The Romantic

by Barbara Gowdy

Book Overview

From the author of The White Bone , a piercing novel of passionate attachment and of the fear and freedom of letting go Louise Kirk learns about love and loss at an early age. When she is nine years old, her former beauty queen mother disappears, leaving a note that reads only-and incorrectly-"Louise knows how to work the washing machine." Soon after, the Richters and their adopted son, Abel, move in across the street. Louise's immediate devotion...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805071903
• ISBN13: 9780805071900
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Truly Depressing

Truly a very depressing story unless you like characters who are their own destructive enemy. Was well written but do not think this story deserves more than an average rating or your valuable time.

One of the Best Books In A While

It has been a long time since I have been so taken with a novel as I was with Barbara Gowdy's The Romantic. The Romantic tells the tragic love story of Louise and Abel as they grow from two children who live on the same street in a Toronto neighborhood into adults fighting to find their places in the world, and their story could not be told more beautifully. Gowdy's writing reveals all of the quirks and habits of two everyday people that make them unique and wonderful, as well as the things that make them terrible. She brings poignancy to mundane moments, and the story is so well-crafted that it will leave you wanting more, and more, and more, even though the end of the story is revealed on the first page.The main characters are human, and Gowdy shows them as such. They each have moments of brilliance and moments of failure and many places in between. At the end, you may not agree with them, but it is impossible not to love them like your own friends and family members.The narrative is from Louise's perspective, and from chapter to chapter she switches from past to present. Some readers may find this jarring, but I found it to be surprisingly cohesive due to Gowdy's skill at bringing the reader back and forth without confusion. The changes in time add to the book's suspense, and with every flash back or forward in time, the reader is left wanting to find out what happened next, reading on more and more urgently to find out.The Romantic has restored my faith that the art of the novel is still alive and well and living on your local bookstore's shelves. Any serious reader would be hard pressed not to love this book.

Outstanding!

This is the first book by Gowdy I've read, and I feel lucky that I happened to find this true literary gem. The characters are ordinary people with ordinary lives, but they are made extraordinary through Gowdy's profound insights, humour, and her obvious ability to give her characters great emotional depth. The two main characters are Louise and Abel, who grew up on the same street in suburban Toronto in the 60s. Both are only children in families that defy the nuclear norm, and as is typical of children, because they are different they are subsequently outcasted from their peer group. Their strong friendship is an oasis for Louise, and Abel lets Louise into his world of exploring the ravine in their neighbourhood. The great dialouge and humour in the book can be illustrated by this passage: "On our second date, at a French restaurant, I learn that he's an accountant who 'came this close' to being married once. 'It wasn't meant to be,' he says easily. I am warmed by his optimism and by how his eyes soften when we talk about Peter, and yet, by dessert, it's clear that there won't be a third date. 'I can't believe it,' he says after I admit that Peter's tournament was not only the first game of baseball I'd ever sat through, but the first game of sports, period. He says, 'You mean to tell me you never rooted for your high school football team?' He sounds truly puzzled. What I find unbelievable is that the only books he own are "Ask a Handyman" and "The World Almanac of Natural Disasters".The story's main theme is love, with all of its different forms and all of its dynamics. Parental love is a prominent feature, as Louise's relationship with her mother is analyzed, along with the Richter's parental influence. The cycle of romantic love and all the craziness of it are touched upon, with a message about love's ability to both heal and destroy. Louise seems unable to truly love anyone but Abel, despite that Abel doesn't have the same love for her, and Louise tries to move on with her life without Abel in it by working in menial jobs and dating other men, who she always rejects even when they are delightful, because they are not Abel. It is painful to read her behaving like a idiot, despite that she is clearly intelligent. The self-destructive nature of both Abel and Louise is an interesting commentary on how trauma in our childhood can shape us, and yet at the same time the alcoholic in this novel is not the person with the absent mother who treated her as if she was a dress-up doll, but instead is the artistic individual with adoring parents, lots of talent and opportunity, and a vast array of friends. I highly recommend this book. The honesty, insights, and wisdom that come from this book are remarkable, and the story is beautifully haunting and touching.

Beautiful - Heartbreaking - Everything You Could Ask For

This beautiful tale that crosses time and passions is a one of the loveliest books I have read in ages. "The Romantic" by Barbara Gowdy is an amazingly look into the world of Louise Kirk, and her childhood infatuation with neighbor boy, Abel. When Louise's own family leaves her cold and wanting better - she begins a life long fascination and some might say addiction with the Richter family.Ms. Gowdy's talent is full and complete. I loved her use of tone and romance. Her characters are fully developed - and she handles loss with such grace and talent. I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone. Really amazing read!

Love in All its Madness

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." Friedrich Nietzsche's take on love could apply to Louise Kirk, the main character in this book. Louise becomes acquainted with love at an early age, falling in love at the age of nine with Abel, the adopted son of her neighbours. This happens just after her former beauty queen mother leaves without a reason or a trace. Abel moves away, but as the two grow up, they have a series of separations and reunions, each with both sublime and painful moments. Each break-up has its reasons for being the permanent end of the relationship. But the relationship goes on and on, seeming to have a life of its own. Louise has many struggles--the disappearance of her mother, her father's remote parenting, his endless and hopeless longing for his wife to return, the awkwardness of finding a life. Louise becomes a woman, and despite many reasons to do so, never loses her love for Abel, who can't quite love her back the way she loves him. This is the story of the endless permutations and combinations of love--young, innocent, joyful, painful, unrequited, lost, tragic. This story's subtlety is deceptive. It is powerful. It will haunt you. Did you love enough? Too much? Compare yourself to Louise.

Unremarkable and Brilliant

This is a book about love in its most brutal incarnation - unrequited, or at best, partially or intermittently so. All that unrequited love is bound to make a girl needy. And needy she is, at one point describing herself as a "clinging, terrified despot." For all this, though, Louise is neither annoying nor cloying. Gowdy's portrayal is sympathetic and moving. The psychological underpinnings of Louise's hunger are entirely intelligible, and we cringe in empathy as she fails to read the signs, feeds her obsession and walks straight into traps of her own making. As a teenager, for instance, Louise makes a fantasy-fuelled trek to Vancouver to find Abel after he and his family have moved west, a journey we know can only end in humiliation and disappointment.We are thrown into a story that moves back and forward in time to reveal itself. The structure of the book creates occasional confusion, because shifts in time are not indicated by tense - we are caught in a disorienting perpetual present. As much as this is a criticism, though, it does effectively evoke the sense of suspension that occurs when one's love endures unrequited.It's a masterful accomplishment to be able to convey the absence of something rather than its presence, as is the ability to explore heartache while skillfully avoiding melodrama. Gowdy accomplishes this through humour, but more profoundly by touching a nerve, the one that knows we've all been there, wanting, in one way or another.