Customer Reviews

Monaco: A Novel

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

 

 

Just like the French Riviera in the 1930s, the setting of this new and perfectly summery novel, Monaco is warm and breezy, lush and tropical, and full of celebrities, royalty, and dreamers, and author Morse brings them all brilliantly to life.

When Dash Bradford turns a brief business trip to Monaco into a more permanent stay in order to help auto parts tycoon Jacques Tourangeau put a car in the Grand Prix--and win the heart of Tourangeau's beautiful young daughter, Margaux--the idealistic American suddenly has everything he has ever dreamed of. But when Dash finds himself up against power-hungry Nazi Germany, he soon realizes that his dreams come with a very high cost, and that pursuing them may mean risking the loss of all he holds dear.

Featuring race scenes that pulsate with all the energy and excitement of a Grand Prix course; a whimsical, romantic, and heartbreakingly beautiful love story; and an exploration into the philosophical questions upon which man has dwelled throughout history, Monaco truly has something for everyone, and Morse brings it all together with skill. With careful attention to detail, he expertly conveys the vibrant coastal setting, the lavish parties, and the gripping Grand Prix races, and his engaging dialogue draws the reader into engaging discussions of faith, tradition, family, enterprise, art, justice, love, and much, much more.

Monaco has the retro feel of a vintage travel poster, the classic action of an old Hollywood film, and the soul of a Russian novel. At the heart of this book is the belief that perfection is possible, and that life and love are worth striving against all odds for. Romantic, hopeful, and full of energy, Monaco provides a welcome alternative to the bitterly discouraging works that tend to populate the contemporary fiction shelves.

Reading Monaco is like treating yourself to a breath of fresh, warm, life-affirming Rivieran air.

A great read in historical fiction based in 1937 Monaco. This is one of those books that gets better as it progresses. Very entertaining and fun to read, and yet thought-provoking. Morse does a wonderful job in presenting some deep philosophical issues throughout the book and artistically presents opposing sides through the main characters. If you want a good entertaining book with romance, energy, and intrigue, this book is for you. Within the context of the excitement and drama of 1937 Monaco and the Monaco Grand Prix, the reader is ultimately prompted to explore what makes us human.

I can't help but believe that the three previous reviewers are all relatives of the author! But to each his own.

This book is a self indulgent mess. The author tries to impress with his command of a thesaurus and his tedious attempts at flowery prose.

The plot is entirely unbelievable as are incidents within and as are the, OH TOO PERFECT, characters. And their names! - Dash? (our hero), Dudley Doolittle? and the best - Vin de Sac? (translates to Bagged Wine). I would have thought the author was playing a joke if it weren't for all the pretentious dime store philosophy we had to endure - skip over- to finish this tome.

Oh, then there is the romance between Dash (hee hee) and Margaux. I have never read Harlequin Romances but this saccharine gag inducing tripe would fit right in. And it goes on forever, yuk.

Last, there is this bizarre fairy tale of how the world will look in 70-80 years from the 1937 setting ie today, that is dropped in out of the blue with no relevance to the story (and no relevance to today). Just weird.

The only reason I finished at all is that I am a Grand Prix fan and was interested in the take on that. As bad as the rest of it, totally unbelievable. Imagine ripping out a temperature gauge to solve an overheating problem but hey it worked for Dash , (chuckle).

This is a truly terrible novel. The plot is completely linear, the characters paper-thin, the descriptions verbose, the dialogue unrealistic and the passages of "philosophy" (which tend to constitute of badly rendered musings on purity, justice and so on) excruciating. Why is it 600 pages long? It could - and should - have been edited to at least half that (the less the better), and the more flowery and rambling passages removed.

Almost every aspect of the story is infantile, from the names of the characters (the dashing American Dash Bradford and the bumbling reporter Dudley Doolittle are just two examples) to the stereotypes (the bad guys are Nazis, the love interest a radiant jewel of sickening flawlessness) and the over-use of redundant adjectives and phrases. There is no dramatic tension to speak of, and the consistently moralistic tone only serves to make the narrative even less compelling. There is nothing good to say about this work. Avoid it like the plague.

Style: 1/10

Structure: 1/10

Originality: 1/10

Depth: 1/10

Unputdownability: 1/10

It's evident that Morse is aware of some of the heedless debotchery and pornographic decadence that people seem to be attracted to in novels these days--Monaco is full of characters that represent that idea. But instead of writing something like the typical modern novel, it appears that Morse rejected that thought and instead went ahead and produced a timeless epic all the while creating his own artform: the poem/novel/philosophy book.

The story is interesting (though it doesn't really get going until 3/4ths of the way into the book) but what's really on showcase in Monaco is something much more important. Morse's writing style is a masterful mix of narrative and commentary that is more lyric than some of the best poetry. His characters are vivid and alive--save for perhaps some of the scoundrel Nazis. And his philosophy is a brilliant mix of liberty-first Lockism and Pope John Paul Duece's love-is-the-answerism. The shocking monologue by a surprise character near the end is still reverberating in my mind.

Some advice to the casual consumer: buy this book. Read it all (a reader will be rewarded for the 600-page effort and the frequent dictionary stops). And instruct your daughters to read it. This should be required reading for all pre-teen girls who are considering falling into the decadence of modern teenage ignonimy. At the very least, the OVerture, Entre'Acte, and Denouement--literary pieces that will blow your mind-- WILL be required reading in 100 level English. At least that's the case if there is any justice in the world--and, fittingly, that's what the goal of this book is--to examine and promote justice.