Isabelle in the Afternoon
 |
Description
Book Introduction
An afternoon with Isabelle, a time when body and mind become one!
A novel by Douglas Kennedy, author of "The Big Picture" Douglas Kennedy, author of "The Big Picture," which was a bestseller for a whopping 200 weeks in 2010, has published his 2020 novel, "Isabel in the Afternoon." Douglas Kennedy is from Manhattan, New York, and has lived in Paris, France; London, England; Melbourne, Australia; Dublin, Ireland; and Malta. He has also traveled to over 60 countries, and has developed a wealth of experience that has led to his prolific creative work. His novels captivate readers with vivid and detailed descriptions, unique and compelling characters, insightful and intelligent narratives, fast-paced plots, and unexpected twists and turns, making it impossible to put them down. "Isabelle in the Afternoon" is a novel that delivers a very honest and groundbreaking message about the love we encounter throughout life. The novel's protagonist, Isabelle, is a married French woman who works as a translator, and Sam is a college student traveling to Paris before entering law school. It would be easy to expect a one-time encounter between a married woman and a college student traveling, but their relationship continues for a long time, even after Sam meets another woman and gets married. This novel deals with the long-term love between Sam, an American man, and Isabelle, a French woman, across the Atlantic Ocean, while also portraying the various problems that arise at home in a very compelling way. Although their relationship is often dismissed as an affair or infidelity, Sam and Isabelle cannot let go of their love for the rest of their lives. The line in the text, "We couldn't meet every day, and our relationship had to be kept secret, never open to the public, so it was always desperate and intense," seems appropriate, but the love story unfolds in a way that can't be explained solely by those details. |
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Preview
Into the book
“Kindness is far from me.
Staying in Paris will be the last 'freedom' you will ever taste in your life.
“Eventually, like most Americans, including myself, you will return to the United States to adapt to life there.”
Those were Paul Most's last words.
Soon the hotel front door slammed shut, and Paul left.
I went into Paul's room.
There were over a hundred books, various kinds of pens, stacks of yellow notebooks, six or seven black notebooks, graph paper, four bottles of unopened red wine, plum wine, and two bottles of brandy.
A chill ran down the back of my neck as I looked at the remnants of Paul's wandering life.
Everything we've accumulated, all the relationships we've formed, eventually we have to leave it all behind.
It is a fate from which no one can be an exception.
Fundamentally, all we have left is ‘here and now.’
--- p.50
The future? When you fall in love, you can't focus on anything but the present moment.
You start to dream of a future with the person you desperately love.
We become endlessly obsessed with an impossible future.
To have a future with Isabelle, you must stay grounded in the present.
We must accept as reality the idea that the future will not be much different from the present.
It should be self-evident that nothing will change even when one of the two people is under severe stress and goes through great ups and downs.
Now my mind is as clear as the sky before dawn.
'You shouldn't dream of a future with Isabel.
'The only things that are allowed to happen within the given conditions are those that are allowed to happen within the given conditions.'
Sadness followed the sober realization.
Meanwhile, I felt a strange sense of liberation.
There is no need to insist on looking only at Isabelle or dedicating my life to 'just one person'.
Still, if Isabelle agreed to my scenario of a future together, I was willing to accept it.
Isabel would probably be reluctant to be lumped into the category of 'one person,' but if there was one person for me, it was Isabel.
--- p.135
'You'll find out later when you get married.
Alexandre Dumas once said this:
The chains of marriage are so heavy that sometimes you need help lifting them.'
I couldn't understand what my mom was saying.
I just knew that Mom and I had one more secret to share.
“My mother reassured me that she would never show me that kind of behavior again.”
Isabelle put out her cigarette and continued speaking.
“I think we are living in a cycle of repeating the past.
My mother never got her PhD, which was her life's goal.
I did too.
My mother got married because she believed in eternal love.
I did too.
I knew that once Charles made me his woman, he would return to the bourgeois life he had always belonged to.
