Belle du Seigneur is a treatise of human stupidity… Society depicted by Albert Cohen consists exclusively of dunces who find their shelter in sanctimony, hypocrisy, vulgarity and incongruous pretensions… And in this society of fools Albert Cohen draws a classical love triangle…
In the sun-dappled forest, the still forest of age-old fears, he walked through the tangled branches, handsome and no less noble than Aaron his forebear, brother of Moses, walked on with sudden laughter, the maddest of the sons of man; laughing out of blazing youth and love, suddenly uprooting a flower and biting its head off, suddenly dancing a jig, a great lord in high boots, dancing and laughing in the blinding sun among the branches, dancing with grace, with the two unresisting animals at his heels, dancing with love and triumph while his subjects the forest creatures went heedlessly about their business, pretty lizards living their lives beneath the foliate bowers of huge mushrooms, golden flies tracing geometric patterns in the air, spiders rising out of clumps of pink heather to watch the movements of bugs with prehistoric probosces, ants grooming each other and exchanging signals before returning to their solitary tasks, itinerant woodpeckers taking soundings, lonely toads giving nostalgic tongue, shy crickets chirping, screeching owls strangely awakened now.
This is a lucky lover… Poseur and peacock… He has nothing to show except his lustrous tail… He loves nobody but himself. Vanity reigns in his world.
…well my ideal would be to have a large estate where I could keep all sorts of animals, starting with a baby lion with great big paws, paws fluffy-luffy-duffy balls of wool I’d touch them all the time and when he got big he’d never harm me, the secret is to love them, and then I’d have an elephant, a lovely old grandfather jumbo, if I had an elephant I wouldn’t mind having to do the shopping I’d even go and buy vegetables in the market he would carry me on his back and pass me up the vegetables with his trunk and I’d put money in his trunk so he could pay the lady, and I’d also have beavers on my estate I’d have a river put in just for them and they could build their house in peace…
This is a wondrous mistress… Silly and childish dreamer… She lives outside reality… She’s in love with her reflection in the mirror… Vanity rules her word.
Oh yes, from now on a high-profile social life! New Year cards to all his acquaintances! But not to anybody below member of section! Expensive cards for As and above! And with a short handwritten greeting! It was money in the bank! Contacts, for God’s sake! A man was only as good as his contacts! No: a man was the sum of his contacts! Top priority: rent a villa with cook and valet-cum-butler! Every day, quality guests for lunch and dinner, that was the secret of success! The butler buttling in white gloves! Big spending on these things was money in the bank! Very haute cuisine – more money in the bank!
This is a miserable cuckold… Sluggard and featherbrain… He dreams of an easy career and earthly power… He is a hopeless Narcissus… Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
At last lovers meet and they are in the realm of bliss…
Sacred, obtuse litany, wondrous canticle, joy of poor human kind doomed to die, love’s sempiternal two-voiced unison, the eternal love-duet which makes the earth to multiply. She told him over and over that she loved him. She asked him, for she knew the miraculous answer, asked him if he loved her. He told her over and over that he loved her. He asked her, for he knew the miraculous answer, asked her if she loved him. Love’s first burgeoning, so tedious to others, so engrossing to those concerned.
They have nothing in common… They have no purpose… The only link between them is physiology… Their love turns into farce and it is doomed.
Empty vessels don’t care about emptiness, they are proud to make the most noise.a-hundred-of-the-best-novels229 s MannyAuthor 34 books14.8k

This is a great novel about romantic love; alternately, one could say that it's about what it's to be a sex and love addict, since it doesn't portray romantic love very positively. The three main characters are Ariane, her husband Didi, and Solal, who later becomes Ariane's lover. The first third is mostly about the young married couple. Didi is one of the great idiots of literature, and everything he does sets Ariane's teeth on edge. She wishes every minute of the day that she hadn't married him; she screwed up badly when she was 20, he rescued her, and she accepted him out of gratitude, and because she didn't have any alternatives. It doesn't make her him any better.

The book is often described in the francophone world as phallocrate (you guessed that right), but in the first part it's almost the opposite; a lot is presented from Ariane's point of view, including a memorable stream-of-consciousness passage when she's in her bath, thinking mostly about how unbelievably disgusting and stupid it is to have sex with her husband. You are a little startled that this was written by a man. Didi is oblivious to the fact that she can't stand him, and it's clear that this state of affairs won't continue indefinitely.

Solal is Didi's exact opposite: smart, powerful, and irresistibly attractive to women. He's a big wheel at the League of Nations, and Didi's boss. He's fallen for Ariane, who is a babe. Solal has a tendency to fall for unsuitable babes; he knows already that there's going to be trouble, and that he's going to wish he hadn't done it. Being a Don Juan type, he's been round the cycle numerous times, and feels disgusted with the predictability of everyone involved, including himself. At the same time, the author conveys well his delight in Ariane's presence; love transforms his world, and makes him come alive.

To me, Didi and Solal are idealized, complementary halves; I'm guessing the author combined aspects of both of them, though from what I can make out he was most Solal. It's an interesting way to present what he sees as the artificiality of romance, a theme that becomes increasingly important later. Sometimes you find yourself playing the role of the moronic, despised, soon-to-be-cuckolded Didi; sometimes, you're cast as his dashing rival. Both are just roles, and even though Solal gets the better one he often finds it stifling. I perhaps make this sound depressing stuff. In fact, the first part of the book is very light and funny. There is foreshadowing, but mostly you're just laughing at all the stupid things Didi does and says.

About a third of the way through, Ariane finally meets Solal. (Though in fact, she's already met him, since I didn't mention the book's very first scene; you'll have to read it to find out what that's about). He tells her that she will be his within three hours, and then spends most of it explaining all the tricks he is going to use to seduce her. I am not enough of a Don Juan myself to be able to say whether they are the most effective ones, but, based on my limited experience, they sound correct. At any rate, they work on Ariane, and we now embark on the second phase of the book, where the focus contracts to include only the two lovers; Solal has sent off Didi on a long work-related trip, so that he will have the field to himself.

What's interesting about this part is the extremely cynical view of romantic love which it presents. Everything depends on appearances; Solal and his Belle take endless pains to present themselves to each other in as favorable a light as possible, agonizing over the tiniest details, and alternating between bottomless despair when they feel that they have made a gaffe, and unbounded happiness when the loved one appreciates the latest little strategem. It is constantly made clear that the whole thing is an illusion, which both parties are working nonstop to maintain. It's made equally clear how wonderful this illusion is for both of them, and how necessary all the contrivances are to keep it alive, given the basic rules of the game. Though, of course, the author is also saying that there is something badly wrong with the game itself, if it has to be played in such an absurd way; sometimes he says it very explicitly.

