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This Strange Eventful History
An immersive, masterful story of a family born on the wrong side of history, from one of our finest contemporary novelists.
Over seven decades, from 1940 to 2010, the pieds-noirs Cassars live in an itinerant state—separated in the chaos of World War II, running from a complicated colonial homeland, and, after Algerian independence, without a homeland at all. This Strange Eventful History, told with historical sweep, is above all a family story: of patriarch Gaston and his wife Lucienne, whose myth of perfect love sustains them and stifles their children; of François and Denise, devoted siblings connected by their family’s strangeness; of François’s union with Barbara, a woman so culturally different they can barely comprehend one another; of Chloe, the result of that union, who believes that telling these buried stories will bring them all peace.
Inspired in part by long-ago stories from her own family’s history, Claire Messud animates her characters’ rich interior lives amid the social an
Over seven decades, from 1940 to 2010, the pieds-noirs Cassars live in an itinerant state—separated in the chaos of World War II, running from a complicated colonial homeland, and, after Algerian independence, without a homeland at all. This Strange Eventful History, told with historical sweep, is above all a family story: of patriarch Gaston and his wife Lucienne, whose myth of perfect love sustains them and stifles their children; of François and Denise, devoted siblings connected by their family’s strangeness; of François’s union with Barbara, a woman so culturally different they can barely comprehend one another; of Chloe, the result of that union, who believes that telling these buried stories will bring them all peace.
Inspired in part by long-ago stories from her own family’s history, Claire Messud animates her characters’ rich interior lives amid the social an
448 pages, Hardcover
Published May 14, 2024
About the author
Claire Messud
32 books887 followersClaire Messud is an American novelist and literature and creative writing professor. She is best known as the author of the novel The Emperor's Children (2006).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 633 reviews
May 25, 2024
The incredibly talented Cassandra Campbell narrates Claire Messud’s autofiction tome “This Strange Eventful History”. The audio is over 16 hours in length, covering seven decades, of this French family without a homeland. Ms. Campbell’s expansive linguistic skills including different accents, cadence, voice inflections, of the varying characters in the story made this a remarkable listening experience.
Messud’s paternal grandfather handwrote a memoir for his granddaughters. She used the memoir as an outline for her fictional story. She includes the French colonization of different countries, such as Algeria, in addition to WWII and Germany’s assault on France which adds to the displacement of Messaud’s fictious family, the Cassar’s.
Although the family history begins in 1927 with Gaston Cassar marrying the love of his life, 13 years his senior (which the reader learns more about in the epilogue), Lucienne, the story opens in June of 1940 when the Germans conquered Paris. At the time, Gaston is serving at the consulate in Greece. His wife Lucienne and their two children have fled Greece and are in their family home in Algeria. History intervenes again when Algeria won independence from France in 1962, and the family was exiled.
Messud allots time and space for each family member, including the granddaughters. Francois and Denise are Gaston and Lucienne’s children. Francois marries Barbara and they have two daughters. Each of these characters are relegated to their own personal story in which the reader become involved.
Again, it was Cassandra Campbell’s theatrical skills that kept me listening. Messaud’s writing shows how political history, along with personal choices, affects lives, certainly her family’s lives.
I highly recommend the audio. The story is perfect for narration. While Campbell narrated, I pictured clearly in my mind, the story. This would make a fine film.
Messud’s paternal grandfather handwrote a memoir for his granddaughters. She used the memoir as an outline for her fictional story. She includes the French colonization of different countries, such as Algeria, in addition to WWII and Germany’s assault on France which adds to the displacement of Messaud’s fictious family, the Cassar’s.
Although the family history begins in 1927 with Gaston Cassar marrying the love of his life, 13 years his senior (which the reader learns more about in the epilogue), Lucienne, the story opens in June of 1940 when the Germans conquered Paris. At the time, Gaston is serving at the consulate in Greece. His wife Lucienne and their two children have fled Greece and are in their family home in Algeria. History intervenes again when Algeria won independence from France in 1962, and the family was exiled.
Messud allots time and space for each family member, including the granddaughters. Francois and Denise are Gaston and Lucienne’s children. Francois marries Barbara and they have two daughters. Each of these characters are relegated to their own personal story in which the reader become involved.
