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Beautiful Ruins [Anglais] [Broché]

Jess Walter
5.0 étoiles sur 5  Voir tous les commentaires (2 commentaires client)

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Description de l'ouvrage

5 juillet 2012
The story begins on the Italian coast in 1962. A young innkeeper watches in disbelief as a beautiful American girl gets out of a boat and climbs towards his hotel. She turns out to be an actress, on the run from the shenanigans going on down the coast in Rome at the filming of Cleopatra. A few days later international star Richard Burton, much the worse for wear, appears in the village too. Half a century later, and half a world away in Hollywood, an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot - searching for the woman he last saw in his hotel fifty years before. What unfolds is a dazzling novel teeming with unforgettable characters: the Italian and his long-lost love; the heroically cynical film producer who first brought them together, now a successful legend on the Hollywood scene, and his idealistic young assistant; and the husbands, wives and lovers, superstars and victims, who have populated their world since that summer day in 1962. Gloriously inventive, filled with surprises, Beautiful Ruins is a magnificent novel about love and fame, dreams and reality.

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Descriptions du produit

Revue de presse

“Why mince words? Beautiful Ruins is an absolute masterpiece.” (Richard Russo, author of That Old Cape Magic and Empire Falls)

“A novel shot in sparkly Technicolor. . . . reimagines history in a package so appealing we’d be idiots not to buy it.” (Library Journal (starred review))

“Well-constructed…quirky and entertaining tale of greed, treachery, and love.” (Publishers Weekly)

“This is a blockbuster, with romance, majesty, comedy, smarts, and a cast of thousands. There’s lights, there’s camera, there’s action. If you want anything more from a novel than Jess Walter gives you in Beautiful Ruins, you’re getting thrown out of the theater.” (Daniel Handler, author of Why We Broke Up and creator of Lemony Snicket)

“[N]othing less than brilliant, a tour de force that crosses decades, continents, and genres, to powerful and often hilarious effect....A masterful novel of love, loss, and hard-won hope that satisfies on every level.” (Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk)

“Within a page-turner of a plot, these triumphantly vulnerable characters leap off the page to take up permanent residence in your inner life. The effect is so powerful that to be untouched by Beautiful Ruins might well be like having no inner life at all.” (Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction)

“A brilliant, madcap meditation on fate. . . . Walter’s prose is a joy-funny, brash, witty and rich with ironic twists. He’s taken all of the tricks of the postmodern novel and scoured out the cynicism, making for a novel that’s life-affirming but never saccharine.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

“A marvel, an absolute gem of a beach read that is both hilarious and heartbreaking.” (Huffington Post)

“Walter vividly draws a world both tender and cutthroat, where ambition battles reality, daydreams fight doldrums and sometimes win.” (Interview)

“Lyrical, heartbreaking, and funny . . . Walter closes the deal with such command that you begin to wonder why up till now he’s not often been mentioned as one of the best novelists around. Beautiful Ruins might just correct that oversight.” (Kansas City Star)

“A monument to crazy love . . . Walter [is] a believer in capricious destiny with a fine, freewheeling sense of humor.” (New York Times)

“Expertly scratches the seasonal itch for both literary depth and dazzle.” (Entertainment Weekly)

“A novel with pathos, piercing wit and, most important, the generous soul of a literary classic. . . . Walter has planted himself firmly in the first rank of American authors.” (Boston Globe)

“Beautiful . . . A shining, imaginative tale . . . Beautiful Ruins shows novelists how it is done.” (The Plain Dealer)

“A literary miracle.” (Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air)

“His [Walter’s] characters are long-suffering, prone to failure and sometimes at death’s door. But the verve and enthusiasm of this novel, from its let’s-go-everywhere structure to the comedy in the marrow of its sentences, are wholly life-affirming.” (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

“Entrancing novel…Walter’s turns of phrase are as brilliant as his plot twists, making for a compelling, fun read.” (People)

Beautiful Ruins is satisfying and delicate, a spectacular story of love, frustration, selfish intent, and the patience of the human heart.” (The Stranger)

“[A] high-wire feat of bravura storytelling. . . . [Walter’s] mixture of pathos and comedy stirs the heart and amuses as it also rescues us from the all too human pain that is the motor of this complex and ever-evolving novel.” (New York Times Book Review)

“A beautiful narrative . . . This writer is a genius of the modern American moment.” (Philadelphia Inquirer)

