turn of the century business men had an interest in withholding power form the masses is ludicrous. And to have the stories hero threatened because he proposed giving electricity away because it was the only way for the poor to ever get is totally outlandish and in fact has no basis in history. But this isn't the only unlikely plot points underpinning this book. One of the heroines suitors and the father of her god-child is so wealthy that he can afford to donate a million dollars and yet he is the employee of other men? Any man with that kind of money in those days would have been involved in his own ventures. And even worse to build a plot around such a wealthy man being threatened strains credibility. America was not Europe. If you had enough money, you were part of society. Most of the great wealth in America was new money and humble upbringing were the norm, not something to be whispered about once you had arrived. Beyond that she portrayed President Cleveland as a rapist and several other historical figures as the kind of monsters who would willing ruin a respectable young lady in order to secure the favor of a powerful man and then neglects to mention in her afterward what sources she used to arrive at these unflattering portrayals. Thankfully for the author, the dead can not sue her for libel .Leaving aside the dubious history you have a portrait of an unsympathetic women who gave up all of her dreams and goals due to circumstances arranged for her and in the end when she realizes it, she doesn't even care. Oddly satisfying but thoroughly depressing.