Briefly, A Delicious Life
Ratings10
Average rating3.6
15
Ratings10
Average rating3.6
In 1473, fourteen-year-old Blanca dies in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca. Nearly four hundred years later, when George Sand, her two children, and her lover Frederic Chopin arrive in the village, Blanca is still there: a spirited, funny, righteous ghost, she’s been hanging around the monastery since her accidental death, spying on the monks and the townspeople and keeping track of her descendants.
Blanca is enchanted the moment she sees George, and the magical novel unfolds as a story of deeply felt, unrequited longing—a teenage ghost pining for a woman who can’t see her and doesn’t know she exists. As George and Chopin, who wear their unconventionality, in George’s case, literally on their sleeves, find themselves in deepening trouble with the provincial, 19th-century villagers, Blanca watches helplessly and reflects on the circumstances of her own death (which involved an ill-advised love affair with a monk-in-training).
Charming, original, and emotionally moving, this “deeply wild debut follows the unconventional love triangle” (Cosmopolitan) between George, Chopin, and Blanca—a gorgeous and surprising exploration of artistry, desire, and life after death.
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I received an ARC of this book from the publisher. My review will appear in the New York Journal of Books.
Just went back and read my review of the first book I read from Nell Stevens, (one of her memoirs), and my feelings on this book share some similarities.
1) I'm not sure what the goal was, other than recounting a factual, if miserable, moment in historical figures' lives, now with bonus ghost.
2) There were a number of moving parts that didn't necessarily add up to a satisfying reading experience.
3) The motif of a writer focused on writing seen in the Bleaker House memoir continues in this work of fiction as the author as voyeuristic ghost narrates George Sand's creative process, her pursuit of publication.
All new to this particular book:
I think I spent about as much time disgusted as I did enchanted by detailed descriptions of sights and experiences, which in the sense that both evoked emotion adds up to masterful wording!
Aside from making me feel even more strongly about a person's right to choose, and right to abortion access, I don't know what the story line of teen pregnancy, (and the ghost mission of raging more or less effectively and incorporeally against local pedophiles) was meant to accomplish within the narrative.
There are glimpses of questioning gender norms and heteronormativity in a historical setting via George Sand, but they feel more like a drive by with everything else going on in the story.
Overall, way more carnal than I was expecting
I think if I'm to pick up a third book from this author, I'll have to hear a review specifically emphasizing how coherent the narrative throughline was and how satisfying the ending was. With this quality of writing, I really would like to see it in future novels!
⚠️ Eating disorder, statutory SA, SA, domestic abuse, child abuse
