Customer Reviews

Other Side of Midnight

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

OK, here's a book you'll like. I have just two complaints, and I'll get them out of the way quickly: 1. The sex scenes are hokey. And 2. At one point a horde of bats attack our heroine in a cave. Not likely. We don't need more bad publicity for our furry, little friends. Almost all of them mind their own business, and they are vital to the ecosystem. Even vampires sneak up on their sleeping victims. They do not attack en masse.

But, I digress...our cast includes Catherine Alexander, a good, beautiful, naive woman; Noelle Page, a bad, beautiful woman, really dreadful; Bill Fraser, a great guy who deflowers young Catherine (but that's OK with her); Larry Douglas, a debonair flyboy with nary a scruple in his handsome head; and Constantin Demiris, a Greek billionaire with a definite taste for revenge! I'll say no more.

Here's the deal: Catherine and Noelle are both born in 1919. Catherine, from Chicago, grows to young adulthood, somewhat naive.

Noelle, from Marseille, France, grows to young adulthood somewhat naive too, but early on she falls in love with Douglas, who inadvertently twists her. He beds her and dumps her, and she never recovers. She turns into a cold-hearted Harpy...plotting revenge for years! Catherine, on the other hand, falls in love with an older man, Fraser, a stolid Washington bigwig, but she too later falls under the hypnotic spell of the devilishly passionate Douglas who, by the way, is an ace fighter pilot in WWII. How romantic for a tender, impressionable young woman! No wonder they can't resist: a fighter pilot with handsome, chiseled features and a devil-may-care attitude. A male fatale.

OK, so we have parallel stories for a while. Caring Catherine and Fraser in Washington. Noxious Noelle, who becomes a famous actress with a string of influential lovers, in Europe. But remember this: Noelle is plotting revenge on Douglas, the cad. Noelle finally takes up with Demiris, and maneuvers Douglas into being hired as the Greek's personal pilot. At this point, the two stories move closer, ending in Greece, spiraling down a slippery slope of murder schemes, failed plots, romantic nights, successful plots, mountains in the clouds, rickety foot-bridges, bottomless volcanic lakes, terror in dark caves, hokey sex, stunning Mediterranean vistas...all that stuff.

It's a well-crafted yarn, and it has a dilly of an ending. Certainly blindsided me. Probably will do the same for you, but maybe you're sharper than I am. It's possible.

We have some good secondary characters, the best of whom is Colonel Mueller, a bald, albino, homosexual Gestapo officer. Unlike everybody else, he was not blinded by Noelle's charms. Of course not, he's gay. Did she escape his clutches? You'll just have to read the book and see. I recommend it to you. Trust me on this.

I read The Other Side of Midnight in 8th grade -- about 25 years ago. It was all the rage with the girls in my class. Until recently, I would have dismissed our interest as teenage morbid laciviousness. Now, I believe the book is just one of those works of magic that "come alive," regardless of "literary merit" or "socially reedeming value."

This is Sidney Sheldon at his best, writing about romantic entanglements, reverses of fortune, thrilling suspense, and ultimate justice. Beautiful but poor Parisiene Noelle Page falls madly in love with American flyer Larry Douglas during WWII. When she becomes pregnant, he deserts her, thus setting her on a path of revenge that consumes her very being. Ruthlessly driven, she becomes a supermodel, movie star, and finally, as mistress to mega-rich Constantin Demiris, Noelle is reunited with Larry. Will she make him pay for what he did to her... or will she fall under his spell again?

Noelle, Larry, and his innocent wife, Catherine, are such fascinating, memorable characters that you won't want to stop reading until you find out what happens to them next. The story takes us from a poor French fishing village to Paris, then Hollywood and Athens, and the excitement keeps building and building as Noelle comes closer to tying up lose ends with the dastardly Larry, who proves to be her match when it comes to plotting evil. But don't underestimate Noelle's lover, Demiris, who will use all of his resources to get what he wants.

While this novel is enjoyable on its own, the story continues in Sheldon's "Memories of Midnight."

Kona

I realize I'm blowing all credibility by admitting this, but I have always adored this book. Before he turned to penning purple prose, author Sidney Sheldon was an Academy Award winning screenwriter in the 1940's and 50's, and he not only knows how to keep a story moving, but how to milk big, melodramatic scenes and plant great twists in the plot.

Fabulous is the only word to describe this tale of lust, revenge and murder...there's even a little Nazi intrigue thrown in for good measure. Face it, most of us don't have very exciting lives, or at least they're not exciting 'round the clock. Well, not so with Sheldon's duo heroines Catherine Alexander and Noelle Page. You have the choice of identifying with either French movie star Noelle (she of the blonde hair, violet colored eyes and awe inspiring sexual technique) or spunky career gal Catherine (the sharp brunette with great legs and comebacks). Noelle is the ultimate mistress, shrewd and inscrutable, while Catherine is the ultimate wife, determined to hold her man by any means necessary.

