Women
A Novel
-
- $10.99
-
- $10.99
Publisher Description
A rediscovered classic from the author of For Two Thousand Years, this remarkable novel presents nuanced snapshots of love in the early twentieth century.
Stefan Valeriu, a young man from Romania who has just completed his medical studies in Paris, spends his vacation in the Alps, where he quickly becomes entangled with three different women. We follow Stefan after his return to Paris as he reflects on the women in his life, at times playing the lover, and at others observing shrewdly from the periphery.
Women's four interlinked stories offer moving, strikingly modern portraits of romantic relationships in all their complexity, from unrequited loves and passionate affairs to tepid marriages of convenience. In the same eloquent style that would characterize his later, more political writings, Mihail Sebastian explores longing, otherness, empathy, and regret.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This skeletal novel in stories from Sebastian (For Two Thousand Years), originally published in 1933, comprises four pieces that follow the sensual and romantic adventures of Stefan Valeriu. Stefan, a young Romanian man recently out of medical school, is introduced in "Ren e, Marthe, and Odette," in which Stefan vacations alone at a resort in the French Alps. There, he meets Ren e Rey, the lustful wife of a Tunisian plantation owner; Marthe Bonneau, an elegant older woman on vacation with her son; and Odette Mignon, a quick-witted 18-year-old recent high school graduate who's also on vacation alone. Stefan falls in love with each, and each leaves him and the resort behind for their normal lives. Sebastian's observations of the complex physical and emotional details of romantic intrigue are perceptive and affectionate: "They don't need to struggle to find each other in the dark, don't lose each other, don't speak: the harmony is that of two stalks, growing, entwined." Even so, the work suffers from inconsistency, and the final three tales, all concerning love affairs in Paris, read like sketches in comparison to the opening story. Stefan, meanwhile, remains frustratingly elusive and mysterious beyond his desire for a series of women. Despite the unpolished feel, these concise stories, when at their best, showcase Sebastian's a brilliant eye for emotional detail.
