Customer Reviews

The Sense of Paper (A Novel of Obsessions)

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Paper appears to be a metaphor for the lives and personalities of the books characters. Charlie, whose life experiences have left her a fragile as tissue paper, Alan, attractive, unique and possessing an unusual edge, Cassie, durable and constant as brown shipping paper, Nick, flawed but with an inner strength.....well, you get the idea.

There are many lessons to be learned from this read. Lessons in art history, the process for producing quality handmade paper and and the importance of that quality in the production of great masterpieces by artists such as Turner.

Through the main characters, we also venture into the realms of obsession, erotic love, war and its consequences, suicide, obsession and death. A remarkable and engrossing story. I doubt if you will find a more interesting and compelling read this year.

A story about a journalist suffering from a war-torn past and her journey through healing and the rediscovery of love as she researches her new book, a history of the art of paper-making, this book has a little bit of everything--history, love and romance, mystery, action and adventure. Overall, I found the story interesting, but somewhat lukewarm. I can't imagine anyone hating this book, but it's also not much for discussion.

Reporter Charlie Holden, now in her 40s, is back in London after some grueling and dangerous years covering world conflicts, recovering from physical and emotional wounds she received in Kosovo four years earlier.

In London, Charlie comes across painter Sir Alan Matheson, who suggests she write a book on paper, art paper manufacture in England and the work of Turner. He provides her with research ideas, contacts, and shows her his small and precious collection of Whatman papers, the same ones Turner used.

As Charlie gets to know Sir Alan, she discovers disquieting facts about his daughter Angela, dead of a drug overdose; and his first wife, still somewhat mentally unstable. She is reminded of her beloved grandfather, also a painter, and her own suicide attempt. The parallels in their lives both repel and attract Charlie to Alan.

Charlie's patient husband Nick, who has lived apart from her for years, and her best friend Carrie, try to provide a stable backdrop for Charlie, and what they see as a possibly problematic relationship. As Charlie's book, Paper Chase, is finished, and their relationship draws them closer together, several startling and frightening events in the lives of the lovers change them forever.

Taylor Holden was a journalist for the Daily Telegraph, covering Northern Ireland, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. This is her first novel.

Armchair Interviews says: Lots of clues about relationships Charlie Holden ignores.

Thinking of doing a book on the great early nineteenth century English romantic landscape artist JMW Turner, Charlie, on a whim to contain her internal demons, visits artist supply store L. Cornelissen & Sons. There she becomes fascinated with all the different types of paper on sale, mumbling out loud which paper JMW Turner would choose. Another customer responds saying none of these. He is highly regarded artist and Turner expert Alan Matheson. They talk over coffee as she thinks this is happenstance that they have met. As he encourages her paper chase, they begin to fall in love, but he has as many troubles as she does especially from live and dead females that lead to Charlie's need to know the truth.

THE SENSE OF PAPER is an excellent modern day love story with a deep look at paper choices somewhat available today but especially during the nineteenth century and its importance to Turner. The mystery of the death of Matheson's daughter adds depth to understanding his ghosts and motives. Yet the core of this exquisite novel is the heroine who seeks something to affirm her reason for living; she may have found this as she begins to comprehend THE SENSE OF PAPER (read the novel to comprehend the subtly of the title) during her research with Alan at her side encouraging her.

Harriet Klausner

The Sense of Paper is a paean to the creative process (paper, artist), a search for identity after a traumatic encounter in Kosovo and a mystery/romance, all rolled into one. A longtime lover of books and art, Charlotte (Charlie) Hudson has been applauded for her book on her experiences in war-torn Kosovo, where she herself falls victim to the violence raging across the region. Recovering from the life-changing ordeal, Charlie has sought comfort in oblivion, sometimes in alcohol, others in writing her second book. Reminiscing over her beloved grandfather's appreciation of the works of JMW Turner, Charlie decides to write about the artist and his fascination with the quality of paper on which he painted. To that end, she visits a specialty store for artist's paper and supplies, where she meets renowned artist Sir Alan Matheson.

An older man, the very successful Matheson takes an immediate interest in Charlie, encouraging her to pursue the book on Turner and offering to help in any way he can. Begun innocently enough, it is this relationship, the broken journalist and the sophisticated painter and paper connoisseur that plays a critical role in Charlie's resolution of a seemingly insoluble internal conflict. But even in her blossoming romance with Sir Alan, Charlie's curiosity is piqued by an event in his past that remains shrouded in secrecy. True to form, Charlotte must unravel this mystery to learn if the man in her life is friend or fiend. Dogged by doubt and self-recriminations, Charlie eventually faces the core of her problems, forced to deal with the horrors that haunt her dreams: "Sometimes I actually curse my own good fortune."

While Turner's work is the backdrop for this novel, as well as Alan's brilliant paintings, Charlie's struggle is fought in her own mind, caught between logic and the irrational fear born of her experience and a distrust of Alan's love. Seduced by his paintings and the intensity of the creative world, including her own writing, Charlotte must follow the twists of this confusing emotional maze until her demons are resolved: "Trust was something she seemed to have mislaid along the way." By turns love story, mystery and the history of fine paper and its relevance to the artist, the author has made a veritable vegetable soup of disparate elements, with a few gothic overtones, some of which work better than others. Because the personal dramas of the protagonists are so extreme, there is no middle ground, a black and white morality where complicated people are forced into either-or positions. Lacking subtlety, the characters suffer from the author's enthusiasm for drama, but the history of paper and its lore remain the most fascinating aspect of this novel. Luan Gaines/2006.

I kept thinking this book was going to turn into a sappy romantic novel. It didn't go that far thank goodness. The paper knowledge was interesting and the book made me wonder what an autobiography would be like by this author. My book group didn't have much to say about the book because it wasn't edgy or controversial enough, no one disliked the book.

I was expecting a historical novel about artist J.M.W. Turner. Then as I got into it, I thought there would be a book-within-a-book about Turner. But no. This is a novel about a contemporary journalist. Not so well done. The coup de grace for me was the paragraph where the author puts the Gaza strip at Israel's north border instead of on the south.

I tried to get through this, mistakenly thinking it was a historic novel centered around paper. To a degree it is centered around paper but also reads as a contemporary novel about a London-based woman. In a real sense, some of the writing is annoying -- layered on adjectives, descriptions of character's outfits (mostly other women) -- but adjectives do not a novel make. She tries to build out the storyline with Turner's paintings and war-torn Kosovo, but after getting through a third of it (with a great deal of labor and uninterest) I gave up, thinking, I'd just as soon read a book about paper if I want to learn about it.