Like my mother, who died of emphysema at the age of sixty-six, I too came to have a 'secret garden'.
Charles bought me this studio before he divorced his ex-wife, and we started meeting here.
In the end, I am here in my own way, and Charles is meeting other people in his own way.
Charles is just repeating the same thing he did when he first got married.
I'm repeating my past too.
And yet I will repeat my love.”
--- p.159
People just fall in love when the timing is right.
When it comes to love, things don't always go the way you imagine.
Even though he knows this fact well, he is hurt by his passion that does not come true as he wanted, and in order to heal that wound, he falls in love again.
“Is it really over?”
“What is the standard for saying it’s really over?”
“I don’t know about that either.”
I drank with Rebecca until 2am.
A relatively comfortable conversation followed.
The erotic feelings felt during a conversation between two people who have aroused interest from the moment they first meet are not something to be taken lightly.
--- p.190
Rebecca sat up in bed.
After I finished my coffee, I pulled Rebecca into bed.
We had sex while still hungover from last night.
Although our bodies were tired, we were eager to prove ourselves to each other.
It is said that the history of a relationship is written in the first week, and that all the signs are revealed during that time.
In our yearning for love, we tend to ignore the obvious truth and embrace only the excitement of sex.
It's not that sex with Rebecca was bad or boring.
There was no lack of passion.
Rebecca mentioned at dinner last night that she was captain of the lacrosse team in college.
He said he likes sports because he enjoys 'competition'.
competition.
The one word that sums up my sex with Rebecca is competition.
It was intense, loud, and sometimes rough.
Unlike Siobhan, who seemed like a carnivore, Rebecca's gestures conveyed a sense of deprivation and loneliness.
I immediately responded to Rebecca's gesture.
Because Rebecca was like a mirror reflecting the loneliness I was feeling.
--- p.196
The more difficult it is to own something, the more we want to own it.
When you get what you want, you think that what you have now might not have been easy to possess from the beginning.
If you follow the path of twisted logic and the mirrors that distort the truth, you will eventually lose everything.
Instead of pursuing a serious and stable love, you end up chasing an unattainable, dream-like love.
Naturally, Rebecca wondered if I had heard back from Isabelle since I cancelled my trip to Paris.
I told her that Isabel had sent a telegram saying she was sad but wished her luck.
“Were you sad when you read that telegram?”
"No matter how undesirable a relationship may be for the future, wouldn't you feel a certain amount of sadness when it ends? In any case, it's all in the past now."
It was a lie.
If it was a serious relationship that kept me awake, could it really be over so easily?
--- pp.214~215
How fascinating is the psychology of wanting to check that the door hasn't closed even after sending a letter? And what about the psychology of creating an irreversible situation, leaving it to chance, and then hoping it might be salvaged?
At the end of the letter, I wrote, 'I will always be your good friend.'
The most devastating thing you can say to someone you love is to tell them to just be friends.
When we say love-killing words to justify our decisions, when we say mean things that destroy the possibility of meeting again, we feel superior, as if we possess some great power.
No matter how much you convince yourself that it was the best decision, it's only when the door of love slams shut that you realize how badly you made a mistake.
Even if you try to convince yourself that you had no choice but to make such a terrible choice because the other person was completely responsible for the breakup and offered no solutions, you are solely responsible for the outcome.
Unless the other person has gone astray or has been so traumatized that it has seriously affected their life, downgrading affection to friendship is always tainted with regret.
Staying in Paris will be the last 'freedom' you will ever taste in your life.
“Eventually, like most Americans, including myself, you will return to the United States to adapt to life there.”
Those were Paul Most's last words.
Soon the hotel front door slammed shut, and Paul left.
I went into Paul's room.
There were over a hundred books, various kinds of pens, stacks of yellow notebooks, six or seven black notebooks, graph paper, four bottles of unopened red wine, plum wine, and two bottles of brandy.
