by Markus Zusak
WOW!!!
I read a previous book by this author called The Book Thief. I thought it was good. But, this book was brilliant!! One of the best books I have read in a long time, if not ever.
The book iss told in a disjointed way, jumping back and forth in time. It is a long book, over 500 pages and I must admit that about 150 pages in I was going to give up on it. However, I am glad I hung in.
The book is about a family of five boys, the two women their father loved, and especially about one of the brothers, Clay and the girl he loved.
The book tells of the father and his first love. He is deeply in love with his wife and has painted numerous paintings of her. His wife, while she may love him, decides the marriage isn't working for her and divorces him. He is devastated and collapses in grief in the garage where he did the paintings of her.
Then the story tells of the boys' mother. She was raised in Eastern Europe by her father who taught her to play piano. Her father eventually arranges for her to go perform outside of the country. He buys her a round trip ticket but tells her not to come back. She misses her father but takes his advice. She works at housecleaning jobs and somehow makes her way to Australia where she continues to work as a cleaner. She saves all her money to buy a piano but the delivery people take it to the wrong address. This is how she meets her future husband (with whom she will have the five boys).
The boys are portrayed as very rambunctious, even vicious with each other. The portrayal of family life is incredible.
We learn that the boys' mother gets cancer and dies after suffering tremendously. The boys of course are devastated by her death but it is the father who falls apart. He leaves one day abandoning the boys. They survive in a very rough and tumble way. The family includes a cat, a dog, a donkey, a pigeon and a goldfish. They beat up each other. They get Clay who likes to run and seems to like to get beat up to race with people stationed around the track to beat him up to slow him down. They take bets on how fast he will make it around the track.
Eventually the father does come back the boys don't want to have anything to do with him. The refer to him as "the murderer". They say he murdered them. The father tells them he is building a bridge.
The brother Clay falls in love with a young woman who lives across the street. She is an aspiring jockey despite her parents. She really applies herself to the task of becoming a good jockey.
One interesting thing about the book is that the boys don't talk a lot to each other but they seem to understand each other. The boys "know" that Clay will leave them to go to the father without him telling them so,
Clay is sorry to leave his girlfriend but feels he needs to go help his father. They plan to replace an old bridge that collapsed years before. They are going to build it from bricks and with arches. Michaelangelo is a hero of the father/son... his work with quarries. Clay works like a dog to dig a trench for the bridge supports, working himself to exhaustion. He does go back to see his brother and girlfriend occasionally. Eventually he decides he must leave his girlfriend for good so she can concentrate on being a jockey. Her returns to help his father.
His girlfriend dies on the track the day after he leaves her. Clay is devastated and feels that he is responsible for her death. He eventually helps his father complete the bridge... working with superhuman effort.
In the jumping back and forth in time of the book we find out that the mother confided some background family history, e.g. about the first wife, to Clay. It is also Clay who is actually murderer. His mother wanted the father to kill her with carbon monoxide in the family car but it is Clay who actually does it because his father can't.
We also find out that Clay's girlfriend helps him find their father's first wife. She is single, divorced once or twice. She tells them leaving Clay's father was a big mistake... but if she hadn't Clay wouldn't exist.
After the bridge is complete Clay leaves, before he goes he tells one of the brothers where to find a buried typewriter that belonged to their grandmother and to write the family story. No one knows where Clay is but when the writer of the story is about to get married he tells his father to go find Clay. The father goes to Florence as he believes Clay will be found near the David statue and after 29 days Clay does show up in the museum. He does come home for his father's wedding.
The book was very hard to read with all the pain and suffering of the characters, including the mother. However, it was so powerful, the way the author portrayed the relationships and the crazy interaction of the brothers. It seems to me that he presented memories and understanding perhaps the way one's memories might come and go and understanding of events, lives and what motivates people might grow over time as we think about our lives and experiences.
This author is amazing, so unique, creative, sensitive and insightful. I loved this book!!
