The Paris Hours
By: Alex George
Pages: 272 pages
Expected publication: May 5, 2020 by Flatiron Books
Type: Historical Fiction
My Rating: 3 Stars
Synopsis:
The story takes place in 1927 Paris and follows the stories of 4 “main” characters and their lives. These characters’ stories intertwine with several famous names of the time like Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Marcel Proust. A story in Paris during it's heyday and stippled with the greatest artists and writers of the time sounded like a can't miss to me. But miss it did.
The story surrounds an artist trying to break into the scene and pay off debtors, a woman who found herself by working for the eccentric writer Proust, a man who fled from Armenia and is haunted by the memories of his childhood and those he lost and a man desperately searching for something from his past. As the narrative progresses more layers are revealed and we are let into the secrets of each of the character's lives. The secrets are fascinating and at this point, the books picks up and we are whisked deeper into a frenetic scene where all of them converge at a club in Paris one evening, a few things happen, none of them good or satisfying, and then the book is over.
My Thoughts:
The writing is beautiful and meandering. It’s poetic and lyrical, so much so that the beauty of the story is often lost in the prose. This is a highly character driven novel with very little to hang a hat on unless you care about the outcome of the four main character’s individual plights. I was well past a third of the way into the book until anything of substance happened. The language was so indirect that I confused a couple of the characters until writing this review. Their stories were semi-similar which absolutely did not help anything and I don't recall the author giving us any physical description of either of them, so I had no clear picture of either man in my mind and two french names that I couldn't keep straight, which led to many occurrences of flipping back pages and chapters to reorient myself.
At that point, I was so over it that I have to admit, I didn’t care, I just wanted it to be over.
Once I finally got a really firm hold on who was who and why I cared, the book was finished. It was just done, just like that. The End. I felt it was a shame really to have built up that much character and backstory to have the tale hang as it did without much, if any, conclusion. There are some writers (Liz Moore) who can end a story without putting a bow on top and you still feel satisfied. To me, the melancholy subtext of each character’s story and the lack of wrapping things up made me feel empty.
Who would I recommend this to?
I don’t think I could, in good conscience, recommend this one to many. I know it got great reviews from others and believe me- the writing, as I said, was beautiful, and there was such a great story here- the possibility was there, but the way it ended – oh, what a shame... I can’t recommend this one. Sorry. I wanted to love it.
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