Knowledge of Water [Mass Market Paperback]

Sarah Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 17, 1998

An enigmatic man haunted by guilt and a dark secret from the past . . . A beautiful young woman consumed by a desire that could destroy her lifelong dream . . . A madman who stalks them both in retribution for a murder they know nothing about. They are all part of one of the most critically acclaimed suspense novels of the year.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF WATER

"Lushly erotic . . . The centerpiece of Sarah Smith's elegant period novel is the torrential flood that nearly swept Paris away in 1910. . . . An exquisite stylist, she observes her characters in the most intimate detail, defining them with witty precision and placing them in a rain-drenched portrait of Edwardian Paris that could hang in the Louvre."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Compelling . . . Engrossing . . . Envelop[s] the reader with history, mystery, and passion."
--The Boston Herald

"A haunting tale  . . . An accessible mix of historical speculation, literary allusion, and suspense, [this novel] could become this year's Name of the Rose."
--Entertainment Weekly

"As satisfying a mystery as the Mona Lisa's smile."
--USA Today


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As revealed in The Knowledge of Water, a great flood washed through the streets in Paris 1910, exposing secrets thought to be sufficiently buried: the death of a singer, an art forgery, matters of the heart. The complex web of stories then tells a larger tale, that of the lives of Parisians in the time. The characters find their passion in art and murder and the beauty of the flood. This novel follows Sarah Smith's acclaimed The Vanished Child and rings with the same mix of suspense, history and wonder. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

"You don't know what it's like to lose yourself. To have no words anymore, no way of saying who you are." So warns the anti-marriage, vengeful, divorced writer and theater artist Milly Xico, speaking to Perdita Halley, urging her not to give up her career in order to marry her lover, Dr. the Baron Alexander von Reisden. The talented 21-year-old Perdita, an aspiring concert pianist so nearsighted as to be almost blind, is determined to find out what she can accomplish in music. But her love for the Baron may be more of an impediment than her physical handicap. Set in the Paris of 1910, Smith's ambitious second novel (after The Vanished Child) opens with the Baron, a specialist in "mental disturbances," viewing the corpse of a murdered beggar woman to whom he was in the habit of giving alms. The Baron, haunted by the fact that he killed his abusive grandfather at age eight, feels empathy for the beggar woman's murderer, who begins writing to him not long after the body is found. Told in the alternating viewpoints of Perdita, Milly, the Baron, the murderer and a private detective from Massachusetts sent by Perdita's guardian to encourage the Baron to marry her, this is a sprawling, baroque tale of budding early feminism, murder and art forgery. Saturated with a subtle eroticism, low-key humor and luxuriant atmosphere, particularly concerning the great flood that ravaged the city of Paris early in the century, the writing can be awkward, and the plot is slow to cohere. Ultimately, though, the wide-ranging story elements hang together and, to her credit, Smith doesn't skirt the fact that there are no easy answers for the woman who wants both a family and an artistic career.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (November 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517270153
• ISBN-13: 978-0517270158
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,245,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'd take this book to a desert island, October 3, 2000

By 

"wilfulcait" (Bowie, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Knowledge of Water (Mass Market Paperback)

I just finished Sarah Smith's The Knowledge of Water. Absolutely incredible, with passages at the end that are worth reading, and reading again, and then stopping to savor. It's a book about passion, and in particular the passion for one's art, one's calling, and how people honor that passion in the context of a whole life -- not "fit it in," because passion cannot be accommodated, does not fit comfortably around the edges -- and it's about how expectations twist people's lives. And it's about women, their expectations for themselves, men's expectations, about the choices they make, about what it does to a person to give up her truth in order to do the laundry and buy the groceries and raise the children.

There are no bad guys in this book. There is a pianist who loves a man, but who for days leading up to her first public performance forgets to write to him. There is a doctor who gets caught up in saving his hospital and forgets that he has left his bride-to-be in a cheap hotel. There is, yes, a wedding that comes off in a paragraph, because the story is not about weddings but about marriage, of which the wedding is only an incidental part. There are discussions of love and risk and art and truth and forgery. I think -- although I won't know for years -- that this book will bear reading and re-reading, and may be one of the ten books that I would take to a desert island.

I was reading this book in Penn Station, waiting for a train, and had to sit down on the floor because I was so far into the book that I was beginning to lose track of where I was.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing, thought-provoking, and a good read., December 31, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Knowledge of Water (Hardcover)

I found The Knowledge of Water to be an absorbing blend of mystery, period history and romance; but before you write it off as a bodice-ripper, let me add that the characters are well developed and believable, and the thorny women's issues are thought-provoking and timely. The result is good, entertaining brain food.
My only regret is that I read this volume before the first one in the series, The Vanished Child. Although I plan to go back and read it now, I fear Knowledge of Water gives away too many of the surprises from the first novel.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Forgeries, January 30, 2006

By 

Linda Pagliuco "katknit" (CT, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Knowledge of Water (Mass Market Paperback)

The Knowledge of Water is the second part of a trilogy, and meant to be read as such. It's interesting to see how an author can take the same set of characters, add some new ones, and further develop their personas around a completely different plot. The Vanished Child was about guilt and survival. Knowledge is about forgeries, layer upon layer of them. On the surface is the question of artistic dishonesty. Who is the forger of the works of the great Mallais? Slightly deeper is the question of identity, and to what extent an individual should be willing to compromise him/herself in the name of love. The broadest question is that of the rights and abilities of early 20th century women - who loses more by suppressing their talents, the women themselves or society as a whole? Who has the right to decide their fates?
Swirling around Reisden and Perdita as they struggle with these issues are the rapidly rising waters of the Seine and the intentions of a killer.
As other reviewers have noted, the center of the story does slow to a crawl as the various characters work their way through their choices to come to ultimate decisions. Patience is rewarded, however, by surprises in the final 20 pages.
On to the third and final volume of this series.....