Sunday, 27 January 2019
Wednesday, 23 January 2019
Lear's Shadow
by Claire Holden Rothman
I picked this book up while browsing at Chapters, I thought the story was potentially interesting.
It is the story of a middle-aged woman whose life is falling apart, her lover with whom she co-owned a yoga studio has left her and she is basically bankrupt. She sells the yoga studio,
In desperation she takes a job as an Assistant at a Montreal summer theatre company as a jack of all trades. The cast includes an ornery drunk, who is cast as Lear.
While she is trying to keep up with the workload of this demanding but low paying job her sisters marriage is falling apart and her father is displaying symptoms of dementia. Her sister insists that she move in with her father as a caregiver. She hardly gets any sleep as her father has a tendency to sleepwalk. Eventually the sister moves into the father's home with her children.
I am not familiar with the Lear story but assume the daughter's struggle with the father is meant to reflect the Lear story. One thing I don't understand entirely, the women's father seemed to be quite wealthy. I don't understand why the main character didn't ask her father to help her out. He was cantankerous and might have refused but I think she could have asked.
I have read some online reviews of the book, some people really liked it but many were lukewarm or even disappointed. So I don't feel bad to say that taking on the Lear story and trying to pair it with the modern world could have been interesting and powerful. I think this was a weak effort, grabbing onto a powerful story of Shakespeare for appeal but weak by comparison.
I picked this book up while browsing at Chapters, I thought the story was potentially interesting.
It is the story of a middle-aged woman whose life is falling apart, her lover with whom she co-owned a yoga studio has left her and she is basically bankrupt. She sells the yoga studio,
In desperation she takes a job as an Assistant at a Montreal summer theatre company as a jack of all trades. The cast includes an ornery drunk, who is cast as Lear.
While she is trying to keep up with the workload of this demanding but low paying job her sisters marriage is falling apart and her father is displaying symptoms of dementia. Her sister insists that she move in with her father as a caregiver. She hardly gets any sleep as her father has a tendency to sleepwalk. Eventually the sister moves into the father's home with her children.
I am not familiar with the Lear story but assume the daughter's struggle with the father is meant to reflect the Lear story. One thing I don't understand entirely, the women's father seemed to be quite wealthy. I don't understand why the main character didn't ask her father to help her out. He was cantankerous and might have refused but I think she could have asked.
I have read some online reviews of the book, some people really liked it but many were lukewarm or even disappointed. So I don't feel bad to say that taking on the Lear story and trying to pair it with the modern world could have been interesting and powerful. I think this was a weak effort, grabbing onto a powerful story of Shakespeare for appeal but weak by comparison.
Thursday, 10 January 2019
Animal Heart
by Dania Tomlinson
This book is by a local author and set in the Okanagan.
It takes place around the time when the Okanagan was being settled by British immigrants. The story is primarily about a girl(Iris) and her mother. The mother is Welsh, the father is British. The man brings his family, his wife, a daughter and a son to the Okanagan and they settle in a town, Winteridge, along the lake that was apparently a native village. It is rumoured that the settlers are claiming the land for their farms and orchards on land where the natives lived and are buried.
The father leaves at times to take care of mining concerns that belong to the family in Europe and other places. The mother appears to have epilepsy. She tries to hide this condition. The mother regales her children with Welsh folk tales. The mother and daughter are befriended by a native man who is the volunteer keeper of the local library. He also seems to be very knowledgeable about native lore and history.
Both the mother and daughter seem to be able to see ghost people and ghost animals wandering around the vicinity. Both mother and daughter also see a huge water serpent but they are told it is just a large fish. The girl discovers and unusual fish and keeps it in a jar of water, she keeps it over the years. Her mother is aware of the fish and sometimes wants it with her. How the fish could stay alive in a small jar is a mystery to me... magical fish??
