The Way I Found Her

by Rose Tremain

Hardcover, 1998

Status

Available

Publication

New York : Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998.

Description

'When we go back to Devon I may not fit back into my old life. Too much may have happened to me ...'This is the summer that Lewis Little, precocious 13-year-old, is spending in Paris with his beautiful mother, Alice, who is translating the latest medieval romance by Valentina Gavrilovich, the bestselling and exotic Russian émigré. This is the summer that the bewitching Valentina beckons from her sofa, and Lewis discovers an exquisite new world filled with passion and intrigue, set against the alluring backdrop of Paris.But when Valentina disappears and Lewis takes it upon himself to find her, wondrous secrets suddenly turn sinister. This is the summer that Lewis, caught in a bizarre and dangerous romance, is about to face head-on the perilous force that transforms children into adults.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member PrincessPaulina
* NO SPOILERS WERE USED IN THE WRITING OF THIS REVIEW *

Despite at first seeming like a happy-go-lucky coming of age story about a boy's summer trip to France with his unusually beautiful mother, this book quickly turns into a touching and engaging noir mystery. The juxtaposition of adolescent
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idealism with noir elements sheds a creepy light on the main character's youthful exuberance. This book isn't heavy but it stayed with me, perhaps because the subject matter involved such a pure and unconditional love between two of the main characters. I also enjoyed reading about Russian immigrants in Paris, and related to the bookworm adolescent who looks for answers in classic literature.
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LibraryThing member Cariola
If you think of Rose Tremain as mainly a writer of historical novels, this one will surprise you as much as it did me. In fact, I kept forgetting that I wasn't reading a novel by Ian McEwan. It's a coming-of-age story and a mystery of sorts, involving a 13-year old English boy and a 40-ish Russian
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medieval romance writer. Lewis Little is spending the summer in France while his mother, a Scottish beauty, translates Valentina's latest work. He becomes obsessed with Valentina--an obsession whose depiction seemed very McEwanesque to me. Then, suddenly, Valentina disappears, and Lewis, not willing to leave matters to the police, determines to find her . . .

I certainly didn't enjoy this as much as Tremain's historical novels like Music and Silence or Restoration, and I'm not much of a one for mysteries/crime novels. But overall, it kept my interest and was a pretty good read.
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LibraryThing member pamplemousse
A precocious thirteen-year old boy, Lewis, spends the summer in Paris, where his mother is working as translator for Valentina, a woman novelist. At first, this seems to be merely a coming of age story, with Lewis' observations on the adult world which surrounds him making for some wonderfully
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witty passages. But there is a mystery or two, and adventure, and in the end a conclusion of integrity, making this a very satisfying and clever novel indeed. Recommended.
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LibraryThing member mmhubbell
I enjoyed this book very much, though it got rather implausible by the end. A coming of age / romance / mystery in which a boy accompanies his translator mother for a summer in Paris where she works for a succesful romance novelist. The boy falls in love with the writer and when she is suddenly and
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mysteriously missing, the boy seems the most concerned and driven to find her.
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LibraryThing member sarariches
A book that was intriguing and highly enjoyable. It was an adventure story, a thriller, a romance, and an extreme coming of age story. An unexpected pleasure - I enjoyed it more than I expected when I first started reading.
LibraryThing member NeilDalley
A disturbing and slightly unreal book that follows the tragic events of love and loss experienced by a 13-year old boy. The description of Paris re-creates the scene beautifully and the emotional intensity is powerful.

The ending troubles me, as if Tremain had to invent some plot device to drive on
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the story. As a reader you feel involved in the drama of it all but afterwards it seems so unrelated to the rest of the book. The thing that remains is the emotional complexity of being 13.
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LibraryThing member Melanielgarrett
This is one of my all time favourite reads. I was completely captivated by the narrator, Lewis, and his coming of age drama. I don't want to say too much more because I don't want to spoil anything, but having just felt quite disappointed with The Road Home because it seemed to me the characters
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were too cosseted, and that Tremain was running ahead and smoothing their way the whole time, I'd have to say that The Way I Found Her was a much, much braver book.