A chill ran down the back of my neck as I looked at the remnants of Paul's wandering life.
Everything we've accumulated, all the relationships we've formed, eventually we have to leave it all behind.
It is a fate from which no one can be an exception.
Fundamentally, all we have left is ‘here and now.’
--- p.50
The future? When you fall in love, you can't focus on anything but the present moment.
You start to dream of a future with the person you desperately love.
We become endlessly obsessed with an impossible future.
To have a future with Isabelle, you must stay grounded in the present.
We must accept as reality the idea that the future will not be much different from the present.
It should be self-evident that nothing will change even when one of the two people is under severe stress and goes through great ups and downs.
Now my mind is as clear as the sky before dawn.
'You shouldn't dream of a future with Isabel.
'The only things that are allowed to happen within the given conditions are those that are allowed to happen within the given conditions.'
Sadness followed the sober realization.
Meanwhile, I felt a strange sense of liberation.
There is no need to insist on looking only at Isabelle or dedicating my life to 'just one person'.
Still, if Isabelle agreed to my scenario of a future together, I was willing to accept it.
Isabel would probably be reluctant to be lumped into the category of 'one person,' but if there was one person for me, it was Isabel.
--- p.135
'You'll find out later when you get married.
Alexandre Dumas once said this:
The chains of marriage are so heavy that sometimes you need help lifting them.'
I couldn't understand what my mom was saying.
I just knew that Mom and I had one more secret to share.
“My mother reassured me that she would never show me that kind of behavior again.”
Isabelle put out her cigarette and continued speaking.
“I think we are living in a cycle of repeating the past.
My mother never got her PhD, which was her life's goal.
I did too.
My mother got married because she believed in eternal love.
I did too.
I knew that once Charles made me his woman, he would return to the bourgeois life he had always belonged to.
Like my mother, who died of emphysema at the age of sixty-six, I too came to have a 'secret garden'.
Charles bought me this studio before he divorced his ex-wife, and we started meeting here.
In the end, I am here in my own way, and Charles is meeting other people in his own way.
Charles is just repeating the same thing he did when he first got married.
I'm repeating my past too.
And yet I will repeat my love.”
--- p.159
People just fall in love when the timing is right.
When it comes to love, things don't always go the way you imagine.
Even though he knows this fact well, he is hurt by his passion that does not come true as he wanted, and in order to heal that wound, he falls in love again.
“Is it really over?”
“What is the standard for saying it’s really over?”
“I don’t know about that either.”
I drank with Rebecca until 2am.
A relatively comfortable conversation followed.
The erotic feelings felt during a conversation between two people who have aroused interest from the moment they first meet are not something to be taken lightly.
--- p.190
Rebecca sat up in bed.
After I finished my coffee, I pulled Rebecca into bed.
We had sex while still hungover from last night.
Although our bodies were tired, we were eager to prove ourselves to each other.
It is said that the history of a relationship is written in the first week, and that all the signs are revealed during that time.
In our yearning for love, we tend to ignore the obvious truth and embrace only the excitement of sex.
It's not that sex with Rebecca was bad or boring.
There was no lack of passion.
Rebecca mentioned at dinner last night that she was captain of the lacrosse team in college.
He said he likes sports because he enjoys 'competition'.
competition.
The one word that sums up my sex with Rebecca is competition.
It was intense, loud, and sometimes rough.
Unlike Siobhan, who seemed like a carnivore, Rebecca's gestures conveyed a sense of deprivation and loneliness.
I immediately responded to Rebecca's gesture.
Because Rebecca was like a mirror reflecting the loneliness I was feeling.
--- p.196
The more difficult it is to own something, the more we want to own it.
When you get what you want, you think that what you have now might not have been easy to possess from the beginning.
If you follow the path of twisted logic and the mirrors that distort the truth, you will eventually lose everything.
Instead of pursuing a serious and stable love, you end up chasing an unattainable, dream-like love.
