The Magician's Wife (A William Abrahams Book) [Paperback]

Brian Moore (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 1 and up

Based upon an actual incident from the early days of the French imperialist drive into North Africa, Brian Moore's latest bestseller, The Magician's Wife tells a profound story of political will in conflict with spiritual belief--and of one woman's desires and convictions. Summoned to the grand country estate of Napoleon III, the famed illusionist Henri Lambert and his wife Emmeline are drawn into an elaborate plan to further French influence in North Africa and subdue the rebellious Arab tribes. An ambitious, intelligent man, Lambert will go to desperate lengths to satisfy his emperor. Emmeline, meanwhile, undergoes a spiritual conversion, shedding her former notions of patriotism and propriety in the hot glare of the desert sun. From the splendor and intrigue of the French royal court of the 1850s to the wild majesty of the Sahara, The Magician's Wife is an exciting, exotic, and glamorously seductive novel.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Brian Moore is best known for his mysteries of faith and fanaticism. The Statement focuses on a murderously uncontrite Vichy collaborator whom the French Catholic church has long sheltered. And in The Color of Blood (1987)--set in an unnamed Iron Curtain country--a cardinal wonders if people aren't using religion "as a sort of politics." Religion and politics again feature in The Magician's Wife, but this time they are accompanied by their long-time companion, illusion. Once again, France is the setting--Second Empire France, though, along with its prospective colony, Algeria.

Moore opens the novel with a bizarre detail. It is 1856 and Emmeline Lambert watches a mechanical gatekeeper salute a departing dignitary. This nuts-and-bolts major-domo is the creation of her autocratic husband, Henri, formerly France's greatest magician, retired and hard at work on such minor contrivances. "Now he was an inventor, a scientist," Emmeline thinks. "But would a real scientist spend his days making mechanical marionettes?" Her impatience with his compulsive tinkering is only one part of a troubled marriage, which seems to consist largely of fossilized accommodations and painful discretion.

According to their visiting dignitary, however, the prestidigitator's country needs him. Colonel Deniau, head of Arab affairs and in many ways the real magician of the tale--or the magician's enchanter--has a mysterious project in mind. The plan is to flatter Henri into creating a series of mind-blowing tricks. According to the colonel, an Algerian marabout, or living saint, is "said to possess miraculous powers" and might call for a holy war. If Henri outperforms the Algerian, he will seem the greater marabout" and convince them that God is not on their side but France's."

The Magician's Wife is a condemnation of colonialism, of which illusion is always a key ingredient. Moore's novel, however, is far from a tract: he infuses his drama of the past with our present anxiety. He also creates, quite literally, a magical narrative. Though the Algerians may consider Henri the devil incarnate, and his wife may slight his legerdemain, you will be awed by his fantastic skills and the apparent effortlessness with which the author relates them. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Moore (The Statement, LJ 5/1/96) has again produced a deeply unsettling novel with a moral problem at its heart. When Napoleon III asks magician Henri Lambert to go to Algeria and put his powers in competition with an Arab holy man threatening jihad against the French, Henri and his young wife Emmeline are indelibly altered. If Lambert succeeds in postponing the necessary (in colonial terms) intervention of the French army, does he save the lives of soldiers and Arab Algerians alike? Or do all just die a bit later? This is not merely an academic question, as anyone who reads the gruesome and horrifying news stories of slaughter in contemporary Algeria will attest. Moore does not altogether succeed in establishing the splendor of the 19th-century French court but is wonderful at the heat and beauty of Algeria and at the sensual lure of the French soldier who troubles Emmeline's contentment. Buy wherever Moore's many novels are read, which should be everywhere.
-?Judith Kicinski, Sarah Lawrence Coll., Bronxville, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 1 and up
  
• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Plume; 1st.PLUME pntg edition (February 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452279593
• ISBN-13: 978-0452279599
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,402,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars What is all the praise about?, March 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Magician's Wife (Hardcover)

I'm still baffled over the praise this novel has received. I'd never heard of Brian Moore but I read a review in the Boston Globe and was intrigued by the storyline and setting. I was totally disappointed. This book is bland and amateurishly written. Sketchy characterization at best. Everything is flat and plain. This has the potential to be an incredible story in the hands of an author who could actually flesh it out. Much of the dialogue is laughably cliched and the (very) brief and cursory passages of the heroine's "awakening consciousness" made me groan. This could've been a rich, evocative novel. It'll make a great movie (cashing in on the "English Patient" desert thing.) The novel actually feels like a plot treatment for a movie. It's very superficial, with characters who never for a moment feel as if they are remotely real. There is practically no visually descriptive passages to give you a true sense of place. And the characters and their stilted, generic dialogue only further displace the reader from any sense of being immersed in this potentially vivid scenery. Indeed, this novel could've used some "bloated" descriptions to give it some weight. It's very slight and artificial and not the slightest bit provocative. It's "alleged" insights into faith, cross-cultural experiences, etc. are entirely pedestrian. (It reads like an undergrad writing workshop paper.) Again. This could've been a great story. Like someone mentioned earlier, it's a disappointment. (And I'm still confused as to what all the hubbub is about.) (p.s. -- The only thing I really liked about this novel is the cover art!)

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very pleasant surprise, July 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Magician's Wife (A William Abrahams Book) (Paperback)

I read this book only because it was the assigned book for my book club. I did not expect to like it. Was I ever surprised. I loved it! The vivid descriptions of everything, the landscape, the people, the food, the events as well as the author's ability to let the reader into Emmeline's head made me feel as though I were part of the story. And what suspense!! Now I want to read Mr. Moore's "The Statement." Also, the cover art is really pretty!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wandering mind, November 10, 2000

By 

Amy E. Comer "aec20" (Baltimore, MD United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Magician's Wife (Hardcover)

While the story seems as if it should have been a good one, the retoric of this novel is so boring that it hardly kept my attention. Moore's novel has potential, but he ruins its development and makes what could have been a magical and enchanting story into a long winded boring novel, reminiscent of a book your English teacher would have made you read in high school.