I finished reading it at five in the morning and was so utterly bereft by the ending that I had to go wake my husband up to tell him about it. (Luckily, he's a good sport...)
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LibraryThing member michalsuz
Book reviewed on awayofwriting.blogspot.co.nz, under the title Apes and Monkeys
LibraryThing member PilgrimJess
“Life is not a dress rehearsal.”

Having very recently read and been impressed with Tremain's "The Road Home" I decided to tackle another of her novels. However, for me this one is far less successful.

This book centres around a 13-year-old English boy, Lewis Little, who along with his mother
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Alice, a translator, is invited to spend the summer holidays in Paris with popular medieval novelist Valentina Gavrilovich, whilst his father stays in England. Alice is there to work on Valentina's latest novel but Lewis is there purely to improve his French language skills.

Alice's work leaves Lewis with a lot of free time on his hands but no real friends to spend it with and he soon becomes captivated by his much older, voluptuous hostess. When Alice appears to start an affair (it is never proven conclusively) Lewis begins to focus all his attention on to Valentina lusting after her imagining them as lovers.

One day Valentina suddenly disappears and Lewis is convinced that she has been kidnapped. Turning super-sleuth Lewis attempts to rescue his first love rather than leaving it in the hands of the authorities which is what his mother prefers. The police initially believe that Valentina has been coerced into returning to her homeland of Russia by an old boyfriend who had recently been in the city. Lewis however, does no believe this theory and aided by Valentina's next door neighbour, Moinel, follows a different tack. When Lewis apparently gets too close to the truth he too is kidnapped and shares captivity with Valentina in an adjoining room all the time becoming ever attached to her as he tries to devise an escape talking non-stop with her through a hole in the wall until it all reaches a fateful climax.

Therefore this novel is part mystery, part romance and part adolescent fantasy. Now whilst on the whole I enjoyed the author's writing style and admitting that it had some amusing and touching moments for me overall it did not really gel. Without wanting to appear overly sexist I feel that this book would have been better if it had been written by a man who had actually lived through and had some of these teenage male fantasies because somehow I just did not feel that Tremain quite got Lewis's character quite right. In contrast I quite enjoyed her portrayal of Valentina and the frosty Alice. Overall an OK read but missed the target IMHO.
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LibraryThing member EBT1002
Thirteen-year-old Lewis travels to Paris for the summer, accompanying his mother who will be translating the latest Medieval Romance novel by the alluring Russian author, Valentina. Lewis falls in love with the 40-year-old author as well as with the city of Paris. When Valentina goes missing, the
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infatuated Lewis becomes obsessed with finding her; he leaves nothing to the police but initiates his own search for the missing author. In the backdrop, his geographically distant father and emotionally distant mother have their own drama unfolding, although this always stays in the background and serves as fuel for Lewis' adolescent determination toward independence. He follows the clues until he does, indeed, discover what happened to Valentina; then he becomes determined to rescue her.

My reactions to this novel are mixed. It never quite rang true for me but I suspect I will remember it for a while. Lewis is an appealing narrator and protagonist: he's smart, moody, and believably adolescent. His adventure is less convincing. Part of my ambivalence is that 13-year-old male sexuality is of absolutely no interest to me, but it clearly fascinates Tremain as she explores Lewis' passion for Valentina, a passion both sexual and childish (as in: maternal attachment). Given that I was bored for a notable part of the reading experience, I was surprised that, as the story came to its climax and resolution, I cared what was going to happen. The ending was more satisfying than the process of getting there.

Tremain's descriptions of Paris are themselves alluring and Valentina's dog, Sergei, is enough to make me go in search of a new canine family member. I'll continue to read Rose Tremain's works but I do hope for better next time.
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Barcode

6360
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