A Paris Apartment

Gable, Michelle. A Paris Apartment. New York: St. Martin's Press. 2014. Print

First Sentences:

She only wanted to get out of town.

When her boss sidled up and said the words "apartment,' 'ninth arrondissement," and "a ton of nineteenth-century crap," April instantly thought: vacation. 

There would be work involved, but no matter, she was going to Paris. 

Description:

Here's an interesting premise for Michelle Gable's intriguing novel, A Paris Apartment. An residence in Paris has been locked up, untouched or altered, for seventy years. When opened, the apartment' s rooms are found to be filled with antiques and original furniture untouched since the early 1930s.

Seventy years seemed like nothing once she stepped into the Parisian flat. The stench was closer to one thousand, if smells had age. April inhaled the most negligible of breaths and instantly the taste of dust and perfume filled her eyes, her nose, her mouth. The scratchy sweetness would stay in the back of her throat for months. The sight would stay with her for longer.

April Vogt, an expert furniture appraiser from Sotheby's, is charged with evaluating the apartment's furniture for auction. What she finds in the apartment's seven rooms is unforgettable: paintings, "a Louis XVI gilt-metal bureau plait, ...George III mahogany armchairs, a Charles X Savonnerie carpet." Also notable were "a six-foot-tall stuffed ostrich and a Mickey Mouse doll," and possibly a previously unknown Boldini painting that is the prize of the apartment.

These were items "considered antiques a hundred years ago," so offer April a fascinating challenge. But she is also concerned with the provenance for the furniture from the 1890s. How did these objects come to this apartment? Who was the owner? How did she afford and collect these items? And finally why was the apartment and its contests closed away for so many years without being touched by family, friends, or real estate agents?

It's incomprehensible that someone knew about this apartment and didn't touch a thing.

Then April discovers a diary of the apartment owner, Marthe de Florian, a renowned courtesan of the turn of the century. The diary records de Florian's life, loves, and choices, and April immediately finds herself absorbed into her world. As she is transported to this era, the apartment and its owner slowly begin to give up a few of their secrets.

Of course, there are problems for April, including the Parisian lawyer working on behalf of the apartment sellers; her Sotheby's on-site boss; and her boyfriend in New York. She is urged to just get the items appraised quickly and accurately so the auction can take place. But she is transported to another era and only reluctantly deals with the people and challenges of her current situation. 

So the novel unfolds between the present evaluation of items and the story of their owner, . Full of biographical details, scandal, social-climbing, theater, quirky personalities, and intrigue, A Paris Apartment pulls readers beautifully from the complications of the present age into an era of wealth, art, and love.

A wonderful book, so interesting and richly told, about a fascinating figure from a bygone age. Highly recommended.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Carhart, Thad. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank.   

Curious about a small piano shop in Paris that showed only a few repair items in its dusty window, the author tries to see what's behind the curtain in the shop. Eventually he is allowed to see their extensive artisan piano restoration workshop, try out pianos for himself, and even consider buying a classic model. Highly recommended (previously reviewed here)

The Piano Shop on the Left Bank

Carhart, Thad. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier. New York: Random House. 2001. Print.

First Sentences:

Along a narrow street in the Paris neighborhood where I live sits a little store front with a simple sign stenciled on the window: "Desforges Pianos: outillage, fournitures." 

Description:

After passing a small shop numerous times that sells piano parts on a back street of Paris, Thad Carhart decides to poke his head inside. It is an impulse based on his curiosity about this tiny shop as much as an effort to begin his new project: purchase a used piano and begin playing again.

Inside the shop, he finds himself in a small room displaying hammers, felts, and other piano miscellany. A man emerges from a curtained-off back room, greets Carhart politely, and regretfully informs him that they have no pianos that Carhart  can purchase. The author leaves, puzzled. How can such a tiny shop exist by selling only a small selection of piano parts?

In the ensuing days, Carhart returns to the shop frequently, curious about the business and what is in the back room. Finally he catches a glimpse behind the curtain and sees a warehouse full of pianos in various stages of disrepair. This room has been carefully secreted away off the small shop. The reason? While the atelier (workshop) does restore and sell pianos, they only work with customers recommended by former customers. 

When Carhart finds a neighbor who is a previous customer, he gains her recommendation and finally admittance into the secret warehouse of wonderful pianos from the past and present, carefully bought and sold, repaired, tuned, and polished to former brilliance.

Carhart lovingly describes experiences that follow with the people and pianos of this world in his beautiful memoir, The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier. Under the guidance of Luc, the director of the atelier, Carhart slowly learns the varied histories, qualities, and quirks of hundreds of pianos found throughout this warehouse. Each piano has a story, just as it has a unique casing and tone. Luc is only interested in "pianos that live" and are played rather than historic museum pieces. He unfailingly discusses his 

respect for all these complex, ungainly, and gloriously impractical instruments, as well as a fascination with what came forth when the ones in good condition were played. 

Carhart  learns the differences between Steinways ("quality craftsmanship and renowned singing tone") and Bechsteins ("clear, bright attack in the upper registers"), Bosendorfers ("the aristocrat of pianos"), Erard and Pleyels ("once great French makers"), and Stingl (Carhart's final choice, a  "diminutive" Austrian baby grand).