Writing this down, I'm reminded of a favorite scene from the 1983 movie Terms of Endearment. Jack Nicholson is an aging former astronaut, who spends most of his time drinking and trying to lay as many young women as possible. Shirley MacClaine, his next-door neighbor, has been watching his goings-on for years, with evident disapproval. She's finally consented to enter his house. It's covered with medals, photographs taken from space, what have you; every square centimeter screams "Have sex with me, I'm a famous astronaut". She looks around cooly, and says

"Is all of this really necessary?"

Nicholson, completely unembarrassed, replies,

"Necessary?? Sometimes it's not enough!"

I won't describe the last part of the book, but it follows logically from what has gone before, and is unly to leave you smiling idiotically about the beauties of love. So handle with care, but it's a great piece of work, and will almost certainly make you think.

____________________________________________

I picked this up again a couple of days ago and continued re-reading it... now about two thirds of the way through. He's so good at showing you how stupid and crazy and selfish love can make you. But also how beautiful and generous and god. Often at the same time.

And I'd forgotten how incredibly sexy the stream-of-consciousness bits are. Here's Ariane in her bath, waiting impatiently for her lover to arrive after a long absence:... penché sur mon buste enfin quoi sur un de mes snies s'il faut tout vous dire oui snies parfaitment je dis les mots à l'envers quand ça me gêne de les dire à l'endroit moi donc passive reine recevant l'hommage qui fait tant de bien le suppliant que longtemps longtemps à droite puis à gauche puis à droite et moi reconnaissante râlant ronronnant avec distinction bref remerciements inarticulés et un peu le caressant mon chéri dans ses cheveux sublimes en désordre pour qu'il sache que j'approuve et apprécie fort et pour l'amour du ciel qu'il veuille bien continuer oh comme je suis rudimentaire et puis tout à coup je lui dis que je ne peux plus et qu'il me faut le sacre moi noble victime sur l'autel étendue oui son jardin étroit qu'il y entre qu'il y reste je le retiens je l'aspire oh reste toujours mon bien-aimé reste dans ta religieuse oh quand il en moi oui pas de honte de le dire parce que très beau très noble oui oui quand il en moi c'est l'éternité oh quand il quand il se libère en moi se libère à pulsations que je sens en moi alors je le regarde et c'est l'éternité et j'accepte de mourir un jour un soir d'automne peut-être de cancer j'accepte puisque quand il exulte en moi je vis éternelle oh je jouis plus de la joie que je lui donne que de celle que je lui prends ô mon amour dis que tu es bien en moi oh reste reste assez ne plus continuer défense de continuer parce que ça devient véritablement odieux mon amour mais vous comprenez insupportable surtout dans l'eau qui est complice terrible oh aimé venez être bien en moi s'il vous plaît...
____________________________________________

The ending is very painful and very beautiful. I was particularly moved by this passage:Ô les débuts, leur temps de Genève, les préparatifs, son bonheur d'être belle pour lui, les attentes, les arrivées à neuf heures, et elle était toujours sur le seuil à l'attendre, impatiente et en santé de jeunesse, à l'attendre sur le seuil et sous les roses, dans la robe roumaine qu'il aimait, blanche aux larges manches serrées aux poignets, ô l'enthusiasme de le revoir, les soirées, les heures à se regarder, à se parler, à se raconter à l'autre, tant de baisers reçus et donnés, oui, les seuls vrais de sa vie, et après l'avoir quittée tard dans la nuit, quittée avec tant de baisers, baisers profonds, baisers interminables, il revenait parfois, une heure plus tard ou des minutes plus tard, ô splendeur de le revoir, ô fervent retour, je ne peux pas sans toi, il lui disait, je ne peux pas, et d'amour il pliait genou devant elle qui d'amour pliait genou devant lui, et c'était des baisers, elle et lui religieux, des baisers encore et encore, baisers véritables, baisers d'amour, grands baisers battant l'aile, je ne peux pas sans toi, il lui disait entre des baisers, et il restait, le merveilleux qui ne pouvait pas, ne pouvait pas sans elle, restait des heures jusqu'à l'aurore et aux chants des oiseaux, et c'était l'amour. Et maintenant ils ne se désiraient plus, ils s'ennuyaient ensemble, elle le savait bien.french older-men-younger-women strongly-recommended ...more112 s Lea123 627

This has to be one of the best books I've ever read. It's genius. I love writing style where each character has his own distinctive voice, and I adore stream of consciousness bits where we go deep into thoughts of each character in an exploration of their point of view. The psychological characterization is sharp and profound and I would say that the quality of analysis is Dostoyevski level. The story really debunks the typical romantic fantasy of finding life's meaning in passionate love and shows ambivalence in lovers attitude and sort of cynicism that intelligent people have towards amorous relationships, having the knowledge of hollowness of their pursuit of happiness in obsessive love but still being too hot-blooded not to dive deep into their erotic desires. The main characters are narcissistic, self-absorbed, raw, beautiful, intelligent, creative, special, religious, idealistic, sarcastic, contradictory - shallow and deep at the same time, full of unfulfilled potential and painfully conscious of their state without the ability to change it. Their characterization really shows the complexity of balancing emotions, reason and moral values that all humans have to do and the tragic consequences in which wrong decisions lead. In Dante's Inferno lovers, guilty of the sin of carnal lust, are eternally whirled by the winds as they were helpless in life in the temptation of passion, forever in that same scenario, without any progress, purpose, goal and evolution, and this novel is a painting of that hell while being alive. Destruction of obsessive passion is spiritual, psychological and physical. And the brilliant underlying humor in the novel helped transcend the sadness that ending invokes. Truly a masterpiece and I don't understand how it's not more well-known, it's a big book but every second of reading was worth it.classic favourites fiction ...more65 s Oziel Bispo537 77

Meados de 1930 Suíça. Ariane uma mulher da alta classe, casada com Adrien é seduzido por Solal, um Judeu rico,com um posto importante: chefe da Liga das Nações, importante instituição da época. Solal era também chefe de Adrien e para se ver livre dele o mandou em uma missão para um país longínquo, igual fez o Rei Davi mandando Urias para o campo de batalha para ficar com sua esposa Bate-Seba.No começo Ariane e Solal viveram um intenso amor, morando em vários hotéis (me lembra Lolita) e por fim adquirindo uma mansão. Entretanto com o tempo começou o desgaste,tudo o que tinha para se falar foi falado entre eles, tudo o que poderia se fazer foi feito, toda forma de sedução.Por mais que as coisas agradem, quando são demais aborrecem. Eles estavam condenados ao amor, ao isolamento à solidão e a um passo de várias tragédias.Apesar de em certos momentos o livro ser tedioso é uma obra-prima da literatura Francesa, um livro que demorei vários meses para ler, mas que valeu muito à pena.37 s William2783 3,312

Thirty years in the writing. Published by Gallimard in 1968; English translation by Viking in 1995.20-ce belgium fiction ...more36 s Katia N611 823

How weary! how dreary! with no friend to ease the heart’s pain
In moments of sorrow of soul!
Fond desires!  But what use the desire that is ever in vain?
And o’er us the best years roll.

