Louis BegleyCritiques

Unfortunately, when I am gifted a book by a reading site such as NetGalley, LibraryThing, and/or a publisher I feel compelled to read it. Then I hear my seventh-grade teacher whispering in my ear “if you are reading for recreation and are underwhelmed or uninterested, put the book down and find something that speaks to you”. Would that I could because I have an equally strong sense of commitment to being fair and there is that quid pro quo understanding.

Back to The New Life of Hugo Gardner – this was a complete miss for me. A book about a man who is a pompous, abrasive, self-absorbed octogenarian who finds himself newly divorced and unable to comprehend how he could have been left behind. His sexual exploits and dalliances, oh who cares?!

The writing is good, the name-dropping, bragging and everything else was not. Thank you NetGalley and Doubleday for a copy.

Jack Dana dachte nach den Ereignissen in der Vergangenheit nun endlich mit Heidi ein ruhiges Leben führen zu können, sein Erzfeind Abner Brown ist tot und stellt keine Bedrohung mehr da. Doch dann erhält er einen verstörenden Telefonanruf und muss live mit anhören, wie sein Freund Simon Lathrop und dessen Frau grausam gefoltert und ermordet werden. Kurz danach die zweite Nachricht auf seinem Laptop: offenbar ist Abner Brown zurück – doch das ist unmöglich! Brown ist tot wie man es nur sein kann, aber wer sonst wählt einen solchen Duktus und hegt einen unbändigen Groll und Rachegelüste gegen ihn? Dass es nicht nur bei verbalen Drohungen bleibt, muss Jack Dana bald erkennen und ebenso, dass auch seine Lebensgefährtin und deren Familie in größter Gefahr schweben. Das grausame Spiel ist eröffnet, die Frage ist nur, wer in diesem speziellen Pokerspiel – „Killer’s Choice“ in Anlehnung an die Variante „Dealer’s Choice“, bei der der Spieler am Zug die Regeln bestimmt - am Ende die besseren Karten hat.

Louis Begley’s dritter Roman um den ehemaligen US Marine und Autor Jack Dana knüpft nahtlos an die Vorgänger an. Wie gewohnt auch die kritischen Seitenhiebe auf das amerikanische Rechts- und Ordnungssystem und nun vor allem auch auf den aktuellen Präsidenten. Dem eigentlichen Protagonisten stehlen aber zwei anderen Figuren beinahe die Show: sein chinesischer Diener/Freund/Leibwächter Feng und die französische Bulldogge Satan, deren stoische Gelassenheit man so manchem Menschen wünschen würde.

Die Erzählstimme des Elitesoldaten ist Begley wieder sehr überzeugend gelungen. Schnörkellos und effizient erzählt Jack Dana von den Begebenheiten, selbst wenn er von Heidi spricht, bleibt er in recht neutralem Ton, obwohl er bereit ist, sein Leben für sie zu riskieren. Fraglos wirkt aber auch der Abschluss der Trilogie etwas aus der Zeit gefallen und folgt nicht den Regeln der heute gängigen Kriminalgeschichten. Es mag Begleys Alter (geboren 1933) geschuldet sein oder auch seiner späten Karriere als Autor, die erst in den 1990er begann, dass er mich weitaus mehr an einen Raymond Chandler oder einen Dashiell Hammett mit ihren hard-boiled Detektivromanen erinnert. Auch wenn im dritten Band moderne Technologie eine Rolle spielt, bleibt im Zentrum doch der weitgehend auf sich gestellte Ermittler, der dem organisierten Verbrechen und dem korrupten System, das sich bis ganz nach oben in der Politik zieht, weitgehend einsam gegenüberstehen sieht. Zynisch geworden ist auch Jack Dana, der einst dem Land bedingungslos diente, das er jetzt nicht mehr erkennt:

„Ich bin nicht in den Krieg gezogen, um Amerika wieder großartig zu machen – ich fand es großartig genug. Ich wollte, dass Amerika wieder anständig würde, wieder ein Land, das armen Schluckern eine faire Chance gibt und sich um die Schwachen und Bedürftigen kümmert.“ (S. 14)

„Killer’s Choice“ reicht nicht ganz an den großartigen ersten Teil heran, dafür ist mir das Auftauchen des aktuellen Gegners nicht überzeugend genug motiviert und die Handlung doch etwas zu schematisch und voraussehbar. Dafür liefert Begley einen Roman in guter amerikanischer Tradition, die er überzeugend ins neue Jahrtausend führte.