The girl becomes close friends with a Japanese girl whose family has come to work the orchards. The Japanese girl's father works on Iris's family orchard. Iris's father also buys some land which he leases (with the intent to sell it to) the Japanese girl's father. Iris and the Japanese girl hang out in a tree house where the Japanese girl sets up a Shinto altar because her parents don't want her to practice the old faith in the new country.
Then a Ukrainian family arrives a man, his wife and two sons. The man becomes the foreman on the family farm, his wife is hired to look after the family farm and look after the girl's mother.
When Iris discovers that the Japanese girl is having sex with one of the Ukrainian boys, whom she also likes, she destroys the shrine. The other Ukrainian boy likes Iris but she ignores/rebuffs him.
When WWI is declared most of the men sign up including Iris's father and brother and the two Ukrainian boys. The brother who likes Iris asks her to marry him and she impulsively agrees. As the war goes on the other Ukrainian brother sends letters to Iris to give to his Japanese lover. Iris doesn't give them to give them to the girl and actually encourages the girl to marry a Japanese boy her parents want her to marry.
At one point many of the local men go out to capture the monster. They come back with a large fish and say all danger has past. The girl, her mother, and probably the native man know this is not true.
The character late says that the locals have now come to call this mythic creature Ogopogo.
While the war is on Iris has recruited local women to work in the orchard. Police come looking for the Ukrainian foreman as they suspect with his background he might be a threat. Initially the family denies they know of him but after the man continually beats his wife, Mary, Iris turn him in. She thinks this will save Mary but she is arrested and sent to an internment camp with her husband even though she isn't Ukrainian.
The local Japanese people are collected and interned also
The girl's brother and then the father are killed in the war. The family is devastated. Her mother becomes essentially bedridden.
The older of the two Ukrainian brothers returns home wounded. He has lost part of one of his legs and walks on crutches. He is devastated that his Japanese lover has married. Initially he and Iris are just friends but eventually they become physical. Just as Iris discovers she is pregnant the other brother comes home. Iris has let slip something the older brother had confided in a letter to his Japanese lover and he realizes that Iris has read his letters -- betrayed him. He tells her to marry his brother and he disappears. Her mother commits suicide shortly after that.
She does marry the other brother but on their honeymoon cruise she has a miscarriage and her husband realizes she has not been faithful to him. He claimed he had saved himself for her but she realizes from his love making that this is not true. When she returns to their cabin on the ship she finds him attacking one of the ship staff.
When they return to BC their ship is quarantined for a while as several other people are ill. However, they soon learn that the Spanish flu has decimated the population on land and that most of the people of the town had died. The town is burned down to avoid spreading the plague. The woman and her husband move to the coast and set up a home but they never have a happy marriage.
This woman has hurt/betrayed so many people in her life. When she is old she returns to the village, convincing the ferry captain to drop her off at the deserted town. She tells him she has arranged someone to come get her later. But in fact she walks into the water, taking the strange fish with her.
This was an interesting, well written story. The local interest made it appealing.
This book is by a local author and set in the Okanagan.
It takes place around the time when the Okanagan was being settled by British immigrants. The story is primarily about a girl(Iris) and her mother. The mother is Welsh, the father is British. The man brings his family, his wife, a daughter and a son to the Okanagan and they settle in a town, Winteridge, along the lake that was apparently a native village. It is rumoured that the settlers are claiming the land for their farms and orchards on land where the natives lived and are buried.
The father leaves at times to take care of mining concerns that belong to the family in Europe and other places. The mother appears to have epilepsy. She tries to hide this condition. The mother regales her children with Welsh folk tales. The mother and daughter are befriended by a native man who is the volunteer keeper of the local library. He also seems to be very knowledgeable about native lore and history.
Both the mother and daughter seem to be able to see ghost people and ghost animals wandering around the vicinity. Both mother and daughter also see a huge water serpent but they are told it is just a large fish. The girl discovers and unusual fish and keeps it in a jar of water, she keeps it over the years. Her mother is aware of the fish and sometimes wants it with her. How the fish could stay alive in a small jar is a mystery to me... magical fish??