To love.  But the loved one?  ‘Tis nothing to love for a space;
And for ever Love cannot remain.
Dost thou glance at thyself?  Of the “has been” remains not a trace,
And all gladness and sorrow are vain.

The passions?  Ah! sooner or later, their malady sweet
Will vanish at reason’s behest;
And life—when the circle of cold contemplation’s complete—
Is a stupid and frivolous jest.
M. Lermontov

?What a monumental, sprawling and alive animal of a novel it is! On the one level, everything in this book is built on negation. Negation of climax: in many episodes, the suspense is being built, the scene is being carefully crafted but then something you expected is not happening, total anticlimax. Negation of Proust: the book is almost as big as the famous Proust’s masterpiece. It seems, Proust haunts the author both in literary and personal sense. The most interesting chunks of this novel is written as a stream of consciousness. But it cannot be more different from Proust. Instead of having one narrator strongly associated with the author, Cohen inhabits a dozen of his characters. In the process, he is creating a very memorable, distinctive cast, each of them with their unique voice.

And the most devastating negation is that of romance. The poem by Lermontov I’ve started with quintessentially summarises the doomed love story at the core of this novel. A beautiful but married heroine Ariane, the heir of disappearing nobel Genevan protestant family, is falling for a sparkling alpha-male Jew, Solal. She is blinded by passion. He is cynical, knows everything in advance, but cannot resist. In the novel, she is compared to Anna Karenina. But we made to believe that she is too submissive and too naive to be Anna. If he is a Don Juan, he is the failed one. He seems to struggle whether he is really alpha-male or he is just convincing himself to pretend for her love to last. In any case he in confused, tired and insecure. And they both persistently and painfully perform an act in front of each other. In this respect, the novel is more 19th than the 20th century one.?

“Passion, alias, love, was a complete and utter shambles too. If unaccompanied by jealousy, it meant boredom. If attended by jealousy, then it was sheer, animal hell. She was a slave and he was a brute. Novelists were a disgrace: a gang of liars who dressed up passion and made brainless males and females chase after it. Novelists were disgrace: they were the suppliers and flatters of the owning class.”

In spite of this, the book contains a few chapters of the most beautiful odes to love, youth and melancholy in I’ve read:

“I stand alone upon ice floe, says he who once was young, broken-bodied and already dying on the ice floe which carries me oh I know whither through the night, I hold up my feeble hand and bless the young who on this night grow drunk on words of love beneath the infinite, hushed music of the spheres. Alone I stand upon my ice floe, and yet the rustle of spring is still in my ears. I am alone and old upon an ice floe, and night has fallen. So says one who once was young.”

But the romance does not start until you are well into the book. The first third is a brilliant and merciless satire on the society with its ridiculous norms and aspirations. Cohen leaves us in the company of unforgettable, set of characters - the Deums, the family of Adriane’s husband. His adopted parents, petty bourgeoisie, are almost poignant in their feeble attempts to enter the noble society. Deum the young is trying to climb the ladder in the League of Nations. Those scenes made me properly laugh. There is also a bunch of wandering Jews, the relatives of Solal, eccentric and unique in there life-loving. They brighten the pages.

So, i said it is the 19th century novel. But it is not the 19th century novel. All those negations are just the surface layer. The book cuts much deeper than this. It goes all the way into the underbelly of the 20th century. Or maybe, even deeper than that back into many centuries, something primordial and sinister. The year of the story is 1936. It is Europe. Solal is a Jew. But he is French as well, he is cosmopolitan and he represents the power in the society. That is until the ground starts to crumble under his feet. That is until he is made to choose. He is made to perform this artificial and cruel choice by picking up one part of his self and discarding with the other. And he has to act in a way that is only honourable one left. But as a result, he is trapped and his mind unraveling. He ends up as an outcast from the society he was shining in. He is also trapped within the role he made for himself in relationship with Ariane. And then, how wide is the gap between being a victim and the cruelty equating to being a murderer? Not very wide it appears.

When talking about this novel, the Chapter 35 is often mentioned where Solal seduces Ariane by lecturing her on different seduction techniques and the animal spirit of human nature. I did not that chapter and found it quite superficial and dated. For me the most important is chapter 93 and everything that follows with the speed of a train no-one can stop. Farewell to the anticlimax. It is when Solal is trying for the last time to change something in his situation, trying to find hope in vain. On the streets of Paris surrounded by walls covered with anti-Semitic trash:

“Standing motionless with his back to the wall, he moves his lips. “Christians, I thirst for your love. Christians, let me love you. Christians, fellow creatures doomed to die, companions on the earth, children of Christ whose blood I share, let us love one another,” he murmurs, and he stares at those who past by and love him not, and furtively he holds out a begging hand, and knows that he is acting foolishly, that nothing will do any good.”

I’ve seen comparison of Ariane and Solal to Francesca and Paolo from Dante’s Inferno. I think the comparison to Zweig and his wife is more poignant, even if it misses on the forbidden romance and jealousy.

The novels dwells on the issue which has resurfaced acutely in our time - the question of belonging, the question of identity. When the rising bigotry and intolerance in our societies, makes us face impossible choices of discarding with a part of ourselves to conform, what is our collective future? Why do we need us and them, be it the Jews, the Muslims, refugees, immigrants, the other. This is the novel not so much about the doomed romantic love, but about the eternal struggle between the animalistic and the divine within the human nature. It deserves to be widely read. It is an outstanding work of literature.

Ps
That is the one of those cases I wish I could read in French. I suspect this novel is very difficult to translate as it contains so many different voices, colloquial and poetic language. And I am not overblown by the English translation. I think it has lost the music, though I could see it was a big effort. I alternated between the English and the Russian translations, so it took me even longer than usual to read this thousand pages. I am sure I’ve missed a lot but I do not have regrets. Kudos to French speakers.32 s Leonard GayaAuthor 1 book1,020

On raconte qu'un rosier et une vigne entremêlés poussent sur les tombes de Tristan et Iseult. Belle du seigneur est probablement l'une des fleurs de cette double plante. L'impression que je garde de ce gros volume, lu il y a quelques années, est celle de deux récits successifs : le premier, satirique, celui d'une femme dépressive, mariée à un fonctionnaire ridicule et arriviste ; le deuxième, dramatique, celui de cette même femme, poursuivant un amour impossible et fatal avec un homme séduisant dont le destin est menacé. Je retiens en particulier les situations et expression comiques de la première partie et les longueurs intolérables de la seconde. Le clou reste le discours central de Solal sur les babouineries humaines, auxquelles n'échappent ni l'écriture multicolore de Cohen, ni le lecteur qui s'efforce d'arriver au bout de son roman.favorites27 s Guillermo Jiménez464 315

Fue en la presentación de No voy a pedirle a nadie que me crea, de Juan Pablo Villalobos, en el Centro Cultural Bella Época, en donde Juan Pablo mencionó varias obras y autores que de alguna manera influyeron en su escritura de la novela con la que ganó el Premio Herralde, una de ellas fue Los Esforzados, de Albert Cohen.

