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Forgetfulness
by
Ward Just
Thomas Railles, an American expatriate and former s murder, Thomas is invited by his boyhood friend (and former agency handler) Bernhard to witness the interrogation. Thomas's search for answers in this shadow world will lead him to a confrontation that will change him forever.
Paperback, 272 pages
Published
September 5th 2007
by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
(first published 2006)
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The good news: I finished it.
The bad news: I really shouldn't have.
It's hard to pan a book that is reviewed and received so well. While I was reading this book, and for the most part being bored to tears, I kept thinking "re-read that part, focus more, get into it goddam it! it's supposed to be good." For a long time I was hesitant to give up on this book b/c I didn't want to feel like a failure and a quitter. So I finished. Sort of. Okay, toward the end it's all ju...more
The bad news: I really shouldn't have.
It's hard to pan a book that is reviewed and received so well. While I was reading this book, and for the most part being bored to tears, I kept thinking "re-read that part, focus more, get into it goddam it! it's supposed to be good." For a long time I was hesitant to give up on this book b/c I didn't want to feel like a failure and a quitter. So I finished. Sort of. Okay, toward the end it's all ju...more
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A thought-provoking, understated book about Americans and the U.S. after Sept. 11. (Author Ward Just looks prophetic when it comes to the malaise currently infecting the global economy.) Thomas Railles is an expatriate American living in France. He's done work for the CIA over the years and still has ties to friends in the business. But mostly he's a portrait painter. His paintings are discoveries -- of self and others and their respective environments. He's become distanced from the U.S. and it...more
A well-respected__if generally underappreciated__writer for more than three decades, Ward Just, who began his writing career as a journalist for Newsweek and the Washington Post, evokes a strong sense of place and character in Forgetfulness, his fifteenth novel. Previous novels of his have been short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award (see below). The story that Just tells here__thriller, psychological character study, social commentary__fills a gap in what critics see as
...more
I enjoy this author's style -- atmospheric and elegant, uncluttered by things like adverbs and quotation marks. An excerpt, describing how one character reads a newspaper:
Facts anchored the world. He had never seen a basketball game in his life, but always consulted the standings of the NBA, the won-lost column, the percentages, and the games-behind, and only then returned to page one and the unstable milieu of reporters' narratives where he had to guess at the life behind the news. What h...more
I was told that this book is a simple yet enjoyable thriller, and I found that quite true. After reading the cover jacket's description, I was reminded of those books you see advertised on the subway, where the author is "a true master of suspense... [insert author's name:] weaves a complicated tale that left me thirsting for more..." and so on. The story is of a painter/espionage agent, living in the South of France in a rustic country town, whose wife is found dead after a walk in t...more
Ward Just's novel opens with a chilling scene in which the wife of the protagonist (Thomas) is dying of cold and then murdered. Thomas battles grief and attempts to cope, with the death and with his past. The CIA has used him on occasion and he seeks to forget that part of his life. And so on. We learn much of the man's internal life as the book meanders from the present to the past. A good read. Not a page-turner from a "brand name" writer of thrillers; instead a sage and studie...more
I'm surprised that I enjoyed this book. First of all, there are like two chapters (OK, that's an exaggeration, but close to that) and it's almost 300 pages long, so it's pretty heavy in terms of phrasing -- sorry, I mean it like the musical term because I can't think of another word. Also, it paints the ugliest picture of Americans and America post-9/11. I mean, I don't think I know a single person like the random Americans the main character runs into. Basically, I found most of the plot involv...more
Alex, thank you for loaning this to me! Just is a wonderful writer. This was one of those books that pulled me in just due to the author's ability to set a mood and make his characters so real, multidimensional, and very interesting. Nothing was obvious in 'Forgetfulness,' which made it a little frustrating at times (but in a good way!) and really compelling.
My first Ward Just book. A rather dull start but picks up nicely after the first chapter.
I was told to watch for the changes in narrator - it's amazing! You can have two different narrators in the same paragraph & it's done so seamlessly you might notice if you weren't expecting it.
Although Just's prose is beautiful the story itself is all that memorable although I got caught up in the reading and couldn't put it down.
I was told to watch for the changes in narrator - it's amazing! You can have two different narrators in the same paragraph & it's done so seamlessly you might notice if you weren't expecting it.
Although Just's prose is beautiful the story itself is all that memorable although I got caught up in the reading and couldn't put it down.
Thomas Railles, aged 65, is an American painter living with his French wife Florette in a small village in the Pyrenees. One day his wife goes for a walk by herself in the mountains and comes upon a small group of Moroccan terrorists who don't know at first what to do with her but eventually kill her.
Railles blames himself for Florette's death, having done some minor intelligence work in the past which he thinks may have contributed to her death, and he contacts two friends in the ...more
Railles blames himself for Florette's death, having done some minor intelligence work in the past which he thinks may have contributed to her death, and he contacts two friends in the ...more
There's some beautifully written prose here, but I couldn't really get into this story of an expat American artist who occasionally dabbles in CIA intelligence work. His French wife breaks her ankle on a mountain hike. A gang of Moroccan revolutionaries tries to assist her, then leaves her to die. This is the core event of this largely action-less novel, and it varies in significance to the different characters.
The first, in two books that made me question ever wanting to read again. It's not really that the book is so bad--but when you're 118 pages in and still don't care about any of the characters or what is happening to them, it frustrates me beyond belief. And then I find myself not picking up a book for weeks.
