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Title: Mistler's Exit (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Louis Begley ISBN: 0-449-00422-8 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Female readers, beware
Comment: I enjoy reading Louis Begley, but I do get a bit tired of his all conquering male sex gods. Why do women fall for these over-the-hill guys? Don't know.
The writing is excellent and insightful, however, so well worth reading. If only I understood the last sentence I might know if Mistler's Exit was to be a good one or not.
Rating: 4
Summary: Lust after a death sentence
Comment: After being told that you had only a limited time to live because you had a terminal cancer disease, why would you think of your life after death? Many reasons, my friend. Firstly, because many of your fellow human beings are so egotistical that they cannot imagine a world without their presence. OK, so that is the first answer. But the second, which is a bit more subtle and not the first to spring to mind: because they have a hell of a lot of living to do in the meantime. That is quite simply the situation of our hero who is diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer and not a lot of life to fill in. So what does our hero do? He gets going in the best way for him. He indulges an artistic side of his life by going back to Venice to salivate over some of the richest art treasures in Europe and co-incidentally let his libido run its natural course. Two women help him on his merry way and why not? His wife, whom he respects in his own eccentric way, is not of the physical persuasion. So he reaps where he can, with truly male enthousiam and self-indulgence. Don't read this if you actully believe in strictly monogomous protocols. This is for the honestly weak of flesh and the lustfully strong of mind. There is no pretence and no hypocricy. The writing is direct, but never simplistic. Keep your wits about you. The legalistic periodic structure of the sentences does not let the reader slacken his attention. You will be drawn into the humanity of the scenario and the basic sexual needs of a man that knows that life is soon to end. There is no misery here because there is too much to be lived in a finite time frame. Read this if you have ever lusted after something beyond the bourgeois definition of marital fidelity. Mistler is faithful to his wife in his own way and she would not expect anything more. What he craves knowing that the Grim Reaper is at the end of the tunnel, is a sense of having lived: no regrets and no self-recrimination. Read this book if you have a feeling of not having lived your dreams. Read it because you feel that you have not yet dared to think outside the square. But do not leave it too late. Are you sexually honest with yourself? If not, don't read this book. Otherwise you will be disappointed in yourself. Question: did Mistler die fulfilled? Were his sexual escapades only a metaphor for his attempt to escape the prison of his own shortcomings? Read it to find out. Louis Begley writes with an incomparible directness that the reader has to decide for himself and is inevitably drawn into the struggle of another's final zest for life. This book made me review my own as yet unfulfilled dreams. It might do the same for you. This is powerful writing within a contained framework of logical and direct prose. No superfluous frills here.
Rating: 3
Summary: Life after the "final verdict"
Comment: After reading "All about Schmidt" I was attracted to read another book by Louis Begley. This has to be a recommendation of the author. He must be doing something right to qualify for more hours of my discretionary time. Perhaps I was attracted by his grammatical English, which is sadly becoming rarer with an almost universal expectation of little more than bare communication on the lowest level. His legal background is evident in a few periodic sentences of tedious length. There are few and they give way to a simple and wonderfully direct prose for human reaction and emotion. If you were given a finite life expectancy, how would you react? This is the stuff of TV human interest programs. What does our legally trained author offer beyond the banal? Firstly, this is a truly positive book. Nothing morbid here. It is a litany of human passion, self-indulgence and self-gratification. And why not, if you have only a few months to live. The message is Horace's old maxim "carpe diem." Live life. Don't wait. Our hero, Thomas Mistler, in fact had to wait till he had a terminal report from his doctor. But his unexpected reaction is one of freedom from what had restricted his inner-most emotions before knowing that life was not to continue in its bourgeois continuum apparently foreever. So the reader is part of his late emotional and sexual emancipation. He enjoys what many secretly dream of without the burden of middle class values and narrow religious scruple.
Don't read this if you are concerned with the thoughts of an older man who is still sexually alive and well. Don't read it if you are bound by the rules of middle class restrictions of the "apropriate," whatever that may be.
This should be compulsory reading for those with a serious, or life-threatening condition. Forget the gloom. Just for once, let your real feelings come to the fore.
Not to forget Louis Begley's wonderfully succinct and irnonic style, let me assure you that this is a book for those who appreciate irony and grit. Older readers might even find it educational!
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Title: Shipwreck by LOUIS BEGLEY ISBN: 1400040981 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: The Man Who Was Late by Louis Begley ISBN: 0449909115 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1994 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: About Schmidt (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Louis Begley ISBN: 0449911160 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: As Max Saw It by LOUIS BEGLEY ISBN: 0449909476 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 11 April, 1995 |
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Title: Schmidt Delivered (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Louis Begley ISBN: 0345440838 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 30 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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