Nada más salir de su plática, me abalancé a los estantes de la Librería Rosario Castellanos con la esperanza de encontrar esa novela o algo de su autor, que me era totalmente desconocido. Como era de esperarse: no tenían nada.

Semanas después, descubrí que Anagrama había reeditado otra novela de ese autor, Bella del Señor, y para esas fechas, ya había leído algo sobre él, y con asombro descubrí que Bella del Señor estaba considerada como una “gran novela francesa”, y su autor, comparado con un Shakespeare, un Proust, un Céline, un Musil y un Chaplin, por repetir los nombres en la contraportada de este librote.

Tardé meses en sentarme a leer este novelón, pero, cuando comencé, no pude parar. Para comenzar, es exigente desde el inicio con el lector, y tardé un poco en agarrarle el ritmo a su humor, a su estilo, y de sobreentender que era una traducción del francés, versión que ha de ser un deleite comparable a un Huckleberry Finn o un The Sound and the Fury. Imagino.

Bella del Señor es la hipérbole de las novelas románticas, lleva al exceso la idea de la pasión amorosa, de los amantes al límite del amorío, de la idea más extrema y absurda del amor; todo esto en una Ginebra de mediados y finales de los años 30; una Europa en donde el antisemitismo --entre otras cosas-- permitió la escalada al poder del nacionalsocialismo, aunque esto solo es un trasfondo muy, muy lejano en la trama, pero no por ello deja de tener un peso significativo en la trama, puesto que Solal, el protagonista y antihéroe de antihéroes donde los haya, es judío.

El amor pulverizado, el amor machacado beso a beso, caricia a caricia, palabra a palabra. Lo irracional e incoherente de los sentimientos humanos, el actuar descabellado de un par de seres que se han entregado a su enajenación, creando una burbuja de un material tan transparente, pero, al mismo tiempo tan endeble, que pareciera que en cualquier momento va a hacerse pedazos dejándolos expuestos al escarnio, a la burla, al ridículo y la deshonra de una sociedad esnob, una sociedad construida sobre apariencias y palabras vanas y carentes de valor, pero no exentas de significado.

El humor que se encuentra casi en cada página de esta novelota, es un humor lacerante, que hiere, que entierra sus uñas y da risa al mismo tiempo que lastima. Soltamos la carcajada con las visiones ficticias que se crean algunos personajes que desean seguir sumergidos en sus ensoñaciones, que se niegan a aceptar la realidad aplastante de un mundo que los rebasa.

Bella del Señor, es una terrible y triste historia de amor, un fresco de un periodo negro de la historia occidental, un preámbulo al periodo negro, una anticipación al asombro tétrico que llevaría a decir a Adorno “escribir poesía después de Auschwitz es un acto de barbarie”, eso es, barbarie, el amor y los sentimientos de los futuros cadáveres que somos.

El desaliento y el pesimismo no son tanto una visión desencantada del mundo, sino más bien, una exploración similar a la que realiza un entomólogo frente a un insecto que cree conocer, pero al cual se acerca con una nueva capacidad de asombro, como si entendiera de antemano que ese frágil cuerpo conocido aún es capaz de decirle algo más, de averiguar algo más de la vida que lo rodea.

Eso lo escribo porque leí que Cohen comenzó la escritura de esta novela en los años previos a los que está ubicada la acción, y que tuvo que interrumpirla cuando estalló la guerra, es decir, no soltó el dedo del renglón; y cuando por fin pudo publicarla a finales de los años 60, él consideraba que era necesaria, que aún estaba vigente, y no se equivocó.

El mundo diplomático, la aparente inutilidad de la Sociedad de las Naciones que viene a ser un precedente para las Naciones Unidas, esa idea de universalidad y convivencia de la diversidad de las naciones, que parece que ignora que dentro de cada país hay un riquísimo universo multicultural que cambia y evoluciona y que es plástico y flexible y no rígido y consistente. Nuevamente la idea anquilosada de que cultura es algo que podemos comprender y estudiar como un objeto fijo, ¡pero si ni las esculturas o columnas griegas permanecen inmutables al paso del tiempo!

El amor como degradación del yo, como aniquilación de la identidad del ser enamorado que se sublima al acto del poder del amado, a la voz del amado, a las miradas y pensamientos inventados de quien ostenta nuestros sentimientos como un bien suyo. El autoalienamiento, pues carecemos de valor propio ante aquellos que deseamos que nos deseen, que nos amen y admiren, aunque tengamos que construir un mundo teatro alrededor de ese enamoramiento, de ese ideal insensato.

Luego, logré encontrar Los Esforzados, una primera edición en Panorama de narrativas de Anagrama que se empolvaba en los estantes del Péndulo de Álvaro Obregón, casi brinco de alegría y emoción. Luego leí que Gallimard decidió retirar algunas partes “burlescas” de esta novela, y que estas terminaron siendo Los Esforzados que ahora leo, y que agradezco que el editor francés haya sacado de esta novela extrema y arriesgada y sublime y soberbia.19 s Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly755 366

You're a married guy. You have more than one college degree. You read voraciously--books, serious magazine articles, newspapers. You are one of the highly respected people in your profession. Whenever you speak your mind, your colleagues listen.


You have a wife. She barely got passed college. She watches TV every time that her favorite soap operas are on. She doesn't read books, or any of the serious stuffs you read, although she browses over fashion magazines every now and then.

normal couple you argue. Sometimes in a friendly manner, over breakfast; sometimes in a fight. And behold, after each and every such argument you--the supposed intellectual superior--lay flattened on the kitchen floor, defeated. Now satirize that. You'll never come up with one as good as that by Albert Cohen's in this novel. Here is the beautiful Ariane in an argument with her husband Didi Deume--

"x x x Blithely pursuing her theme, she (Ariane) next dealt with various aspects of her martyr's life. After recalling his (Didi's) crimes against femininity, which she had already brought up in previous scenes, she then moved on, with the requisite wealth of dates and places, to enumerate, for the benefit of the poor bewildered male, other misdemeanours which he now learned he had committed during the course of their marriage. Indefatigable, nothing a limp rag but firing all pistons, she strode up and down in her red polka-dot jacket which left her thighs bare, paced feverishly, her words warmed by a sacred flame and strengthened too by the exultation of victory, while her spouse, stunned and left reeling by the power of her avenging eloquence, could only stand by and watch open-mouthed as his unsuspecting sins were clearly marshalled and paraded before him.

"They constituted a heavy indictment. the best orators, she was sincere, for she believed every word she said. Stirred by a noble indignation, she was utterly convinced of the rightness of her cause. It was her greatest strength, and, admirably sustained by a mixture of aggression and sarcasm, it enabled her to crush her much less skilful opponent. But she was also clever. As skilfully as the ablest of prosecuting counsels, she set out her case in blacks and whites which strengthened it immeasurably, eliminating anything which might count against her and imparting the required twists, warps and amplifications to the words and actions of her guilty husband. And all her unfairness was spoken in good faith, for she was honest.