The girl becomes close friends with a Japanese girl whose family has come to work the orchards. The Japanese girl's father works on Iris's family orchard. Iris's father also buys some land which he leases (with the intent to sell it to) the Japanese girl's father. Iris and the Japanese girl hang out in a tree house where the Japanese girl sets up a Shinto altar because her parents don't want her to practice the old faith in the new country.
Then a Ukrainian family arrives a man, his wife and two sons. The man becomes the foreman on the family farm, his wife is hired to look after the family farm and look after the girl's mother.
When Iris discovers that the Japanese girl is having sex with one of the Ukrainian boys, whom she also likes, she destroys the shrine. The other Ukrainian boy likes Iris but she ignores/rebuffs him.
When WWI is declared most of the men sign up including Iris's father and brother and the two Ukrainian boys. The brother who likes Iris asks her to marry him and she impulsively agrees. As the war goes on the other Ukrainian brother sends letters to Iris to give to his Japanese lover. Iris doesn't give them to give them to the girl and actually encourages the girl to marry a Japanese boy her parents want her to marry.
At one point many of the local men go out to capture the monster. They come back with a large fish and say all danger has past. The girl, her mother, and probably the native man know this is not true.
The character late says that the locals have now come to call this mythic creature Ogopogo.
While the war is on Iris has recruited local women to work in the orchard. Police come looking for the Ukrainian foreman as they suspect with his background he might be a threat. Initially the family denies they know of him but after the man continually beats his wife, Mary, Iris turn him in. She thinks this will save Mary but she is arrested and sent to an internment camp with her husband even though she isn't Ukrainian.
The local Japanese people are collected and interned also
The girl's brother and then the father are killed in the war. The family is devastated. Her mother becomes essentially bedridden.
The older of the two Ukrainian brothers returns home wounded. He has lost part of one of his legs and walks on crutches. He is devastated that his Japanese lover has married. Initially he and Iris are just friends but eventually they become physical. Just as Iris discovers she is pregnant the other brother comes home. Iris has let slip something the older brother had confided in a letter to his Japanese lover and he realizes that Iris has read his letters -- betrayed him. He tells her to marry his brother and he disappears. Her mother commits suicide shortly after that.
She does marry the other brother but on their honeymoon cruise she has a miscarriage and her husband realizes she has not been faithful to him. He claimed he had saved himself for her but she realizes from his love making that this is not true. When she returns to their cabin on the ship she finds him attacking one of the ship staff.
When they return to BC their ship is quarantined for a while as several other people are ill. However, they soon learn that the Spanish flu has decimated the population on land and that most of the people of the town had died. The town is burned down to avoid spreading the plague. The woman and her husband move to the coast and set up a home but they never have a happy marriage.
This woman has hurt/betrayed so many people in her life. When she is old she returns to the village, convincing the ferry captain to drop her off at the deserted town. She tells him she has arranged someone to come get her later. But in fact she walks into the water, taking the strange fish with her.
This was an interesting, well written story. The local interest made it appealing.
Sunday, 6 January 2019
The Outsider
The Outsider/L'Etranger
by Albert Camus
I finally got around to reading this very famous book. It is a very short but very powerful book. In reading analysis re: the book and Camus it is said that as an existentialist Camus felt that what happened in life was random and this randomness was absurd... there was no great plan for anyone... so what was the point of living??
Yet I saw a quote by Camus "man cannot do without beauty". This seems to contradict the suggestion that he felt there was no point in living.
The Outsider
It seems many reviewers get excited even by the opening sentence of this book, "My mother died today. Or yesterday. I don't know". This is taken to be evidence of the heartlessness of the protaganist. Later on his lack of emotion, lack of tears upon the death of his mother are part of the actions used to declare him guilty at his murder trial. Mersault had put his mother in a home so that she would be cared for, this decision is also used against him at the trial... of evidence of not wanting to care for her.
