Le Divorce
by Diane Johnson
List Price: $12.95
Pages: 309
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0452277337
Publisher: Plume
Diane Johnson keeps getting better and better. Just three years after
Le Divorce was published to critical acclaim, earning a National
Book Award nomination, the bestselling author returned with Le Mariage,
an intoxicating and clever new novel once again set against the backdrop
of her beloved Paris. Over the course of her thirty-year writing career,
Johnson has been steadily gaining a devoted readership. This guide discusses
seven of her witty, stylish, and morally astute novels.
Though Johnson’s novels run the gamut in geographical setting, protagonist,
and even time period, they are unmistakably of a piece. Her critically
acclaimed narrative style makes each scene unshakably real for us, and,
more than just presenting a scene, she transmits the feelings and atmosphere
of each situation to her readers. A skilled travel writer and essayist,
Johnson excels at conveying the look and feel of exotic locations, be
they Paris of Persia (Iran) or, perhaps most foreign of all to many Americans,
California.
Burning, Johnson’s earliest of this collection, is also perhaps
the most unique. Unlike most of Johnson’s effortlessly beautiful
characters, Bingo Edwards is acknowledged by everyone, herself and her
husband included, to be homely and middle-aged. Her faithful husband admires
her for her intelligence though, and, of all the characters, Barney and
Bingo feel the most compunction about committing adultery; yet even the
Edwardses find themselves succumbing to the potent mixture of curiosity,
boredom, and lust that seems to overcome all of Johnson’s characters.
In Health and Happiness, a senior professor of medicine with a
beautiful, supportive wife is smitten by a comatose woman. In Persian
Nights and The Shadow Knows, young wives, chafing under the
burdens of homemaking responsibilities, turn to a colleague of their husbands
for support and escape. In Lying Low, however, we do see a character
who has successfully resistedt he bonds of love, a former dancer who is
considerably older than she appears, whose perseverance has brought even
fewer benefits than those earned by the rash actions of others. Le
Divorce, Johnson’s first novel set in France, follows a smart,
sexy American abroad where, on a visit to her pregnant stepsister whose
French husband has left her for another woman, she tries to keep her perspective
as cultures and human passions collide.
From first to last, Diane Johnson illustrates that it is the woman who
suffers love more deeply. From Magda, who comes close to losing her life,
to N, who loses her home and almost her sanity, to Max, who loses her
children, it is the woman who is cast out or beaten or ridiculed for the
sake of love. Even when their actions verge on insanity, the male characters
are protected and excused by society at large, and a little irresponsibility
or callousness is not questioned. What continues to be Johnson’s
triumph is that she writes strong, resilient, resolute female characters
who find hidden reserves of strength and determination just when they
need it most, and who persevere in the face of danger, betrayal, loss,
and adversity. And always, their stories are told in an engaging, witty,
and utterly believable style.
Le Divorce,
a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction and a national bestseller,
is Diane Johnson's delightfully witty account of the adventures of two
sisters from California who make a modern pilgrimage to the City of Light.
Isabel Walker, film school dropout, arrives in Paris to help her older
step-sister Roxeanne during the final weeks of her second pregnancy. Isabel
intends to use the trip to delay getting her life in gear and to pick
up a little French culture, though she can't be bothered to learn the
language. Arriving just as Roxy's perfect husband, Charles-Henri, walks
out on her, Isabel quickly undergoes a crash course in the secret codes
and intricacies of French social behavior.
Many critics were quick to
find similarities and differences between Isabel Archer, heroine of Portrait
of a Lady, and Isabel Walker, Johnson's heroine. While both women are
ignorant of European social mores, Johnson makes it clear her Isabel is
neither innocent nor easily taken advantage of. In contrast, Roxy, a part-time
poet and full-time romantic, is the woman in need of guidance. Her French
husband has fallen in love with another woman, a Czech sociologist named
Magda who is also married to an American, and wants a divorce. Roxy's
in-laws, the powerful and prestigious de Persand family, exert subtle
but firm control over her decision whether or not to grant it. In favor
of maintaining cordial relations for the sake of the grandchildren, the
de Persands urge Roxy to reconsider. Impeccably courteous Madame de Persand,
while exasperated at her son's foolishness, warns Roxy against making
a mistake. "Why ruin your life and lose your social position?"
Meanwhile, Isabel steps out of her role as mere observer of the de Persands
and into a torrid affair with l'oncle Edgar, a prominent politician, who
is married and over forty years her senior.