Naturally, Rebecca wondered if I had heard back from Isabelle since I cancelled my trip to Paris.
I told her that Isabel had sent a telegram saying she was sad but wished her luck.
“Were you sad when you read that telegram?”
"No matter how undesirable a relationship may be for the future, wouldn't you feel a certain amount of sadness when it ends? In any case, it's all in the past now."
It was a lie.
If it was a serious relationship that kept me awake, could it really be over so easily?
--- pp.214~215
How fascinating is the psychology of wanting to check that the door hasn't closed even after sending a letter? And what about the psychology of creating an irreversible situation, leaving it to chance, and then hoping it might be salvaged?
At the end of the letter, I wrote, 'I will always be your good friend.'
The most devastating thing you can say to someone you love is to tell them to just be friends.
When we say love-killing words to justify our decisions, when we say mean things that destroy the possibility of meeting again, we feel superior, as if we possess some great power.
No matter how much you convince yourself that it was the best decision, it's only when the door of love slams shut that you realize how badly you made a mistake.
Even if you try to convince yourself that you had no choice but to make such a terrible choice because the other person was completely responsible for the breakup and offered no solutions, you are solely responsible for the outcome.
Unless the other person has gone astray or has been so traumatized that it has seriously affected their life, downgrading affection to friendship is always tainted with regret.
--- p.219
Publisher's Review
An afternoon with Isabelle, a time when body and mind become one!
- A new novel by Douglas Kennedy, author of "The Big Picture"!
Douglas Kennedy, author of "The Big Picture," which was a bestseller for a whopping 200 weeks in 2010, has published his new novel, "Isabel in the Afternoon," in 2020.
Douglas Kennedy is from Manhattan, New York, and has lived in Paris, France; London, England; Melbourne, Australia; Dublin, Ireland; and Malta. He has also traveled to over 60 countries, and has developed a wealth of experience that has led to his prolific creative work.
His novels captivate readers with vivid and detailed descriptions, unique and compelling characters, insightful and intelligent narratives, fast-paced plots, and unexpected twists and turns, making it impossible to put them down.
There are currently a total of 15 of his novels published in Korea.
Every time a new novel is published, it receives significant attention, and all of its works have established themselves as steady sellers that are consistently loved.
In particular, 『Big Picture』, 『Moment』, 『Temptation』, 『The Job』, and 『Dangerous Liaisons』 were bestsellers and steady sellers that were loved by readers for a long time.
Recently, he has also demonstrated his skills as a youth literature writer through the 『Aurora』 series.
Rather than his native United States, he has been actively engaged in creative activities in Europe, and in 2006 he received the Order of Cultural Merit in France, and his works 『Big Picture』, 『Dead Heart』, and 『A Woman in the Fifth Arrondissement』 were made into films.
Its popularity in Korea is so high that it has ranked 7th in total domestic sales over the past 10 years (Kyobo Book Centre statistics, 2019).
Everyone longs to find love that will become the light of their lives.
I find hope in this encounter and look forward to a future together with my loved one.
As with all stories in life, especially when it comes to love, things don't always turn out the way you imagined.
No matter how much people love each other, if they meet, date, and get married, as time goes on together, the longing and desperate feelings fade away, and they become insensitive to each other, leading to boredom.
"Isabelle in the Afternoon" is a novel that delivers a very honest and groundbreaking message about the love we encounter throughout life.
Douglas Kennedy has already told the story of a fateful encounter and passionate love in "The Moment."
No matter how fateful the person you meet is, if you are blocked by the insurmountable barriers of reality, you will not be able to build a future together.
In "Moment," an American travel writer and a woman from East Berlin meet during the Perestroika era and fall in love passionately, but their relationship is ultimately marred by the ideological confrontation of the Cold War.
The novel's protagonist, Isabelle, is a married French woman who works as a translator, and Sam is a college student traveling to Paris before entering law school.
