Customer Reviews

Claire Marvel: A Novel

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

 

 

Simply put "Claire Marvel" is a triumph. A love story rendered in singing prose it is compelling and heartrending, exciting and true.

"There was before her and now there is after her," it begins, " and that is the difference in my life."

Two Harvard graduate students meet by chance on a rainy day. Claire offers Julian cover beneath her umbrella, a chance encounter which will forever change them both.

They are very much alike these two, although each puzzles the other. They are drawn to one another, a love affair begins yet it is as if their bodies have connected but not their souls. After a time Claire asks Julian to join her in France but their idyll is short-lived. Upon returning to the United States she chooses to marry someone else. Nonetheless, the connection between Julian and Claire remains, a link that influences the future even after Julian, too, marries another.

It is in the exploration of this abiding connectedness that the novel glows, contemplating what might have been, pondering deathless hope, and probing the impenetrable workings of the human heart.

"Claire Marvel" is an exemplary achievement. Read it and rejoice; read it and weep.

- Gail Cooke

"Claire Marvel" is a simple love story told with extraordinary grace. Author John Burnham Schwartz writes with spare elegant prose about disparate characters who come together for a time, to love and to betray. But "Claire Marvel" is also a character study and a commentary on how insecurity, poor timing and lack of decisiveness can destroy the closest relationships. It delves into the consequences of action and lack of action, the ability to be courageous in life, to act on conscience, and the growth of character.

Claire Marvel and Julian Rose meet serendipitously during a rain storm. He seeks cover at the Fogg Art Museum where Claire is waiting for the rain to abate under an umbrella the color of buttercups. The two are graduate students at Harvard, he in political science, she in art, studying the Pre-Raphaelites. Claire is a free spirit, very visual, absorbed by images, color and line with an artist's sensibility - much more than that of an art historian. She is a "traveler who through circuitous wandering had stumbled upon an unchartered place beyond explanation." Julian is a believer of empirical truth. "It is hard for him to bump up against anything without immediately supplying or reaching for definition." They both carry the baggage of their dysfunctional families. And yet they are kindred spirits and come together effortlessly.

Claire's father is dying and asks her to spend some time in France at a small house in the countryside where he had spent some of the happiest moments of his life. She asks Julian to accompany her. Their time together is idyllic. However, flaws in Julian's character cause problems and missed opportunities. The novel explores his past and the reasons for his development as a passive, almost cowardly, man. So the novel becomes much more than a love story.

I found the parts of the novel dealing with Julian's relationship with his doctorial advisor to be fascinating. Julian is writing a dissertation on the various incarnations of the Progressive Party. His advisor, Carl Davis, is a powerful professor with close ties to Ronald Regan and the Republican Party. Julian disagrees with Davis' politics but is drawn to his authority and powerful presence. This relationship play a major part in the storyline.

Some critics have compared "Claire Marvel" to Erich Segal's novel "Love Story." The only commonalties I found are that Julian and Claire attend Harvard and live in Cambridge for a period. There is little "schmaltz" or sentimentality here. The prose and the author's use of language is often quite beautiful. The tension is taut, as the story unfolds through memory and direct confrontation with the past. I was very moved by the author's compassionate exploration of relationships, passion, regret and loss. Bravo John Burnham Schwartz!
JANA

I admit to some trepidation in picking up a book that is marketed as a love story. But I have to confess, that after I'd read 30 pages of Claire Marvel, I could not stop reading it. Despite having to juggle family and other obligations, I finished it in one weekend, although I savored the images and feelings for weeks afterwards. I was even tempted to read it again, immediately, something I never do. In short, I was obsessed with Claire Marvel. And I'm not the only one. My husband and most of my friends who have read it have become obsessed by Claire as well. This book really makes the reader feel love--in all of its glory, ambiguity and agony--in a way that no other book I have read before does. Put this book at the top of your list, but be warned that it may become an obsession.

In novels of Obsession it is absolutely necessary that the object of said obsession be portrayed as extraordinary in one way or in many ways or another. Think about "Lolita" and Humbert Humbert: Lolita was very young, very beautiful, very nubile and very forbidden. Or think of Gustave's obsession in "Death in Venice,"Tadzio to whom oddly enough, the same adjectives above can apply.
In John Burham Schwartz's "Claire Marvel" we have a novel of Obsession in which the object of said obsession is portrayed as little more than someone beautiful who flits in and out of the protaganist Julian Rose's life over the course of 15 years; not even developed enough to be called an enigma. Even though Tadzio and Lolita are mere ciphers; repositories of their obsessors collective fantasies, they have "lives" within this context that makes them viable in the world of their novels. Claire Marvel does not. Schwartz paints her in the broadest, vaguest strokes:..."eyes alive with amusement; a refined nose...straight brown hair....a body slender and lithe." Julian's relationship with Clare is the least interesting in the entire novel. It's as if Schwartz lost interest in her when he realized that other characters like his father, his PHD thesis advisor or one of his troubled students proved to be the easier write.
For a supposed love story, "Claire Marvel"'s better developed characters are ancilliary like Julian's father for example. Through the course of the book, Julian's relationship with his father develops from estrangement and distrust, based on Julian's mother separation from his father, to a touching scene near the end of the novel, set in a park, between the two: "For an hour we stayed there, not saying much....I remembered walking in the park as a little boy holding my father's hand.....then I felt his hand on my shoulder. He squeezed hard and for a long time, and the pressure rose at the bottom of my throat was almost unbearable...he didn't know the comfort he gave, just sitting on that bench with me. Though I hoped he did." A simple scene ,where most of the emotion is held back, but beautifully composed and written. Unfortunately there are no such scenes between Julian and Clare that reach this level of refinement.
There are several other scenes in "Clare Marvel" that are beautifully written and Schwartz is obviously a fine writer, but when the central issue of a novel is as underdeloped as it is here, I would have to say the "Clare Marvel" is a failure....a sometimes gorgeously written failure, but a failure nontheless.

