THE FLY-TRUFFLER [Unknown Binding]

Product Details

• Unknown Binding
• Publisher: Norton; First edition. edition (2000)
• ASIN: B005DFJPJE
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Delectable, March 8, 2000

By 

mrpennysworth "mrpennysworth" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fly-Truffler: A Novel (Hardcover)

On December 31, 1999 my wife and I had a deliciously indulgent millennial dinner at March. The first course was a "beggar's purse" filled with truffles and topped with an edible shaving of 24-carat gold. (OK, so it was over-the-top indulgent.) This book by Gustaf Sobin reminded me of that first course: small, sensuous, exquisitely crafted, poetically expressive, unlike anything I had experienced before and celebratory of passages, of memory and moving on. "The Fly-Truffler" is Philippe Cabassac's elegy to his wife, Julieta, their intimate romance and her tragic death. But, most of all, it is an elegy to the passing of local languages and customs, to the loss of the simple country life. The poetic heart of the book is Philippe's recognition that Julieta is the embodiment of Haut Provence followed by the erotically charged consummation of their love by a waterfall, a memory ultimately restored through truffles. When you are finished with this appetizer, I would recommend "The Rings of Saturn" by W.G. Sebald as a second course of what is slowly becoming a literary feast of moving millennial contemplations.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetic and sensual, April 5, 2000

By 

Susannah Indigo - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fly-Truffler: A Novel (Hardcover)

A perfect moment of storytelling -- to be read in one sitting, thus inducing a dreamlike sense of place, love, loss and inspiration.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book for language lovers, June 7, 2001

By 

M. J. Smith (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fly-Truffler: A Novel (Paperback)

This novel is written in four chapters - the second chapter, the story of a philology professor's romance with a student only justifies the cost of the book. Sobin's understanding of language - words as objects to be enjoyed, the importance of silence, of absent words - is remarkable. (You may note some similarities to Edmond Jabes.)

Sobin's understanding of a person's rootedness in place and the effects of loss of place is another thread expression through the professor's estate of many generations, his cousin's emigration and his wife's orphanhood.

At one point, the plot of the novel fails, becoming contrived but the grace and depth of the prose makes a reader ready to forgive the slip.

An enjoyable novel with depth.