It would be easy to expect a one-time encounter between a married woman and a college student traveling, but their relationship continues for a long time, even after Sam meets another woman and gets married.
This novel deals with the long-term love between Sam, an American man, and Isabelle, a French woman, across the Atlantic Ocean, while also very convincingly depicting the various problems that arise at home.
The two people's meeting began at a book launch party held at a bookstore in Paris.
Sam, who was captivated by Isabelle at first sight, hopes to see her again, and Isabelle, seemingly touched by his feelings, hands him her business card and asks him to contact her.
Sam visits Isabelle's studio on Rue Bernard Palissy and they continue to meet twice a week, three or four days apart.
Sam, a twenty-one-year-old young man with little dating experience, is filled with joy at having found love with whom he can communicate perfectly for the first time in his life, and hopes for the future.
When anyone falls in love, they become unable to properly see the reality before their eyes.
You start to dream of a future with the person you desperately love.
No matter how many seemingly impossible obstacles stand in the way, you become endlessly obsessed with the love you share.
The institution of marriage has been in line with the history of mankind.
Getting married, starting a family, and having children is considered a natural path in life for most people.
Anyone who gets married is given significant responsibilities and obligations, but it's not easy to find another way.
Anyone who wants a stable life and happiness hopes to marry the person they love and open up a future together.
Sam, the protagonist of 'Isabelle in the Afternoon', is a young college student and single.
Isabelle is fifteen years older than Sam and is married.
Isabelle loves Sam, but wants to maintain their relationship while maintaining her family.
Sam hopes that Isabelle will leave her husband and come to the United States with him, but as she is still a law school student, he is unable to make a strong argument for this as he does not have the necessary conditions for a couple to live together.
In the end, the meeting between the two is limited to a meeting at 5 p.m., set by Isabelle, in Bernard Palissy's studio.
From Isabelle's perspective, she wants to keep their relationship secret so as not to attract the attention of her acquaintances in Paris.
Isabelle expresses her thoughts on married life by quoting Alexandre Dumas.
"The chains of marriage are so heavy that sometimes you need help to lift them." - Alexandre Dumas
Although their relationship is often dismissed as an affair or infidelity, Sam and Isabelle cannot let go of their love for the rest of their lives.
The line in the text, "We couldn't meet every day, and our relationship had to be kept secret, never open to others, so it was always desperate and intense," seems appropriate, but the love story unfolds in a way that can't be explained solely by those details.
Cultural Differences Between the U.S. and France Regarding Marriage and Family
Douglas Kennedy is an American writer from Manhattan, but he has lived primarily in France, so he can be said to have experienced firsthand the differences between American and French ways of thinking.
There are also differences between American and French views on marriage and family.
Sam, who is from Indiana in the American Midwest, grew up in a traditional Baptist family and is open to marriage, divorce, and remarriage, but is strongly opposed to meeting someone else while still married.
On the other hand, French woman Isabelle believes that meeting other partners should be tolerated as a way to effectively overcome a marriage in which one becomes increasingly insensitive and distant from one's spouse.
Of course, we cannot know for sure whether Isabelle fully represents the thoughts of French women, but it does give us a glimpse into the significant differences in how people in the two countries view married life.
Isabelle believes that in Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Bovary sought someone other than her husband because her married life was too boring.
While the French are constantly agonizing and questioning whether they can achieve their goals, Americans, steeped in positivism, are confident that there is nothing in this world they cannot achieve.
It is also particularly interesting to observe the cultural differences between the two countries as revealed in the conversations between an American man and a French woman.
This novel is about a married person who meets someone else and falls in love.
No matter how much you marry someone you love, as time passes by together, the original goal of building a happy family and the rosy outlook for the future gradually fade.
Can Isabelle, a wise and intelligent woman, truly show married couples how to live happily ever after? Isabelle, too, is easily hurt, fragile, and psychologically complex.
I suffer from depression, panic disorder and claustrophobia.
She is also a character who struggles to find the answer to which side she should choose between her husband and Sam.