There's always been a snag in the plot that's bothered me, though, and I've spent far too many years obsessing about it. (Do not scroll further if you haven't read the book.) Larry -- dashing, decorated pilot Larry -- meets young Noelle in WWII Paris and they have a blissful affair. When he has to ship out, he gives her money to buy a wedding dress, promising to return in a few weeks time. Needless to say, he doesn't. But if Larry had no intention of seeing Noelle again, wasn't there an easier way for him to ditch her? Raising Noelle's hopes by sending her off to buy a WEDDING DRESS makes Larry seem sadistic, when he's only supposed to be a devil-may-care type rogue. It also bugged me that when the lovers cross paths years later, Larry can't even remember luscious Noelle, or her now famous violet eyes. (The whole point about Noelle is that she's not like you or me, but unforgettable!)

Anyway, this little snafu aside, "The Other Side of Midnight" is pure, spun candy perfection. It's surprising that the 1977 movie version was so weak, because the plot is blazingly widescreen, both physically and emotionally. (The clothes, by "Mommie Dearest" costume designer Irene Sharaff, and Susan Sarandon's performance as a brisk Catherine are the best things about it.) Sarandon complained in an interview at the time that the story was only soap opera, and yet the producers were treating it as if it were Chekhov. Yes, Susie, it's soap opera...but it's the ULTIMATE soap opera, bar none! Read it and weep, then continue the spree by running to the library to check out "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles" by Dominick Dunne...

This book is so bad, it's good. The writer obviously doesn't take himself seriously. He is writing schlock, knows he is writing schlock, and is having so much fun writing schlock that his delight is infectious. When some conniving wretch reaches a dramatic resolution, one can almost hear the welling orchestral accompaniment. Great fun.

It is refreshing to read a book that refuses to take itself seriously. Rather than masquerading as Something Deep, this book flouts its trash pedigree boldly. "Dahhling... have you ever met anyone so deliciously WICKED as Noelle? In the next chapter, we'll see just how much more WICKED Noelle can GET." This book is campier than a pot-boiler on bennies.

Books like this must be written over-the-top, or they don't work at all. The characters have to be caricatures, the setting has to drip with decadence, the plot has to twist and plunge like a runaway roller coaster and the prose has to reach such heights of garish camp that the reader gets nosebleed.

And Sheldon delivers all this by the barge full.

The manipulative witch, the love'm-then-ditch'm playboy, the wide-eyed innocent and the implacable billionaire, all have their respective moments. But they aren't just moments, they are Moments - teary-eyed (or steely-eyed) close-ups - the pores hidden with pancake makeup.

While this type of camp-glam amusement isn't really my thing, I can understand its appeal. It takes personality types, pumps them full of steroids, then throws them into ridiculously overwrought situations to generate exactly the exaggerated absurdities that keep the pot burbling. If you like this sort of thing, Sheldon hits all his targets with the skill of an Olympic fencer.

The Other Side of Midnight - Sidney Sheldon

A Review

Know this, reader, before you dare read this book: Once you start reading this book, your attention will be on it alone, and you will, without a doubt, be reading it to the exclusion of all other activities until it is finished. This general rule applies for all of Sidney Sheldon books, and with good reason.
The first Sheldon book I read, Rage of Angels, became my favourite single book of all time. At the time, I was a fantasy genre only fan, but as soon as I read it, I knew that fantasy would not be the only genre I would read. Well, that was only several months ago, and now I'm reading other books by Sidney Sheldon, and others such as Michael Crichton, Nora Roberts as J.D. Robb, Anne Rice, Janet Evanovich, and Iris Johansen. Since Sidney Sheldon was the first author that got me into all books non-fantasy, I highly respected him and his writing.
After reading Rage of Angels, I read four other Sidney Sheldon books. (His newer ones, none of his older ones!) They were all good, but none of them compared to, what I thought, was the best book of all time, Rage of Angels. Recently I purchased the Other Side of Midnight to discover what his other older novels were like.
I just finished The Other Side of Midnight last night (I stayed up reading until nearly midnight, even when I wasn't supposed to!), and I am speechless. That night, I nearly cried in awe of how sad but great the book is. Truly, Sidney Sheldon is a legend and a prodigy of literature.

The Other Side of Midnight is not just a book. It is nothing short of an epiphany. Reading it, I kept on forgetting that this book was written nearly three decades ago! (!973). This book is a flawless work of art, a masterpiece of writing and up to this day still one of the best fiction books of all time.
Part of the reason I liked Rage of Angels so much was because Sheldon writes in a fashion so that one is really emotionally attuned to the main character. TOSOM was mildly different. When (Name removed so that no spoilers are given) dies near the end, I sighed in a depressed way, and continued on. That was all. But that alone gives some indication towards how powerful this book is. When one reads as much as I do, one becomes almost indifferent to the joys, struggles, and deaths of characters in books.
When I reached the end of TOSOM, I shrugged and put the book back on my shelf. I wasn't tired, but I didn't want to wake up anyone else in my house by selecting another book to read in the morning. And then, as I lay in bed with the lights out, I reflected on how incredible this book is. It is flawless, and without a doubt, a contender against Rage of Angels for my favourite book I've ever read. One cannot begin to imagine how emotionally powerful this book is. Or should I say powerfully emotional? Both.