This is just what I want biography to be. Historical, personal, and professional contexts are given succinctly with the essence of the subject emerging from a sum of countless moments. Beautifully constructed, the book has it's own arc but is made almost entirely of direct quotes. Worth it for the letter to Brod where Kafka says a book must be "the axe for the frozen sea inside of us".

My opinion about this book changed as I read it, but in the end I liked it. It doesn't help that I was somewhat bored through by the first few pages in which Philip babbles about ballet performances he has liked or disliked. The marriage of Lucy and Thomas, which becomes something of an obsession to the narrator, Philip, ended 25 years before the book begins. In fact, Thomas was happily remarried and had died in a freak accident. So I can't think that Philip actually knew them very well. Why the sudden interest and shock?

But Philip is shocked, when he meets up with Lucy at the ballet, and she refers to Thomas as a monster. Philip attempts to learn the truth about the marriage, and I got caught up in his search. He talks at great length with Lucy, who maintains that she did all the giving and Thomas only exploited her money and her social position. We become aware, however that Lucy has mental issues apart from any other problems. Philip goes on to talk to Thomas' second wife, mutual friends, and finally Thomas' and Lucy's son. It became very interesting to read their different takes and interpretations on what happened.

Interestingly, Lucy's parents, the "old money" family, were happy to have her marry Thomas, while it was his middle class parents who disapproved. It makes the book somewhat less dramatic, for better or worse, as a comment on social classes. Yes, being married to Lucy gave Thomas entré with wealthier people, and her money let them live in a better apartment early in their marriage, but the people of her class seemed to have no problem with Thomas, accepting him although they remembered his antecedents. At worst, most of them were just mildly surprised that someone of his background was so successful. Only Lucy harped on her original higher status, and given the circumstances of their marriage, would probably would have found something else to harp on if they had been social equals.

I thought the first half of the book was a poignant portrayal of an older man shocked by the death of his wife and pushed into early retirement by his law firm. The second half was a bit far fetched (in a relationship with a 20 year old) and a bit weird (running over an old homeless man who crapped on his doorstep). I'll read the follow up novel before passing final judgement on this tale (and novelist).

I've read probably half a dozen Louis Begley novels, beginning with WARTIME LIES, followed by the first two SCHMIDT novels and a couple more. And I loved all of them. And now there's this one, MATTERS OF HONOR, which was, I thought, just okay. It reads like a kind of drawing room drama, the story of a friendship that begins between three college roommates at Harvard in the early fifties. And then we follow the progression of their lives over the next fifty years or so. The narrator, Sam Standish, becomes a rather successful author. Archie is a playboy drunk. And then there's Henry, hounded by an unspoken anti-Semitism throughout his wildly successful career as a lawyer of international law. And that's what the book is about, that prejudice that continues to exist, even today. Books of the time are mentioned, especially that bestseller about gentiles and Jews, GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT. And there are family secrets and problems between parents and children. The story lumbers along, year after year, decade after decade, bits of history join the plot. McCarthyism rears its ugly head. Kennedy is assassinated, etc. But nothing much ever really HAPPENS, ya know? The characters are great. Well developed, fully realized - or mostly. Sam may be gay, but it's never quite clear. Family and friends pass away. Sam and Henry get richer and richer. Ho-hum ...

Critics called MATTERS OF HONOR 'James-ian,' and it is, certainly. Which may be my problem. I never much cared for Henry James's fiction. So ... There's lots of international traveling - Paris figures prominently - with all the trappings of success prominently on display. Long dialogues about knotty problems of international law. (Begley is a lawyer.) But ... But enough of my complaining, I suppose. It's not really a bad book. I just didn't find it all that interesting in the end. Maybe I need to read that third SCHMIDT novel that I missed. That one I'll probably like. (three and a half stars)