Everyone wants to have a happy, harmonious family with strong bonds, but in reality, difficulties often arise.
This novel poses sharp and pointed questions about many life issues that are difficult to answer, such as love, marriage, family, and child rearing.
Douglas Kennedy has always talked about the uncertainty principle and the idea that we should live in the moment rather than trying to derive the right answer from life.
No matter how much we have accumulated in life, humans must eventually let it all go and leave, and the only thing that is given for sure is ‘here and now.’
This novel features many vivid and moving characters, not just Sam and Isabelle.
Another fun aspect of reading this novel is observing what choices they make in life and what consequences they face.
It is also particularly interesting to see how people with disabilities and their families accept and overcome hardships through the two children: Sam's son, who has a hearing impairment, and Isabel's daughter, Emily, who suffers from the mental disorder of depression.
Douglas Kennedy's novels are divided into novels with female and male narrators.
The narrator of this novel is Sam.
These are novels with male narrators, such as 『Big Picture』, 『Moment』, 『Temptation』, and 『The Job』.
In our country, more readers like it when the speaker is a man.
Although the author has a surprisingly good grasp of female psychology, it may be because more delicate emotional expressions and deeper psychological descriptions are possible when the narrator is a man.
- A new novel by Douglas Kennedy, author of "The Big Picture"!
Douglas Kennedy, author of "The Big Picture," which was a bestseller for a whopping 200 weeks in 2010, has published his new novel, "Isabel in the Afternoon," in 2020.
Douglas Kennedy is from Manhattan, New York, and has lived in Paris, France; London, England; Melbourne, Australia; Dublin, Ireland; and Malta. He has also traveled to over 60 countries, and has developed a wealth of experience that has led to his prolific creative work.
His novels captivate readers with vivid and detailed descriptions, unique and compelling characters, insightful and intelligent narratives, fast-paced plots, and unexpected twists and turns, making it impossible to put them down.
There are currently a total of 15 of his novels published in Korea.
Every time a new novel is published, it receives significant attention, and all of its works have established themselves as steady sellers that are consistently loved.
In particular, 『Big Picture』, 『Moment』, 『Temptation』, 『The Job』, and 『Dangerous Liaisons』 were bestsellers and steady sellers that were loved by readers for a long time.
Recently, he has also demonstrated his skills as a youth literature writer through the 『Aurora』 series.
Rather than his native United States, he has been actively engaged in creative activities in Europe, and in 2006 he received the Order of Cultural Merit in France, and his works 『Big Picture』, 『Dead Heart』, and 『A Woman in the Fifth Arrondissement』 were made into films.
Its popularity in Korea is so high that it has ranked 7th in total domestic sales over the past 10 years (Kyobo Book Centre statistics, 2019).
Everyone longs to find love that will become the light of their lives.
I find hope in this encounter and look forward to a future together with my loved one.
As with all stories in life, especially when it comes to love, things don't always turn out the way you imagined.
No matter how much people love each other, if they meet, date, and get married, as time goes on together, the longing and desperate feelings fade away, and they become insensitive to each other, leading to boredom.
"Isabelle in the Afternoon" is a novel that delivers a very honest and groundbreaking message about the love we encounter throughout life.
Douglas Kennedy has already told the story of a fateful encounter and passionate love in "The Moment."
No matter how fateful the person you meet is, if you are blocked by the insurmountable barriers of reality, you will not be able to build a future together.
In "Moment," an American travel writer and a woman from East Berlin meet during the Perestroika era and fall in love passionately, but their relationship is ultimately marred by the ideological confrontation of the Cold War.
The novel's protagonist, Isabelle, is a married French woman who works as a translator, and Sam is a college student traveling to Paris before entering law school.
It would be easy to expect a one-time encounter between a married woman and a college student traveling, but their relationship continues for a long time, even after Sam meets another woman and gets married.
