Customer Reviews

That Summer in Paris

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

 

 

THAT SUMMER IN PARIS is a literary gift on so many levels I barely know where to begin. It treats the nature of art, the soul of the writer, the joys of platonic sex and sexual sense, the eroticism of food, the despair and the ecstacy of old age, the confusions of youth--in short, life itself--in such intimate and touching ways this reader felt changed in a way he's rarely felt from a novel. The miracle is that a young woman is the author of a book that should rightly have been written by someone twice her age at the least. It is a book of wisdom, sensitivity, and good old-fashioned fun. The theme of the book is a mighty one--the meaning of what it is to be alive in a world of infinite possibility. In the eyes and soul of a 75-year-old writer of great success looking for one last chance at feeling alive we see and deeply feel a methaphor for all our lives. Yet it is such a readable book with such a compelling plot the depth of what it explores hits us unawares. When I finished reading it, I just sat there stunned. I can't imagine a better summer read--and fall and winter and spring-- that both challenges our views of what it is to be human and gives us a renewed sense of life's grandest emotions. It is frightening to consider where Abha Dawesar has yet to go as a writer when she's already created such a masterpiece of prose as this. I LOVED THIS BOOK. God, what a read! Incredible doesn't even come close....

"That Summer in Paris" turned out to be not as hot as I remember; but then again that was my summer in Paris. The novel's premise, coupled with my passion for reading and writing, interested me enough to start the book. The story is about an aging writer and his quest for everlasting love. From New York where he sought the adoration, via the internet, of a young writer enthralled by his talents to Paris where he is the object of the adolescent adulation of girlhood friends, the author explores the intricacies of love and its influence on art and the artist. I made it halfway through the novel but ultimately the story couldn't maintain my interest. Although I enjoyed the aspects of the novel dealing with writerly matters, I found the parts of the story set in Paris and focusing on museum paintings and sculptures quite boring. I labored through half of the novel enjoying spurts of wonderfully erotic writing but ultimately the story moved too slowly for me and the eroticism bordered on perversity in some instances. I mean, Dawesar would have to have made an incredibly creative and powerfully visceral connection with this reader to justify Prem's physical intimacy with Meher. The absence of this connection and the languid pace of the story caused me to give up on "That Summer in Paris".

While I can't recommend this one based on my encounter with the story it appears to have struck a cord with other art and literature enthusiast. Take your chances, you might get as lucky as Prem did in Paris.

Dawesar's meditation on aging, creativity and passion is a great summer read for anyone interested in the love lives of writers. American writer Maya is an admirer of Prem Rustem, see: Salman Rushdie, and worships the ground he walks on. Rustem is an aging Indian Nobel prize winning novelist, who feels he needs to live life, and not chronicle it. As soon as he makes this decision, he comes across Maya's personal ad on a online dating website and wants to have a meaningful relationship with her. In the past, Prem has only been involved in unhealthy affairs- one of them with his sister, Meher. Soon after they meet, Maya leaves New York and is off to Paris for a writing fellowship and Rustem follows after her. Their May-December relationship is touching and erotic. It's a fine beach read for people who don't want the books to lose their intelligence.

This book is about an old writer, whose past is a wasteland of multiple relationships and casual encounters that went nowhere, who finds love one last time.
Like its protagonist's life, much of the books pages are wasted on detailing the lives of a set of superficial characters that contribute little to its intensity. An aspiring writer Maya meets the celebrated Prem Rustum,a Nobel prize winner, on an internet dating site. He pursues her to Paris where she is supposed to spend the summer on a writing fellowship. She's not getting much writing done- most of her time is spent obsessing about Prem and in banal Sex and the City like talk with her apartment neighbour. Prem divides his time between Maya and a great writer friend Pascal,a stereotype who conversations show no signs of greatness. The characters are all blessed with an acute sense of amorality,self indulgency and a keen ability for transient sexual encounters. After all they are great writers,aren't they ?

The book is filled with literary and artistic references in the middle which makes it feel like downloading a large file from the internet on a slow modem connection. While the author's initial attempts to adorn the characters feels like throwing color on the canvas and hoping some will stick, in its dying moments the novel picks up its threads to reach a passing grade. Somehow Prem Rustum comes across more real in death than when he was alive. To the author's credit, another technique that does work is the slow blending in of flashbacks. Its the lack of real feeling and depth that keeps this from getting a better grade. 2 and 1/2

This book takes the reader, through a pretentious description of the virtues of great writers before presenting the story. I almost put it down 1/3 of the way through. I finished it because a dear friend had recommended it, and I wanted to be sure that my negative critique was warranted.

In the end, the book retrieves itself from hero worship and writer deifying. The love story is compelling, and the writer turns human. It is smart, and raises many interesting questions about the value of our work. I'm glad I finished it.

Art and sex, literature and love, and even plain old companionship are at the heart of That Summer in Paris, a strange and heady novel set in New York and of course Paris. Everyone harbors memories of their youth, but time inevitably passes and accommodations are made, hopes moving to more pragmatic goals. Which is why it comes as such a shock to the ageing writer Prem Rustum when over the Internet, he meets the vibrant, energetic twenty-something Maya.

At seventy-five, the Indian born Prem never thought he would be able to feel desire or even be beloved by another, but in Maya he sees a kind of ardent kindred spirit, a deeply intellectual young girl who cares just as passionately about art and literature as he does. In reality, Maya is so infatuated with the older gentleman's novels, that in her personal advertisement she quotes: ''Worship at his altar like I do.''

