The Theory of Clouds [Hardcover]

Stephane Audeguy (Author), Timothy Bent (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2007

**DEBUT FICTION**

 

A kira Kumo, miraculous survivor of Hiroshima, reinvented himself as someone twenty years younger. Now an eccentric couturier and collector of all literature having to do with clouds and meteorology, he hires Virginie, a young librarian, to catalog his library. While she works, he tells her stories of those who have devoted their lives to clouds: the Quaker Luke Howard, contemporary of Napoleon and Goethe, who first classified clouds; the painter Carmichael (based on John Constable), who spent a year painting clouds; and the mysterious Abercrombie, a photographer who cataloged clouds around the world. Virginie’s trip to London in search of the suppressed Abercrombie protocol becomes a quest no less wondrous and strange than Kumo’s own. Sensual, hypnotic, and filled with stories both true and fanciful, The Theory of Clouds is a masterful first novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A specialized, sensual history centers this novel from French historian Audeguy, winner of the Académie Française's Prix Maurice Genevoix. Virginie, an aimless young librarian, is hired by Hiroshima survivor and Paris couturier Akira Kumo, who seems much younger than he is, to categorize his obsessive library of cloud and meteorological-related material. While Virginie works, Kumo tells stories of other cloud gazers in history, including the fictional John Constable–like painter Carmichael, who spent a year painting clouds, to the consternation of his father, and the photographer Abercrombie, who left behind the much speculated upon cloud book that bears his name. As Kumo's past begins to come into focus, Virginie is drawn into his life. Audeguy's prose, lyrical in translation, mostly manages to contain sudden shifts of time and explorations of cloud lore. Beautifully written and imaginatively structured, Audeguy's book is as diaphanous as its subject. (Sept.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

French film historian Stéphane Audeguy has penned a remarkable first novel in The Theory of Clouds. Compared in his native France to Julian Barnes and Kazuo Ishiguro, his lovely, poetic prose (nary a line of dialogue to be found) and charming, melancholy tone won over American critics. Audeguy skillfully layers history, myth, and fiction as he explores the enigma of intellectual passions, human nature, and the nature of clouds. Though the novel struck some critics as quintessentially French in its ruminations, characters, and underlying sense of sadness, they nonetheless pronounced it "unpretentious and readable" (South Florida Sun-Sentinel). Winner of France’s prestigious Maurice Genevoix Prize, The Theory of Cloudsâ€""an exquisite, eccentric read" (Baltimore Sun)â€"should please American readers as much as their French counterparts.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 266 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1st U.S. Ed edition (September 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151014280
• ISBN-13: 978-0151014286
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,103,532 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful, lush, and thoroughly unconventional, January 3, 2008

By 

B. Case "InquiringMind" (Redondo Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Theory of Clouds (Hardcover)

"In the early years of the nineteenth century, Kumo told Virginie, a number of unheralded and seemingly ordinary men across Europe began gazing up at clouds in a way that was serious and respectful yet also filled with longing. They looked at clouds as if they were in love with them." So begins the third paragraph in Stéphane Audeguy's incredible début novel "The Theory of Clouds." The novel received the 2005 prize Maurice Genevoix of the French Academy and has only recently become available in the a exquisite English translation by Timothy Bent.

"The Theory of Clouds" is a masterful, lush, and thoroughly unconventional historical novel about clouds and the men who have devoted their life to studying them over the course of the past two centuries. In particular, it is about the passionate fanaticism that lies just under the surface of an obsession.

I fell in love with the oddness and quiet allure of this work. The author weaves honest meteorological biography together with an equal quantity of fiction and, through a process akin to alchemy, comes up with something that feels more real than the truth.

The novel begins in the present day with the famous eccentric Japanese couturier Akira Kumo, owner and chief creative designer for a great clothing design house in Paris. Ten years earlier, Kumo had a life-altering event. When it resolved, he found that he had become obsessed with clouds. He started collecting every book he could get his hands on--in all the languages that he could read--concerning the subject. By the beginning of the novel, he has amassed a world-class collection consisting of "every single work devoted to clouds and more generally to meteorology written over the course of the last three centuries." But Kumo was missing one legendary book, "The Abercrombie Protocol," a lone manuscript of fundamental importance to the history of meteorology. Unfortunately "The Protocol" has remained outside his grasp. The manuscript remains concealed by the author's family. Nobody outside the family has ever seen it. Kumo will do almost anything to be able to purchase this manuscript, or at least know what it contains.

