Madame Proust and the Kosher Kitchen - Rilegato

Kate-taylor

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0385658346 ISBN 13: 9780385658348

Casa editrice: Doubleday Canada, 2003

Riassunto

In her enchanting and much-anticipated debut novel, Kate Taylor entwines the stories of three women to create a haunting and glorious tale that spans the twentieth century.

In turn-of-the-century Paris, Jeanne Proust, a cultivated Jewish woman married to a Catholic doctor, writes in her diaries of personal and global events. The Dreyfus Affair, tomorrow’s menu, the building of the Panama Canal, and her family’s health are duly noted in the precise retelling of her family’s daily life. But her most constant theme is her son Marcel. Plagued by grandiose social aspirations, unfulfilled literary ambitions, and chronic asthma, Marcel will not settle down to bourgeois life.

Mme. Proust’s diary is increasingly interrupted by its translator, Marie Prévost, who is poring over these documents in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Marie’s obsession with the diaries and their translation is refuge from her own disappointment, an unrequited love for the enigmatic Max.

The final strand of this sophisticated novel tells the story of Sarah Bensimon, a twelve-year-old Parisian refugee sent to Canada to escape the Nazis. As a young adult she returns to Paris to discover that her parents have perished, but closing the door on her past proves difficult and back in Toronto she settles into an uneasy womanhood. Alienated from her doctor husband and teenage son, she seeks refuge in her kitchen, where she recreates a kosher version of classic French cuisine.

Mme. Proust and the Kosher Kitchen is a compassionate novel, extraordinary in its elegance and passion.

Su questo libro

Recensione

“Usually it is a sufficient accomplishment for an author to set a work of fiction in a single place and time and create characters whose voices and actions resonate with authenticity. It is much more of an achievement for an author to set a novel in three different locales and three distinct periods and still have it emerge with genuine characters whose thoughts, words and actions move and inspire ... Language and history, like love itself, lie at the heart of this poignant and multi-textured novel ... [an] intelligent and accomplished work of fiction.” -- Winnipeg Free Press

“Magnificent.... Like Michael Cunningham in his prizewinning The Hours, Taylor adopts a tripartite structure to show how events in a writer’s life and themes in his work have resonance for subsequent generations. Taylor’s is, however, much the richer, subtler and less deterministic work.... truly inspired.” -- The Times (U.K.)

“Take this splendid book to bed with you.... It will be a surprise if Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen doesn’t work its way on to thousands of bedside tables with the same word-of-mouth recommendation that turned Mary Lawson’s Crow Lake into a bestseller.” -- The Globe and Mail

“Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen reads like a dream, meticulously crafted and researched, sophisticated in style and structure.” -- National Post

“Kate Taylor achieves, with seemingly effortless grace, a remarkable feat: the near-perfect balance between being true to history and writing an engaging and fictional tale... In a harmonious weaving of history and fiction, the author recreates the essence of time past, gently enveloping her characters in their context without ever overwhelming them... Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen marks the stunning emergence of a writer from whom we can expect much in the future.” -- Calgary Herald

“The strength of Taylor’s novel is in its evocation of Paris at the turn of the 20th century. The social and family life of the middle-class Prousts feels both accurate and imaginative.” -- The Gazette (Montreal)

“This is a remarkable first novel -- thoughtful, versatile and an extremely good read.” -- Penelope Lively

“...the parallel portraits of old and new worlds are vividly atmospheric. This well-written, melancholy story contains a lot to admire -- not least Marie's conclusion: ‘I have found the cure for heartbreak. It is literature.’” -- Sunday Telegraph (U.K.)

“A work of sensitivity and depth from an author who writes perceptively, with many moments of lyricism.” -- The Vancouver Sun

“Taylor’s meticulously crafted novel is an impressive debut.” -- The Daily Mail (U.K.)

“Taylor has tackled these ideas with tenderness and subtlety; it is an ambitious project by a promising writer.” -- Times Literary Supplement (U.K.)

“Fans of A.S. Byatt will be intrigued by this book.” -- Flare

“Moving dextrously between Paris and Canada, Kate Taylor weaves together these disparate strands with great skill, sympathy and frequently arresting prose. She writes most beguilingly about identity, belonging and exile. But above all, these stories issue sharp warnings about the power and limitations of love, especially the parental variety.” -- The Guardian (U.K.)

“A moving meditation on Parisian and Toronto history.” -- Maclean’s
From the Trade Paperback edition.

L'autore

Kate Taylor is the theatre critic for The Globe and Mail, and winner of two Nathan Cohen Awards for
her reviews. She has also contributed to Canadian Art, Applied Arts and The Arts Today on CBC Radio. In 1989 she published Painters, a biography of Canadian artists written for children. She was born in France, raised in Ottawa, and now lives in Toronto.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Doubleday Canada
• Data di pubblicazione: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0385658346
• ISBN 13: 9780385658348
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 432