“His masterpiece . . . an interlocking, continent-hopping, decade-spanning novel with heart and pathos to burn, all big dreams, lost loves, deep longings and damn near perfect.” (Salon)

“Walter is a very, very funny writer and can do Hollywood satire with the best of them. But this is also a novel with a live, beating heart, full of sympathy for its characters and agut wisdom…You’ll want to explore these Ruins.” (Newsday)

“It is a powerful and lush book.” (Selma Blair, the New York Post)

“A great getaway of a novel.” (People)

Beautiful Runs is itself a showcase for Walter’s outrageous literary gifts in virtually every genre and style. . .No wonder critics have been outdoing each other with superlatives. . .” (Nashville Scene) --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .

Biographie de l'auteur

Jess Walter is the author of the National Book Award finalist The Zero and the Edgar Award-winning Citizen Vince. His previous book The Financial Lives of the Poets was published in the UK by Penguin.

Détails sur le produit

  • Broché: 352 pages
  • Editeur : Viking; Édition : Open Market ed (5 juillet 2012)
  • Langue : Inconnu
  • ISBN-10: 0670922102
  • ISBN-13: 978-0670922109
  • Moyenne des commentaires client : 5.0 étoiles sur 5  Voir tous les commentaires (2 commentaires client)
  • Classement des meilleures ventes d'Amazon: 1.777.579 en Livres anglais et étrangers (Voir les 100 premiers en Livres anglais et étrangers)
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Commentaires client les plus utiles
5.0 étoiles sur 5 BEAUTIFUL RUINS AUDIO REVIEW 8 janvier 2013
Format:CD
It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that I’m a huge fan of audio books. Many are so well done that it is very much like hearing a finely tuned performance. Such has been the case with actor Edoardo Ballerini and is again with his amazing narration of Beautiful Ruins in which he speaks flawless Italian and also voices “the clumsy speech of Americans with an uncertain grasp of the language.” Salon deems his narration the best heard all year, so don’t miss it.

An experienced performer Ballerini has a host of awards on his mantel including an Audie Award and a handful of Earphones Awards from AudioFile Magazine. Plus, he is well remembered for his work in TV and film - The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, etc. Beautiful Ruins is sure to garner him one more award.

This surprising, inventive, spacious tale opens in 1962 when gossip mongers are thriving on the romance between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton on the set of “Cleopatra.” A blonde, beautiful American starlet, Dee Moray, who has been cast as La Liz’s lady in waiting arrives at the Hotel Adequate View on the Italian coast. She, too, has been involved in a tryst or two on the movie’s set and now believes she is dying of stomach cancer. Pasquale Tursi, the young proprietor of the hotel immediately falls madly in love with Dee.

In a short while we meet a motor mouthed young publicist along with Richard Burton who is a bit in his cups. Pasquale has no idea what to think of this pair.

Fast forward fifty years when an elderly Italian comes to the office of the publicist who has become an important producer. The Italian is seeking information about Dee who came to his hotel many years ago, and so begins a big screen story of those who have populated Hollywood during the past half century. Their stories are fascinating, lush with hopes, dreams, disappointments and humor all related with Walter’s flawless eye and satirical bent. He brilliantly explores our common humanity, the joys and sorrows we share as revealed through the lives of the people in the remarkable Beautiful Ruins.

- Gail Cooke
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5.0 étoiles sur 5 A page turner ! 1 septembre 2012
Par Aline
Format:Broché|Achat authentifié par Amazon
Très bien écrit, avec une grande fluidité d'écriture mais surtout, une construction surprenante de chapitre en chapitre. Beautiful Ruins est un voyage dont on ne se lasse pas, et qui n'oublie pas l'émotion.
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Commentaires client les plus utiles sur Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com: 4.0 étoiles sur 5  611 commentaires
231 internautes sur 249 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile 
5.0 étoiles sur 5 This will be on my Best of the Year list 25 mars 2012
Par sb-lynn - Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Relié|Commentaire Amazon Vine™ (De quoi s'agit-il?)
Brief summary and review, no spoilers.

This story is told in chapters that go back and forth in time, starting in 1962 in a little Italian coastal town named Porto Vergogna (Port Shame.) Here we are introduced to a young man named Pasquel who's family owns the only small hotel in the village, the name of which translates to The Hotel Adequate View. Pasquale has big plans to make his village competitive with the successful coastal communities nearby and attract more tourists. The only American tourist who has visited the hotel before is a man named Alvis Bender, who comes every year for two weeks to work on a book - a book for which he has only written one chapter.