"He listened in a daze to her tireless outpouring and he knew that she accused him unjustly, with only a semblance of right, as always. But he also knew that he would never convince her she was wrong, that he had neither the talent nor the stamina for it, that he was far too wretched to be able to defend himself properly. All he could do was to repeat--because it was the truth--that she was being mean and unfair, to which she would respond endlessly and always victoriously.

"No, he simply wasn't up to it. Her fire-power was the greater. He laid down his arms and left her without saying a word...

"It was true. The poor man was just not up to it. Throughout the whole of that terrible month...each time he'd tried to stand up to his wife, each time he had put a cast-iron case to prove that she was in the wrong, she had not budged an inch. She always got the better of him in any argument, because she interrupted and talked him down so that he was left, a speechless bystander, to watch helpless and hopeless as the various charges in the indictment were wheeled out before him; or else because she steamrollered him with unsubstantiated but extremely telling thrusts, such as describing his plain, honest arguments as 'a tissue of clever fibs and quibbles'; or because she sidetracked him and mixed him up; or else because she deliberately ignored everything he said and simply went on piling up grievances which, because they were incomprehensible, were also irrefutable.

"The best he could manage, if he ever succeeded in making her listen to his side of things and got her on the wrong foot, was to see her wriggle out of reach by seeking refuge in the tears and sufferings of the helpless, ill-used wife, or by refusing to answer and looking stony-faced if he begged her to admit her faults, or by resorting to the 'I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about' tactic, a ploy she was capable of repeating indefinitely if he restated his thesis and began once more to explain, as conscientiously and as clearly as he could, exactly in what ways she was to blame. (This was a bee in the poor man's bonnet: he believed in the clarifying power of explanations. It would have been far better for him if he'd never become a husband, for that was his only sin.) Whenever he attempted this, she would let him prattle on without trying to interrupt, but then, when he had finished and was looking at her with hope in his eyes, convinced that this time he'd explained things clearly and made her see them from his point of view, she would simply stand her ground and again scream that she didn't know what he was talking about, couldn't for the life of her see what he was driving at!

"And woe betide him if he let himself be goaded by such patent but triumphant pretences, woe betide him if he were to bear down on her with fists clenched, woe betide him! For then she called him a brute, a wife-beating coward, screamed with terror, with genuine terror too, which was quite diabolical of her, and shouted for help and roused the neighbours. One night, shortly before the Deumes had got back, just because he had told her to stop shouting and had raised his arm, though he had absolutely no intention of hitting her, she had ripped off her pyjama top and run out into the garden, stark naked with rage. The following night, because he had gone so far as to raise hs voice a little and tell her she was mean to him, she had paid him back by shrieking that he was a monster, a tyrant, a torturer, by tearing off a piece of the wallpaper, then by going downstairs and locking herself in the kitchen, where she had stayed put until four in the morning while he trembled with fear at the thought that she might put her head in the gas-oven.

"And that was not all, for she had other weapons in her armoury which the poor devil knew only too well: reprisals for the morning after. These included headaches, sit-down strikes in her room, swollen eyes offered as evidence of tears shed in solitude, a whole battery of ailments, stubborn sulks, an embattled loss of appetite, fatigue, forgetfulness, dejected airs--the complete, fearsome panoply of the helpless but quite invincible female."


Or have you experienced this: tagging along with your boss to a party only to find out, when you got there, that it is a party for big bosses who didn't bring their lowly underlings you and therefore you are there, all alone, the only one of your kind, and there's no one to talk to (except, perhaps, the waiters who of course wouldn't oblige)? What does one do in such a situation? Cohen's caustic humor in a similar situation had me in stitches--

"No guest talked to Finkelstein, a social nothing who was not only no use to man or beast but, more damningly, could not harm a fly. He was not dangerous, ergo he was not interesting, not the sort who called for careful handling, not someone you need or pretend to . Even the four pariahs by their window kept their distance from his degrading, low-caste presence. Ignored by all and having no other Jews to talk to, the wretched leper decided that acting a man in a hurry would enable him to show a bold front, and his involvement in the reception consisted of elbowing his way firmly through the chattering mob at regular intervals. Head lowered, as though dragged down by the weight of his nose, he would charge across the immense room from one end to the other, occasionally crashing into other guests, saying sorry, though his apologies fell on deaf ears. Launched on his series of lightning, slanting runs, he camouflaged his isolation by giving the impression that it was desperately urgent that he get to someone he knew who was waiting over there, at the far end of the room. It was a gambit which deceived no one. When Benedetti came across him and could not pretend he had not noticed, he kept him at arm's length with a merry, preventive 'All right?' and immediately left him to his unremitting ambulations. Whereupon the doctor of social sciences and supercharged Wandering Jew set off once more, retraced one of his pointless journeys through this land of exile, and with the same haste headed for the buffet and a comforting sandwich, which was his only social contact and the sole right he enjoyed at the reception. For two hours, between six and eight, poor Finkelstein subjected himself to forced marches of several kilometers, which he would not mention to his wife when he got home. He loved his Rachel and kept his griefs to himself. Why these unremitting charges? And why stay so long among these unfeeling people? Because he clung to his annual invitation, because he would not admit defeat, and also because he went in hopes of a miracle: a conversation with another human being. Poor, inoffensive Finkelstein, who wore your heart on your sleeve, a Jew dear to my heart, I hope you are in Israel now, among your people, among our brethren, and touchable at last."

You don't read this novel because of its plot. It could have had an entirely different setting or story, yet it would just have perhaps meant having different targets for the author. In any case, because this novel is set in Geneva, Switzerland in the 1930's; because one of the male principal protagonists, Solal, is a handsome playboy who is an Under-Secretary-General of the League of Nations; because the other male character, Didi, is Solal's lazy subordinate whose idea of career advancement is to get his boss to his house for dinner or get a pat on the back from him; because Didi is married to the beautiful airhead, Ariane, who falls in love with Solal; and because this novel took almost 30 long years to write, by the time you finish, regretfully, reading this great novel of 106 chapters you'd feel that you've been exposed to an all-encompassing view of the world of wit, Albert Cohen having been able to satirize and/or expose the hypocrisy of married life, love, relationships, career concerns, high society, sex, the social classes, the death of passion and the limits of lust with such prowess that he left me in awe. Insightful, because Cohen understood the frailty of men and women; biting, because he was simply wicked; and wildly humorous, because he was intelligent.19 s Jorge264 364

Uno de esos tesoros que las arenas del tiempo han ido ocultando y con los que uno tropieza sólo por casualidad. Albert Cohen (1895-1981) fue un escritor nacido en Grecia (Isla de Corfú), de nacionalidad Suiza, de familia judía y de lengua francesa. Como tantos otros, este escritor y su obra han caído gradualmente en el olvido, pero me parece que tiene tantos méritos como todos aquellos que han podido sobrevivir al olvido y que han sido inmortalizados por posteriores generaciones.
¿Cuáles serán los elementos que hacen que sólo algunos escritores estén presentes en la memoria colectiva de la literatura, que sus libros se sigan buscando como referencia, que sus textos aún sean motivo de estudio, en fin, que permanezcan vivos?

