The House I Loved

December 12, 2011
Parisian Rose Bazelet is a woman in mourning, for her husband and son, both long dead; for her distant daughter; and because of Napoleon III’s ambitious urban planning agenda in the mid-19th century, an enormous project that could destroy her beloved family estate. With the planners already leveling nearby houses, Rose hides in her cellar and writes letters to her deceased husband about her struggle to save their home. As the letters continue, and destruction grows near, Rose remembers her married life. With the planners “rattling about at the entrance” and taking her friend Alexandrine, who has come to rescue her, by surprise, Rose reveals to her late husband the dark secret she could never bring herself to tell him when he was alive. Though bestseller de Rosnay’s epistolary narrative is slow to build, it’s fraught with drama, as the Sarah’s Key author aims to create an immersive experience in a hugely transformative period in Paris (see Paul La Farge’s Haussmann, or the Distinction), when the city was torn between modernity and tradition. In Rose, one gets the clear sense of a woman losing her place in a changing world, but this isn’t enough to make up for a weak narrative hung entirely on the eventual reveal of a long-buried secret.

Starred review from January 15, 2012
Amid Baron Haussmann's demolition of her quartier, a woman refuses to leave her home in de Rosnay's latest (Sarah's Key, 2008, etc.). During the reign of Napoleon III, his prefect Baron Haussmann embarked on a mammoth undertaking to modernize Paris. In order to construct the branching boulevard system Paris is now renowned for, entire neighborhoods of twisting cobbled alleyways and lanes were razed. The residents of these now-forgotten neighborhoods were displaced. For the aging widow Rose Bazelet, who has lived for decades in her well-appointed home on rue Childebert near the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, starting over somewhere else is out of the question. Rose's house, in addition to being her refuge from her difficult childhood with an unloving mother, has been the repository of her great loves and most significant memories: Her beloved mother-in-law died there, her husband Armand grew senile and died there, her children (her own unloved daughter Violette and favored son Baptiste, claimed by cholera at age 10) were born there. When the citizens of rue Childebert are first notified of the impending "expropriation" of their street, they assume their proximity to the Church will save them, but it is not to be. The restaurateur, hotelier, chocolatier, bookshop owner and other local merchants, including the florist, Rose's dearest friend Alexandrine, all vacate. Once peaceful, rue Childebert is now a wasteland of dust, falling rubble and clamorous demolition crews. Only Rose remains. Her belongings have been sent to Violette's home in the country, but Rose has no intention of moving. Subsisting on the scavenged leavings brought to her by Gilbert, a clochard she once aided, she writes an extended letter to Armand, reflecting on her life, and attempting to parse her own motivations. All tends toward the revelation of a secret she has confessed to no one. De Rosnay's delicacy and the flavor of her beloved Paris are everywhere in this brief but memorable book. Replete with treats, particularly for Paris-lovers--indeed for anyone wedded to a special place.

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September 15, 2011

As all Francophiles know, Paris was remade in the 1860s by order of Emperor Napoleon III, with Baron Haussmann initiating a plan that included the long, straight, sweeping boulevards that give the city its dramatic character (and got rid of many crooked little alleys where rebellious types could hide). Author of the beloved Sarah's Key, de Rosnay takes us back to the Haussmann era, as Rose Bazelet fights to keep her family home from being demolished while confronting a secret she's kept for 30 years. I'm a Paris nut, so of course I'll read this, but the combination of de Rosnay's popularity and the subject matter--our attachment to home, something felt keenly at this time of foreclosures--truly recommends this book. With a one-day laydown on February 14.

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