Adèle
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Book Overview
Celia Pippet, founder of a feminist magazine, impulsively steals a bizarre artifact from the British Museum. Joined by her friend Martin, a filmmaker, and American academic Tamara, she flees to Bez in southern France to escape detection and to pursue the trail of the beguiling Adele. Fifty years before, Adele had been rescued from Bez by Dr. Jonas Sylvester. He brought her to Paris where she captured the city's attention with her alluring beauty and air of secrecy. When Sylvester brings over sister Blanche to look after Adele, he is not prepared for the love between them nor their escape from him. He takes his revenge. Moving between Blanche's life with Adele and Celia's search for clues into that life, the stories converge in Bez where the three friends discover Blanche's existence and Adele's true, if unbelievable, identity. The effects of the revelation are shattering--Adele's erotic power extends beyond the grave, melding past and present into a single reality. A provocative and original novel by an accomplished literary writer who steps beyond the boundaries of what we know as male and female.
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0393045471
ISBN13:9780393045475
Release Date:October 1997
Publisher:W. W. Norton & Company
Length:256 Pages
Weight:0.93 lbs.
Dimensions:1.0" x 5.7" x 8.4"
Related Subjects
Contemporary Criticism & Theory Erotica Fiction History & Criticism Literature & FictionCustomer Reviews
3 ratings
Brilliant! A beautiful, poetic, disturbing novel that's beyond gender
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 18 years ago
I found this novel to be one of the best I've ever read. Her style is haunting, intense, disturbing, yet poetically beautiful. I couldn't put it down. The publishing reviews do not do it justice. Ignore them. This is beyond "crazed dr. gives girl clitoridectomy", what a poor description for this delicious piece of work. This is a story that begins a mystery, yet goes back in snippets of time to explain the past leading up to the current narrative. It is a novel about a creature loved and despised, the historical European references are entrancing, the blatant shocking sexuality is described with graceful sensuality. The characters are full bodied. The novel continues into Alchemical mysteries, archaic references and spiritual goals that tamper with creation, destruction, and gender as we know it. A beautiful, sensual, disturbing, intense novel. Her mastery of words grants her poetic license I have not had the pleasure to read in a long time.... blissful. I have never been so gently or unexpectedly shocked, and then mentally laid to rest with equal ease. I will buy this book to keep on my shelf and read over. Thank You, Mary Flanagan
Good Start
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 26 years ago
An excellent maiden effort. I was enthralled by how the author held the reins to the story. Her pace, sense of mood and atmosphere is magnificent. But towards the end, it seems difficult to make the present live up to the past. Looking at things from another angle, we might say the author is trying to convey a sense of how the past was just as twisted in its treatment of sexuality as today's society is.
Enthusiastic sadomasochism
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 27 years ago
Skillful narrative, amazing events; hideousness and beauty; attention to sexual (and historical) details, gruesome and original plot. But there's a chilly lack of heart in this novel which all the brains and visual effects in the world can't fix. One of the characters, Blanche, says of her brother, "His eyes revealed more than the usual contempt common to his kind of Englishman (...) pure hatred." Flanagan's meticulous emotionless descriptions almost seem like a form of cruelty.On second thought, is that the point? Puzzling.
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