Albert Cohen es un gigante de las letras y esta novela en particular en una obra descomunal, empezando por su extensión. Descomunal por su profundidad sicológica, por la introspección del ser humano, por el análisis del banal comportamiento humano en sociedad, por la diversidad de su prosa, por su imaginación, creatividad, sarcasmo e hilaridad.

Aunque muchos consideran ésta como una novela de amor, también creo que es una crítica severa e irónica a la sociedad y a la burocracia diplomática en la que el propio Cohen trabajó en Ginebra. Es importante destacar que esta obra se escribió en su mayoría a mediados de los años 30 del siglo XX, pero por diversas causas se concluyó 30 años después y publicada en 1968, teniendo un gran éxito y siendo acreedora al Gran Premio de la Novela de la Academia Francesa.

Además de la acerba crítica a la sociedad, la obra también sirve como una censura a la ineficacia de los Organismos Internacionales creados para fomentar la paz y la concordia entre las naciones y que sólo se erigen como feudos de poder y de privilegios para quienes forman parte de ellos, fracasando mayormente en sus labores ante la fuerza de los nacionalismos y ante el antisemitismo que emerge y crece con fuerza desmedida en esos años 30 del siglo XX, de lo cual nos da cuenta el autor en esta misma obra.

El libro comienza detallando los juegos de poder, las pueriles aspiraciones sociales y las fatuas jugarretas a las que se recurre para mostrarse ante los ojos de todos como una persona privilegiada e importante. Una gran parte de las personas sólo buscan relaciones sociales por interés, relaciones que las beneficien para escalar en la sociedad y para poder pertenecer a un estrato privilegiado.
En este sentido, el autor aborda con profundidad y un gran sentido del humor los artificios del comportamiento humano, siempre motivado por el deseo de quedar bien con la gente de la que se puede obtener un beneficio; siempre actuando con el deseo de impresionar para que todos se enteren que es una persona valiosa e importante. ¿Importante para qué o para quién?

Albert Cohen tiene los suficientes recursos para mostrar prolija y claramente ese espurio entramado psicológico que se desarrolla internamente y que se exterioriza hasta el paroxismo como una herramienta para ascender en la escala social y laboral.

Los caracteres que crea son una especie de radiografías del hombre burgués del siglo XX, con aspiraciones sociales y económicas siempre ilusorias, todo contado con un filón de humor muy fino. En la primera parte del libro destaca la personalidad de Adrien Deume, el lamentable Didi, un hombre interesado, falso, servil, apocado, con aires de grandeza, siempre pensando en cómo beneficiarse de las relaciones personales. Su padre, su madre y su esposa, Ariane Cassandre Corisande d’ Auble, viven bajo el mismo techo y muestran todas las implicaciones que supone el desfase entre su realidad y sus deseos de ascenso social. La madre de Adrien es un personaje inolvidable ya que frente al marido pusilánime, ella carga con el peso familiar y trata de mover los hilos sociales para no perder su posición o incluso para lograr un ascenso. Estos capítulos son realmente divertidos con un gran contenido de hilarante mordacidad lo que nos estimula a leerlos con avidez.

Durante la primera tercera parte del libro el personaje principal llamado Solal, un alto funcionario de la Sociedad de Naciones y la antítesis de Adrien, permanece entre las sombras y lo conocemos sólo de referencias y de dos o tres escuetos diálogos. Posteriormente se desarrolla un abrasador romance entre Solal y Ariane, esposa de Adrien Deume, que rompe con los esquemas románticos convencionales. Esta relación de amor se convierte en una parodia del romanticismo ya que es llevada a extremos de cursilería y de monotonía, apareciendo el ridículo y la miseria humana, pero también algunos momentos que rozan lo sublime. La extraña relación entre Solal y Ariane es también una invectiva al amor, llegando irremediablemente a la asfixia y al aislamiento de la sociedad.

De ser un poderoso funcionario de la Sociedad de Naciones, Solal, judío de nacimiento como el autor, cae en la desgracia, en el aislamiento, se vuelve un apestado; tal vez el autor hace un símil con el linaje judío ya que también esta cuestión la aborda con algún detalle, mostrando a este pueblo a través de la historia como un pueblo desarraigado, perseguido, aislado de alguna manera y que no se siente cómodo en ninguna parte del planeta.

La narrativa es un agente provocador que dramatiza las relaciones hombre-mujer, ya que da cuenta de los titánicos esfuerzos de las parejas por mantener las apariencias entre ellos mismos, lo que contribuye a desgastar la relación y a un no conocimiento real del otro, resultando en auténticas mascaradas; detalla los complejos ritos y obligaciones que se imponen mutuamente y pone de manifiesto la falta de evolución en estas relaciones que siguen atadas a la tradición más rancia y ancestral que las convierten en algunos casos en pesos muertos con los que hay que cargar, perdiendo la individualidad.

La relación de Solal y Ariane cae en lo abyecto y en lo denigrante; en esas horas bajas Solal siempre se remite a la primera noche con su amada, momentos que nunca más se repetirían a la luz del desarrollo de la relación. Por su parte Ariane siempre recuerda su niñez al lado de su hermana como los únicos momentos felices de su vida. Momentos que nunca regresan y que uno siempre los ve a la distancia con grande nostalgia. Se trata de ese único lugar de la felicidad y me recuerda la afortunada frase del cantautor y poeta español Joaquín Sabina: “En Comala comprendí que al lugar donde has sido feliz no debieras tratar de volver”.

Albert Cohen también trasluce marginalmente su preocupación por la muerte, ya que en varias partes del libro toca esta temática: el inexorable transcurso del tiempo que conduce a la vejez, a la decadencia y a la muerte. Estamos prometidos a la muerte. Igualmente aprovecha para darle una pasadita a “la miseria de las religiones magias del miedo”.

El autor domina plenamente su oficio y su lenguaje, utilizando diversas formas o estilos en su prosa para contarnos ésta muy larga y original historia. Gran parte de ella se lee con interés y tranquilidad. En algunas partes utiliza figuras retóricas variadas; por ejemplo, hay algunos capítulos específicos en los cuales no hay ni puntuación ni interlineado que implican grandes flujos de conciencia. Estas repentinas y agobiantes elucubraciones (cada una de 20 o 30 páginas), en donde puede hablar de dos o tres temas en un solo renglón, son poco menos que ensayísticas y me han dejado exhausto. Para penetrar estos capítulos tuve que hacer uso de algunas dosis de cafeína.
Otra figura narrativa a la que recurre Albert Cohen en algunos capítulos es hacer hablar a alguna persona del pueblo, con todo lo que conlleva esto: palabras mal empleadas, sonidos cacofónicos, frases coloquiales, jerga popular, frases enrevesadas. Aquí vale la pena destacar la sobresaliente labor del traductor que es Javier Albiñana (Valencia, 1944) quien acometió esta labor titánica de traducir fielmente una vasta obra llena de retos para un traductor.

