Customer Reviews

Left Bank (Charnwood Large Print)

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

 

 

What I found most enjoyable about this book was the deft way in which the author manipulated my emotions. I was amazed how I could start with such a strongly negative reaction to one character and a positive one to another and then experience a total flip flop of my opinions. I really like it when an author can take a concept and turn it on its head and I think that's this novel's greatest success. Overall, though, it wasn't a hugely satisfying read but I think Muir has some serious potential.

Kate Muir's clever and well written book will in some ways reverse the distaste for bad books about Paris typified by the abominably written and researched Dan Brown 'Da Vinci' mess.

Where Brown mangled the geography and wrote with a baseball bat to the keys, Muir captures the essential terroir with tasteful and witty prose, while creating a marvelous bouillabaisse of characters--Olivier Malin, an uppity French intellectual, his transplanted Texan wife Madison, their 7-year-old daughter Sabine, the Brit-French nanny Anna, the Chechen cook Luiiza and her thuggy comperes, the concierge Madame Canovas . . . they are all well drawn and their interactions entertainingly appropriate, and the story credibly plotted.

Any reader who likes the real (as opposed to the tourist) Paris will find this book charmingly authentic, capturing not just the geography but the essence of the place, conveying Gallic sensibilities through the eyes of one who is obviously and unapologetically a British writer who likes and knows the place and the people (Muir has worked in Paris for the TIMES of London). Muir's satirical edge cuts where necessary, avoiding the easy cheap shots but revealing the curious and fascinating differences between cultures--for example, between the not-quite-French-enough Madison (seemingly modeled on the Connecticut-born actress known as 'Arielle Dombasle') and the all-too-self-consciously charming and preening Olivier (clearly a thin disguise for Dombasle's husband Bernard-Henri Levy or BHL, who is mentioned by the author as a 'fellow philosopher,' perhaps to avoid precisely this comparison).

For Muir, with Viking as her publisher, this is an excellent first novel that despite an uneven middle section sustain's the reader's interest to the end. Her next offering is awaited with interest. She has the chops.

PS Oui, d'accord, 'souffle' should have an 'egu' on the final letter but the resolutely American website doesn't care and won't offer proper accents--my apologies.

I really liked this novel: good introspection of the characters moods and personalities. A bit repetitive and patronizing to the reader on the locale: why going on and on to make us understand it takes place in Paris? We know, we can taste it, we love Paris. Over all very visual: it would make a nice movie.

This being Ms. Muir's first book, one cannot expect greatness; however, the language she uses when assigning dialogue to Madison is unimaginiative. Americans do not speak like the Brits, perhaps Ms. Muir should take a trip to Texas to get the speech patterns and vocabulary right. The subtle nuances of the French langugage are best expressed in French; translating them to English and then explaining the French nuance is not that exciting.

The rest of the characters are more like caricatures. I found it hard to feel anything for them. The cheap knockoff of Euro Disney and the whole kidnapping fiasco served as yet another annoyance.

If you want to be bored while letting someone attempt to convey the idea of life in Paris then I would suggest you pick this up at your local Dollar Store - then again paying the inflated price for this novel will certainly give you the feeling of being ripped off at Café de Flore.

Kate Muir's wry, sardonic Left Bank opens with a scene that so many parents dread - the inexplicable disappearance of their child. When the handsome forty-something Frenchman Olivier Marlin and his beautiful Texan-born actress wife Madison lose their daughter Sabine in PlayWorld Paris, an American-style fun park, the event signifies the beginning of the end for their delicate and brittle marriage.

More intent with keeping up appearances than seeing to Sabine's well being, Olivier and Madison have been living a life of self-absorption and conceit. The "it" couple of Paris, Oliver is considered one of France's leading philosophy writers - his latest book is the controversial Chechnya - Beyond Philosophy - and his days are filled with sampling the gastric delights of his countrymen, whilst also intent to line up a steady assortment of secretaries to sleep with.

Madison endures Olivier's dalliances; perhaps because she's intent to keep a type of youthful hubris and also because she's seeking to escape from being tarred as a Texan model turned actress; she wants to be a true Parisian. She's the kind of woman who carefully attends her own inner life, and is remarkably self-obsessed. She even engages in a platonic extramarital affair with her friend Paul, more out of necessity rather than desire.

Both Madison and Olivier have a strained and edgy understanding, a type of reciprocated arrangement - the affairs - real for him, fictional for her - balance their relationship and temper their half-hearted commitment to Sabine. But the delicate and frail dynamics of their life together, their world of intellectualism, gastronomy and coiffure is altered by arrival at the rue du Bac of Anna Ayer, a hip English nanny.

