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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
FAR TOO GOOD TO MISS, June 30, 2007
This review is from: The Sonnet Lover: A Novel (Hardcover)
Every once in a great while along comes a book that I don't want to finish, simply because of the letdown when it ends. There's so much enjoyment in the reading - lush and evocative descriptions, graceful prose, characters that spring to life from black printed lines, undercurrents of mystery, an imaginary bridge between today and years long past, plus romance. So much to savor! In Carol Goodman's hands there is often the deft turn of a phrase, a telling detail capturing both eye and mind. Or, one finds a described scene more vivid than a painting.
An extraordinarily capable writer, this author blended all of the above into one remarkable book - The Sonnet Lover.
The bare bones of the plot: Rose Asher is a literary professor at New York's fictional Hudson College. As she notes, "The most thankless job on the planet may well be teaching Renaissance love poetry to a group of hormone-dazed adolescents." Nevertheless, there are other perks - she is involved in a love affair with Mark Abrams, the college president, and she has a star pupil - Robin Weiss who has written a prize winning film.
Sadly Robin's potential is not to be fulfilled as he falls to his death from a balcony following the interruption of a college party. Was it an accident, was he pushed?
To try to answer these questions Rose agrees to return to La Civetta, a Tuscan estate near Florence which has been loaned to Hudson College as a teaching institution. She joins Mark, other faculty members, and possible producers of a film who believe that Robin may have discovered a sonnet written by Shakespeare's mysterious Dark Lady. This is quite a cast - from Mark who begins to act strangely to Mara, the wife of the head of the film department, an always acquisitive buyer who finds the beauty of Tuscany in Hermes scarves.
Waiting at La Civetta is Bruno Brunelli, the first and greatest love of Rose's life. Waiting with him is his wife.
As said earlier, these are the "bare bones" of the plot. The reading pleasure is found in the way Goodman puts flesh on these bones. Sonnets woven throughout are by the author's husband, Lee Slonimsky. Granted, a pivotal meeting Rose "chances" to overhear in the church of Santa Margherita and the denouement do seem a bit contrived. But an author who writes as engagingly as Goodman is forgiven all.
As one who has never entered a bookstore she didn't love the overflow of books at our house falls into three categories: donations to libraries, loaners, and keepers.
The Sonnet Lover is most definitely a keeper!
- Gail Cooke
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"This house is stained with the blood of innocence.", July 18, 2007
This review is from: The Sonnet Lover: A Novel (Hardcover)
Carol Goodman's "The Sonnet Lover" is a literary thriller about lost manuscripts that are valuable enough to serve as a motive for murder. Thirty-nine year old Professor Rose Asher teaches comparative literature at Hudson College in New York. Her handsome and brilliant young student, Robin Weiss, has made a film that was shot in La Civetta, a Tuscan estate worth nearly a billion dollars. Its eccentric and flamboyant owner, Cyril Graham, has promised to bequeath his property to Hudson College to become a center for the performing arts.
Rose has bittersweet memories of her own stay in La Civetta when, as a nineteen-year old student, she had a passionate affair with her married professor, Bruno Brunelli. The relationship ended abruptly, Rose went on to pursue her successful academic career (she is a specialist in the Renaissance sonnet), and she now has another man in her life, college president Mark Adams. Suddenly, Robin's promising life ends when he falls off a balcony to his death. Was it murder, suicide, or a tragic accident? To find out, Rose revisits La Civetta along with Mark Adams, Gene Silverman (the head of the film department), and Leo Balthasar, a Hollywood producer who is planning to making a feature based on Shakespeare's sonnets. Says Leo, "Picture 'Shakespeare in love,' only steamier."
The book's premise is that in the sixteenth century, Shakespeare may have traveled to Italy to be with his lover, a poet named Ginevra de Laura, and perhaps his mysterious "Dark Lady." Ginevra's poems were lost and the skeptical Professor Asher insists there is no proof that Shakespeare ever set foot in Italy. "The Sonnet Lover" capitalizes on the popularity of historical mysteries featuring priceless documents and long-buried secrets. Goodman's well-researched novel is filled with lovely poetry, an exotic Italian setting, and intriguing speculation about Shakespeare's life. Professor Asher plays amateur sleuth as she pursues clues that may help her find Ginevra's poems. In addition, Rose rekindles her romance with Brunelli; although he is still married, Bruno claims to be separated from his aggressive wife, Claudia. He is fiercely protective of his son, Orlando, a gloomy young man who knew Robin Weiss well and bore a grudge against him.
Although Goodman is an intelligent and literate writer, "The Sonnet Lover" is not entirely successful. As the book progresses, its pace slows down considerably and the dialogue becomes increasingly stilted; there is a great deal of tedious exposition and too little action. By the time Rose learns the identity of the murderer and the numerous story lines are at last unraveled, some readers will have lost interest in the heavy-handed plot machinations. Goodman deserves credit for an ambitious effort, but "The Sonnet Lover" ultimately falls short because of its overly cluttered and poorly constructed plot and its shallow characterizations.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Then, as a further treat, take a look at the other books in her body of work., June 18, 2007
This review is from: The Sonnet Lover: A Novel (Hardcover)
Carol Goodman is one of those extraordinary writers whose novels get better and better. Her newest work, THE SONNET LOVER, is rich in history, literature, art, poetry, theater, visual arts, word pictures, mystery and corpses. The action moves back and forth in time, chronicling past events with verve and a narrative of its own. Subplots, behind-the-scenes skullduggery, a love triangle, suspicious secrets, betrayal and a final reckoning at a writers' retreat in Italy keep the plot hot and readers riveted to the edge of their chairs. Goodman understands that with so much going on and with so many characters, she must tie everything together into a cohesive whole.