También en algunas partes el narrador le da voz a diversos personajes, utilizando varios tiempos, recuerdos, ires y venires, casi simultáneamente, sin que por esto se pierda el hilo de la historia. Su lenguaje puede llegar a ser grandilocuente, vasto, rico y en ocasiones cargado con una vena poética que nos cautiva.

“Augusta, caminaba, impulsada por el amor como antaño sus hermana de épocas pretéritas, innumerables y sumergidas en el sueño de la tierra, caminaba, inmortal en su marcha dirigida como las estrellas, legiones que amor conduce en eternas trayectorias, Ariane solemne, apenas sonriente, acompañada por qué celeste música, el amor, el amor en sus comienzos.”
16 s Jonfaith1,950 1,578

Indefatigable, nothing a limp rag but firing all pistons, she strode up and down in her red polka-dot jacket which left her thighs bare, paced feverishly, her words warmed by a sacred flame and strengthened too by the exultation of victory, while her spouse, stunned and left reeling by the power of her avenging eloquence, could only stand by and watch open-mouthed as his unsuspecting sins were clearly marshalled and paraded before him.

It has been lovely here in Beograd. It has been just as lovely reading this in Beograd. I followed Graham Greene's advice to take something to read on holiday which has nothing pertinent to the place or nature of the sojourn. It was GR friend Ilse who noted that my brain might find comfort in something French or Russian; I thank her for that clarity. While it is a thousand page novel it was hardly bulky and I have taken it along on buses, trams and my daily seven to ten mile walks. There was never a regret.

The story is literary, simply so. The capricious wife of a dunderhead diploma falls for the diplomat's superior. It is pure Wodehouse. Everything is rehearsed. Even the rules for seduction are outlined in advance. There is an interiority but it is all somehow outcome oriented. The monologues are often fleeting, scattered but the need to focus-and thus practice is never far from the task. The scenes focusing on the unfortunate cuckold are so human, I did gasp. Cohen outlines the attitudes of Europe in the 1930s as a tacit backdrop until the seducer gives vent to his rage. This is tantamount to the last volume of the Knausgaard. It is impossible to discuss this novel without thinking about Anti-Semitism. I want to also thank GR Friend Mimi for leading me to an article about Simon Schama's appreciation for the novel.

There are a plethora of voices in Cohen's palette and each one contributes to the tapestry. The emotional coloring is also deft. My reduction of a star was due to the fact that the novel chose verisimilitude and I wanted something a bit more nuanced and perhaps sinister. I am not sure what that suggests about me on holiday.14 s Pierre Fortier436 5

On dit de ce livre qu’il est un des plus beaux, sinon grand, roman d'amour du XXe. C’est faux. Belle du Seigneur est un bon roman, lent comme La Montagne Magique, souvent pétillant de monologues vifs et drôles, souvent insupportable par des monologues inutiles et enrageants. Des monologues de 30 à 50 pages sans ponctuation, ni virgule, ni point, ni point virgule…On s’accroche grâce aux moments magiques pour passer à travers les longueurs à n’en plus finir. Il s'agit d'un roman d’amour d’accord, mais aussi une satire de l’amour, des juifs, de la société genèvoise des années 30 avec des personnages fort bien représentés. Maintenant, c’est terminé, passons à autre chose
14 s Sandra933 275

Una scrittura elegante, piena di virtuosismi verbali, con continui flussi di pensiero dei protagonisti che ne approfondiscono psicologicamente i caratteri e le personalità, rendendoceli immediatamente presenti e vicini.
Come in poche altre occasioni è capitato che la lettura di un libro abbia suscitato in me emozioni diverse.
All'inizio mi sono divertita, i personaggi vengono pennellati da Cohen con acuta ironia, sottolineandone i difetti, che sono i difetti della società bene ginevrina, che vive solo sull'apparenza senza la sostanza.
Poi la mia attenzione si è concentrata sull'evoluzione della Passione assoluta nata tra i protagonisti, "incatenati giorno e notte nella segreta di un grande amore", e sul come essi hanno scelto di alimentarla.Mi è venuto in mente il commento che ho scritto per "amore fatale" di McEwan, dove parlo di "amore autistico". Ebbene, nel caso di Solal e Ariane, proprio di "amore autistico" si può parlare. Nella solitudine e nell'isolamento l'amore non germoglia ma, al contrario, soffoca, muore, o meglio, si trasforma in qualcos'altro, che non è più passione, desiderio, ma diventa abitudine, noia e anche peggio.
Nella parte finale, la lettura è divenuta angosciante. Solitudine, tristezza, incomunicabilità...nelle pagine del libro queste sensazioni mi hanno travolto. Fino alla fine.
I temi emergenti dalle 800 pagine del libro sono tanti: il primo, cui ho accennato, è la critica alla società benpensante svizzera (e non solo), ipocrita e farisea, in contrapposizione alla condanna alla solitudine e alle umiliazioni, "che non insegnano le buone maniere", del popolo ebreo, sempre estraneo, sempre solitario, fuori dalla comunità.
Ho letto tra le righe l'influenza del pensiero di Freud, laddove Cohen, nel flusso di pensieri che sommerge il lettore come me non abituato a leggere pagine e pagine senza punteggiatura e apparentemente senza senso e legame alcuno tra i pensieri a volte interi a volte interrotti, parla del sentire del "conscio", rivestito di belle maniere e di doveri morali che impongono il rispetto delle forme, che ho avvicinato all'io freudiano, e "dell'inconscio", la sede degli istinti e delle pulsioni, l'es di cui Freud tanto ha scritto.
E soprattutto ho percepito durante la lettura aleggiare ovunque la compresenza di Amore e Morte, questi due opposti apparentemente inconciliabili, ma al contrario infine riconducibili verso un unico equilibrio finale: l'annullamento di sè, unica soluzione possibile. svizzera12 s Caroline273 9

Voilà! 1100 pages lues en deux semaines, un livre qui traînait dans mes rayons depuis 15 ans. Un plaisir de lecture, mais vraiment pas ce à quoi je m'attendais. Je pensais entrer dans une histoire d'amour spirituelle, inspirante et noble. Or, c'est l'histoire d'une passion magnifique qui, parce qu'on tente tellement de la préserver qu'on l'empaille (!), finit en relation à la fois violente, tragique et ridicule.