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER½

the man with sad eyes believes he has been changed inside for ever like a beaten dog'
By sally tarbox on 15 Aug. 2012
Format: Paperback
Short and intensely moving story of a Jewish child's experiences in World War 2 Poland. The first chapter describes a pleasant middle-class upbringing but ends 'less than one year later came September 1939 and it was all over'.
From then on, the family is split up with the narrator travelling through Poland with his resourceful aunt, using false identity papers. Suspicious of everyone, careful of their every move, they pass themselves off as Catholic Poles and come close to losing their lives on a number of occasions.
Yet even in the last chapter when the war is over, the lies must be kept up. Pogroms continue in liberated Poland and as Begley concludes:
'And where is Maciek now? He became an embarrassment and slowly died. A man who bears one of the names Maciek used has replaced him. Is there much of Maciek in that man? No: Maciek was a child and our man has no childhood that he can bear to remember; he has had to invent one.'

don't get the audio version -- it's pretty terrible.

I'm sure there are better books on Kafka.

This partly autobiographical novel tells the story of a young Jewish boy Maciek who together with his Aunt Tania pose as Catholic Poles during WW II to survive the Holocaust. The narrator is looking back on these childhood experiences as an old man, and remembers how much of his heritage and identity had to be denied in order to survive. "Our man has no childhood he can bear to remember." It was only lies that enabled him to survive, constantly moving from place to place, maintaining a distance from others, as one by one other members of his family vanish or die.

All of this is narrated in a completely matter of fact way, with a complete absence of judgment, which makes it all quite chilling. Clearly, to survive physically, the psyche is irreparably damage.

"She and I had to get used to the idea we were quite alone. Tania and Maciek against the world. This was not an easy lesson to learn but probably the world would beat it into our heads."

Begley loves to write about the 60-plus-year-old man, usually of considerable means, getting it on with a 25-year-old girl. He does it in the first two Schmidt books and he does it here in Mistler's Exit. His other penchant is to chat in considerable detail about business deals, or legal cases, or real estate. His characters are big time materialists who probably vote Republican but who are nice enough so that you can't tell. They are used to dinner parties and servants and polo and the club. They enjoy their flings; they are men of the old school after all. And let us not forget cocktail hour, with it's irreplaceable martini. They have all material aspects of their life worked out to a fare thee well. Yet into this world of hyper-planning and monied perfection steps travail and trepidation. Humans can never be free of it, strive though they might. In the first two Schmidt books it appears in the form of a recently deceased wife, who was a paragon of family life, the social glue that held it together, and a daughter so foolish and unknowing in her life choices that one wonders if there wasn't some switch made among the bassinets at the hospital. Still reading.

The setting here is very, one might say supremely, bourgeois. Albert Schmidt, newly widowed, recently retired from a cutthroat Manhattan law firm, is fully fitted out with all the appurtenances of great material success. The circles in which he moves are peopled by the very rich and often famous. Six months after his wife's death his daughter, Charlotte, announces her engagement to Jon Riker. Riker, a former mentee, is disliked by Schmidt for numerous reasons. One reason being that he's a Jew. More objectionable to Schmidt, however, is that Riker has knowingly undermined him at the firm where he no longer works. Schmidt has lost his beloved wife, Mary, and now he is losing his daughter to a grasping young man devoid of the romantic sensibilities that he most cherishes. Schmidt feels himself to be a radical truth teller, yet much of his "commentary" he must repress if he is not to alienate those around him. One wonders how he has done it. One wonders how he has managed to be successful. Interpersonal relationships are so key to the high-brow kind of law he once practiced, yet they also annoy him terribly. The answer of course is Mary. Often we hear Schmidt say something like "Mary would have managed it so well." And our sense is of his wife coming along behind him setting matters to rights. There are improbable sex scenes--two sixty-plus men with 20 year old girlfriends--yet somehow Begley carries them off. Certainly, the fact that both men are very rich makes the liaisons more plausible than they would be otherwise. I generally abhor all descriptions of coitus in print. Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater is to my mind full of such repulsive writing. Begley's method however is defter and almost without vulgarity. I haven't quite figured out how he does it. I suppose one could say that Begley writes about territory already covered by John Updike and Philip Roth. Yet Begley's style is distinctive, nothing like the other two writers, and his milieu is far more genteel. I absolutely adore this novel. It's my favorite of all the Begley novels I've read so far, including Wartime Lies, which is saying a lot.

Author Begley was a lawyer for a large New York firm before retiring, I believe, at sixty or so. He is a superb writer. This is the second volume of what is so far a trilogy. I’ve yet to read the third volume, just out, called Schmidt Steps Back.

