Review by New York Times Review
UNDERLAND: A Deep Time Journey, by Robert Macfarlane. (Norton, $27.95.) A series of lyrical, unnerving explorations, from ancient forests to urban catacombs to caves of ice, that probe humanity's sometimes wondrous, often malign, relationship with the world beneath our feet. ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS, by Ocean Vuong. (Penguin Press, $26.) The poet's fiction debut is an experimental, highly poetic novel whose structural conceit is ostensibly a letter written from a son to his mother. The book is brilliant in the way it pays attention not to what our thoughts make us feel, but to what our feelings make us think. THE CONSERVATIVE SENSIBILITY, by George F. Will. (Hachette, $35.) Will, after a long career as a public intellectual, sums up his thinking about the meaning of conservatism in an argument that includes history, epistemology, culture, religion, politics and constitutionalism. GREATEST HITS, by Laura Barnett. (Europa, paper, $19.) A British novel that uses the creation of a retrospective album to explore a woman's tempestuous life in music. WOMEN'S WORK: A Reckoning With Work and Home, by Megan K. Stack. (Doubleday, $27.95.) As a foreign correspondent, Stack covered wars and reported from dozens of countries, but as a new parent she was overwhelmed. This enthralling account of her relationship with the women she hired to help her casts a self-critical eye on the often exploitative labor of motherhood. L.E.L.: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated "Female Byron," by Lucasta Miller. (Knopf, $30.) In the early 1820s, Landon's lightly erotic verse, published in a weekly gazette under the initials "L.E.L.," was all the rage in England. Miller's fascinating biography argues that the prolific poet, who died in exile in Africa, represents a "missing link" between the Romantics and the Victorians. LIFE OF DAVID HOCKNEY, by Catherine Cusset. Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. (Other Press, paper, $15.99.) Cusset, a former French professor at Yale, entertainingly fashions a novel from the known facts about the life of Hockney, the artist whose paintings of poolside California now fetch astronomical sums. EXPOSED, by Jean-Philippe Blondei. Translated by Alison Anderson. (New Vessel, paper, $16.95.) This elegant novel explores the bond between a middle-aged teacher in the French provinces and the ex-student, now a famous painter, who asks him to pose. LIE WITH ME, by Philippe Besson. Translated by Molly Ringwald. (Scribner, $25.) A glimpse of a young man in a hotel leads the narrator of this tender, sensuous novel to recall his first love affair, as a teenager in rural France, with a taciturn farmer's son. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 23, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
Newly divorced and nearing retirement, French high-school teacher of English literature Louis is surprised by an invitation to the art opening of his former student Alexandre, now an up-and-coming painter. He attends and is further surprised by the undivided attention of the event's star. Louis barely remembers Alexandre as a student, while it becomes clear that the impression he made on Alexandre was deep and everlasting. Alexandre asks Louis to sit for a portrait, which soon becomes a triptych. Under the gentle intensity of Alexandre's gaze and questioning, Louis recalls moments from his life before career, marriage, and kids took over, with a vividness that shocks him and inspires him to write again. The loss of the youth Louis remembers is really the loss of its possibilities; can he can anyone come to terms with that? While the setup, of a middle-aged man who finally sees himself only when a younger man sees him, could become clichéd, it doesn't. Blondel (The 6:41 to Paris, 2015) imbues Louis' story with the quietly fascinating, understated, true-feeling complications of real life.--Annie Bostrom Copyright 2019 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Blondel's captivating second novel (following The 6:41 from Paris) tracks an aging high school English teacher's strange relationship with a famous young painter. Louis Claret, approaching 60, lives alone in a small, cold apartment in his provincial French city. His ex-wife, Anne, amicably divorced him years earlier and is happily remarried; his two adult daughters have moved away. Claret's life changes when he is invited to Alexandre Laudin's art opening. Laudin, a local celebrity whose painting has achieved national attention, was Claret's student, but Claret barely remembers him. Laudin invites a surprised Claret to his apartment, shows him a stunning new sequence of triptychs, and makes an unusual offer: he'd like Claret to pose. Claret agrees, and each time he is painted, Blondel reveals more of his past through beautiful, italicized sequences. The experience lets him dwell on a life of roads not taken and of regret mingled with beauty. All along, Laudin reveals his true self, and eventually, Claret is given the chance to strip bare. The novel flies by with gentle humor, but it also poses complex questions about the meaning of art and sexuality, and offers an elegiac look at late middle age. Claret's evolution is irresistible, and the story's fundamental kindness sets it apart. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A short philosophical novel about art, time, and memory.Narrator Louis Claret finds himself at a melancholy point in his life. He's divorced from his wife, Anne, and his two daughters are grown and living far away. Claret has for many years been an English teacher in a French lyce, a career he no longer finds particularly interesting or challenging. Out of the blue, Alexandre Laudin, a former student, invites him to the opening of an art show. Although Laudin is an up-and-coming artist who is starting to develop an international reputation, he has never been particularly close to his former teacher, and he has an agenda in arranging their reconnection: He wants to paint Claret's portrait. Claret is both mystified and intrigued by this request, and he shows up at Laudin's studio for multiple sessions. As the artist continues to develop a series of sketches leading up to a portrait (actually threehe decides to make a triptych), an intimacy grows between them, one with erotic overtones. Louis finds his life beginning to change in bewildering but significant ways. For one thing, his perceptions become more aesthetically inclined. In looking at his kitchen table, for example, he notices that "the cups, spoons, and pack of sugar are there, pointless. They would make a magnificent still life." He also finds himself becoming more possessiveeven jealousof the artist, feeling "like some jilted mistress begging for attention." This is a quiet novel, one in which most of the events are internal. Blondel allows us to enter Claret's mind and heart, to feel the sadness and lost moments of his life. When Claret finally confronts the finished portrait, his emotions are intense, complex, and ambivalent, and it's clear that through the process of aesthetic transformation he's reached a new awareness about his life.A subtle and at times radiant read. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