Les personnages volent hélas moins haut que leur beauté physique (puis un moment donné, ça fera, parler des 32 dents saines et des 3 bains quotidiens)! Ils auraient besoin de modernité et d'une bonne thérapie de couple pour apprendre à se parler et à se comprendre! :) L'histoire se passe en 1938, ce qui explique le manque de libération, d'autonomie et d'accomplissements personnels de l'héroïne, et une partie de ses choix malheureux. Ça explique aussi les réactions et propos misogynes du héros, qui m'ont révulsée (j'ai ma grille de lecture féministe, en effet). L'histoire aurait été différente si cadrée aujourd'hui. Mais la violence conjugale existe encore, et le portrait qu'en fait se livre reste malheureusement douloureux d'actualité.

Cela dit, ce n'est pas un classique pour rien. Même si je ne suis pas d'accord avec la psychologie de ses personnages, ce livre continuera de m'habiter. Les analyses psychologiques sont très fines et bien observées. L'auteur parvient avec pertinence à insérer dans l'intrigue amoureuse des descriptions sociales savoureuses et/ou moqueuses, presque documentaires, sur la paresse de certains diplomates et sur le parler des petites gens, notamment. Et que dire de la montée de l'antisémitisme habilement montrée. Et plaisir de l'écriture maîtrisée, dont de longs passages sans ponctuation pourtant très lisibles. Puis voyage à Genève, en Suisse, ça fait différent. :)

Bref, le bon livre au bon moment, on adore ça, on est reconnaissant!13 s Andrew Schirmer148 68

Let's get in the mood. Turn on some music, and read the following as the music begins.

Les autres mettent des semaines et des mois pour arriver à aimer, et à aimer peu, et il leur faut des entretiens et des goûts communs et des cristallisations. Moi, ce fut le temps d’un battement de paupières. Dites moi fou, mais croyez-moi. Un battement de ses paupières, et elle me regarda sans me voir, et ce fut la gloire et le printemps et le soleil et la mer tiède et sa transparence près du rivage et ma jeunesse revenue, et le monde était né, et je sus que personne avant elle, ni Adrienne, ni Aude, ni Isolde, ni les autres de ma splendeur et jeunesse, toutes d’elle annonciatrices et servantes.

Doesn't everything sound better with the "Love Theme" from Flashdance? Walking, driving, reading--anything, really. We used to play a game to see who could come up with the best pairing. I think it ended up being a tie between Winston Churchill's memoirs and Justine.

What I'm trying to say is that this novel is essentially all or nothing. It is zero or a thousand and one stars. It is either the greatest love story you've read or or an overstuffed suitcase you quickly tire of carrying. It requires that you meet it on its terms. It out-Don Juans Don Juan. It features the most eccentric cast of Jewish relatives since the story of Joseph. You'll never be able to think of the League of Nations or the Swiss bourgeoisie in the same way again. It is filled with rapturous French prose--and the English translation isn't half-bad either. It is all this and more. Commit yourself--it may not end happily, but you'll come out better for it.french12 s2 comments Milly Cohen1,168 359

ES MI MEJOR DE TODOS POR MUCHO!!!!!!

Mi único libro releído !favoritos-de-la-vida13 s Philippe MalzieuAuthor 2 books125

This book should be read young. There is lightness, air is soft, merry seduction. I am Solal.I imagine Ariane. And then there are the 100 last pages. I reach there not. I read the others quickly, but these last pages, I do not arrive. I slow down. The separation appears inevitable. It's umbearable. It's a form of resistance. When the book is finished there is bitterness. Does happy love exist?17 s Laura6,970 577

From Wiki:
Belle du Seigneur is a 1968 novel by the Swiss writer Albert Cohen. Set in Geneva in the 1930s, the narrative revolves around a Mediterranean Jew employed by the League of Nations, and his romance with a married Swiss aristocrat. The novel is the standalone third part in a series of four; it follows Solal of the Solals and Nailcruncher, and precedes Les Valeureux.

See this review: The Independent - Vanity made flesh.

It's hard to describe this book for those who hasn't read it yet but I do recommend to all fans of the 20th century French fiction.

A move was made based on this book Belle du Seigneur (2012), with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Natalia Vodianova, Ed Stoppard and directed by Glenio Bonder.1001-books-you-must-read-before-you book-and-movie fiction-20th-century ...more10 s Yuri Sharon243 23

Set mostly in Geneva and the Riviera in the mid to late 1930s (the given dates are apparently fudged), Cohen’s novel charts the two-year affair of Solal, a League of Nations grandee, and Ariane, the product of rich but austere Calvinists. Ariane’s husband, Adrien, Solal’s underling, is a third principal narrative voice.
None of these three are particularly interesting people – they are all fools – yet Cohen keeps the reader’s interest throughout. He does this in good part with offhand social observations. Adrien, for example, reveals the pettiness and utter uselessness of the League’s bureaucrats.
Another narrative voice, a working-class perspective, is provided by Ariane’s maid. Each of these streams of consciousness contributes to a central narrative that any one of them could not understand or describe individually. Cohen’s comedy rests upon the gap between a protagonist’s expressed expectations and what the reader knows to be the reality.
Solal and Adriane are “buried alive under their love”, and Cohen’s view of such “committed” love is quite savage. You wince at the excruciating absurdities created by people assuming and playing roles, which, nevertheless, are firmly rooted in reality. We are shown, all too convincingly, that “a great passion [is] not a many-splendid thing after all”, and that love does curdle – especially when there is one secret too many.
7 s Dana Al-Basha | ???? ??????2,269 900 Shelved as 'to-buy'

I just watched the 2012 movie Belle du Seigneur, it seems a perfume advertisement.


from-words-to-screen9 s ?pek Dadakç?243 251

Her ne kadar a?k roman? olarak an?lsa da asl?nda insan do?as?n?n karanl?k dehlizlerinin kap?lar?n? aralayarak bu karanl?k taraf?m?z?n ili?kilerimizi, alg?lar?m?z? ve hatta toplumlar? nas?l etkiledi?i ve ?ekillendirdi?iyle ilgili muhte?em bir roman Efendinin Güzeli.

1930’lu y?llarda Cenevre’de Milletler Cemiyeti’nde yüksek bir pozisyonda çal??an Solal’in ondan daha dü?ük rütbeli bir memur olan Adrien Deume’nin e?i Ariane aras?ndaki a?k var kurgunun merkezinde. Albert Cohen’in kendi hayat?ndan da çokça izler ta??yor roman; Solal karakterine bakt???m?zda adeta Cohen’in hayat hikayesini görüyoruz. Yunanistan’?n bir adas?nda Yahudi olarak dünyaya gelen diplomat Solal’in Ariane’in odas?na k?l?k de?i?tirip gizlice girdi?i bir sahneyle aç?l?yor hikâye (ki bu devam?yla çok ba?da?t?ramad???m için acaba daha ileri bir zamandan kesit mi diye de dü?ünüp biraz afallatt? beni ilk
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