โ Scribed by Julie Orringer
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2010 : Even if this weren't her first novel, Julie Orringer's Invisible Bridge would be a marvelous achievement. Orringer possesses a rare talent that makes a 600-page story--which, we know, must descend into war and genocide--feel rivetingly readable, even at its grimmest. Building vivid worlds in effortless phrases, she immerses us in 1930s Budapest just as a young Hungarian Jew, Andras Lรฉvi, departs for the รcole Spรฉciale d'Architecture in Paris. He hones his talent for design, works backstage in a theater, and allies with other Jewish students in defiance of rising Nazi influence. And then he meets Klara, a captivating Hungarian ballet instructor nine years his senior with a painful past and a willful teenage daughter. Against Klara's better judgment, love engulfs them, drowning out the rumblings of war for a time. But inevitably, Nazi aggression drives them back to Hungary, where life for the Jews goes from hardship to horror. As in Dr. Zhivago , these lovers can't escape history's merciless machinery, but love gives them the courage to endure. --Mari Malcolm
Given the novel's size and subject matter, critics can be forgiven for their initial skepticism over a 600-plus page book on the Holocaust--by a first-time novelist, no less. But they were very pleasantly surprised--astonished, even--at Orringer's beautifully rendered novel, which most believed, with its "sweep akin to that of Dr. Zhivago " (New York Times)__ and other classics, is destined to become a modern-day classic itself. Although one critic felt the novel could have used a more aggressive editor and others noted some overwrought language, most described The Invisible Bridge as a beautifully researched, old-fashioned love story, "the type Tolstoy might have scratched out with a gnawed pencil" (Onion AV Club). Four stars, or four-and-a-half stars? Only time will tell if we gave it a half too few.
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES
Paris, 1937. Andras Lรฉvi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he promised to deliver. But when he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter's recipient, he becomes privy to a secret that will alter
Paris, 1937. Andras Lรฉvi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he promised to deliver. But when he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter's recipient, he becomes privy to a secret that will alter
EDITORIAL REVIEW: Julie Orringerโs astonishing first novel, eagerly awaited since the publication of her heralded best-selling short-story collection, \*How to Breathe Underwater\* (โfiercely beautifulโโ\*The New York Times;\* โunbelievably goodโโMonica Ali), is a grand love story set against t
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