Carhart joyfully falls deeper and deeper into this world of the pianos in Paris, from working with a no-nonsense music teacher, finding (and keeping sober) a brilliant tuner, and watching a man single-handedly heft Carhart's newly-purchased 600-lb piano up a flight of stairs to his French apartment. He now hears his neighbors whose playing drifts through his open courtyard windows, and, of course, begins to learn challenging piano compositions.

A vast quantity of popular music [in the early nineteenth century] was written for the piano and most of it was played for entertainment in the home. The piano came to be regarded as one of the indispensable accomplishments that made women of the new middle class charming, attractive, and -- not least -- marriageable. 

Carhart offers beautifully descriptions of clients of the atelier who wander in and sit down at restored pianos for possible purchase, playing delightful pieces in the vastness of the warehouse:

In the repeats, especially, [one client] managed to contrast tone, volume, and color so that identical passages seemed wholly new. The turns were unexpected yet not abrupt, like watching a large and beautiful leaf fall slowly to the ground from a great height: the destination was never in doubt, but the sudden changes made a dance of the descent. He became part of that endlessly subtle, witty, and insistent conversation that is music.

Carhart, in contrast, also mentions Oscar Wilde who once commented: 

I assure you that the typewriting machine, when played with expression, is not more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.

Carhart's splendid journey of pianos and Paris recaptures his childhood memories of the piano, "a kind of flying carpet by which I could travel to an entirely different place.... a new and agreeable and utterly private world of [my] own." 

We are fortunate, indeed, that he shares the details of his piano travels with us, his readers, in this slight, deeply passionate and sensitive book.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Knize, Perri. Grand Obsession: A Piano Odyessy

The author recounts her quest to purchase the perfect piano and install it in her remote farm in Montana. Delightful account of her trying out and evaluating every piano possible in every store in every city she visits. But after finally, finally finding the perfect piano that suits her best, she find it is only the beginning of her piano story.

The Paris Architect

Belfoure, Charles. The Paris Architect. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks. 2013. Print

First Sentences:

Just as Lucien Bernard founded the corner at the Rue La Boetie, a man running from the opposite direction almost collided with him.

He came so close that Lucien could smell his cologne as he raced by.

Description:

The running man is immediately shot by Nazis soldiers simply because he was running in a suspicious way. His blood is lightly spattered on the coat of the narrator on his way to a job interview and potential building commission.

So begins The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure, immediately portraying the tension and random violence in Paris during the occupation by the Nazis. This scene and the novel are narrated by Lucien Bernard, a talented architect who, due to the current chaos in his city, can no longer find commissions to design new buildings. 

But an opportunity arises. He is asked by Auguste Manet, a wealthy Parisian industrialist, to create an ingenious hiding place in an apartment for a Jewish man fleeing the Nazis. This hiding place must be clever enough to be undetectable by probing Nazis. Lucien knows that any Jew caught hiding would be shot immediately, along with the person hiding the Jew, the creator of the hiding place, and anyone else in the apartment building. To Lucien, Manet is "asking me to commit suicide." 

But Manet sweetens the deal. His factory, now under Nazi control to produce weapons, needs to be undergo a major expansion under some lucky architect's design and direction. Hint, hint.

So Lucien faces several conflicting decisions. Should he create a hiding place for an unknown Jew which could result in many deaths including his own? But with this project comes a chance to design a major factory expansion which would feature his talents and be standing long after the war is over. Then again, this factory would create weapons to kill Frenchmen and other allied soldiers. But on the other hand, good money paid to the factory's architect along with other perks. 

Lucien takes the commission and succeeds with both the hiding place and factory design. But the triumph of this "one-time" deal soon brings another request from Manet to design another hiding place along with a promise for another major factory expansion commission.

To further complicate Lucien's life, his mistress is also the lover of the Gestapo officer leading the search for the wealthy Jews Lucien and Manet are hiding. Herr Schlegal will stop at nothing to discover these Jews: terrorism, interrogation, torture, and random murders under his direction strike fear into the Parisian citizenry and Lucien as well. 

Can Lucien stop himself creating the hiding places and therefore lose the other major projects? Can he give up the luxuries of a car, black market food, clothes, and more provided by Manet and the grateful Jews he hides? What happens when he realizes that real lives are at stake, that his work is not simply a mental challenge to create clever buildings and hiding places?

The Paris Architect is a nail-biting story of everyday people facing lives of constant tensions and dangerous conditions. They walk the delicate balance between collaboration with the Nazis and working to assist Jews they never have met and have no respect for. Author Belfoure skillfully depicts their struggles with moral, ethical, monetary, and egotistical factors which hinder their ability to decide. And, of course, permeating every decision is the nervous awareness of the consequences each character (and many other people) might reap for their actions.  

Happy reading. 



Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Williams, Eric. The Wooden Horse

Historical account of an escape from a World War II prisoner of war camp. As thrilling as The Great Escape for the tension in planning, building the tunnel, and then surviving the escape. A forgotten book that should be revived by anyone interested in bravery, cleverness, perseverance, and audacity.