The Life of Elves

January 4, 2016
In an unnamed year, France and Italy are home to small groups of elves living precariously among dangerous humans. Two young girls can bridge the gap between human and elven cultures and save the elves, but only if they survive a story whose urgency doesn’t match its pace. Anderson captures the rich, beautiful language of Barbery (Gourmet Rhapsody), such as “the noble dust of cellars” and “childhood is the dream that allows us to understand what we do not yet know.” Despite elven politics, Christianity, and war, the plot feels secondary and downplayed. Distant narration, exemplified by an entire chapter without dialogue and phrases like “It must be told what this child was,” draw attention to the words, not the characters. Just as battle is coming, readers are stopped by descriptions of the numerous participants, breaking the tension and typifying a reading experience in which the parts are greater than the whole.

December 1, 2015
The conjoined powers of two magical children bring about a new alliance to thwart evil and unite the natural world in this fantastical novel from a bestselling French writer. Seven years after the publication of her surprise international hit, The Elegance of the Hedgehog (2008), Barbery returns with something completely different: a fairy story of parallel but connected human and elf worlds and of dark forces and extraordinary goodness clashing in an age-old battle. Neither exactly pantheistic nor biblical, the novel expresses a spirituality rooted in art, nature, and, above all, love. Its heroines are Maria and Clara, the former born of elf parents but perfectly human in appearance, the latter half human, half elf. Their gifts, even at age 12, are prodigious. Maria's powers are elemental and growing, Clara's derive from music, but their abilities reach far wider and form a bulwark against the overwhelming evil led by a seductive entity named Aelius. Barbery's rhapsodic descriptions of the Burgundy landscape and peasantry, wildlife and creativity are eclipsed by more visionary and mystical scenarios studded with lambent imagery: a red bridge, an iris, a path of stones. Intense and impassioned but also fitfully obscure, distracted by tangents, and teasingly incomplete (especially when it comes to those dark forces), the novel can both enchant and confound. There are echoes of Milton, Tolkien, and Rowling, especially in the epic attack that suddenly pits Maria, her family, and community against the unearthly powers of a "storm-clad devil." While the Elfin Council watches, Maria and Clara fight the first battle in a war that may be part historical and part ecological and which concludes, at least for the elves, on a sober yet optimistic note. Although possibly too abstract for children and too fey for some adults, this fervent, idiosyncratic fable is undeniable evidence of a richly lyrical imagination.

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January 1, 2016

Barbery follows up The Elegance of the Hedgehog, an international phenomenon, with a gauzy, glimmering fantasy that has also drawn worldwide acclaim. Cutting across a meadow, a little girl named Maria senses a presence and, as snow begins falling, is led into the forest by a creature that blends attributes of horse, man, and wild boar and ends up with four old women in an isolated village in Burgundy. High in the mountains in Abruzzo, young Clara, who lives with a country priest and his illiterate housekeeper, demonstrates such a profound, almost mystical capacity for music that she is sent to Rome to study. In fact, these two gifted girls will soon be communing with a world beyond ours as they help fight a battle against the darkness. VERDICT The magical frame and lush loveliness of the writing might be oversweet for some readers, but many fans of both Barbery and fantasy from writers like Alice Hoffman and Sarah Addison Allen will be enchanted.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2016
An orphan girl is left on the steps of a farmhouse late one snowy night. Raised in the French countryside by a loving family, she finds she has a strong, even magical, affinity with the natural world around her. One border over, in a rural mountain town in Italy, another orphan girl is raised by a priest and his housekeeper. When it is found that she has a seemingly supernatural gift for the piano, she is sent to Rome for further training. There she is trained by a maestro in both the musical and the magical arts. Countries apart, the two girls are connected in a way few understand, but as the evil force of war approaches, their birthright and the link between them grow increasingly important. Vivid imagery and a thread of mystery draw readers into the timeless and ethereal world of these young girls with a destiny to fulfill. Passionate and lyrical, the newest novel from internationally best-selling Barbery (The Elegance of the Hedgehog, 2008) is a richly imagined tale full of enchanting characters whom readers will love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)