The Emperor's Children (Vintage) [Paperback]

Claire Messud (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 26, 2007 | Series: Vintage

The Emperor’s Children is a richly drawn, brilliantly observed novel of fate and fortune—about the intersections in the lives of three friends, now on the cusp of their thirties, making their way--and not-- in New York City. In this tour de force, the celebrated author Claire Messud brings to life a city, a generation, and the way we live in this moment.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Marina Thwaite, Danielle Minkoff and Julian Clarke were buddies at Brown, certain that they would soon do something important in the world. But as all near 30, Danielle is struggling as a TV documentary maker, and Julius is barely surviving financially as a freelance critic. Marina, the startlingly beautiful daughter of celebrated social activist, journalist and hob-nobber Murray Thwaite, is living with her parents on the Upper West Side, unable to finish her book"titled The Emperor's Children Have No Clothes (on how changing fashions in children's clothes mirror changes in society). Two arrivals upset the group stasis: Ludovic, a fiercely ambitious Aussie who woos Marina to gain entrée into society (meanwhile planning to destroy Murray's reputation), and Murray's nephew, Frederick "Bootie" Tubb, an immature, idealistic college dropout and autodidact who is determined to live the life of a New York intellectual. The group orbits around the post"September 11 city with disconcerting entitlement"and around Murray, who is, in a sense, the emperor. Messud, in her fourth novel, remains wickedly observant of pretensions"intellectual, sexual, class and gender. Her writing is so fluid, and her plot so cleverly constructed, that events seem inevitable, yet the narrative is ultimately surprising and masterful as a contemporary comedy of manners. 100,00 announced first printing; author tour.(Sept. 4)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker

In this witty examination of New York's chattering classes, which opens in the spring of 2001, the despot of the title is Murray Thwaite, a famous journalist who made his name in the Vietnam era. The next generation, however, is having trouble gaining traction. Murray's daughter, Marina, unable to complete a long-overdue book on the cultural significance of children's clothing, has moved back into her parents' Upper West Side apartment and is doing a lot of yoga. Her two best friends—Danielle, a television producer, and Julius, a gay freelance critic—are similarly ambitious and entitled, without being particularly driven. All three find sex the easiest way to transform themselves. Only Murray's brainy and profoundly disenfranchised nephew from upstate aggressively pursues his belief in the true and the good, but he proves to be a sort of literary terrorist, threatening to blow the family apart. The humorous intimacies of Messud's portraits do not, finally, soften the judgments behind them: If this is what's become of the liberal imagination, is it worth fighting for?
Copyright © 2006 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (June 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030727666X
• ISBN-13: 978-0307276667
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (291 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,076 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

356 of 430 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars The Emperor's Children Have No Clothes! December 3, 2006

By D. West VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Since many reviewers have discussed the story line in detail, I will stick with my overall impressions of what I consider an extremely over hyped disappointing read.

In my opinion, none of the main characters are anywhere near as adorable as the author keeps insisting they are. Their most notable characteristic is a non-stop (and rather interchangeable) flow of campy repartee that might convey intellect, success, pretension, heartbreak, or whatever to someone steeped in their milieu but which kept me at a considerable emotional distance. The doomed idol, Murray Thwaite, in particular is dreadfully flimsy - is this the author's dream of an articulate, handsome, talented, unattainable (for others who wish to be him) Golden Boy. This sort of wish fulfillment at the reader's expense is simply unpalatable to the serious consumer. And, if this was to be a tongue in cheek attempt at humor, it fell far short of the mark.

I agree with other reviewers. It appears the author likes very long sentences; many paragraphs are absolutely incomprehensible. Are we to be impressed with the overuse of commas and dependent clauses so that it often takes two or three readings to render a sentence understandable? If this is the new era of grown-up writing, I'll stick to my mysteries and nonfiction.

But, I kept at it hoping that Messud would indeed pull it off in the end; however, the ending too was quite unsatisfactory. And, the use of the 9/11 tragedy to try to wrap it up is unforgivable. If so many New Yorkers of this age group truly were so wrapped in their own petty self-absorptions during this time period, God save our country. Could any of the characters see outside their own small contrived world? It would appear not. I won't be reading any more of Messud's work....

If you're hoping for a plot, forget it. You can just read a page and sit back and admire Messud's gift for metaphor, prose and description. But plot and character development are as thin as deli cheese and just about as smelly. It's sadly true, but all of these characters stink, for one reason or another.

Do yourself a favor, don't buy the book. If you've read the hype and still think it's worth it, check it out from a library or borrow a copy. In fact, let me know, I'll send you mine. The only thing it's good for is keeping coffee rings off my desk. Read more ›

42 of 49 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars The publisher should be ashamed! August 27, 2007

By Bianchini Francesco

Format:Hardcover

The authoress gave the best review of her own stuff. Quoting from page 322: " Call me old-fashioned, but in my world a book-if only on account of the trees chopped down to produce it; but for many other reasons as well-should justify its existence. It must have a raison d'ętre. I just don't see one here. I'm sorry".
What remains a mystery to me is how this manuscript made its way into mainstream publishing and moreover got such hyperbolic praise. Is there a "literary" mafia?

