Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Like a (raped) Virgin, October 25, 2009
This review is from: Love Falls: A Novel (P.S.) (Paperback)
I really enjoyed this passionate indictment of the callous world of the rich, privileged, and amoral artistic class. Not only is it beautifully written, Freud perfectly captures the sexually abusive indifference of the very rich and sophisticated toward youth, innocence, love, and parental responsibility.
At first Lara seems to lead a charmed life, traveling to fabulous Italian villas for a leisurely vacation with her famous father. Who could ask for more? Except, very subtly, very slowly the veil drops, and we see that Lara is for the first time encountering her father's world of the uber rich, where being rich not only means having more money, it means expecting to get your way without needing to care if you hurt anyone, or even if you rape them. You're rich and you get to do whatever you want.
Poor Lara is sweetness and innocence violated, who triumphs using her intelligence and greatness of understanding to forgive her father, as she proves herself his superior in sensibility and every human feeling that matters.
I found this book to be the most truthful representation of life among the rich and depraved that I've ever read. It has its sordid moments because the rich can afford to wallow in depravity and are so well insulated from life that they don't notice how callous and hard they have become. I loved Lara and her courage to face the terribly cruel and heartless world she found herself immersed in without the protection of a loving family. As the daughter of a famous intellectual, all she has is some financial security, (certainly something many young people could envy), but otherwise she is being thrown into the most vicious, competitive, unforgiving arena imaginable, the world of the sophisticated, overly wealthy, privileged class.
I found this book riveting, heartbreaking, far truer than the naughtiest gossip column, and ultimately uplifting as Lara refuses to become another victim or more fodder for the tabloids. If you want to get over you class envy, start with "Love Falls".
As much as I enjoyed "Hideous Kinky", I found "Love Falls" to be far superior.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Judge a book by its cover, March 28, 2008
This review is from: Love Falls: A Novel (P.S.) (Paperback)
I admit I bought this because of the cover, and I am glad I did because I really enjoyed it. I can relate to the characters because of Ms. Freud's descriptions, both emotionally and aesthetically. It is a vivid book, one can visualize the summer heat and feel the energy of anticipation in desire and curiosity. If you were ever a teenager you will appreciate and be reminded of all those exciting and frustrating moments. I think those are all lovely to remember, and Ms. Freud does an excellent job of reminding us of how it felt. If you are expecting erotica or graphic moments, you won't find it here, this is far better. I have never read any of her other books, but I will be reading them soon.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4.0 out of 5 stars
teenage troubles in tuscany, July 2, 2010
I have followed Esther Freud's writing career almost from the very beginning, mainly because we're the same age and I was curious what a novelist of my generation might have to say. When I first "discovered" her, Freud had only published two novels, Hideous Kinky (1991) and Peerless Flats (1994), of which I read the latter - the former was soon after turned into the eponymous film featuring Kate Winslet, at which point Freud's writing career seemed assured. Of her subsequent novels I greatly admired Summer at Gaglow (1997), which uses her German/British intercultural heritage to great effect, but didn't quite know what to make of The Sea House (2003).
With Love Falls she returns to the mind world of the teenage girl, which I suppose is what she does best. Of course I can't really tell, as I don't know it from the inside, but it looks convincing to the bystander. It is July 1981 (as readers are supposed to know due to the references to the wedding of Charles Windsor and Diana Spencer, but I had to look it up!), and our protagonist, Lara, 17 (born in spring 1964, so also my generation), embarks on a trip to Italy with her father, which means she's going to spend more time with him than she has in the past 17 years put together. That's probably already true by the end of the epic train journey that takes them to Siena.
She is thrown into the strange world of wealthy British expats in Tuscany, which in fact feels quite similar to the world described in the Bertolucci movie Stealing Beauty, except that the rather likable heap of artists lounging round the pool in that movie is replaced with a not quite so sympathetic gang who are there to save their inherited wealth from the UK tax authorities.
Lara's summer in Tuscany includes a wide and interesting range of experiences and emotions, and trying to make sense of them she reflects back to memories of her previous foreign adventure, an overland trip to India with her mother (which of course reminds us of Hideous Kinky).
Parts of the novel are disturbing enough to ensure it doesn't end up on the "light summer reading" shelf, but still, the Tuscan sun does add to the reading pleasure, and teenage angst and confusion looks much more photogenic by the Love Falls (as in waterfalls) than in the dreary backyards of Peerless Flats, so I reckon for anybody who doesn't know Freud's work yet, Love Falls might be a good place to start.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