I liked this well enough that I bought it for my father the next year for Christmas. When I bought it, the jacket description sounded like a different book - hmmm. My dad didn't really like it - said he kept waiting for something to happen and it never did. My husband didn't like it. I remember liking it! Crazy.
I do not understand why this book received such raving reviews! To be honest, I had a difficult time getting through it. And I never came to like it, or the main character. Stylistically, it followed a European-type format without using quotation marks, which I found to be particularly annoying. The chapters were overly long, and despite its opening chapter, the plot fell quite secondary to the main character in the book. Comprised mainly of old men, these characters never fostered a connection ...more
Set in France near the Spanish border, where a woman dies while on a hike in the mountains, & some shadowy figures might or might not be responsible for her death. It didn't hold my interest, so I gave up on it.
He tackles the issue of revenge in the context of terrorism. It's worth a second and third read, which I haven't done as yet.
I'm not really sure how to describe this book - passive, quiet, restrained, maybe? It's a good book, but not at all about vengeance and terrorism as the synopsis suggests. In fact, the backdrop of post-9/11 is wholly irrelevant. I think this book is more about realizing that bad things happen - and that there is often not an answer to the question "Why?"
The characters have a lot of potential, but the author doesn't develop any of them to a deep enough level to be satisfac...more
The characters have a lot of potential, but the author doesn't develop any of them to a deep enough level to be satisfac...more
This book was really boring. Although Ward Just may be a good writer, this book had, basically, no plot. So, to me that does NOT show a good writer. His sentences were literary sounding; that was good. The BEST part was the beginning. It is like he had the climax of the book in the beginning, and the resolution lasted the whole rest of the book and went downhill the whole way.
Beautifully written, this book is about one man's internal journey with grief and his adjustment to the loss of his wife. Despite the title, what we experience are the protagonist's memories and an examination of the usefulness (or lack of usefulness) of revenge.
This is the antithesis of a plot drive page turner. It is a quiet examination of one person's interior landscape as he looks back and re-examines his life, the choices he has made and decisions he now makes about how - or w...more
This is the antithesis of a plot drive page turner. It is a quiet examination of one person's interior landscape as he looks back and re-examines his life, the choices he has made and decisions he now makes about how - or w...more
Is it possible to "forgive and forget"?
Not his best. Set in France.
What an apt title. When I started to read this book, I remembered I had listened to it on CD or read it before. This has happened to me more than once lately.
This was so good, but not a quick nor particularly easy read. Some thoughts went on for pages and pages, and there really wasn't too much action. Just's writing style is perfect prose, and I'm glad I discovered him and can't wait to read more. The plot? Oh, yeah. A man's wife is brutally murdered, and it could be because of his intelligence past. But it's not sensational at all; the descriptions of her death are detailed but not gratuitous.
there is such strong storytelling within "forgetfulness". Just manages to highlight dysfunctionalities of american society, and weave questions on mercy and justice (and revenge) into a surprisingly quick read. the thoughtful moral urgency exhibited by the protagonist and his crisis of conscience following his wife's murder by moroccan terrorists compose the core of the novel. worth reading though there are too many digressions.
This is a slow moving, thoughtfully written book. You do get quite a vivid picture of war and the torture of prisoners. Our main character is a painter but also works for the CIA as a "hobby" with his hometown friends. Hi swife is killed by terrorist and his friends help to kind the killers.
Thomas, a painter, learns to live alone after the murder of his wife by mercenaries in the mountains of France. He recalls his own espionage past and tries to understand why she was killed. This is one of my favorite authors but not one of my favorite of his books.
Like alot of people, I've constantly sought out books to give me some kind of perspective on 9/11. While not ealing specifically with that topic, it does a powerful and moving story of terror, grief and understanding.
I love the way this man writes. He has a way of creating characters and making me care about them. This is an interesting story, and he makes the most of the setting (the Pyrenees mountains). Very good.
After a slow start the lyrical prose coupled with the difficult subjects of terrorism, interogation and revenge drew me in. A book of sorrows.
Interesting book about an american spy living in a sleepy french mountain town. Creepy and dark but worth reading.
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Ward Just (born 1935) is an American writer. He is the author of 15 novels and numerous short stories.
Ward Just graduated from Cranbrook School in 1953. He briefly attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He started his career as a print journalist for the Waukegan (Illinois) News-Sun. He was also a correspondent for Newsweek and The Washington Post from 1959 to 1969, after w...more
More about Ward Just...
Ward Just graduated from Cranbrook School in 1953. He briefly attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He started his career as a print journalist for the Waukegan (Illinois) News-Sun. He was also a correspondent for Newsweek and The Washington Post from 1959 to 1969, after w...more
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“You think such an attitude is admirable. Manly, heroic even. 'Lived harmlessly.' 'Kept to himself.' Hide away somewhere and your past will cease to exist. You won't have to account for it. You'll feel no obligation to explain your actions or justify them because you've gone away and you expect your victims to go away too. It's like leaving the scene of an accident . . . Or a marriage. Even a field of battle.”
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“What brings us anywhere? You take one turn instead of another, you meet one woman instead of another, you have good health or you don't, luck vies with misfortune, you break down and arrive at Bellevue in your bathrobe on a Saturday morning or - what was his father's antique phrase - you pulled up your socks and got on with things. Your heart adapted to changing times. Your body did. Or it did not and you passed your days in a muffler of regret. And that was what they called intelligent design.”
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