Maya constantly reads Prem's novels and almost seems to live breath and sleep Prem Rustum. Indeed, for the past year Prem's books have meant everything to Maya. After it ended with her boyfriend Tom, she discovered that as long as she was reading his books, she didn't miss other human contact, life felt complete.

The two arrange to meet and hit it off. Maya tells Prem that she's going to Paris for the summer to work on her novel about a white hippy in India, and Prem tells her that he is also traveling to Paris, ostensibly to visit his famous French writer friend Pascal. They promise to connect, but it is almost impossible for Maya to imagine spending so much time with a famous man who has reached the acme of success in a métier she had just started out in.

In Paris, Maya meets Jean-Pierre who is trying to write a screenplay. She tells him she is alone, when in fact she has met up with Prem and is spending her days with him in cafes, restaurants and museums, where they eat expensive dinners, sample cheese and wine, and talk endlessly about art, literature and sex how art motivates love. Clem rediscovers desire, gradually falling in love with this enigmatic girl, yet becomes afraid he might manipulate his sentiments for Maya or hers for him. He admits that he does not want to love her as though she were a character in his book.

Meanwhile, Maya becomes hypnotized by Prem as he casts a spell on her when he touches her in front of the Degas. Hitherto she is also seduced by the city of Paris itself, every corner of the city so criminally beautiful and Paris without Prem suddenly becomes unthinkable. She feels in Prem's presence like" a very young flower receiving the first rays of the vernal sun and opening to the world."

Can Prem and Maya reconcile their age difference and discover true love? Prem, for all his intellectual posturing, is a bit of a male chauvinist. In the past he has prided himself on his looks, his sexuality, and his desirability, and he has carried his complexities on his sleeve, and the hundreds of women who had kept his bed warm in his lifetime. But age has made him realistic, and he's the first to admit that all he wants is a form of love where "his own state and that of someone else's matched."

Author Abha Dawesar beautifully weaves in Prem's past with his present. He talks of his first true love with his sister Meher whose later cancer and her death led to an extension of his own death. After Meher every affair of his life had been intricately connected with books he had been writing, especially his encounter at sixty-five with Valerie and Julie, two sixteen-year-old French girls where he teaches them the knowledge of touch, an ageless knowledge and whom he eventually falls in love with.

Although Maya appears to be the central protagonist, the novel is really about Prem's very personal quandary. The affair with Maya consumes him physically, morally and mentally and his recollections on the excitement and enthusiasm of youth begin to fill his distracted and aging mind. Prem can give Maya his wisdom, his experience and his comfort with the world, which he understands much better because he's lived longer, but can he give her his physicality?

Set in one of the world's most beautiful cities and steeping her pages in art, sculpture, literature - and even sex - Dawesar beautifully explores the nature of a writer and the power of losing and then discovering love; it's a world that is often always bigger than we are and often the reason for uniting the two people, the writer and the person. Maya's obvious beauty and grace is potent enticement for the disenchanted Prem, even though his libido is now sorely lacking.

Deeply intuitive and observant, the author really seems to be able to get the heart of these two people who are intent to nurture and foster culture, art and friendship, and perhaps even love, which especially for Prem has regrettably aged and died. Mike Leonard August 06.

the writing is too bad. she fails to bring alive the characters and they appear silly and often annoying. her writing can be good in places but spending $15 for pockets of good writing??! just returned it today.. didnt even want to get through the entire thing. the book is crass. the writing is not lyrical and dosent flow. it dosent evoke your senses. the story and name set your expectations- dosent live upto them.sexual descriptions are a huge turn off! very badly written. much better books out there... wouldnt recomend this.

Prem Rustum, a seventy-five year old Indian born writer, thinks love and romance has left him behind, but then he meets young wannabe writer Maya online, who is in love with his work. And, as it turns out, she is just over a relationship, so she's ripe for another, perhaps even one with a man who is over fifty years her senior, after all, his work makes her feel complete.

They agree to meet and are attracted to each other right away. Maya tells him she's going to Paris to work on a novel and it just so happens Prem is going there too, supposedly to visit a friend who is a writer and Maya is excited at the prospect of spending so much time with somebody who is so famous.

The desire that has eluded Prem for so long returns and he falls in love with the much younger Maya and Maya feels like she's just awakening to new and wonderful emotions.

I've been to Paris several times, so I really enjoyed this book. Abha Dawesar has captured this city beautifully. I felt like I was really back there. The art, the cafes, the Parisian life. Plus the story is so beautifully told, that I couldn't put it down and you won't be able to either. Really, this book is so captivating that Abha Dawesar's people will live without you for days after you've closed the final page.

Transcending the boundaries of age - love in a very unusual and unexpected form is woven beautifully.
Its an expression of a young,jubilant girl Maya awed by the writer of the books she breathes and lives into and an aging world-renowned author and the intertwining of their lives. Sex and intimacy is extensively used in the novel but Abha Dawesar does not miss the intricacies of love.The description of Paris is incredible and also beautifully captured are the emotional conflicts, a life of discovering true love and losing it and yet the existence of an ever-lasting romance.

Its a splendid mix of art,literature,friendship,love,seduction.
You live withe characters till you reach the last page and they haunt you at different points in your life.

Beautiful read and a completely satisfactory experience.That Summer in Paris: A Novel

The characterizations left me uncertain of where fiction ceases and assimilation of the characters succeeds. Like a realistic dream, I feel the characters may be part of my own experience. As with Babyji it was difficult to live outside of this story until I read the last page.