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About Schmidt
Product Details
ISBN: 9780449911167
Format: Paperback
Publish Date: 11/01/97
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Item Number: BALAT991116
The protagonist of this novel of self-deception and loneliness is Albert Schmidt, a widowed, retired lawyer in his 60s, who has shown neither affection nor tolerance to his daughter, Charlotte. Now, she is married to a Jewish lawyer whose warm family provides her with what she has never had. Meanwhile, Schmidt's life is invaded by the young Puerto Rican waitress with whom he is infatuated. This novel was nominated for the 1996 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.
"A fine new novel... The great pleasure of reading Louis Begley [is] his exceptional literary intelligence." The New York Times Book Review "Begley again demonstrates that he can reveal the complexities of society and personality with a clear eye and graceful style... Morethan meets the requirements of graceful fiction." TimeProud, traditional, and impeccably organized, Albert Schmidt is a button-down lawyer of the old school. But now, after years of carefulmanagement, his life is slowly unraveling. His beloved wife has recently died. He stumbles--or is he being pushed?--into earlyretirement. And his daughter, his only child, is planning to marry a man Schmidt cannot approve of, for reasons he can scarcely admit, even to himself. As Schmidt gropes for resolutions, he finds unexpected hope in an intense passion that comes out of the blue.Set in the Hamptons and Manhattan, infused with black humor and startling eroticism, About Schmidt is both a meditation on lonelinessand on the power of romance to unlock the most impenetrable recesses of the heart. "Comical, tough, unsparing; it is as if Louis Auchincloss had exchanged the kid gloves for brass knuckles... Interesting and nervy." The Washington Post Book World "A powerful story of a man's fall from grace... The Remains of the Day come[s] to mind." Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Proud, traditional and impeccably organized, Albert Schmidt is a button-down lawyer of the old school. But now, after years of careful management, his life is slowly unraveling. As he gropes for resolutions to his problems, he finds unexpected hope in an intense passion that comes out of the blue.
Note 1:
"A fine new novel... The great pleasure of reading Louis Begley [is] his exceptional literary intelligence." The New York Times Book Review "Begley again demonstrates that he can reveal the complexities of society and personality with a clear eye and graceful style... Morethan meets the requirements of graceful fiction." TimeProud, traditional, and impeccably organized, Albert Schmidt is a button-down lawyer of the old school. But now, after years of carefulmanagement, his life is slowly unraveling. His beloved wife has recently died. He stumbles--or is he being pushed?--into earlyretirement. And his daughter, his only child, is planning to marry a man Schmidt cannot approve of, for reasons he can scarcely admit, even to himself. As Schmidt gropes for resolutions, he finds unexpected hope in an intense passion that comes out of the blue.Set in the Hamptons and Manhattan, infused with black humor and startling eroticism, About Schmidt is both a meditation on lonelinessand on the power of romance to unlock the most impenetrable recesses of the heart. "Comical, tough, unsparing; it is as if Louis Auchincloss had exchanged the kid gloves for brass knuckles... Interesting and nervy." The Washington Post Book World "A powerful story of a man's fall from grace... The Remains of the Day come[s] to mind." Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Note 2:
Proud, traditional and impeccably organized, Albert Schmidt is a button-down lawyer of the old school. But now, after years of careful management, his life is slowly unraveling. As he gropes for resolutions to his problems, he finds unexpected hope in an intense passion that comes out of the blue.
Review 1:
"Popular fiction has long tended to ignore the intricacies of old-world corporate America....Yet for more than a decade now Begley has chronicled this world....While this has often evoked comparisons to James and Wharton, these are not mere novels of manners. Instead, Begley uses his intimate attunement to the language, habits and assumptions of the upper classes to reveal the tiny cracks in the system and to excavate the subtle cruelties and disarray that lie quietly beneath the surface....Begley has created a terribly funny, touching, infuriating and complex character..."
09/15/1996
Review 2:
"If the sorrows of old 'Schmidtie' strike us as somewhat short of fully tragic, less than deeply moving, it's clearly intentional; Begley means us to keep our distance--to withhold our sympathies--from his smug, officious hero....It's this that makes Begley's novel most interesting and nervy. In an era in which critics enjoin writers to make their characters appealing...it takes considerable bravery to ignore such critical admonitions....His novel is comical, tough, unsparing; it's as if Louis Auchincloss had exchanged the kid gloves for brass knuckles."
09/15/1996
Review 3:
"Consistently subtle and intelligent, this novel ends by getting under your skin despite the unlikability of its protagonist. You are left with the feeling of having found out the complex truth behind the impeccable facade of someone you might never notice if you met him at a party--someone, on the other hand, you might just know or be, an ordinary person with ordinary problems, even if he does have a retirement income of some $330,000 a year."
09/22/1996
Review 4:
"...[I]n Schmidt's judicious struggles with his and his class's worst habits of mind Begley for the first time in his fiction finds the tone of social comedy....[The novel is] informed by a relaxed and genial wisdom..."
10/31/1996
Review 5:
"An elegant, precise, droll novel about a lawyer's startling transformation....A sly, sharp portrait of an amoral but appealing figure, and of the declining world of privilege that has shaped him."
10/01/1996
Review 6:
"Schmidt, for all his episcopal rectitude, comes off as insidiously likable."
11/25/1996
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