To this end, he hires a librarian, Virginie, ostensibly to catalogue his collection. However, instead of putting her to work, Kumo starts telling her the stories that make up the history of meteorology--stories about the many famous men who have been in love with clouds. The tales begin in the early 19th-century with Luke Howard, the British Quaker who first came up with the idea of giving clouds names like cirrus, stratus, and cumulus. They continue right up to the present day, each story getting darker and more irrational. Many are drawn from real historical figures. Others are the author's own creations. Some contain a strong undercurrent of eroticism, but these are not there for prurient interest; rather they appear to be included by the author to add synergy into these tales of passion.

Eventually, Kumo's Scheherazade-like retelling of the history of cloud science seduces Virginie inside the web of his obsession. Finally, Kumo is ready to send her off to London to try to obtain "The Abercrombie Protocol." She returns not with "The Protocol," but rather with the story of "The Protocol," and she proceeds to tell it to him in the same passionate style the Kumo has used to relate his stories to her.

This is undoubtedly a strange book. It will most likely not appeal to a wide range of readers. The plot is more a collection of many stories contained within the structure of another story--there is pure genius in the architecture and construction of the overall plot. But there is not the usual single strong driving story line that most readers seek. Also, many readers may be put off by the fact that all the characters in this book remain quite remote. No character is revealed completely in three dimensions; instead we witness each of these characters almost entirely as they engage with their obsessions. Many of the characters' eroticism and sexual passion are also revealed. Stripped of everything but their passions, the author appears to be trying to focus the reader toward some all-encompassing universal concept of passion--passion in all its guises, as it exists in a variety of human beings--in this case, all infatuated with clouds. For me, the overall effect was deliciously cerebral, sensuous, and profoundly psychological.

There is much more to this novel than the stories, the delving into the nature of passion, and whatever accumulated understanding about meteorology that a reader may absorb. The author also has a number of thematic messages about man's ability to domesticate the power of nature to his own ends, but I will leave these for the reader to discover.

The stories, the prose, and the architecture of the novel--all are at once subtle, sensual, and sublime. This novel enchanted me. I easily fell under its spell. I will treasure it and reread it again in a few years. Unfortunately, this is not a book that will have wide appeal, but I found it marvelous, and know that there are other readers out there who will also be overjoyed to find and read this odd little gem. I hope some of you read this review.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Dangers of Cloud Gazing, August 21, 2011

By 

James W. Fonseca (Zanesville, OH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Theory of Clouds (Paperback)

A lively blend of fiction and non-fiction translated from the French. This book is a mini-history of the development of early meteorology. Basically it's a series of mini-biographies of the lives of early European cloud scientists. The vignettes are woven around a simple plot: an elderly, wealthy Japanese man is a collector of rare books about clouds. He hires a young woman to catalog his Paris library. That's pretty much the plot. What makes the book fascinating are the bizarre lives that some of these scientists led: apparently cloud-gazing pushes folks over the edge, just as it does our elderly Japanese gentleman. If you generally don't read science books, don't let that stop you. The science in this book is very user-friendly -- no numbers and about the level of a freshman college term paper.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Tedious and Boring, August 8, 2010

By 

L. Vale (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Theory of Clouds (Paperback)

This is a quick read and very disappointing. I am tired of the machinations of authors laboring under the apprehension that they are great literati. What is there to recommend this novel? The characters are never fully developed and the ending is disappointing. I suppose the intelligentsia of New York find this a fabulous novel to rave about, but for those of us looking for a good read this is not it. For those of us looking for great literature, this is not it. There are so many more novels available that are well written and well developed. Most disappointing. I thank my neighbor for lending it to me so that I did not have to purchase it. If it were mine, I would have given it to my parrots to eat... where I send books that are not even worth sending to the GoodWill Store.