But when a young beautiful actress named Dee Moray arrives to stay at The Hotel Adequate View, everything changes. As the book progresses we find out what happened to these characters over time and how their lives and the lives of so many others were changed as well.

The other main characters include Claire Silver, a young, impassioned but disillusioned development assistant for a man named Michael Deane, who is an older and successful and legendary film producer. We also meet a young man named Shane Wheeler who wants to make a pitch about a movie about the Donner Party. Add to the mix an incredibly amusing and odd cast of characters both from the past and present. And did I mention Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor?

I don't want to give away any more of the plot because it's such a joy to read this book to find out what happens next and how it all comes together. It's not just that this book is compelling and entertaining, it's also a mirror that reflects our culture and the way we think and live. It sounds so cliched but this book really did make me laugh - a lot - but it also made me think. And it made me cry.

I cannot recommend this book enough. It's so so smart and beautifully written by someone who has such a gift of storytelling and observation. I've never read a book by Jess Walter before, but you can be sure I will go out and find his earlier work and read it now.
256 internautes sur 283 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile 
3.0 étoiles sur 5 Just Not My Cuppa 4 avril 2012
Par Ms Winston - Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Relié|Commentaire Amazon Vine™ (De quoi s'agit-il?)
Sometimes one clicks with a book, and other times...well, for me this was one of the other times. About half way through I realized that I really didn't care about the cast of a thousand characters, and was distracted by the fact that the locale shifted with every chapter -- one chapter is in Hollywood in the present and in next chapter one is back in Italy in 1962. For me, there were too many characters and too many storylines. Others may not have an issue with my issues, but those are the reasons I finally set the book aside. The book also shifts from present to past tense almost with each chapter, which seems to be more and more common in current literature to the point where some consider it a fad. Fortunately, Jess Walter did not overdo the use of present tense and it ceased to be a distraction for me.

I did like the character of Pasquale, and had the book been his story alone I would have found the book enchanting. The chapters set in Italy were in my opinion the best parts of the book (at least the book as far as I read it). The author has a good feel for the locale and I found myself skimming the sections set in Hollywood to get back to Italy. Richard Burton put in a cameo appearance, and it didn't do much to dispell his image as a heavy drinker, which is probably accurate (certainly it is the way I remember him as being depicted at the time). I suspect this book will find its proper audience -- the reviews so far have been quite glowing. The fact that it didn't appeal to one particular reader is not the fault of the author -- it is just a fact of life that not every book is going to appeal to everyone.
71 internautes sur 80 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile 
5.0 étoiles sur 5 And yet it eludes us completely 17 avril 2012
Par Wanda B. Red - Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Relié|Commentaire Amazon Vine™ (De quoi s'agit-il?)
The "beautiful ruins" of this affecting story include not only its physical setting, in a tiny coastal village destined for extinction (Porto Vergogna or the Port of Shame), but also the larger than life characters, including a "real" Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, who appear as supporting actors to the main story of the more ordinary cast: the arrestingly beautiful blonde starlet Dee Moray and the young innkeeper who falls for her, Pasquale Tursi, and many many other memorable characters, their children, their friends, their colleagues.

The novel moves back and forth in time between 1962 and a somewhat vaguely defined "recently." The juxtaposition made possible by this slippage in time serves to remind the reader that all things beautiful eventually become ruins and that many ruins (conversely) were once things of beauty. That double-focus is the source of much of the book's poignancy. The novel's many other, mostly youthful comic characters, associated with its second setting in contemporary Hollywood, do help to balance the book's almost unbearable sadness and lend it a sense of the future that keep it from tipping into tragedy. One character, the "dead-gazed" geriatric Michael Deane, miracle of plastic surgery, tells the haunting cautionary tale of what happens if one rejects the embrace of time.

The result is a beautifully composed, highly entertaining philosophical novel, tightly unified despite its wide-ranging plot. I think the point of the final (title) chapter, which attempts to wrap up all the loose ends, is that, despite the pleasure such storytelling brings, it is finally impossible to harmonize all the notes, to make public all the private losses and gains. As the epigraph of that chapter, taken from Milan Kundera, reflects, nothing is "more obvious, more tangible, than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely. All the sadness of life lies in that fact." I actually had to stop reading parts of the end of this book because I was crying so much I was having trouble seeing the print. A powerful, moving, but still very funny book.
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