Customer Reviews

Favourite of the God

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The relationships of mothers and daughters in Bedford's novels are among the funniest and most complex than one can find in fiction. Her young characters are always uncanny mature, witty, independent but nevertheless unexpectedly vulnerable. Mothers, on the other hand, are difficult, lovable and unpredictable. Conflict is usually civilized, deep, and productive. Bedford is also very fond of Mediterranean settings, small towns in the cost of France or Italy, before they were spoiled by tourism. The description of the European life before WW2 is one of the many pleasures of this great book.

Most of Bedford's work--I've read a lot of it--circles around a favorite theme--that time between the wars in Europe, when there was almost complete freedom of movement, and many people seemed to live very well on very little money, relying on the generosity of wealthy friends. "A Compass Error" and "Jigsaw" are her best and most autobiographical, but I find the further she strays from her own life story the murkier things get. In this novel, Constanza is the daughter of an American heiress and an Italian prince, who finds her life upended when her mother self-destructs after discovering the Prince's long-standing affair. Constanza moves to London and grows up to become very beautiful, intelligent, a little wild, and quite self-absorbed. She seems oddly without anchor--she marries a man she doesn't love, has a child without seeming to notice, and is then devastated when her husband divorces her because she never loved him. Constanza gets another chance with a different man, but throws it away. For me it was as if I observed this from a distance--I never really understood Constanza's motives. Her mother Anna also confused me--I never quite had a handle on how wealthy she really was or wasn't, despite a great deal of discussion on the subject of money. And I never really figured out what Anna's "problem" was. Bedford is a beautiful writer and I love the picture of the world between the wars that she paints, and for that I give this book a 4, but her characters were disturbingly vague, and the book left me oddly disatisfied.

Do you love books about ex-pats making thier lives in Europe? Love the genre...LOVED the book. Good use of any readers time.