Their passionate relationship constitutes the first part of the saga and the destinies of Klara's family in both Paris and Budapest join that of Andras's in the complex narrative. He meets an older, mysterious ballet teacher, Klara Morgenstern, and falls tumultuously in love. Andras and Tibor have a younger brother, Mátyás, who aspires to the stage, as well as unassuming parents in the Hungarian village of Konyár their story expands to include the fates of the Jewish fellow students Andras meets at the École Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris.Īndras is only 19. Such attributes have been entirely discarded in this, her first novel, in which she takes a great story – in part based on the experiences of her grandparents – and flattens it beneath a mountain of incident and often embarrassing prose.Īndras Lévi is a poor young Hungarian who goes to Paris in 1937 to study architecture, while his elder brother Tibor goes to Modena to study medicine in their native land, quotas for Jewish students prevent such education. Julie Orringer is a young American whose first book, the much-praised collection of short stories How to Breathe Underwater, was noted for its ironic humour and verbal precision. T his excessively long epic of war and love is almost impossible to review with charity, yet charitable criticism must be included in any assessment of it because the author is ambitious, has done prodigious research, and has certain remarkable talents.
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