L'Affaire

I recommend this book especially if you loved "The Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann and "The Red and the Black" by Stendhal. If you haven't read "The Magic Mountain", I strongly recommend you read it first. Otherwise you will miss the allusions not to mention half the fun. When I picked up this book, I was worried that Diane Johnson wouldn't be able to outdo her last book "Le Mariage." It turns out that I was wrong! This book has a much better storyline, and I found the characters all equally strong. It's hard to know whether you should root for Amy Hawkins, Posey Venn, or Kip Canby. But that's Diane Johnson's genius. She has mastered the gentle but sharp satire of Jane Austen. All characters have their faults whether they consciously recognized them or not. For example, Posey is presented as a selfish tart. Yet Johnson makes you have sympathy for her. Life has clearly disappointed her, and her family looks down on her even though she has the most sense. Specifically, this book reminds me of "Mansfield Park" where the heirs are behaving badly because their father is an ineffective patriarch. (The Austen aficionado will undoubtedly know that "Mansfield Park" was modeled after "King Lear", and that Posey is another rebellious daughter.) The basic plot that drives this novel is that the adult children of British publishing magnate Adrian Venn are fighting over a possible inheritance (or lack thereof) while he and his wife are in a coma. The main character, Amy Hawkins, believes in the abstract theory opined by the anarchist Kropotkin: Cooperation is what drives humans to succeed in life. Hilarity ensues while Amy observes (and interferes with) the Venn children acting out various family dramas that seem on the surface to violate the social theory of cooperation. Or does the Venn children show that social cooperation is desperately needed to ensure family survival? Fourteen-year-old Kip is poor Fanny Price, the outsider; he isn't sure of what to make of the Venn family even though he's thankful that his Uncle Adrian looked after him financially. At the same time Kip is Hans Castorp, the protagonist of "The Magic Mountain." Amy Hawkins is also like Hans because she tries to determine which philosophy works best for life. Should you live your life according to the selfish, sensual world of food and pleasure, or should you choose the cold, selfless Apollonian side of the intellect? This is played out by Amy's romantic choices as well as the larger political differences between the Anglo and the French systems of inheritance and affairs. Is divorce, which Americans and the British advocate, the solution to an affair? Does divorce lead to concomitant damages no family can recover from? Is the French attitude of accepting mistresses and illegitimate children (along with the role of the long suffering wife) a sophisticated view of marriage or a misogynistic one? To start the debate, read this book!

I am mystified by other reviewers' ennui... this was Diane Johnson's best book so far, and she is a welcome writer indeed. In other books she has juxtaposed cultural mores one to one (usually French to American) but here she adds more to the mix, and it's, well, a heady brew. Even my husband, an avowed nonfiction reader and journalist who has little interest in fiction enjoyed this one.

In Palo, Alto, California, Amy Hawkins made a fortune in the dot-com boom. Feeling she owes for her fortunate life, Amy decides to improve herself before doing good deed. She heads to the Alps ski resort Hotel Croix St. Bernard in Valmeri, France where she plans to learn everything French in two weeks. The good deed surfaces when she pays for the return of dying publisher Adrian Venn, injured in an avalanche to England. Venn's family gathers to carve up the estate with each expecting to trump the other. Amy finds herself in a loony bin as Venn's two adult children and his illegitimate French daughter expect to eliminate their father's young comatose (from the accident) American wife and their infant step-brother from the estate competition before the final battle royal between themselves. Even the solicitors from France and England are skirmishing over who does what to whom arguing which country takes precedence. Finally there are also the outside straphangers ready to take a slice. With all that and bed hopping, romance, and affairs while everyone disparages those damn Yankees Amy Hawkins has learned a valuable lesson that no good deed goes unpunished. The key to this humorous coffin romp is the ensemble cast mourning their loss or celebrating their gain seem genuine as Diane Johnson provides a deep look at values. The story line is a comedy of errors with everyone misinterpreting the actions and motivations of everyone else because they constantly impose their values on how others will behave. Fans will appreciate this intelligent amusing but dark avarice bedroom manners Rape of the Lock. Harriet Klausner

Diane Johnson's latest novel is one of cross-cultural manners. She's taken a bunch of wealthy and attractive characters, stuffed them into a luxurious ski resort in the French Alps, landed a wealthy British man and his much younger American wife in comas - and then she lets all the numerous offspring and ex-wives deal with the internecine scheming for control of the estate. But the best part is the snappy and witty dialogue that reveals character, country of origin, still strongly-held stereotypical opinions, etc.It's a good read.

A comedy of manners with more than a dash of French farce, "L'Affaire" follows Johnson's previous two novels of Americans in France, "Le Mariage," and "Le Divorce" in skewering the minutiae, posturing, and misunderstandings of culture clash.Young dotcom multi-millionaire Amy Hawkins has come to France to improve herself, by skiing in the Alps, taking cooking lessons, learning French, and becoming a sophisticated shopper. "[She[ could not forget that nouveau riche was a term so dismissive that for English speakers it had been left in the original French, like terms for other harsh concepts - coup de grace, or savoir faire."After this application of culture she intends to run her own foundation to promote the idea of civilization through social cooperation, as promulgated by the theories of Prince Kropotkin. But first there's the cocktail party to get through on her first Sunday evening at the ski chateau, where she makes a huge gaffe by laughing when someone suggests the day's avalanche - which gravely injured two hotel guests - was caused by the overflight of American military planes.A maelstrom of human activity soon flutters around the comatose couple - an English publisher, Adrian Venn, and his much younger American wife, Kerry. Gathering around the hospital beds are: Kerry's bewildered 14-year-old brother, Kip, left caring for his 18-month old nephew; the grown British children from Venn's previous marriage; an illegitimate French daughter and her suave, cynical husband, and - from afar - the mothers of these disaffected offspring.Johnson moves from one character to the next, sketching their aspirations, disappointments, grudges, and libidinous urges. Venn's English lawyer, Osworthy, insists his client - declared brain-dead by the French doctor - must be moved to a better-equipped English hospital. Amy, with American can-do spirit, puts her money to a good purpose and organizes the move. But is Osworthy trying to save his client's life, or just have him pronounced dead on British soil?Belatedly, Amy discovers that French and English laws differ widely in the disposal of a man's affairs. The French, following the Napoleonic code, disperse property among blood relatives, regardless of the wishes of the deceased, and to the detriment of the spouse. The British, like the Americans, allow a person to leave their property as they wish, vindictive or nonsensical as their desires may be.With sharp wit and masterful, but kindly, ambivalence, Johnson lets her characters loose on each other in the throes of self-interest, guilt, sorrow, anger, longing, attraction, and all the other messy emotions divorce, new families, death and property engender. Cultural misunderstandings, insecurities and chauvinisms flourish among rash and sometimes regretted couplings. A delightful, sophisticated, comedy without brittleness or brutality.