I really wanted to give this book 4 ½ stars, but that's not an option. This was an absolutely fabulous book! I had never heard of John Burnham Schwartz but I had read a review of this book in this month's Elle magazine and thought it sounded like something I might enjoy - that's an understatement!!!! I couldn't get enough. As I finished each chapter, I went back and re-read the parts I enjoyed the most because I didn't want it to end. The story is beautifully written as are the descriptions throughout. You can see the colors, smell the scents, hear the sounds and taste the tastes!!! It all begins with a yellow umbrella and the color yellow is referred to again throughout the book. Parts of the book will break your heart while others will uplift you and then there are the parts that will infuriate you - make you yell into the pages "WHAT ARE DOING & WHY?!?!?" The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars was because of its ending. While I know the author is allowing you to decide for yourself what the character does, I didn't like it. I would have liked a more complete definitive ending. Although it does leave room for a sequel (could this be possible?) I doubt that's what the author meant. It was a beautiful ending, however, I just like my stories wrapped up at the end - one way or another. With the ending the author gives us, the reader is left to their own to decide for themselves how the story ends. A great story, wonderful book - one I intend to keep & return to when I want a meaningful, loving read. Great job Mr. Schwartz! If your future books are anything like Claire Marvel, you have gained a new fan!!!

I thought this book was worth it for the feelings about young love and lost love. I enjoyed how the love experiences of the different family members brought varying perspectives to the main story line. BUT...the first part, the development of their relationship rang false and the writing was affected. The metaphors felt like lists from work, and the rhythm was very annoying. Also the main character was quite the wimp, and although he was young, the whole tormented young love thang felt like a Herman Hesse novel (I'm over that phase, thank you). The remaining two thirds of the book was good, but I don't recommend it unless you're into being melancholy and love-torn for the duration...

This is a beautifully written and emotionally courageous story of a man and the way in which he circles endlessly towards and away from the woman of his life, Claire Marvel. The tension between these two characters has such weight, and builds with such suspense, that that I stayed up until almost two in the morning to find out how the book would end. A terrific read.

Having read and admired Reservation Road, I had fairly high hopes for this book. Sadly, those hopes were not realized. Hero Julian seems to come alive only in those scenes that don't involve Claire. His scenes with her reveal a young man who is the polar opposite to the one who interacts with the other characters. With his landlady, the redoubtable Mary, he is alive and sympathetic. Ditto for scenes with his wonderfully well-drawn father. In one very brief scene featuring Julian's mother, he manages to capture the essence of this character entirely with only a few brush strokes. Yet Claire remains, throughout, as essentially self-involved as Julian. Problematical, and very hard to buy into either his obsession or, ultimately, hers. As well, there are some weirdnesses that should've been caught by the editor. The primary one has to do with the couple going to an old house in France that has been unoccupied for quite some time. Yet without anyone ever turning on a single appliance, magically there is sufficient hot water for Claire to take a long luxurious bath. Anybody who's ever been to a cottage or a vacation home knows that the hot water heater and/or the furnace (or something) has to get turned on in order for hot water to become available (usually, in older places, many hours later.) I mention this oversight because when a point like this evolves into the literary equivalent of a nagging toothache, there is a problem with the narrative. The secondary characters, by and large, are far more real, far more sympathetic than the young lovers who take front and center in this novel. I kept thinking, as I read, of Endless Love which dealt with the issue of young obsessive love very successfully, while Claire Marvel is, unfortunately, not a success. Exquisite writing in this case doesn't assist a book that is, at its base, critically flawed. Julian is such a selfish character when with Claire that it came as no surprise that she turned on him. And Claire is such a cipher that it's difficult to fathom Julian's obsession with her.

This is a stunning novel. The writing is resonant with wisdom and graced with poetry. Beautiful storytelling from first to last. You will weep. But this is not a sentimental tale. It has all the restraints of fine literature and the emotional suspense of great novels. Buy it. Read it. I give it five very enthusiastic stars.

This is an exquisite novel. Schwartz (Reservation Road) is one of the finest young writers of literary fiction today, and this is his most accomplished work to date. The second half of the novel includes some of the most beautiful and elegant writing I've read in years. The characters, the places (Cambridge, France, New York), the poetry of the language, and the richness of experience will linger in your mind long after you've finished reading. I cannot recommend this book more enthusiastically.