73 of 89 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars The plot that wouldn't thicken March 5, 2007

By Gary Malone

Format:Hardcover

You've really got to worry about a novel when a *favourable* reviewer describes the plot's two main set pieces and one of them is when the cat dies. [The Economist, 19 Aug 2006.] Before getting into that, however, try this sample sentence for size:

"He remembered his father's telling him - his father, small as he was himself tall, with sloping shoulders off which Murray feared, as a child, the braces might slip, a bow-tied little man with an almost Hitlerian mustache, softened from menace by its grayness, and by the softness, insidious softness, of his quiet voice, a softness that belied his rigidity and tireless industry, his humorless and ultimately charmless 'goodness' (Why had she married him? She'd been so beautiful, and such fun) - telling him, as he deliberated on his path at Harvard, to choose accounting, or economics, saying, with that dreaded certainty, 'You see, Murray, I know you want to go out and write books or something like that. But only geniuses can be writers, Murray, and frankly son ...'"

[p. 124]

See what I mean about size? Reviewers have already complained about the author's self-interrupting, drunkenly digressive prose style. They are entirely correct to do so. Claire Messud's book is festooned with sentences which are essentially motorway pile-ups of sub-clauses, codicils and parenthetical interpolations. Such a rookie mistake - which makes for hopelessly cumbersome reading - should never have made it past the editor.

The Emperor's Children concerns the lives of Danielle, Marina and Julius, three thirtysomething New York literati and their patriarch, the essayist Murray Thwaite, Marina's father.... Onto this scene arrive two more brains: Ludovic Seeley is a viperish and talented journalist from Australia who has come to NY to launch a new magazine; and Bootie Tubb is Thwaite's bookish college-drop-out nephew, who has taken up residence (and employment) at his uncle's home. In summary, all six of Ms. Messud's characters are part of a literary intelligentsia. So she's a writer writing about writers. Which is what bad writers shorn of ideas always do (think Stephen King). With such lack of variety among its dramatis personae, one is left to wonder how the book's jacket can make the breathtaking claim to be about 'the way we live in this moment'. Does Ms. Messud presume that the ruminations of six Manhattanites parked in front of their word processors will have something to say to ambulance drivers? Surfers? Teenagers? I like to write occasionally, and even I quickly grew tired of these navel-gazers. Perhaps the cruel joke Ms. Messud has played on herself is that only self-absorbed people presume that all others are like them, and will therefore relate to self-absorbed characters.

Anyway, the praxis of the book is set in motion by nothing more original than Seeley's aim to expose Thwaite as an intellectual fraud of some sort. Once this rather abstract goal is announced, nothing at all happens. We sit around for several hundred pages awaiting the unmasking. It never happens. (The cat has died some time before, its passing memorialised with an entire chapter.) The life of the mind is an indolent one, and so the time must thus be passed with sex. Danielle has an affair with Seeley; Seeley has an affair with Marina; and - ridiculously - Thwaite has an affair with Danielle. Ms. Messud also finds time to go into the details of Julius's gay love life with tiresomely squeamish prurience - beneath the willfully nonchalant prose one can sense a novelist delighted by her own daring.

There are silly mistakes. Since Bootie quickly becomes disillusioned with his uncle and correspondingly determined to expose him, he essentially clones Seeley's role: the reader is now left wondering why we now have two characters doing the same thing. As for Seeley himself, he inexplicably marries the daughter of the man he wants to destroy - a bit socially awkward, that. If Bootie is so precociously well-read, why does he seem surprised to discover that Ireland is divided? But perhaps his ignorance reflects that of his creator, who incorrectly informs us that Ireland has 'a border in the middle' [p. 186]. (The border is in the north-east corner, partitions off only one-fifth of the island, and never reaches the west coast.) Messud writes that Thwaite 'blew smoke though his nose like a dragon' [p. 305], forgetting that this is now her third time using that expression.

There's intellectual spivvery. So much literary name-dropping goes on, but it all consists of obvious choices. Situations are repeatedly described as 'Beckettian'; Bootie is reading Tolstoy, Melville and Emerson ... but there's nothing in these references to indicate that Messud has done any more that *hear about* these writers. It's all paper-thin. And the ambitious Seeley's inspiration is ... Napoleon.

Suddenly, September 11 irrupts into the plot. Our flawed-but-lovable characters respond in their various ways: Seeley grieves copiously for the new magazine he was about to launch but now never will; Thwaite's wife gets her hair done; Bootie changes his name to an even sillier one and inexplicably disappears (and not before time, some readers might may say). So if this intrusion of a harsh and savage reality has no effect on our characters, why was it mentioned at all? To rob from real life a luridly exciting climax that the author hadn't the talent to create herself?

It's plain from the 'way we live now' claim that the book is trying to boldly capture the Zeitgeist, but the entire plot takes place in the minds of its characters, and the space in which they move is thus correspondingly constricted. The novel feels not so much like it's taking place in an era as in one rather stuffy, overpriced apartment.