Mersault doesn't just lack emotions vis a vis his mother, he has a girlfriend with whom he enjoys swimming and having sex but when she asks him if he loves her he says no, he doesn't react when she says she loves him. He seems to be incapable of showing emotion of any kind.
One of his neighbours has a dog which he beats constantly and swears at... but when the dog disappears he is unconsolable.
Mersault is offered a promotion to a position in Paris but declines it.... his employer chastises him for having no ambition.
Mersault has a friend Raymond who apparently is a pimp. When Raymond asks Mersault to pen a letter to get his girlfriend (who he believes was cheating on him) back, so that he can "punish" her, Mersault writes it. When the girl returns Raymond beats her and gets Mersault to vouche for his character so he is not charged. One day Raymond is attacked by some Arab men (friends/family of his girlfriend). They fend off the attackers but later Mersault encounters one of the Arabs, he has a gun in his pocket that Raymond had given him). When the Arab lifts a knife toward him Mersault shoots him once, and then four more times. He blames the sun for doing what he did.
At his trial he watches the proceedings as an observer, rather than the person who is on trial and facing dire consequences. He listens sometimes with interest, sometimes with total disinterest to the proceedings.
Several of his friends including his girlfriend come and speak in his support saying he is a good person. He does nothing to speak up for himself or to defend himself.
You don't know what you've lost til its gone
It is only when he is found guilty that he realizes that he will no longer have the little pleasures in life, his girlfriend, the sound of the city at night, swimming in the ocean... the beauty in everyday things. He regrets that his life will be cut short while others will be able to live theirs out to their natural conclusion.
When a priest comes to ask him to confide in god he gets furious and shouts at the priest. This is the only time he shows any real emotion,
The book closes with him saying that he hopes that he will have a large audience of haters when he is guillotined. At the end he wants his life to be somehow acknowledged.
French Exit
The mother and son in French Exit, which I recently read, seem somewhat similar to Mersault, they just move through life without thinking at all about others or the consequences of their actions. However, unlike Mersault, the mother does concentrate on getting things her way so there is some deliberate selfish intent there.
Samuel Beckett
On Sunday Morning on CBC today they had an entire hour devoted to Samuel Beckett the author/playright. It was an excellent program. I really enjoyed Beckett when I read him when I was in university. Like Camus I think he writes about the absurdity of life. However, unlike Camus I feel that Beckett has a wry sense on humour as he explores this absurdity. And, as the people interviewed on CBC commented today Beckett seemed to maintain a willingness to keep trying/fighting. "“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” - Worstword Ho by Beckett.
Beckett, like Camus, is trying to jolt us out of our complacency. I was amazed to hear actors discuss how his editorial notes in his plays and other direction were so powerful and subtle.... they discuss the difference between a comma and a semicolon. One Irish actress, who has performed numerous Beckett pieces said that performing his plays has changed/challenged her as a person.
She discussed one play where all is dark in the theatre, even the exit signs, and all people see is a mouth eight feet above the stage. As the actor she was in a harness and even had her head constrained and wore a blindfold. She talked about how disconcerting this is for the audience but also how it impacted her physically and mentally. I had never heard thoughts like this before.
Beckett's characters, may be waiting for something or someone, or feel all alone, but somehow we still come away with a sense of hope or possibility. I guess it is like listening to Leonard Cohen, he is sad, he is hurting, but sharing his pain helps us feel not so alone.
by Albert Camus
I finally got around to reading this very famous book. It is a very short but very powerful book. In reading analysis re: the book and Camus it is said that as an existentialist Camus felt that what happened in life was random and this randomness was absurd... there was no great plan for anyone... so what was the point of living??
Yet I saw a quote by Camus "man cannot do without beauty". This seems to contradict the suggestion that he felt there was no point in living.