When we last saw Schmidt at the end of About Schmidt he had miraculously secured the favors of a 25 year old beauty for himself (he's in his early sixties), had become estranged from his wacky daughter who has a tendency to make decisions that go against her own self interest, and had been forced from his beloved law firm by Jon Riker, his protege, who after becoming a partner at Schmidt's recommendation, turns against him and squeezes him out before marrying the wacky daughter.

Now we board the Schadenfreude Express. For Jon Riker, who backstabbed Schmidt in volume one, has fucked himself royally and lost all credibility at the start of the current volume. It’s complicated, but apparently Riker gave documents that were under court seal to the opposing counsel whom he had been screwing. But opposing counsel, as it turns out, then screws him when she uses those same documents to prepare submissions to the court. There can be no doubt that her submissions were based upon the sealed documents. The shit hits the fan. Jon has compromised the case of a major client. He Is fired from the firm.

Schmidt tries to resist the Schadenfreude Express, and largely does so, to his credit. Schmidt’s daughter, Charlotte, Jon’s wife, leaves the beleagured Jon now for a man in her office who is separated from his wife. (They both do PR for tobacco companies.) Charlotte takes the jitney out to the Hamptons to ask Schmidt for money —-not a loan but an outright gift — so that she and her new man can start up their own firm. The new man will not invest a cent himself, all his funds will go to supporting his divorced wife and family. But no sooner does Charlotte make this request of Schmidt, then her lover and future partner returns to his wife for the sake of the children. (Always a mistake.) This is the ultimate proof of Charlotte’s horrendous inability to judge people. She has no reliable instincts.

The real kicker of the novel is the relationship Schmidt develops with the billionaire Michael Mansour. Mansour, born of a Jewish family in Cairo, calls Schmidt early one morning — Schmidt is still in bed — and invites him to luncheon at his Olympic venue of a home, also in the Hamptons. Mansour is a piece of work. He is a megalomaniac, very pleased with himself and his billions, who met Schmidt through Gil, the filmmaker and Schmidt’s old college roomie, whose films Mansour now underwrites. Schmidt lunches with Mansour and the dialog here is not to be missed. Mansour proceeds to tell Schmidt everything that’s wrong with his life and what he must do to fix it. Mansour comes on very strong. He’s right there on the border between charming and obnoxious. As I read these pages my jaw was dropping. The exchanges are astonishing and, as they say, alone worth the price of admission.

The relationship between Mansour and Schmidt reminded me very much of the relationship between Charlie Citrine and Von Humboldt Fleisher in Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift (1975). The tenor of the dialog is so close to that of the presumed model, but Begley makes it entirely fresh, entirely new, and carries his readers delightedly off in other directions. However, like Bellow Begley is able to nail down the big egos. Even the billionaire's name is intriguing, isn’t it? Mansour. Man Sour. It gets the reader’s mind working. Does it suggest a misanthrope?

The last major character to be discussed is Carrie. She is the Latina beauty whom Schmidt steals away from a grim life waiting tables at a local restaurant. She’s a good girl, raised right, but she is also 25 and at the height of her sexually active years. It seems impossible that he has found her, that he has secured her, but Begley makes it believeable. And Carrie’s presence in the book is a purposeful contrast to that of Schmidt's daughter, Charlotte, who, though given everything during her upbringing, is an ingrate and a shrew.

The last third of the book is a killer. I read it through the pain of heartbreak. Schmidt is too old for Carrie. This limitation in their relationship is bound to manifest itself sooner or later. When she informs Schmidt of her affair with Jason, Mansour’s security man who is her own age, one reads on with astonishment as Schmidt comports himself with a level of dignity that should serve as a model for all of us when exiting relationships. The last third of this book is fire and ice. Wow. What a book! What a writer!

Es war ein Vergnügen.

Well written tale of marriage and the loss or marriage among the privleged. Lucy's marriage and attempt to seduce Thomas was quite painful to read.