This novel deals with the long-term love between Sam, an American man, and Isabelle, a French woman, across the Atlantic Ocean, while also very convincingly depicting the various problems that arise at home.
The two people's meeting began at a book launch party held at a bookstore in Paris.
Sam, who was captivated by Isabelle at first sight, hopes to see her again, and Isabelle, seemingly touched by his feelings, hands him her business card and asks him to contact her.
Sam visits Isabelle's studio on Rue Bernard Palissy and they continue to meet twice a week, three or four days apart.
Sam, a twenty-one-year-old young man with little dating experience, is filled with joy at having found love with whom he can communicate perfectly for the first time in his life, and hopes for the future.
When anyone falls in love, they become unable to properly see the reality before their eyes.
You start to dream of a future with the person you desperately love.
No matter how many seemingly impossible obstacles stand in the way, you become endlessly obsessed with the love you share.
The institution of marriage has been in line with the history of mankind.
Getting married, starting a family, and having children is considered a natural path in life for most people.
Anyone who gets married is given significant responsibilities and obligations, but it's not easy to find another way.
Anyone who wants a stable life and happiness hopes to marry the person they love and open up a future together.
Sam, the protagonist of 'Isabelle in the Afternoon', is a young college student and single.
Isabelle is fifteen years older than Sam and is married.
Isabelle loves Sam, but wants to maintain their relationship while maintaining her family.
Sam hopes that Isabelle will leave her husband and come to the United States with him, but as she is still a law school student, he is unable to make a strong argument for this as he does not have the necessary conditions for a couple to live together.
In the end, the meeting between the two is limited to a meeting at 5 p.m., set by Isabelle, in Bernard Palissy's studio.
From Isabelle's perspective, she wants to keep their relationship secret so as not to attract the attention of her acquaintances in Paris.
Isabelle expresses her thoughts on married life by quoting Alexandre Dumas.
"The chains of marriage are so heavy that sometimes you need help to lift them." - Alexandre Dumas
Although their relationship is often dismissed as an affair or infidelity, Sam and Isabelle cannot let go of their love for the rest of their lives.
The line in the text, "We couldn't meet every day, and our relationship had to be kept secret, never open to others, so it was always desperate and intense," seems appropriate, but the love story unfolds in a way that can't be explained solely by those details.
Cultural Differences Between the U.S. and France Regarding Marriage and Family
Douglas Kennedy is an American writer from Manhattan, but he has lived primarily in France, so he can be said to have experienced firsthand the differences between American and French ways of thinking.
There are also differences between American and French views on marriage and family.
Sam, who is from Indiana in the American Midwest, grew up in a traditional Baptist family and is open to marriage, divorce, and remarriage, but is strongly opposed to meeting someone else while still married.
On the other hand, French woman Isabelle believes that meeting other partners should be tolerated as a way to effectively overcome a marriage in which one becomes increasingly insensitive and distant from one's spouse.
Of course, we cannot know for sure whether Isabelle fully represents the thoughts of French women, but it does give us a glimpse into the significant differences in how people in the two countries view married life.
Isabelle believes that in Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Bovary sought someone other than her husband because her married life was too boring.
While the French are constantly agonizing and questioning whether they can achieve their goals, Americans, steeped in positivism, are confident that there is nothing in this world they cannot achieve.
It is also particularly interesting to observe the cultural differences between the two countries as revealed in the conversations between an American man and a French woman.
This novel is about a married person who meets someone else and falls in love.
No matter how much you marry someone you love, as time passes by together, the original goal of building a happy family and the rosy outlook for the future gradually fade.
Can Isabelle, a wise and intelligent woman, truly show married couples how to live happily ever after? Isabelle, too, is easily hurt, fragile, and psychologically complex.
I suffer from depression, panic disorder and claustrophobia.
She is also a character who struggles to find the answer to which side she should choose between her husband and Sam.
Everyone wants to have a happy, harmonious family with strong bonds, but in reality, difficulties often arise.
