Belle Du Seigneur

by Albert Cohen

Book Overview

Handsome, worldly and intelligent, Solal holds a position of enviable power in 1930s Geneva. But as Under-Secretary-General of the League of Nations, he has become bitterly disillusioned by... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067082187X
• ISBN13: 9780670821877
• Release Date: May 1996
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 992 Pages
• Weight: 3.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.9" x 6.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

translation of Mr. Rosales' review

This is a translation of another review posted in Spanish. It is a machine translation, so the language is clunky, but you get the idea. From time to time falls in our hands a book as this. I suppose that happens little. Beautiful of the Mister, surely, will lead to a new period of literary drought with titles around here and no matter how there we will forget more or less fast. Because Beautiful of the Mister is that type of works that to you nobody mentions him, nobody at least in the market of the current thing, always so evasive and passing. This is not a novel but several. Or if you prefer several in a. To raise its magnificent building, Albert Cohen chose the crazy, but extremely rigorous architecture and severe, of Joyce, the father founder. Other as he they have tried it with success (Alfred Doblin - Berlin Alexanderplatz). But few as he have managed to reduce the architecture to music, to the fullness of the story in which the words and it related they are an and the same thing, in which there is not service of one toward another but orchestral symbiosis. It has been like to build a cathedral to listen a symphony. And Cohen obtains it. After reading it, of to have finished, the sensation remains us that there is something in us that does not find I accommodate, something that probably had preferred not to have that to hear. He is this the true art? The art that quizs us? The one that shakes us in the deeper? Ariane and Solal, this is all. And a ring of personages that penden of scaffolds since the one that speak us as a leader responsible for multiplying the faces or the views since which we respond to the internal drama, to the subterranean current that recalls us, finally, that drama or comedy they been nourished of the same water. There they are those five endeavored cousins of Solal, with its chaplinezca informality to test of ridiculous, the moral weakness of the poor one Adrien Deume submitted to the empty social climbing of its mother or to the sociable submission of the father (Mister and lady Deume), in short, the limp letter of the League of Nations, squandering in money the hopes of a world in course of collision, with banal and vain efforts, that, They are worth this loving bypass bound for what want that be the paradise, by the via of what want that be the hell. An experience that lives itself and that we will not be able to stop evoking.

Wow, hard to forget this one!

Albert Cohen's masterpiece is intimidating both for its size and chapter-long sentences. But, please, do not be discouraged. This is one of the most insightful novels I have read. It delves into the bureacratic labyrinth of international institutions, mocks their functionaries, and is a haunting critique of European virtues on the eve of the Second World War. (Particularly funny for those familar with the World Bank, UN, or government anywhere).But, most importantly, it portrays the relationship between men and women in a profound yet comic way. The book's difficulty is quite worth the struggle, especially when you reach the chapter where Solal seduces his beloved. A chapter that is hard for me to forget, for it shows just how stupid and cruel we are.This is not for the lazy readers, but if you have any guts, read this one. Its worth the while.

THE story of love and life. The best 20th century novel.

This magnificent opus of Albert Cohen is much more than The story of love. It is the story of the dream of love (not only personal, but also in its abstract form) and its impossible realization. It offers an original view of both male and female human nature in matters of love and life. It also contains some of the funniest chapters describing bourgeois society (Swiss, French, Belgian, German, Jewish - you name it) and its values and prejudices, and diplomatic life. Some may find it exaggerated and longwinded, but others will enjoy every single word, and re-read this book every so often. If you can't read it in the original French, don't miss this opportunity and read the English translation.

Dont be afraid...

This book is 850 pages thick in the French version. But we are talking abt 850 pages of pure romance. 850 pages of emotions. A quest for true love, redemption through love... Christophe Xof

Sigh...

What an amazing book. I can't think of many books that can trace the story of a love affair the way this book does. Like an arc, it starts with animosity and goes through flirtation, infatuation, love, obsession, and descends into distate, resentment, morbidity. This book exhausts emotionally and absorbs intellectually. Solal and Ariane are so complicated and interesting as characters; and what an utter twit Ariane's husband is!