Anna had lived in Paris for four years and already knows the reputation of Olivier and Madison - he was the unavoidable fodder for late-night cultural television shows and she notorious for almost pornograhpic art-house films. Sabine takes an instant liking to Anna, and Anna is worldly and groovy enough to realize that she can offer this child the security and emotional stability she needs.

Anna's carefree and happy-go-lucky beauty doesn't escape the wondering eye of Olivier. She sees him as the handsome heroic philosopher in a flak jacket, part of the chattering classes, whilst Oliver gets caught up in an affair with her. After all, there is nothing Olivier enjoys more other than a perfect meal than the pursuit of love - extramarital love.

But Olivier and Anna's surreptitious affair threatens to come undone by doings of the blowsy and strictly Catholic concierge, Madame Canovas; she's all too quick to spy on the couple, especially when she has Sabine's best interests at heart. Muir deftly mixes up the transatlantic pot and lets the sparks fly as Olivier, Anna and Madison inevitably clash.

There's certainly something rotten in the state of the rue du Bac, a selfishness and disregard for others, particularly with Olivier and his ridiculous existentionalist justifications for his behaviour. The author casts a discerning and humorous eye on Paris and Parisians, and sometimes her observations are not that flattering. Oliver, in particular is portrayed as too well bread to believe in openness and full disclosure. He's secretly more "bourgeois than bohemian" and unashamedly dislikes "the wet-bottomed tedium of toddler hood."

As Madison's world of coiffure is turned upside down, she realizes she's been somehow acting her life, trying to escape her dusty Texan roots by becoming a perfect French beauty; marrying a celebrated French intellectual, and performing as part of a public couple. And Anna can no longer fall back on the perfect fantasy father when everything goes wrong in her life.

Obviously these are not bad people; rather they are a little ill intentioned; they simply disregard the feelings of others whilst trying to meet the daily demands of busy lives. As the dead weight of the affair with Anna begins to swamp Olivier, he begins to realize it is also years of other affairs and misunderstandings, "layers of rotten flesh that need to be cut away" so that they can return to the bones of his relationship with Madison.

Muir's crisp, lively and entertaining prose perfectly captures the world of Parisian left bank artists, filmmakers and left wing intellectuals. She perfectly defines Olivier and Madison's mannered and sophisticated world, where appearances and product placements mean more than loyalty and good solid and devoted parenting. For her part, Madison only desires the happiness of Sabine; her child is the one person in her life, other than herself that she is able to love categorically. Mike Leonard August 06.

Madison and Olivier are one of the golden couples of Paris society. He is an unbelievably handsome, suave, well dressed scion of an aristocratic family and a published philosopher to boot, while she is the daughter of a Texan oil billionare, tall,blonde with impeccable French and the star of nearly pornographic movies. They have a six year old daughter, Sabine, for whom they engage a half English, half French Nanny,Anna. Madison's and Olivier's lives are so fully occupied with theatre, photo shoots and maintenance of her appearance on her side, and lectures, gourmet food and public appearances on his, that Anna's company for Sabine is a great blessing, as she'd been virtually a neglected child, with with almost no parental contact. Olivier, who is also a compulsive womaniser, sets his sights on Anna, who falls for his charm, hook, line and sinker. Sabine stages her own disappearance at the local Disneyworld in order to gain some attention from her parents and this does jolt Madison into a sense of her responsibilities and a realisation of her love for her child. It's a bit of light fluff but one which holds the reader's attention because of the charm of the setting and the sheer gloss and shine of the characters who prove to be only too fallible, despite their outer appearances.

I agree with most of the previous reviewers. I too buy any book with a Paris setting since I did live there for a few years, which were among the best in my life.

So I bought this book expecting an escapist novel, reminding me of that city's beautiful locations and quirky characters. What I discovered instead are some of the most annoying characters in recent memeory. They nag, back-stab, whine, behave so annoyingly, you just feel like throttling the whole bunch. And Kate Muir drags on endlessly .

I lost interest quarterway through the book and I keep it only for its lovely cover.

Boring

I love Paris, and books about the lovely city and its people. So I eagerly read this one. The cover is charming - in fact it might be the one reason I keep the book. Plus I do like her picture of Paris. However:

The premise - that a child's disappearence can do things to a family already in dire straits - is a given. And at first I rather liked the main characters, despite their foibles. But as the book went on I just got more and more tired of them acting like the lowest common denominators. I skimmed through the last part of the book. The end wasn't a surprise. But I'll forget about it soon, as I'll forget about the characters.

Perhaps trying too hard to be 'au courant' Left Bank falls short in characterization and evoking what should be a fabulous milieau.

I read this novel and was completely swept away in its descriptions and many intrigues. Fascinating characters. And a strong female protagonist. A Texas girl turned left bank intellectual; for truly she is the wit and strength of this story! Well done!