<![CDATA[The Last Life: A Novel]]>

false <![CDATA[The Last Life: A Novel]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165030108m/3649.jpg 3649 7 Claire Messud's piercing second novel asks questions most are too fearful to face. Moving between the South of France, the East Coast of the U.S., and Algeria, The Last Life explores the weight of isolation and exile in one French family. Of course, the adjective French is already inadequate, as at least some of the LaBasses still long for the paradise lost of Algeria. And Alex LaBasse's wife, Carol, try as she might with her Continental impersonations, will always be an American sporting a metaphorical twin set. The narrator, Sagesse, too, soon finds herself equally stranded. Only her autocratic grandfather, Jacques, is ostensibly comfortable with the identity he has wrought: successful owner of the Bellevue Hotel and head of his dynasty. It is thanks to this man that 14-year-old Sagesse comes to crave invisibility. Having lost of all of her friends, she sees herself as "a member of the Witness Protection Program, surrounded by an odd human assortment chosen only for the efficiency of disguise; but somehow, nevertheless, inescapable." The cause of this loss? Jacques, fed up with Sagesse and her pals' late-night noise at the hotel pool--or perhaps with their failure to take him seriously--shoots at one girl. This incident ruptures life for each LaBasse, the Bellevue no longer "their bulwark against absurdity." Looking back on the crucial two years following the patriarch's "target practice," Sagesse possesses both a teenager's slant self-interest and an older, acute eye for the mechanisms of shame. The Last Life is that rare thing, a fast-moving philosophical novel masquerading as a bildungsroman. In her efforts at identity and affection, its heroine is increasingly alive to the subterfuges of narrative, forcing herself to sort through versions of reality. Her grandmother, for instance, relates one myth about her husband, only to have Carol undercut it entirely. And Sagesse herself can't figure out whether Jacques is "sentimental or heartless." What if both, she realizes, are possible? As Messud's narrator navigates her way through the past--and the Algerian sections are among the book's most extraordinary--there is everything to savor in her wavelike sentences, many of which possess a dangerously witty undertow. And the scenes of familial tedium are the opposite of tedious. The dialogue snaps with subverted emotion, anxiety, and irony. At one of the LaBasses' bleaker fests, much is made of the mouna, a special (if dry) Algerian cake. Nonetheless, the grandmother does her best to fob it off at evening's end. "I've never cared for it myself, although it's a lovely memory." Retrospect, as Sagesse realizes, is "a light in which we may not see more clearly, but at least have the illusion of doing so." E.M. Forster called another Mediterranean novel, The Leopard, "one of the great lonely books," and it is into this category that The Last Life instantly falls. --Kerry Fried 937447 1999 The Last Life: A Novel total:352|5:74|4:129|3:107|2:33|1:9| 352 1282 508 63 5 2 false false Mon Sep 17 13:24:03 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 20 13:24:16 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jul 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 27 15:08:43 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 08:09:42 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Aug 06 10:39:00 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 06 10:41:05 -0700 2008 4 1 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Fri Jan 18 08:22:27 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 18 08:25:02 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri May 15 14:01:09 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 30 12:48:20 -0700 2009 The Last Life (2000), is a particularly moving character study of how the violence and regret for that period as well as the dual cultural identity can affect a French family for generations. The LaBasse family liv...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Jul 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 19 12:37:46 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 22 16:14:04 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Dec 09 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Oct 30 06:56:02 -0700 2008 Tue Dec 09 13:13:54 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Oct 06 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 02 00:54:48 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 06 21:02:59 -0700 2008
Ms Messud’s second novel tells the story of Sagesse LaBasse and her family. Geographically, the novel moves between Algeria, France and the USA. Sages...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 11 08:42:04 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 11 15:06:44 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Fri Jan 09 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 29 10:01:44 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 09 03:47:08 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Aug 27 14:05:49 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 27 14:08:12 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Feb 16 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 16 09:19:05 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 16 09:21:15 -0800 2009 Also, issues of French colonists in Algeria and their strong attachment to their lives in Africa.

]]> 2 0 false false Thu Jun 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 12 20:02:27 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 12 20:12:07 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Aug 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 09 20:48:34 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 26 12:05:16 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Tue Jan 20 13:17:11 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 20 13:18:09 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Sat Feb 28 10:04:34 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 28 10:06:09 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Thu Dec 04 16:58:35 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 04 17:02:08 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Tue Jul 21 08:10:38 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 21 08:11:15 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Wed Jan 07 11:17:15 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 07 11:17:15 -0800 2009 Even better the second time
Sagesse is one of the best main characters]]> 3 0 false false Fri Dec 26 20:11:04 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 26 20:11:34 -0800 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=3649