The Outsider
It seems many reviewers get excited even by the opening sentence of this book, "My mother died today. Or yesterday. I don't know". This is taken to be evidence of the heartlessness of the protaganist. Later on his lack of emotion, lack of tears upon the death of his mother are part of the actions used to declare him guilty at his murder trial. Mersault had put his mother in a home so that she would be cared for, this decision is also used against him at the trial... of evidence of not wanting to care for her.
Mersault doesn't just lack emotions vis a vis his mother, he has a girlfriend with whom he enjoys swimming and having sex but when she asks him if he loves her he says no, he doesn't react when she says she loves him. He seems to be incapable of showing emotion of any kind.
One of his neighbours has a dog which he beats constantly and swears at... but when the dog disappears he is unconsolable.
Mersault is offered a promotion to a position in Paris but declines it.... his employer chastises him for having no ambition.
Mersault has a friend Raymond who apparently is a pimp. When Raymond asks Mersault to pen a letter to get his girlfriend (who he believes was cheating on him) back, so that he can "punish" her, Mersault writes it. When the girl returns Raymond beats her and gets Mersault to vouche for his character so he is not charged. One day Raymond is attacked by some Arab men (friends/family of his girlfriend). They fend off the attackers but later Mersault encounters one of the Arabs, he has a gun in his pocket that Raymond had given him). When the Arab lifts a knife toward him Mersault shoots him once, and then four more times. He blames the sun for doing what he did.
At his trial he watches the proceedings as an observer, rather than the person who is on trial and facing dire consequences. He listens sometimes with interest, sometimes with total disinterest to the proceedings.
Several of his friends including his girlfriend come and speak in his support saying he is a good person. He does nothing to speak up for himself or to defend himself.
You don't know what you've lost til its gone
It is only when he is found guilty that he realizes that he will no longer have the little pleasures in life, his girlfriend, the sound of the city at night, swimming in the ocean... the beauty in everyday things. He regrets that his life will be cut short while others will be able to live theirs out to their natural conclusion.
When a priest comes to ask him to confide in god he gets furious and shouts at the priest. This is the only time he shows any real emotion,
The book closes with him saying that he hopes that he will have a large audience of haters when he is guillotined. At the end he wants his life to be somehow acknowledged.
French Exit
The mother and son in French Exit, which I recently read, seem somewhat similar to Mersault, they just move through life without thinking at all about others or the consequences of their actions. However, unlike Mersault, the mother does concentrate on getting things her way so there is some deliberate selfish intent there.
Samuel Beckett
On Sunday Morning on CBC today they had an entire hour devoted to Samuel Beckett the author/playright. It was an excellent program. I really enjoyed Beckett when I read him when I was in university. Like Camus I think he writes about the absurdity of life. However, unlike Camus I feel that Beckett has a wry sense on humour as he explores this absurdity. And, as the people interviewed on CBC commented today Beckett seemed to maintain a willingness to keep trying/fighting. "“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” - Worstword Ho by Beckett.
Beckett, like Camus, is trying to jolt us out of our complacency. I was amazed to hear actors discuss how his editorial notes in his plays and other direction were so powerful and subtle.... they discuss the difference between a comma and a semicolon. One Irish actress, who has performed numerous Beckett pieces said that performing his plays has changed/challenged her as a person.
She discussed one play where all is dark in the theatre, even the exit signs, and all people see is a mouth eight feet above the stage. As the actor she was in a harness and even had her head constrained and wore a blindfold. She talked about how disconcerting this is for the audience but also how it impacted her physically and mentally. I had never heard thoughts like this before.
Beckett's characters, may be waiting for something or someone, or feel all alone, but somehow we still come away with a sense of hope or possibility. I guess it is like listening to Leonard Cohen, he is sad, he is hurting, but sharing his pain helps us feel not so alone.
