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Lewis Little is less than thrilled when his summer plans change. Instead of staying in England as usual, he and his translator mum are off to Paris, where she has to do a rush job for an author of trashy medieval romances. At 13, the young hero of
The Way I Found Her is already full of promise and notions, including the Exploding Peanut Theory of Beauty: "Beauty causes alteration. I'm talking about the beauty of women. Alteration may frequently result in some accident or other." His theory is to prove surprisingly prophetic. But though he thinks his mother's looks may well cause a life-or-death situation, her employer, Valentina Gavrilovich, is equally glam.
Despite his initial misgivings about Paris, Lewis is soon right at home--or as at home as he can be in a huge apartment filled with strange noises coming from supposedly uninhabited rooms. Almost instantly obsessed with Valentina as well as alive to the demands and deep pleasures of language, domestic and foreign, he decides to follow in his mother's footsteps and translate Alain-Fournier's novel of lost happiness, Le Grand Meaulnes. Valentina herself has some cogent things to say about the selfish arts of writing and reading, including, "When you begin a book and you already know in the first line that everything is in the past, this makes you worry so for the character." (A quick return to the opening of The Way I Found Her reveals the phrase, "I don't want to talk about the present.")
As the adults around him carry on with their jobs, romances, and intrigues, Lewis becomes increasingly cynical, particularly when it comes to his mother. As he tells himself, "Parents think they can time everything to suit themselves: they just don't see what they might be burdening you with." His mother's actions, however, become almost as nothing when Valentina suddenly disappears. At this point, The Way I Found Her turns into a curious hybrid--both a coming-of-age story and a thriller--and perhaps Tremain's strengths lie more with the former. Still, this book is an edgy exploration of responsibility, attraction, and betrayal. It is equally a loving evocation of literature's power. Lewis's takes on Le Grand Meaulnes and Crime and Punishment should send many in their direction; many others will turn to Tremain's odd and accomplished Sacred Country and Restoration.
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From Publishers Weekly
Tremain takes risks in making the protagonist of her new novel a clever, precocious and inquisitive 13-year-old boy, but this gifted writer (Restoration) succeeds brilliantly in creating an intensely imagined and sophisticated story. Lewis Little and his mother, Alice, leave their home in Devon to spend the summer in Paris, where Alice will translate wealthy Russian expatriate writer Valentina Gavrilovich's latest medieval romance. Initially reluctant, Lewis is smitten by the beauties of Paris and by the bewitching (though 40-ish) Valentina, who comes up to his attic bedroom at night and listens to his halting translation of the classic, neo-romantic Alain-Fournier fable, Le Grand Meaulnes, which, in an ironic plot twist, is to have enormous relevance to Lewis's life. His hormones surging, Lewis develops a crush on Valentina even as he is becoming estranged from Alice, who has embarked on an affair with a roofer called Diderot, a budding philosopher who teaches Lewis the basics of existentialism. Lewis, a bit of a philosopher himself, perceives with resignation the emotional disjunction between his loving but inadequate father and his startlingly beautiful but moody and self-centered mother. As the summer progresses, Lewis makes friends only with adultsABaba, a black maid from Benin; Moinel, the courageous next-door neighbor; Valentina's aged motherAand begins to understand why some adults behave badly, commit adultery, plagiarism and worse. When Valentina suddenly goes missing and the police investigation lags, Lewis draws on his logical mind and keen observational instincts to try to find her, but what seems a grand adventure suddenly brings him into terrible danger. A typical brainy, na?ve adolescent who indulges in romantic fantasies, Lewis is entirely credible as he slowly acquires a sad wisdom and insight. This mesmerizing and immensely affecting novel almost begs for rereading to fully appreciate the subtlety with which Tremain ties the lessons of literature and life into a haunting parable of innocence lost.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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