This is a rare gem of a book. It is so perfect in its depiction of traveling and falling in love with another country that, not only would I not change a word, I found section after section I wanted to absorb into my skin. Although written sixty years ago and set just after World War II, the interactions and reactions of a young American couple with the French and in France remain relevant, painful, hilarious, and true. Its peaceful pace belies the profound transformation of its principal characters, Harold and Barbara, and of the painful recent history from which the French were so eager to shake loose in the fragile years of the late 1940’s. It is counter to French nature to turn away from history and move on with assertive hope; Barbara and Harold arrive at the border just as France accepts that breaking the habit of reflection and debate and marching in concert with their European neighbors- including Germany- is the only way out of the post-war depression. Whether or not it was the writer's intention, Maxwell’s characters personify specific national characteristics or conditions that were present in France during this tender and uncertain time. Mme Viénot is the face of dignity. She endeavors to preserve the gentility of the rapidly disappearing class of landed gentry. Hers is the eponymous château, which suffers the indignities of no hot water, no heat, and a larder limited by ration coupons. She is wily, a survivor, one foot trailing in the France’s past, the rest of her thrust forward, ready to grasp what she can to keep her home and legacy intact. Eugène Boisgaillard encapsulates a nation emasculated by war, and its co-conspirators helplessness, guilt, and frustration. He runs hot and cold- a character you don’t trust and but somehow you come to understand. He is surely suffering some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition not spoken of in a nation that had lost so many of its young men to war. He resents the vitality and hope of the American naïfs as he comes to terms with the loss of his gracious pre-war lifestyle. Mme Straus-Muguet is a reminder that all is not as good as it seems in the land of your dreams. Pulling back the curtain of Emerald City to see an insignificant blunderbuss at the controls is a keen disappointment. But once you accept the flaws and the ordinariness of it all, you also begin to feel more at home. Her awkward social status is also a painful but unspoken reminder that, although united during the war by hunger, fear, resistance, or mere survival, the different social classes would sort themselves out in peacetime. Peace means never having to say “I’m sorry,” to someone beneath your standing. Sabine and Alix are the face of the new France: young, strong, independent women. Sabine is blazing her career path without the help of her connected family or a paramour; Alix is a busy mother in a passionate but difficult marriage with the mercurial Eugène. These women realize there is no time to stop and reflect on all that was lost in two generations of war; their lives are rich and full, the demands on their intelligence and heart too great to tarry. It often feels that Harold and Barbara are more conduits than characters, particularly the winsome and vague Barbara. Harold works so hard to understand and to be understood, to fit in, get along, adapt; he wants desperately to be French, but understands that he is the quintessential American. The passages showing Harold falling helplessly in love with France, encountering the inexplicable and the maddening, and finally, saying goodbye to Paris are heart-wrenching to any one who has known and loved that beautiful, proud, contrary, gracious country. The Château is a love letter to France, and an homage to the baffling, intoxicating experience of traveling abroad. It is also an astute portrayal of post World War II Europe, of a country that was on the losing side of the victorious.
William Maxwell. The Chateau. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961.Although not Maxwell’s best book, I still enjoyed reading it. I bought another copy for Julie’s mom. I remembered Julie telling me that her parents flew (very unusual) to Europe after the war. I should ask her if it was before Jules was born. It must have been. Anyway, this story is about a young couple traveling to Europe when the war is still too fresh in the minds of the French people and the hardships too great not to have the French struggle with their relationship with the naïve American couple. I decided to give it to Dory Airing so she could read it and compare it to her travels with her husband, Charles.Barbara’s husband, Harold, helps his wife recreate a trip she took with her parents before the war. When they arrived in one of the little towns she visited with her parents and arrived at the same hotel they stayed at, “…the past was for a moment superimposed on the present, and she had a wonderful feeling of lightness – as if she were rising through water up to the surface and sunshine and air.” (124)By traveling all summer in Europe, Barbara and Harold are changed. Their views are challenged and they learn that the view that they have of themselves as Americans isn’t the view others have of them or their country.Page 264: After a difficult, deflating interaction with people they didn’t understand and who didn’t understand them, Harold talks to his wife about it just before they fall asleep. “ ‘ …you cannot be friends with somebody, no matter how much you like them, if it turns out that you don’t really understand one another.’ “ This is true on a personal level but it is also true on a national and international level.Page 293: The entire book gives example after example why it’s important to be exposed to other cultures. Even thought this couple struggles with the fact that some people just don’t like them because they are American, they begin to understand that they have no control over it. Sometimes it took them a long time to understand that it wasn’t them but just the unlucky exposure to an unpleasant person, and that could happen in their own country.Page 313: Enjoyed the gender difference and what it means to travel. She sometimes wanted an unplanned day, a day of change, but he found it fulfilling to complete a planned day, a day of checking off all the places they were to see and did.Page 336: Gains and losses: Travel can shake loose the ideas and practices you thought you held dear. It can also make you appreciate much of what you came from.Page 393-394: “So strange, life is. Why people do not go around in a continual state of surprise is beyond me.”Page 396: An older French woman says to them: “All experience is impoverishing. A great deal is taken away, a little is given in return. Patience is obligatory – the patient acceptance of much that is unacceptable.” This is very much like one of my favorite quotes (May Sarton): “The moral dilemma is to make peace with the unacceptable.”
What do You think about The Chateau (2000)?
I finished this book last week and after savoring it like the last bite of a great chocolate bar. This was the only book by William Maxwell that I had not read, and I was hesitant to read it now, knowing that it would be the end of my relationship with this remarkable man. I spread out my reading over five wonderful weeks, only reading when I could be certain not to be interupted. The story was good, the characters were fair, and the language was lovely. Maxwell's descriptions of post war Paris were a love letter to the city. I finished the book with a bittersweet, adieu.
—Elizabeth
Enough! Bastante! Abbastanza! I'm not gonna try to read this anymore. Can this be the same author who wrote the pointed and precise So Long, See You Tomorrow? I spent days and days forcing myself to keep trying with this book. It was all I could do to get through a chapter a day, sometimes not even that. I made it to page 138. It felt more like drudgery than an enjoyable reading experience, so I quit. The book has its good moments. I stayed with it as long as I did because it was interesting to see what travel in Europe was like in 1948, when the effects of World War II were still very evident. That factor wasn't compelling enough to keep me reading, because the plot is so dull and the characters so annoying. If you love France and are quite familiar with it, this story might grab you. Otherwise, it's a frustrating grind.
—Jeanette "Astute Crabbist"
A strange novel really. I discovered William Maxwell by picking up a copy of his novella 'They Came Like Swallows', which I loved, but this never quite gets going. It's the story of an American couple visiting France just after the Second World War, and the various French friends that they make along the way. It's a study of the friendships that we make when travelling, and though there is a precision and clarity to the writing that I enjoyed, it felt like an idea for another novella bloated by a publisher's hubris. The final section where a Guardian Passnotes style second voice is introduced is interesting, but faintly bizarre given this only features in the final 50 pages. There are also a few gaps to the narrative - the trip to Austria is talked about in the future and then retrospectively, so was obviously cut - giving the novel a disjointed feel.I think Maxwell is a really talented writer, and TCLS is wonderful, but this was disappointing.
—Russell George
