The Kites
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4.8 • 13 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Romain Gary’s bittersweet final masterpiece is “epic and empathetic” (BBC) and “one of his best” (The New York Times)
The Kites begins with a young boy, Ludo, coming of age on a small farm in Normandy under the care of his eccentric kite-making Uncle Ambrose. Ludo’s life changes the day he meets Lila, a girl from the aristocratic Polish family that owns the estate next door. In a single glance, Ludo falls in love forever; Lila, on the other hand, disappears back into the woods. And so begins Ludo’s adventure of longing, passion, and love for the elusive Lila, who begins to reciprocate his feelings just as Europe descends into World War II. After Germany invades Poland, Lila and her family go missing, and Ludo’s devotion to saving her from the Nazis becomes a journey to save his love, his loved ones, his country, and ultimately himself.
Filled with unforgettable characters who fling all they have into the fight to keep their hopes—and themselves—alive, The Kites is Romain Gary’s poetic call for resistance in whatever form it takes. A war hero himself, Gary embraced and fought for humanity in all its nuanced complexities, in the belief that a hero might be anyone who has the courage to love and hope.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Published for the first time in English, this novel from Gary (The Roots of Heaven), two-time winner of the Prix Goncourt, follows a young man's passion through the ravages of WWII. Ludo lives with his uncle, kite maker Ambrose Fleury, in the small town of Cl ry in the French countryside. Ludo, like everyone in the Fleury family, has an impressive "historical memory" that earns him the ire of his teachers and arguments with Lila, the object of his affection, who isn't as keen as Ludo to rehash the country's recent bloody history. Lila, the mercurial, naive daughter of Polish aristocrats, waffles about her own identity or plays at pushing Ludo away, but never truly takes on the contours of a fully-formed character. While characterizations of Lila can be maddeningly flat, Ludo's foray into the French Resistance set against the backdrop of German-occupied France is beautifully rendered. Gary handles the emotional tightrope of espionage and the brutal reality of battle with clarity and precision, all captured magnificently by Mouillot's translation: "I would climb the wall and go to wait for Lila in the lane of chestnut trees, and the stone bench, which had with the moonlight exchanged nothing but chill and emptiness for so long, welcomed us with friendship." This is a wonderful translation of a French classic.