I like Louis Begley and especially liked this novel which differs in subject matter from much of his prior work. Often he write about Jewish people in a Jewish world. Memories of a Marriage is about a bunch of WASPY New Yorkers and New Englanders. The prose flows as in all his novels. It is a joy to read and it is precisely as the title says, memories of a marriage. His and Bella's and that of a good friend, Lucy.and Thomas whose marriage ends badly. Thomas is a self made man who marries a patrician who doesn't let you forget it. But Thomas is very successful and goes on to marry Jane and has a good marriage with her. The book is definitely worth a detour.

Interesting but too flat. Reads well but leaves you with no memorable impression. The writing style is too factual, like a business report or a diary. Just a load of babbling on the life of the Harvard upperclass socialites, where you can't even distinguish the decades as they pass by, so dull are the lifes of the four main characters and friends. Nevertheless, two stars on account of the true (and autobiographical) account of the jew that strives to become "non-jewish" but, in the end, fails.

this book confirmed that i don't like his writing style at all. but it also clarified more about why i didn't like about schmidt. he writes about this main character that is a petty, annoying, unlikeable man, which is an ok thing to do. but he gives us no insight into his motivation or into what makes him this person, so we can't relate at all, or care at all. this crystallized for me in the first third of this book, which i found such a waste (why was i reading again about this man i couldn't stand, who was doing things that didn't seem believable, with writing i don't like). somehow, the last two thirds, until the final 10 pages or so, became much more entertaining. i don't know what happened, but it was suddenly more readable. not that i'm recommending it.½

he writes about things worth reading and writing about, but i had trouble with his style. i was especially bothered by his extreme overuse of exclamation points, but the way he wrote in general got in the way for me.

This is an extraordinary book about the human condition. It deals with the holocaust obliquely, through the filter of memory, childhood and absence. It brings the thing home, through the window, in a single amazing paragraph of great impact. The child of the story is not an innocent but neither is he completely aware. The complete absence of judgement from the narrative only emphasizes the fragility of justice itself, in addition to the fragility of the central characters. The manner in which the narrative can shift from a scene of partial normality to one of shocking cruelty emphasizes the danger of the situation. It is a powerful work that reconstitutes the way one sees things.

The lives of two very different men - former classmates at Harvard - converge during a summer reunion at a villa on the shores of Lake Como. Max, a law professor, is fleeing the collapse of his first marriage and has become the ultimate spectator of life. Charlie, a famous architect, is a high-living man of extremes. Max's meeting with Charlie brings him into contact with Toby, Charlie's startlingly beautiful male companion. Both Charlie's and Toby's relationship will ultimately shape Max's life for years to come.

I have to say that while I found As Max Saw It by Louis Begley to be very well-written, I honestly couldn't follow the plot very well. I did enjoy parts of the story however I ultimately found that this book just didn't grab my attention as much as other books that I've read. I give this book a B+!

This is a sleeper of a novel. On the surface it is simply a tale of four post-WWII Harvard freshmen and their coming of age with typical life struggles in the arenas of career, family, and relationships. However, Begley's writing subtly draws the reader into a much bigger theme which is self-invention and re-invention. We meet Sam, our narrator whose parents were not up to snuff by many standards. We meet Archie, who is a burgeoning alcoholic who refuses to transform. We meet Margot who has it all and yet has nothing. We meet our very dear Henry, a Polish, Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, who is gifted in the area of re-invention. So, the novel resonates for anyone who has wanted to re-invent themselves, leaving behind those aspects of their identity which are distasteful, socially unacceptable, frightening, and/or which stand in the way of what we seek in life. There were a few sections which seemed to drag, perhaps not feeling quite necessary to the forward motion of the story, and the use of language was subtly powerful, but not exquisite enough for a 5 star rating. Very good novel!

I didn't particularly like this book for several reasons.

For one, i found the story that forms the framework, i.e. the two men in a bar, lacking credibility. It doesn't tell enough to make me believe the listener is a real person. I get the feeling it just serves to make the ending more dramatic.

Secondly, the actual story is not original at all. Just another tale of an affair gone wrong. On top of that the young woman he falls in love with is depicted as crazy. Crazy, in the sense of trying to threaten him to talk to his wife, lying to achieve something and then suddenly telling the truth, and stalking him to his holiday home. But it never becomes clear why she does it and so the character gets annoying.

In short: I wasn't impressed.

promotional material i picked up during my bookstore days. The stories are slightly unever--but some are great. Not sure that is too helpful but i'm also not sure this is available for reading to readily.