Friday, 4 January 2019
French Exit
by Patrick De Witt
This book was nominated for the Booker Prize this year and also for a Canadian Prize. I wish I had read my review of his other book Sister Brothers, then I probably wouldn't have been interested in reading this one.
I don't know why his books get such acclaim. This story was silly and the main characters were a waste of human space in my opinion. Is that what people like today, people who are more useless and more self-centred than they are?
It is the story of a mother and son who when the book opens are living in New York. The back story is that the man's father died years before, his wife discovered him dead and left him there to go off skiing or something for a weekend. When she came back she reported the death. This story was scandalous and she was villified in the media.
At the time of his father's death the boy was at a private school, his mother arrives one day to pull him out of school and announces his father has died. The father was wealthy and they are living off the wealth in an extravagant fashion in New York until they are told that they are basically insolvent and will have to sell all their property. The son and his mother have become very close. The son does not work nor do much of anything.
The wife has a cat whom she is convinced has taken in the spirit of her dead husband. It appears this might be correct.
They decide to leave for Paris and live in an apartment offered to them. The Mother is fine with leaving but the son is devastated as he is engaged to a girl. They do leave on a ship and the cat is drugged so they don't have to deal with all the paperwork of bringing an animal on the ship and into France.
On the ship the young man meets a tarot card reader and they have sex. The young woman had successfully predicted the death of one of the guests on the ship. She is fired when the woman dies.
When the mother and son arrive in Paris they live extravagently, the mother literaly gives money away and flushes it down the toilet. The cat runs away and even though they try to woe him back using the services of the card reader and the bank employee/cum private investigator, the cat decides to continue to live a hard lonely life on the streets of Paris.
The Mother and son inherit a rag tag collection of guests who come to live with them in the apartment including another American, the tarot card reader, a bank employee and eventually the son's fiancee who is now engaged to a former fiancee, and her fiancee.
The mother, after she has given or spent all her money, commits suicide in a bathtub.
That is the end....
Don't really care for the story or any of the characters.
This book was nominated for the Booker Prize this year and also for a Canadian Prize. I wish I had read my review of his other book Sister Brothers, then I probably wouldn't have been interested in reading this one.
I don't know why his books get such acclaim. This story was silly and the main characters were a waste of human space in my opinion. Is that what people like today, people who are more useless and more self-centred than they are?
It is the story of a mother and son who when the book opens are living in New York. The back story is that the man's father died years before, his wife discovered him dead and left him there to go off skiing or something for a weekend. When she came back she reported the death. This story was scandalous and she was villified in the media.
At the time of his father's death the boy was at a private school, his mother arrives one day to pull him out of school and announces his father has died. The father was wealthy and they are living off the wealth in an extravagant fashion in New York until they are told that they are basically insolvent and will have to sell all their property. The son and his mother have become very close. The son does not work nor do much of anything.
The wife has a cat whom she is convinced has taken in the spirit of her dead husband. It appears this might be correct.
They decide to leave for Paris and live in an apartment offered to them. The Mother is fine with leaving but the son is devastated as he is engaged to a girl. They do leave on a ship and the cat is drugged so they don't have to deal with all the paperwork of bringing an animal on the ship and into France.
On the ship the young man meets a tarot card reader and they have sex. The young woman had successfully predicted the death of one of the guests on the ship. She is fired when the woman dies.
When the mother and son arrive in Paris they live extravagently, the mother literaly gives money away and flushes it down the toilet. The cat runs away and even though they try to woe him back using the services of the card reader and the bank employee/cum private investigator, the cat decides to continue to live a hard lonely life on the streets of Paris.
The Mother and son inherit a rag tag collection of guests who come to live with them in the apartment including another American, the tarot card reader, a bank employee and eventually the son's fiancee who is now engaged to a former fiancee, and her fiancee.
The mother, after she has given or spent all her money, commits suicide in a bathtub.
That is the end....
Don't really care for the story or any of the characters.
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