Adèle: A Novel [Hardcover]

Mary Flanagan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Adele is an involved curio questioning treasured notions of civilization, innocence, and the natural. The book opens in medias res with Celia Pippet, a feminist magazine publisher, stealing something from the British museum. The specimen drawer, however, contains not one mummified--and disgusting--object, but two. Celia and an old friend, Martin, and a larger-than-life academic, Tamara, then head off with their booty to the south of France in order to right an old injustice, which they intend to link to the campaign to end clitoridectomies. Sound broad, and unlikely? Mary Flanagan more than mitigates this possibility by making her knowing perpetrators well aware of their outlandish situation: "Oh please, darling. That's so Perils of Pauline," one protests.

Fifty years before, a Parisian gynecologist had rescued a girl from near death at the hands of vicious villagers. This child, Adele, uniquely agile and undeniably oversexed, becomes an obsession for the doctor, his sister, and, it seems, half of brothel-going Paris. Is she retarded, an abomination, or a true innocent? (Judging from some of the sexual contortions she gets up to, this last would seem unlikely, but not entirely in Flanagan's inventive narrative.) Unfortunately, Dr. Sylvester, the girl's protector, turns out to be vile, proprietary, and far too interested in fashionable notions of eugenics (it is 1936). When Adele transgresses once too often, he performs a clitoridectomy, or so Celia, Martin, and Tamara think. Throughout this novel of lascivious twists and turns, Flanagan stays several steps ahead of her crusaders and makes the grotesque moving. Though some readers will be revolted by Adele, more will be surprisingly touched.

From Library Journal

Celia Pippet is nervous; after all, she's not the sort of person who usually goes about stealing things, certainly not from the august British Museum. But Celia has chanced upon the story of Adele, a beautiful and mysterious young woman utterly above convention who had been "rescued" from the southern French town of Bez by a creepy gynecologist named Jonas Sylvester. In revenge for unseemly behavior with his homely sister, to whom he had entrusted Adele, Dr. Sylvester genitally mutilated his new charge and saved the evidence?the artifact that Celia is about to lift from the museum. Joining forces with her friend, filmmaker Martin, and larger-than-life Tamara, an academic from America, Celia is determined to right the wrong done Adele and tell her story. More sensuous than suspenseful, told in a variety of voices that can be lush and quirky and occasionally confusing, and imbued with a sense of mission that is obvious but never overwhelming, this new work by the author of The Blue Woman (LJ 4/1/91) will fit nicely into fiction collections where women's issues are a concern.?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st American Ed edition (October 17, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393045471
• ISBN-13: 978-0393045475
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,197,481 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Start, September 19, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Adèle: A Novel (Hardcover)

An excellent maiden effort. I was enthralled by how the author held the reins to the story. Her pace, sense of mood and atmosphere is magnificent. But towards the end, it seems difficult to make the present live up to the past. Looking at things from another angle, we might say the author is trying to convey a sense of how the past was just as twisted in its treatment of sexuality as today's society is.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A strange novel with strange characters, April 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Adèle: A Novel (Hardcover)

The characters Blanche, her brother Jonas, and the unexplainable Adele are interesting, but the author never gives us much.

What exactly was Adele? And what caused her to be whatever it was, that she was?

What experiments DID Jonas perform? What did he learn about Adele? And what is the connection between Marcel and Adele?

Adele's story is a sad one, as is Blanche's.

The author never comveys any true compassionate for Adele or Blanche, although they are plainly badly treated.

There is no understanding on the author's part regarding Adele. The author seems to regard her as no more than a creature, a freak--as does Jonas.

Even Blanche and Adele's love is strange, twisted, voyueristic, actually more lust than love. Although eventually we do witness Blanche's devotion, which goes beyond lust.

Over all, however, the book is disappointing because it supplies no real answers; and the author's view seems like that of an objective scientist reporting what she sees through the microscope.

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant! A beautiful, poetic, disturbing novel that's beyond gender, December 4, 2006

By	Book Girl - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adele (Hardcover)

I found this novel to be one of the best I've ever read. Her style is haunting, intense, disturbing, yet poetically beautiful. I couldn't put it down.

The publishing reviews do not do it justice. Ignore them. This is beyond "crazed dr. gives girl clitoridectomy", what a poor description for this delicious piece of work. This is a story that begins a mystery, yet goes back in snippets of time to explain the past leading up to the current narrative. It is a novel about a creature loved and despised, the historical European references are entrancing, the blatant shocking sexuality is described with graceful sensuality. The characters are full bodied. The novel continues into Alchemical mysteries, archaic references and spiritual goals that tamper with creation, destruction, and gender as we know it.

A beautiful, sensual, disturbing, intense novel. Her mastery of words grants her poetic license I have not had the pleasure to read in a long time.... blissful. I have never been so gently or unexpectedly shocked, and then mentally laid to rest with equal ease.

I will buy this book to keep on my shelf and read over. Thank You, Mary Flanagan