I loved this book because it depicts one of Balzac’s most fascinating characters, who poses as a Spanish priest named Herrera, but is known by other names — Vautrin, Jacque Collin, and Dodgedeath — and who straddles the worlds of high society and the depths of the criminal underground.
The story follows the relationship between Herrera and the ambitious young poet Lucien. The plot is Byzantine and Machiavellian, as one intrigue leads to another.
Herrera uses Lucien to his own advantage, plotting to raise Lucien to a position in the aristocracy, marry him off to a wealthy family, and get him appointed to a position in the government. As circumstances change and develop, Herrera adjusts his tactics to take advantage of every twist and turn, even when his original plans go awry. Herrera is playing 3-D chess, involving layer upon layer of scheming, deceit, and manipulation, not to mention various physical disguises.
Marcel Proust, no less, interpreted Herrera/Vautrin as homosexual because of his apparent infatuation with handsome and talented young men, even though there are no explicit sexual implications.
Finance, fashionable society, and the intrigues of the underworld and the police system form the heart of this powerful novel, which introduces the satanic genius Vautrin, one of the greatest villains in world literature.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning…
I loved this book because it is a deeply emotional story.
Partly it was the juicy sex scenes that drew me in and had me rooting for Ned and Charlie to get together and stay together. There were so many obstacles preventing these guys getting together: class differences, accents and vocabulary, the constant tension around being caught in an illegal sex act, and mutual misunderstandings regarding the other’s motivations at pivotal points in the story.
These are distinct, well-drawn characters with strengths, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities that are conducive to secrets. All this makes these people believable and lovable.
The narrative is structured in an interesting way, moving backward and forward in time, each time period informing the others. The story starts in the middle, but by the end the puzzle pieces all fall into place.
A second chance at love for two men who fought together in the trenches of WWI. Class, ideals and prejudice drove them apart, but now, in the safety of peacetime, an illicit gay relationship has its own joys and risks.
1916, Northern France. Corporal Charlie Villiers breaks the monotony of the trenches by having sex with whoever is willing, including the posh Lieutenant Ned Pinsent. Except their stolen moments are becoming more than just a distraction — Ned actually listens when Charlie talks. But can Charlie share how going over the top is crushing his soul with the golden boy…
I loved this book because it is subtle and deeply psychological in its execution and content.
Based on historical characters and events, you may recognize Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and Robert Graves, who all became famous writers.
The story is set in a mental hospital during WWI. An array of characters are represented as psychotherapist Rivers works with these “shell shock” victims of the Great War. This framework allows the author to portray many of the brutal and horrific experiences of British soldiers in trench warfare. Along the way, the author exposes many elements of class prejudice and discrimination.
An absolutely brilliant anti-war novel. (This is book one of the Regeneration trilogy.)
"Calls to mind such early moderns as Hemingway and Fitzgerald...Some of the most powerful antiwar literature in modern English fiction."-The Boston Globe
The first book of the Regeneration Trilogy-a Booker Prize nominee and one of Entertainment Weekly's 100 All-Time Greatest Novels.
In 1917 Siegfried Sasson, noted poet and decorated war hero, publicly refused to continue serving as a British officer in World War I. His reason: the war was a senseless slaughter. He was officially classified "mentally unsound" and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital. There a brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. William Rivers, set about restoring Sassoon's "sanity" and sending him back…
Acquaintanceis a work of LGBT historical fiction, a gay love story set in 1923 when the Ku Klux Klan was growing in influence, the eugenics movement was passing human sterilization laws, illegal liquor was fueling corruption, and Freud was all the rage.
Based on extensive period research, the story follows young Dr. Carl Holman who returns from the horrors of WWI and meets an ambitious young jazz piano player named Jimmy Harper. They face many obstacles as their relationship unfolds over the course of the novel.