What are my complaints? Well, like all Sidney Sheldon books, I hated the cover art. (Okay, let me explain something: nearly every Sheldon book has two different kinds of covers: one with the predetermined, default artwork on it. This artwork is usally made up of various objects reflecting elements in the book: roses, glasses, needles, etc. The other type of cover is a cheap, uncreative picture of a woman lying sideways, facing the reader, but in black and white, and very indistinguishable as to appear in some way, enigmatic.) The cover of my copy of TOSOM was as such. Why did I particularly despise the cover? Well, earlier this year one day, when I was looking at Sidney Sheldon books in a second hand bookstore, (Don't worry, I would never get any second-hand books!) I saw a really old copy of TOSOM. And yet, if I saw it again this day, I would buy it in an instant. Barely and vaguely I can recall the cover art (The shadows of two individuals, a woman and a man, against a sun rise/set, in a very beautiful setting!) And yet clearly I can remember the art to be undetailed and simple. I think this art was done with the movie in mind. (Yes, there is a TOSOM movie. Yes, it came out a while ago. No, I have not seen it. Yes, I am going to see it.) After reading the book, and bringing that cover art back into my mind, it sort of influenced my mind in a peaceful, serene, blissful even!, but sad way.

There is nothing left for me to say, except that this book and Rage of Angels are the two most influential books I've ever read. What one reads slowly changes that one's outlook and perspective on things, and although some books do it less or more than others, TOSOM is possibly out of all the books I've read the one that has had the most profound effect on me.
I'm not even enjoying writing this review by now. To me, it seems that my review interferes and violates the near-holy sacredness with which I now worship this book. That is because I feel my own writing talents, even though I am only writing a review for the book, cannot begin to accurately describe how unbelievable TOSOM truly is. This book is undeniably powerful to a nearly overwhelming extent.
All I can say is that one, after fully reading this review, would be an utter fool not to read The Other Side of Midnight, if he or she has not already read it.

I really enjoyed this book and plan to read the sequel to it. If you have NOT read the book do not read the review from Signora_Inzaghi@Yahoo.com from England , July 24, 1999 below because she totally ruin the story by telling you what happens at the end. That reviewer ruined the book for me but I still read it knowing the ending.

I don't why they bother giving the Nobel Prize for literature to the bleak plays of Harold Pinter (2005) or the dreary novels of Kanzaburo Oe (1994), when we've had such a great writer as Sidney Sheldon around for the past four or five decades. This is one writer who deserved the ultimate prize, although now it is - alas - too late.

"The Other Side of Midnight" is perhaps his masterpiece. It is the story of Noelle, a naive young French girl who falls for a handsome American aviator during World War II. But when the war ends, Noelle waits in vain for her handsome flyer to return. Alone and abandoned, the young lady finds that she has to make her way by selling her body. She quickly discovers that she can make her sex appeal pay off and sleeps her way into movie stardom. All this time she keeps tabs on her aviator, who has returned to the US and started a family.

Several years later, when he loses his job, Noelle, now wife of a Greek millionaire, arranges to hire her former lover as her private pilot. Not recognizing his wealthy boss as the fragile young mistress he knew during the war, he is bewildered by Noelle's cruel treatment of him. This game of deception leads them both into very deadly territory.

A great book makes you want to read it. At the end of the day, that's the only prize worth struggling for: the prize of being read again and again and, in Sydney Sheldon's case, again and again and again and again...

I have read this book countless times. Reading books more than once is unusual, but this was intriguing. Sheldon did research for this book and pays off when the storyline takes you to the occupation of Paris during the second World War. What amazing detail! It really made me feel like I was living through that time. Don't miss the part when Noelle tries to help her friend escape the Nazis!! It had my heart pounding!! If you saw the movie and didn't like it, DO NOT skip the book. The movie left out the best parts!!

I absolutely LOVED The Other Side Of Midnight. I found it very difficult to put it down; I was intrigued by Noelle, Larry,Catherine and especially Constantin Demiris.(what a MAJOR creep!!) Even though Noelle and Larry were completely immoral, despicable people, I could not help but feel sorry for them at the end of the book when they meet their ultimate fate. There were many twists and turns in this book and it really held my interest all the way. But if you think this book is good, read the sequel Memories of Midnight which is even better than TOSOM(if that is even possible) I highly recommend both of these books; Sheldon is an unbelievably gifted writer.(fyi, he is the same person who gave us the tv series "I Dream Of Jeannie"!!)