I have found that there is a yawning gulf of difference between the public response to this book and the critical one. A while back I listened to two members of the New York literary intelligentsia (Stephen Metcalf, Katie Roiphe) being interviewed about the novel on Slate. Surprise, surprise: they both liked it. Metcalf even did some name-dropping of his own: Edith Wharton, Zadie Smith, David Lodge we all parachuted in. But even the comparisons he meant unkindly were too flattering.

Thus the literati peer deeply into the Emperor's Children's subtext, apparently unable to say the plain truth currently being howled by readers in general (and there for all to see): the book is a poor read and it has little to say. Read more ›

35 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Balancing The Scales December 1, 2007

By Ezra Klein

Format:Paperback

Every so often, I check into the review page for The Emperor's Children, just to see if anything has changed. I remember stopping by the first time, and being shocked by the poor reviews, and assuming it had to be a temporary twist of the numbers, that the universe will certainly right itself soon enough.

Well, it hasn't. I won't argue with anyone's experiences of the book -- that's far beyond what I can offer. I will say that, as a journalist in DC, it's far and away the most accurate examination of the Eastern intellectual class that I've encountered. Messud is a gorgeous writer whose scenes are deeply observed and hauntingly constructed. The world of the book is specific, to be sure, and it's possible, as you see in the reviews, that many won't relate. But if you went to a small liberal arts college; if you're fascinated, or resentful, or appalled, or attracted, by the pretensions of the self-styled intellectual set; if you like sharply written banter; you can hardly do better than this book.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars seriously flawed, over-hyped July 12, 2007

By Ellen

Format:Paperback

I don't mind reading about characters that are unsympathetic and dull -- if the story has a point. Unfortunately, this book has no story. The author adequately illustrates the nature of narcissism, vanity, and wanton conceit; but her theme runs around in circles (tediously!) and never goes anywhere. She dangles plot lines that never ripen, and allows all the characters to remain static, essentially unchanged by the events that unfold.

The movie "Election" is a good example of how entertaining static characters can be when the storyteller merges cynicism with wit. Cynicism merged with poignancy is also compelling. Too bad for Massud that her cynicism is flaccid and aimless. I kept waiting for the pay-off that never came.

The story could have worked perhaps as a tale of cultural malaise, but Massud does't have the edge and scope of an author like Tom Wolfe.

And I can only marvel at the breathless review printed on the back cover that praises the author for being flawless and elegant... I actually found myself highlighting sentences in the book and reading them to my husband at night -- for a good laugh! I can't recall ever reading so many clunky, tortured, obtuse sentences in a published book.

I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! I can't locate some of my favorites because I encountered them while reading without a pen in hand, but here are a couple of samples:

From page 194: "Although possibly, it's true, thinking about all she couldn't say -- which boiled down to "Bootie, come home!" -- rather than about what he was actually whispering (he did fairly whisper, because his voice was naturally low, and because he didn't want the Thwaites to be disturbed) in her addled ear...."

Here is a 137-word sentence from page 172: "A shrill man's voice silenced the room -- it was, Danielle could see, the bald editor in velvet who had claimed Murray Thwaite during cocktails -- and in echo droned and squeaked an annual recitation about the Journalists' Association and its marriage, back in the sixties, with the Writers Guild, giving birth to this unique organization in which writers of so many stripes might unite -- "Where the waratah and the bird of paradise conjoin," whispered Seeley, nodding at Madame Ballou, whose weakened chin appeared to tremble over her red jacket ad whose eyes grew heavy-lidded as the speech wore on; while behind her, several tables away but in an unimpeded visual line, sat the yellow silk torso he had noted earlier, topped by its long, eagerly quivering nose."

Some of the sentences have comically misplaced modifiers, some of them have multiple clauses offset by semicolons within clauses offset by hyphens, some of them are just plain weird.

From page 161: "Julius suggested a bath, a line or two of coke (this he had foreseen; and had separated a small portion of David's reserves for this use. He felt like his mother, fretting; but he hadn't wanted to countenance the possibility that the unknown Dale might go wild at the prospect of drugs in abundance, make a grab for the lot, deck his paramour, and flee), a porn video on the huge flat-screen TV hung on the living room wall."

Again, I would be more forgiving of a story that went nowhere if at least the writing were beautiful. In "The Emperor's Children," however, the writing is awkward, overwrought, and without rhythm.

I also found the use of 9/11 as a plot stunt near the end of the book to be jarring and a bit tacky.

The foregoing criticism is only part of the problem with Massud's book; the other part of the problem is the HYPE. I received the book as a gift from someone who bought two copies at once based upon the ecstatic reviews. She believed it to be the most consequential book of the year.

Indeed, the back cover brays that the novel is brilliant, flawless, engrossing, glistening with wit, refreshing, enchanting, ambitious, glamorous, gusty, kinetic, robust, canny, and searching. It purports that a consensus of credible periodicals had already found it to be one of the best books of the year. It promises the book to be a "great achievement" that will "likely be one of the most talked-about novels."

In some way, Massud is surely the poorer for having published her book in an era of silly praise inflation, in which every book is astonishing, amazing, breath-taking, and blah blah blah...

This book is not without merit; it's virtues are simply overcome by the weight of undue praise and disproportionate expectations. Read more ›