L'Affaire (Audible Audio Edition) Diane Johnson Blair Brown Random House Audio Books
Download As PDF : L'Affaire (Audible Audio Edition) Diane Johnson Blair Brown Random House Audio Books
Amy Hawkins, a young dot-com executive from California who has made her fortune at the top of NASDAQ, sets off for Europe to find culture, her roots, and maybe a cause to devote her considerable fortune to. Amy starts her quest at one of the finest small hotels in the French Alps - a hotel noted for skiing and its famous cooking lessons - in the town of Valmeri, amid an assortment of Eurotrash aristocrats and ski enthusiasts. She has no plans to fall in love.
On the first afternoon, she is nearly swept away by an avalanche....
With a memorable cast of characters assembled on an unmistakably European stage, Diane Johnson has crafted a penetrating comedy of manners about being American in Europe - and about love.
L'Affaire (Audible Audio Edition) Diane Johnson Blair Brown Random House Audio Books
I have read her other two books, Le Divorce and Le Marriage and must say that out of the three this is the most depressing read I've had in quite some time. It's so tiresome to read that Europeans are so anti-American (I now don't think it would be worth my while to even visit France, Switzerland or now even England thanks to what I've read). And the heirs (with the exception of the baby of course) have nothing likable about them. In addition, she keeps bringing Antoine de Persand back for each book and in each story he turns out to be an even bigger jerk than in the last...I couldn't even get behind the main character of Amy, who's so worried about fitting in that she forgets to be herself and not care what these other infinitely flawed people think of her or anyone else in the book for that matter. The story also lacks clear direction.Product details
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L'Affaire (Audible Audio Edition) Diane Johnson Blair Brown Random House Audio Books Reviews
In Palo, Alto, California, Amy Hawkins made a fortune in the dot-com boom. Feeling she owes for her fortunate life, Amy decides to improve herself before doing good deed. She heads to the Alps ski resort Hotel Croix St. Bernard in Valmeri, France where she plans to learn everything French in two weeks.
The good deed surfaces when she pays for the return of dying publisher Adrian Venn, injured in an avalanche to England. Venn's family gathers to carve up the estate with each expecting to trump the other. Amy finds herself in a loony bin as Venn's two adult children and his illegitimate French daughter expect to eliminate their father's young comatose (from the accident) American wife and their infant step-brother from the estate competition before the final battle royal between themselves. Even the solicitors from France and England are skirmishing over who does what to whom arguing which country takes precedence. Finally there are also the outside straphangers ready to take a slice. With all that and bed hopping, romance, and affairs while everyone disparages those damn Yankees Amy Hawkins has learned a valuable lesson that no good deed goes unpunished.
The key to this humorous coffin romp is the ensemble cast mourning their loss or celebrating their gain seem genuine as Diane Johnson provides a deep look at values. The story line is a comedy of errors with everyone misinterpreting the actions and motivations of everyone else because they constantly impose their values on how others will behave. Fans will appreciate this intelligent amusing but dark avarice bedroom manners Rape of the Lock.
Harriet Klausner
The insights into the cultural differences between the English, French & American characters are the strongest feature of the book.
Amy, the American, is Puritanical, and do-goody. Great comment when her French friend, Geraldine, concludes that Amy thinks she is Joan of Arc. However, in the end, Amy has an epiphany, and realizes that she doesn't need to "rescue" every single one of her acquaintances and friends with her new-found wealth.
However, Geraldine's fondness for her promiscuous Arab son-in-law, Emile, seems unlikely; no matter how promising his future. Plus, he doesn't seem special enough to be the love of Amy's life, or for her to even imagine that he is. She moves all the way to Paris just to settle for an America-hating Arab, whom she could easily have met anywhere in the US.
Does Ms. Johnson believe that Emile is truly French? After all, culture runs a lot deeper than just holding national documents. Amy is really more French than Emile, because she has European blood.
The plot has a few twists; at one point, Amy seems destined to lose her great fortune in a possible lawsuit over her funding the moving of a dying man from a French hospital to an English one. At another point, she could have lost everything in a lawsuit over supposedly causing an avalanche. She demonstrates sound decision-making ability in these crises, which just blow over, as they so often do in real life.
However, since the threatened disasters just blow over, the dramatic tension is weakened.
Historical perspective is incomplete or deliberately avoided
[Amy, in response to Emile criticizing US culture says] "We saved you twice!"
"There is the fault," smiled Emile. "That is what we cannot forgive."
Amy is unaware that the anti-American feeling that many American travelers sense among Europeans is due the vicious bombing campaigns which the US launched against northern France and Germany during WW2. Is Ms. Johnson aware of this fact?
But Emile's anti-American feeling is likely rooted in our similar vicious bombing campaigns and wars in the Mideast.
Also, Amy's perception of France as a nation of great culture may be largely due to US post-WW2 propaganda. The US public was so horrified at the destruction of so many European cities as a result of the hugely unpopular war that the US government pushed this idea of the France as being the very epitome of world culture to try to justify our involvement in the unnecessary war.
Amy has two adulterous affairs in this novel. In the first affair, she cruelly flaunts her intentions in the wife's face. In the second, with Emile, she doesn't feel any compunction about the fact that Geraldine and her family have been very kind to her. In contrast to her talk about "mutual aid," she is quite psychologically violent towards other women.
Amy is the quintessence of the attitude of the US towards foreign nations ignorant, tactless, interfering, reckless, inconsiderate, cruel, violent. But the ending is confusing she makes one realization that may improve her relationship with other people; that is, that she needs to be less meddlesome; but she also resolves to continue seeing Emile.
I fell in love with Diane Johnson when I saw the movie ' The Divorce' and realized it was based on her book Le Divorce. ever since then I've been reading her writing. this one is another good read from Diane in the same fashion as Le Marriage and Le Divorce. a girl, love, tough choices, and France. While Le Marriage and Le Divorce are better reads this one is still a good fun book for your vacation.
It sounded like fun, but after awhile I couldn't tell what the point of this book is. The story gets unnecessarily complicated, the ugly American jokes get tiresome (though personal experience in Europe proves they have a ring of truth), and you start wondering who she'll have gratuitous sex with next. And you basically don't care. Author should have had a story board and stuck with it.
The series of "L" books L'Divorse, L' Marraige, are delightful but not frivilous accounts of men and women from various backgrounds, cultures and countries coming together in high and low levels of "French Farce." I love them for the pure escape and entertainment. But, don't misread this to mean they are "fluff". These books are well written filled with literary,artistic and historical references. The characters are outragious and funny and sensitive. I love Johnson's fairness in her love hate relationship with all things American and Frence. These are a wonderful curl-up read.
I have read her other two books, Le Divorce and Le Marriage and must say that out of the three this is the most depressing read I've had in quite some time. It's so tiresome to read that Europeans are so anti-American (I now don't think it would be worth my while to even visit France, Switzerland or now even England thanks to what I've read). And the heirs (with the exception of the baby of course) have nothing likable about them. In addition, she keeps bringing Antoine de Persand back for each book and in each story he turns out to be an even bigger jerk than in the last...I couldn't even get behind the main character of Amy, who's so worried about fitting in that she forgets to be herself and not care what these other infinitely flawed people think of her or anyone else in the book for that matter. The story also lacks clear direction.
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