Climates

Starred review from October 15, 2012
This lucid new translation of a novel originally published in 1928 probes the timeless complications, betrayals, and fascinations wrought by love. Coming from a wealthy family that owns a profitable paper mill, young Philippe Marcenat lives a comfortable if empty life in central France, in Limousin, haunted by the notion of a romantic ideal gleaned from a favorite childhood book. While convalescing from bronchitis in Italy, he meets Odile Malet, a flirtatious French beauty from a lower-class family, and is instantly smitten. Despite his family’s objections, the two are quickly married. But as Philippe falls into a morass of jealousy and disillusionment, his overbearing behavior drives Odile into the arms of another man. The mismatched couple’s inevitable tragedy unfolds in the book’s first half, while the latter half, told from the perspective of Philippe’s second wife, Isabelle de Cheverny, details her own undaunted efforts to earn the love and respect of her dismissive and unfaithful husband, whose behavior has ironically come to mirror that of Odile. With Sarah Bakewell’s (How to Live) introduction providing historical context and insight into the autobiographical nature of Maurois’s material, this new edition of Climates marks a valuable reintroduction to a neglected master.

October 15, 2012
In a new translation of the 20th-century French classic, wealthy Philippe Marcenat makes two attempts to find the perfect partner and fails both times. Distinguished French writer Maurois (1885-1967) drew partly on personal experience in his 1928 novel devoted to the balance of affection within a marriage. Philippe has high romantic ideals and believes he has found their personification in his first love, Odile, a dreamy young woman with exquisite taste and looks whom he meets while on holiday in Florence in 1909. But once married, the scales slowly fall from the devoted husband's eyes as he encounters Odile's stubbornness on the subject of male friends. Besotted and jealous, Philippe stands helplessly by as events spiral out of control. The second part of Philippe's sentimental education is narrated by wife number two, Isabelle, with whom the relationship is a mirror image of the first marriage. Now it is Isabelle who loves most fondly and Philippe who is bored by the intensity of affection. Once again, tragedy can't be avoided. Stripped of its period shading, this is a sad and timeless tale of women on pedestals and the pain of loving not wisely, but too well.

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