The Girl at the Lion d'Or

Informationen zum Autor Sebastian Faulks is best known for his trilogy of novels set in France: The Girl at the Lion d’Or, Birdsong , and Charlotte Gray , the latter two of which were bestsellers. After a period in France, he and his family now live in London. Klappentext "Beautifully written and--extraordinarily moving."--The Sunday Times (London) From the author of the international bestseller Birdsong, comes a haunting historical novel of passion, loss, and courage set in France between the two world wars. This Vintage Original edition marks its first appearance in the United States. On a rainy night in the 1930s, Anne Louvet appears at the run-down Hotel du Lion d'Or in the village of Janvilliers. She is seeking a job and a new life, one far removed from the awful injustices of her past. As Anne embarks on a torrential love affair with a married veteran of the Great War, The Girl at the Lion d'Or fashions an unbreakable spell of narrative and atmosphere that evokes French masters from Flaubert to Renoir. "This moving and profound novel is perfectly constructed, and admirable in its configurations of place and period."--The Times (London) "I would urge those who appreciated--The French Lieutenant's Woman to try this one--. They may well think it superior."--Sunday Telegraph (London)In those days the station in Janvilliers had an arched glass roof over the southbound platform as if in imitation of the big domes of St. Lazare. When it rained, the impact of the water set up a nervy rattle as the glass echoed and shook against the fancy restraint of its iron framework. There was a more modest rumble emitted by the covered footbridge, while from the gutters there came an awful martyred gurgling as they sought out broken panes and unmended masonry down which to spit the water that was choking them. The thin sound of the locomotive's wheeze as it braced itself for its final three stops up the coast was thus barely audible to the two people who alighted from the train that damp but not untypical Monday night. One was the driver, who was following the custom of years by climbing down from his cab, hat pulled over his ears, and racing to the side door of the station buffet where his glass of brandy would be waiting for him. There was no time for conversation-just a quick gulp and he was gone, as usual, scuttling back up the platform, hoisting himself aboard with a word to the fireman and a reinvigorated haul on the levers as the engine hissed and the train set off to arrive, as usual, a minute and a half late at its next stop. The other was a slight, dark-haired girl with two heavy suitcases, frowning into the rain and trying not to feel frightened. She stood in the doorway of the ticket hall, hoping someone would have been sent to fetch her. "Be brave, little Anne, be brave," old Louvet, her guardian, would have said to her if he had been sober, or there, or-for all Anne knew-alive. After a time she did see the long bending approach of headlights, but the car circled the fountains in the middle of the square and disappeared in a spray of water. Louvet, who thought himself a philosopher, had a theory that all unhappiness was a version of the same feeling. As Anne felt a tremor of abandonment, gazing over the rainy square, she pictured him explaining to her: "When the good Lord made this world from the infinite number of possibilities open to him and selected-from another limitless pool-the kind of misery that his creatures should be subject to, he selected only one model. The moment of bereavement. Death, desertion, betrayal-all the same thing. The child sent from its parents, the widow, the lover abandoned-they all feel the same emotion which, in its most extreme form, finds expression in a cry." Practice had given an almost religious eloquence to Louvet's blasphemous conclusion: "One cannot, my dear Anne, escape the conviction that the good L...

Product details

• Authors: Sebastian Faulks
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 07.12.1999
• EAN: 9780375704536
• ISBN: 978-0-375-70453-6
• No. of pages: 256
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 205 mm x 15 mm
• Series: Vintage International; Vintage International
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature