GatesyRead

This is another book that is hard to characterise quickly. It is French, of course, and Romantic – with a view of history that is decidedly Gallic. It is also based around an unrequired love story worthy of South American magic-realism, complete with an eccentric uncle who creates kites out of the highest hopes of France, so that he becomes a postman-celebrity-rebel and Auschwitz survivor. It is also an ironic story, opening with the memorable line: ‘Nowadays, the little museum in Cléry devoted to the works of Ambrose Fleury only a minor tourist attraction’ (p.1). Ambrose is Ludo Fleuro’s uncle; Ludo is the narrator and protagonist of adventures that include a trip to Poland just before the war breaks out, and a daring role in the French Resistance under the noses of the cultured Nazis who dine in France’s famous restaurant Clos Joli. The idea of a poor boy falling in love with a cold yet alluring (gothic) rich girl draws something from Dicken’s Great Expectations , and like that