This novel poses sharp and pointed questions about many life issues that are difficult to answer, such as love, marriage, family, and child rearing.
Douglas Kennedy has always talked about the uncertainty principle and the idea that we should live in the moment rather than trying to derive the right answer from life.
No matter how much we have accumulated in life, humans must eventually let it all go and leave, and the only thing that is given for sure is ‘here and now.’
This novel features many vivid and moving characters, not just Sam and Isabelle.
Another fun aspect of reading this novel is observing what choices they make in life and what consequences they face.
It is also particularly interesting to see how people with disabilities and their families accept and overcome hardships through the two children: Sam's son, who has a hearing impairment, and Isabel's daughter, Emily, who suffers from the mental disorder of depression.
Douglas Kennedy's novels are divided into novels with female and male narrators.
The narrator of this novel is Sam.
These are novels with male narrators, such as 『Big Picture』, 『Moment』, 『Temptation』, and 『The Job』.
In our country, more readers like it when the speaker is a man.
Although the author has a surprisingly good grasp of female psychology, it may be because more delicate emotional expressions and deeper psychological descriptions are possible when the narrator is a man.
Douglas Kennedy is the absolute king of heart-pounding love stories!
- [The Times]
It's a great novel.
A poignant expression of emotion, a rich and sensual love, a nostalgia for loss and regret for days gone by!
- [Swirl and Thread]
Douglas Kennedy is a master at weaving together diverse stories and tying together social change and family issues.
- [Observer]
Beautiful sentences deeply stimulate the reader's emotions.
A gripping love story that will linger in your heart for a long time.
- [Candis]
An atmospheric novel.
A moving exploration of passion unbound by family institutions.
- [Mail on Sunday]
beautiful.
A work that anyone who has ever fallen in love can relate to.
- [Heat] Douglas Kennedy is the absolute king of heart-pounding love stories!
- [The Times]
It's a great novel.
A poignant expression of emotion, a rich and sensual love, a nostalgia for loss and regret for days gone by!
- [Swirl and Thread]
Douglas Kennedy is a master at weaving together diverse stories and tying together social change and family issues.
- [Observer]
Beautiful sentences deeply stimulate the reader's emotions.
A gripping love story that will linger in your heart for a long time.
- [Candis]
An atmospheric novel.
A moving exploration of passion unbound by family institutions.
- [Mail on Sunday]
beautiful.
A work that anyone who has ever fallen in love can relate to.
- [Heat]
- [The Times]
It's a great novel.
A poignant expression of emotion, a rich and sensual love, a nostalgia for loss and regret for days gone by!
- [Swirl and Thread]
Douglas Kennedy is a master at weaving together diverse stories and tying together social change and family issues.
- [Observer]
Beautiful sentences deeply stimulate the reader's emotions.
A gripping love story that will linger in your heart for a long time.
- [Candis]
An atmospheric novel.
A moving exploration of passion unbound by family institutions.
- [Mail on Sunday]
beautiful.
A work that anyone who has ever fallen in love can relate to.
- [Heat] Douglas Kennedy is the absolute king of heart-pounding love stories!
- [The Times]
It's a great novel.
A poignant expression of emotion, a rich and sensual love, a nostalgia for loss and regret for days gone by!
- [Swirl and Thread]
Douglas Kennedy is a master at weaving together diverse stories and tying together social change and family issues.
- [Observer]
Beautiful sentences deeply stimulate the reader's emotions.
A gripping love story that will linger in your heart for a long time.
- [Candis]
An atmospheric novel.
A moving exploration of passion unbound by family institutions.
- [Mail on Sunday]
beautiful.
A work that anyone who has ever fallen in love can relate to.
- [Heat]
GOODS SPECIFICS
- Date of issue: August 10, 2020
- Page count, weight, size: 448 pages | 478g | 128*188*26mm
- ISBN13: 9788984374096
- ISBN10: 8984374091
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카테고리
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korean
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