Complicating matters is the
disposition of a family heirloom, a painting appreciated only by Roxy
until it is discovered to be worth millions. In the midst of a variety
of schemes, the stakes are suddenly raised by a crime of passion which
disrupts everyone's motives and plans. Not since Edith Wharton penned
her brilliant portraits of Americans abroad has an American novelist so
perfectly captured the possibilities and perils of succumbing to the allure
of Paris.
top of the page
1. Clara Holly Cray is an Oregon-born former actress who has lived in France for more than a decade as the wife of a renowned if reclusive Polish film director. She "remembered her roots, would rather not, and almost never went back to the U.S." Yet she belongs "very much to the American world that exists like a specialized form in a complex ecosystem, dependent on its hosts but apart from them" (1). As the quintessential American in Paris, does this mean that Clara remains an outsider in both worlds, never completely belonging to either? Does she believe that she can never be truly accepted by the French, a point that is driven home when she is arrested by the French authorities for allegedly desecrating a national monument? How, if at all, do her feelings about the French change during the course of the novel? Does she become disillusioned with her adopted country?
2. Anne-Sophie is "the American community’s ideal young Frenchwoman" (8). Yet she is engaged to Tim Nolinger, a part-American, part Belgian journalist, of whom her mother, the celebrated novelist Estelle d’Argel, does not wholly approve. How does Anne-Sophie reconcile her own ambitions and expectations of her future with those of Estelle, who clearly has a powerful influence on her daughter? In fact, it is from Estelle that Anne-Sophie "had two versions of maternal lore on how to lead life. On the one hand were the lessons of the real life Anne-Sophie saw being lived by her mother and father, her brother and herself; on the other was the general philosophy she found expressed in Estelle’s works, which represented a reality at once more sophisticated, more cynical, and more exacting" (9). That Anne-Sophie has chosen to "pattern her behavior and beliefs on things her mother had written" reveals that, at heart, she believes more in an ideal of life than in what can turn out to be a disappointing everyday existence. Does she fear that marriage to Tim, "a man given to irony and no illusions" (6) will destroy her own illusions? Or that wedded life won’t live up to them?
3. Clara knows she doesn’t love her husband, at least "not in that swept-away, sexual way she tended to doubt really existed" (57). Yet she embarks on an adulterous affair with Antoine de Persand. Clearly, Clara does believe in love. Is she deceiving herself? Or trying to justify her choices in life? Serge Cray is given to fits of temper, stony silences and, at times, verbal abuse in front of others. Does Clara feel trapped in her marriage because of their deaf son, Lars? Does she remain in her rather passive existence because of guilt over being born beautiful and choosing the easy way out—marriage to an older, rich and famous man? Is her affair with de Persand revenge against her husband? Or an expression of true love?
4. When Clara is arrested for "desecrating a national monument," "the American community draws together, united in excited indignation" (144). Yet, in spite of this show of solidarity (in particular from the political front—"Democrats in Paris and Republicans Abroad"), these foreigners on French soil cannot prevent Clara from being "dragged off by French authorities" (141). Would a Frenchwoman (or man) be treated in the same way? Does this reflect the French community’s real feelings toward the Americans in their midst? Do Americans have (or believe they have) fewer rights in France than they would in their native country? Or is this simply the way of French justice, which cannot be speeded up, imbued as it is with the "French sense of time, stately and historical, and the French certainty that events will unfold in their preordained way?" (145).
5. Johnson’s novels often mask a deeper moral complexity. In Le Mariage, how do the Americans differ from their French counterparts in their perceptions of and attitudes toward, morality, i.e., adultery, and crime, i.e., theft, wrongful arrest, murder? Are they more judgmental? Upright? Outraged? Less tolerant and blasé’?
6. When Anne-Sophie accompanies Tim and some of the others to Oregon, it is her first time in America. What does she come away from the trip with? Does it change her or her beliefs about America in any fundamental way?
7. Delia Sadler, an antiques dealer in Paris, tells Clara, a fellow Oregonian, "I would say you’re disgusting if it wasn’t rude to say it—disgusting in the sense of rolling in luxury and giving nothing back" (242). She goes on to say that "no one here knows anything about America, and the Americans who live here are the worst, they forget what it’s like at home where people are hungry and angry, and the whole country is shifting like a big mountain with some sort of geologic activity pushing up from inside it, it’s just going to split open like a big baked potato. No other American I’ve met here can imagine it, and no French person can imagine it, no way" (241). Delia seems to be saying that both cultures have little regard for human suffering. Is she making a statement about all people and all cultures? What does she say about Americans in America? Clara thinks she’s right, even though it gives the lie to the privileged life she’s been leading in France. Is the author making a statement about the human condition in general, that cruelty and suffering will always exist, try as we might to prettify our lives with the superficial trappings of wealth and position?
8. Le Mariage concludes with the wedding of Anne-Sophie and Tim. Do they seem excited? Resigned? Do the other protagonists, i.e., Clara, find some measure of contentment and/or acceptance in the end?
top of the page
" Delightful...what makes this book so much fun is the acerbic humor, fresh comical voice, and the acute observations...Masterful. "
— Chicago Tribune
"Sexy, graceful, and funny "
—New York Review of Books
"A sparkly novel about the screwy collision of two cultures in the City of Light...Alluring. "
—Boston Globe
"Delightful...This charming tale knows exactly what to say. "
—Glamour
"Social commentary at its best. "
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
