So far this looks like a great February book for my book club. (That's the month we try to read something with lots of sex in it.).....Finished!This, is an amazing book. I went into it knowing that there were going to be a lot of layers here. Nervous about the complexity, I read up on Der Rosenkavalier, an opera by Richard Strauss. It is, I learned rather a feminist opera, written by a man. Jean Hanff Korelitz masterfully utilizes the basic plot of the opera, and (mostly) the character names from the opera. Octavian becomes Oliver, but most of the names are pretty close.Another layer, which I especially loved, were the references to the White Rose and Sophie Scholl, my favorite teenage girl in history. Sophie and her friends used the power of the press to (very dangerously) try to let the German people know just what evil shenanigans the Nazis were up to. She ultimately paid with her life. Our heroine, Sophie Klein, is named after Sophie Scholl, but does not feel worthy of the name.Marian Kahn, age 48, adds another layer to the book with her much-loved tale of an 18th-century adventuress, Charlotte Wilcox. Early in the book, Marian is embroiled in an adulterous affair with Oliver, who is 26 and the son of her oldest friend. See, I told you this was a complex story!While Marian and Oliver are getting it on, Sophie becomes engaged to Marian's wretched cousin, Barton Ochstein. (In the Opera, he is Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau.) Sophie and Barton are a bad match in many ways.It takes a chance meeting, and much discussion of flowers and roses and some cross-dressing for good measure, to make the story even more tangled. But Korelitz is a terrific tangler, and it all becomes untangled by the end, with a new plot twist related to roses saved for the final pages.This is a book to read slowly and pay close attention to. The language and many of the sentiments are lovely.(page 13, Marian and Oliver:) "Kissing him is her favorite thing. Kissing him is a thing she can do for hours. Oliver is a kisser of spectacular abilities, because he--alone, she believes, of his gender--has grasped the secret power of a kiss that does not necessarily lead to activities more genital. In other words, he can kiss for the sake of kissing, and a woman need not fear kissing him if she is not prepared to have sex immediately afterward."I love this passage where Sophia is being fitted for her wedding dress. (page 341:) "Hold up your arm a little bit," says Suki, one of the whippet-thin women Vera Wang has hired in an effort to make her customers feel gargantuan."Korelitz does a very nice job in introducing the tragic character of 11-year-old Soriah Neal, who writes a fan letter to Marian. (page 111:) "Oddly enough, the first thing Marian thinks is, This girl understands the purpose of the apostrophe. The second thing she thinks is, Why is an eleven-year-old reading my book? And then the last thing, before depression overwhelms her: This is the saddest letter I have ever read."A really terrific novel.
I got this book through netgalley--thanks! Thought I was going to read Korelitz' newest book, but it was published nearly ten yers ago. My thoughts on this book were all over the place. Good, bad, indifferent. I liked parts of the story a great deal and I thought the writing was lovely. Some of the descriptions were quite exceptional. And, I enjoyed reading about NYC and Rhinebeck--with which I am somewhat familiar. Biggest disappointment was nearly half-way through--when I felt i knew the arc the story would take--and I was right. Ending a bit trite. BUT...
Do You like book The White Rose (2006)?
What a sweet book. I'm only slightly familiar with Der Rosenkavalier so I don't know how closely it hews to the original, or if it is important to the story. But I very much enjoyed the experience of listening to this book...most of it on a couple of long drives. I cared about the characters, and wanted them all to have a happy ending. And I think they do, except of course the one execrable character (who was still enjoyable in his awfulness, sort of like Mr. Collins).I especially enjoyed the Charlotte Wilcox backstory and would love to read a book about her! (Of course it would be fiction, but still.) Also a few references to Jane Austen...one obvious, one just dropped in there for us to discover. Nicely done. It's definitely the kind of thing that would appeal to Austen fans, if they appreciate modern literary fiction.I have to admit I was kind of startled, since I listened to the audiobook and didn't have the opportunity to "flip through" as one does with books, that it started with a (not very explicit, but explicit enough) sex scene. I was driving in a snowstorm and thinking, "What the heck did I download?" but by the time I got to my destination six hours later, was thoroughly charmed.
—Margaret Sullivan
