Le Mariage

by Diane Johnson | Romance | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0099421852 Global Overview for this book
Registered by Antof9 of Lakewood, Colorado USA on 7/9/2008
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1 journaler for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by Antof9 from Lakewood, Colorado USA on Wednesday, July 9, 2008
I have no idea where I got this or who gave it to me, but that seems to happen a lot since I became a BookCrosser. Either way, it's here and I'm registering it :)

Journal Entry 2 by Antof9 from Lakewood, Colorado USA on Wednesday, February 18, 2009
I had no expectations for this book, and started reading it with interest. What I couldn't decide in this book was if the author was trying to compare and contrast the sexes, or Americans vs. French. She sort of did both, but I couldn't help but wonder if she'd placed all the characters in one locale with a similar nationality, if she'd have hit the mark better? It's not that this book couldn't have both, but it seemed weaker because she was trying to hit both. Maybe what I'm really trying to say is, if you want to write a book about a wedding, and American vs. French thoughts about it, do that. If you want to write a book about a wedding, and your thoughts on male vs. female thoughts, then ... do that. This one was very interesting to read, but kind of petered out at the end. Maybe that was the problem. In trying to hit everything, there were too many notes to hit, and many got missed.

That said, there were parts of this that were just awesome. Flashes of brilliance that just make you break out your highlighter and wish you had written them. Here are a few:
In a way she had been shocked to learn that the whole elaborate ritual of hunty -- dogs, red coats, horses -- was done in France, which seemed too, well, too small a country to let people loose with weapons in...

"What danger means to the French I have never understood," Tim had written once. She had read this passage over several times. "The seem drawn to it in a way we are not. Perhaps it is to atone for the crucial national moment when by and large they avoided danger. Or perhaps, belonging to an oldcivilization gives a certain perspective that we, fragile in our optimism, and convinced that we have yet so much to teach, lack. we are prudent, they drive too fast, race cars across deserts, sail in little boats alone across the open sea, scale skyscrapers, tightrope-walk, assault their arteries with rillettes and patinate their lungs with Gauloises."

"I wonder if the Americans will be, well, like Tim, alors -- their jackets won't match their pants, they'll wear tennis shoes in town, that sort of thing," said Anne-Sophie happily.

She stared at the moonlit wall, where she could reat the cross-stitched sampler that said "Kissin' don't last, cookin' do." The exact opposite of what the countess Ribemont in Against the Tide would say. The countess said, "All men really require is extravagant admiration of their genitals."


And although this wasn't brilliant, it made me laugh: Delia didn't think she was a prude, but there was an awful lot of screwing in France, in the public toilets, or with people listening two feet away -- for of course she was awake, four o'clock the heure blanche of jet lag.

I mostly liked this book, but I felt like the author's pessimistic attitude toward marriage colored the writing, instead of writing a character to express her opinion. If I could just change the end of this, I'd like it a whole lot better ...

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