THE SONNET LOVER poses an interesting theory: Did William Shakespeare, at 17, arrange a clandestine meeting in Florence, with his "Dark Lady," the woman to whom he wrote sonnets? Scholars and others have pondered over his sonnets numbered 127-152 for any clues as to who this "sonnet lover" could have been and if she existed beyond the Bard's imagination. If this cache is really the lost documents of a woman who knew and loved Shakespeare, then history could be turned upside down. Readers are led to believe that her "responses" in poems and sonnets are to her lover "Will," and they are at the heart of the novel. Rumor has it that these 16th-century works could be hidden somewhere in La Civetta.
Rose Asher is a teacher of Renaissance poetry at Hudson College in New York City. She is having an affair with the school president, Mark Abrams, and is also very close to one of her students, Robin Weiss. While Rose is disappointed that Robin has changed his major to filmmaking, screenwriting, playwriting and directing, she is still his mentor. Thus, when he comes to her just before a student film competition in which he entered one of his projects, he asks to speak to her.
"...You were at La Civetta when you were in college and I wondered if some of the same teachers were there. I'm going back...and I am trying to decide what classes to take." La Civetta is an exquisite villa in Tuscany, and its owner, Cyril Graham, a former Hudson bigwig, allows students to take classes there every summer. Rose was there when she was a student, and in some ways her life both began and ended that summer. She is sure that the man she was in love with is in Rome and nowhere near the grounds. When she tells Robin this he says, "Bruno Brunelli, right? He's back." Rose cuts the conversation short and promises to meet up with Robin after the evening's entertainment.
Back in her office, she primps as she "puts her face on" before making her appearance at the celebration of new films by young filmmakers. Mark silently enters her office and sneaks up behind her. They chat for a few minutes, and then he drops his "bomb." He is going to be at La Civetta for the summer, and Cyril Graham has asked that Rose accompany him. Rose knows that Cyril Graham is cunning and amuses himself by dangling his legacy, La Civetta, in front of various institutions of higher learning. But Mark tells her that the "sly old fox" is on the verge of bequeathing it to Hudson College...[a villa] estimated to be worth nearly a billion dollars." He reveals that he is going to La Civetta to "schmooze" and to plead his case in person. She is reluctant but finally decides to face the demons she left there years ago. Several others on the staff and a few students are attending as well, which forebodes nasty things.
But before the trip, tragedy strikes on the night of the student competition. Robin Weiss, who won first place in the film competition, either falls, jumps or is pushed off the crowded balcony where the celebrants are crowded together. They are too shocked to know what, if anything, they actually saw or what really happened. Just before Robin went over the rail, a handsome young man who resembles a Byronic hero and is craftily named Orlando crashes through the crowd in a fury and accuses Robin of stealing his ideas. In the next second Robin is dead and Orlando runs away.
These two young men have been competing in a search for the sonnets alleged to have been written by the hand of "Shakespeare's Dark Lady." The story goes: Ginevra de Laura (Dark Lady?) finally went to a convent and perhaps brought her writings with her. But "the library's catalog was lost in a flood." What was rescued was brought to La Civetta, and while Cyril Graham was attempting to catalog, he "complained that one of the student researchers...stole a rare manuscript." But is this true? Did he ever try to find the alleged thief and whatever it was he stole? As the plot moves along, Rose is allowed into the hallowed place where few have tread, to see what if anything she can do to bring some order to the chaos.
Tension and pathos are rife throughout this riveting novel: every character has an agenda of their own and are competing with each other in one way or another. Nobody trusts anyone else, and many millions of dollars are at stake for several people who have no scruples and are only interested in what Hollywood can bring them in terms of money and/or fame. Lives are at stake, and at least one attempted murder occurs during a student rendition of A Midsummer Night's Dream worthy of Shakespeare himself. And later, a murder most foul descends upon La Civetta.
THE SONNET LOVER is beautifully realized and imbued with such rich panoply of the arts and what happens when academics lose sight of the real world. Carol Goodman's gift is in her prose and plot; she offers readers a great puzzle wrapped around a mystery that is woven together into a conundrum. She reveals her innate talent in this, her fifth novel. Her ear for dialogue (both in speech and interior monologue) adds verisimilitude to her believable characters. Her choice and depiction of setting reads as a word picture; then, somewhat like the Pied Piper, she mesmerizes readers who insert themselves into her story. The journey is through a maze of high velocity intrigue and an interesting view of human nature. The travelogue and descriptions of the Italy that is the backdrop for THE SONNET LOVER serves to enrich the story, as it opens a door to the Renaissance as she juxtaposes it upon the present.
Goodman clearly has done her research and obviously knows her facts. She is a teacher in New York City, and one can see that her students are privileged to be in her classes. Anyone interested in a highly satisfying mystery, a literary tour and the machinations of the academics' world should not miss this novel. Then, as a further treat, take a look at the other books in her body of work.
--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum
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