Again, it was Cassandra Campbell’s theatrical skills that kept me listening. Messaud’s writing shows how political history, along with personal choices, affects lives, certainly her family’s lives.
I highly recommend the audio. The story is perfect for narration. While Campbell narrated, I pictured clearly in my mind, the story. This would make a fine film.
August 29, 2024
5 "infused with the everyday, the profane, the sacred and the ties of family...." stars !!
I could not have asked for a more resonant, impactful and beautiful book. This was gifted to me by my beloved who intuits my deepest emotions and understands my inner core. On my birthday this was wrapped with my new kindle with only this book added. I promised to not procrastinate and to read this along with him at a leisurely and pleasurable pace.
Claire Messud has created a book that encapsulates not just a family history but the soul of what it is to be Mediterranean. What ties this region together whether it be French, Latin, Hellenic, Turkish, Arabic or Sephardic Jewish is deep love, enmeshment, unyielding faith and an acknowledgement of the wisdoms of the past as well as a sense of fatalism, deep romance and an emphasis on the importance of emotions.
The prose is absolutely flawless. The characters are so richly sculpted that I spent the summer with them living not just in my heart but in my house. I enjoyed and resented them in equal measure. The real power and gift of this book however is that it began to heal and integrate me. I am of mixed Mediterranean heritage with much splicing, estrangements and mysteries. So much is unknown to me and yet the love from mama and papa and auntie and sis along with sporadic contact from the wider circle has nourished me throughout my life and led me to a quest for spiritual truths alongside relishing daily sensual matters with joy cultivation being a primary aim.
Ms. Messud- thank you for creating one of the most treasured reads of my life.
Gratitude to my sweetheart for loving my chaotic Mediterranean ways...
I could not have asked for a more resonant, impactful and beautiful book. This was gifted to me by my beloved who intuits my deepest emotions and understands my inner core. On my birthday this was wrapped with my new kindle with only this book added. I promised to not procrastinate and to read this along with him at a leisurely and pleasurable pace.
Claire Messud has created a book that encapsulates not just a family history but the soul of what it is to be Mediterranean. What ties this region together whether it be French, Latin, Hellenic, Turkish, Arabic or Sephardic Jewish is deep love, enmeshment, unyielding faith and an acknowledgement of the wisdoms of the past as well as a sense of fatalism, deep romance and an emphasis on the importance of emotions.
The prose is absolutely flawless. The characters are so richly sculpted that I spent the summer with them living not just in my heart but in my house. I enjoyed and resented them in equal measure. The real power and gift of this book however is that it began to heal and integrate me. I am of mixed Mediterranean heritage with much splicing, estrangements and mysteries. So much is unknown to me and yet the love from mama and papa and auntie and sis along with sporadic contact from the wider circle has nourished me throughout my life and led me to a quest for spiritual truths alongside relishing daily sensual matters with joy cultivation being a primary aim.
Ms. Messud- thank you for creating one of the most treasured reads of my life.
Gratitude to my sweetheart for loving my chaotic Mediterranean ways...
May 12, 2024
Claire Messud opens “This Strange Eventful History” with a prologue that announces, “I want to save lives. Or simply: I want to save life.” That may sound pretentious — she’s just a writer, after all — but it’s prophetic, an aspiration wholly borne out by this monumental novel, which is a work of salvage and salvation.
As the title suggests, though, it’s not exactly a novel — or not only a novel. Rather than being cut from whole cloth, “This Strange Eventful History” is quilted from scraps of memory treasured in the author’s attic for decades. To a certain extent, the project began with a 1,500-page memoir written out by Messud’s paternal grandfather, who was born in what was once French Algeria. Now, after a lifetime of reflection, Messud has published a book that imagines how three generations of the Cassar family rode the geopolitical waves from World War II into the 21st century.
Literary spelunkers may expect the voyeuristic thrill of climbing through the life of the author who wrote “The Emperor’s Children,” “The Woman Upstairs” and other terrific novels, but there are treasures here far beyond the merely autobiographical. The names have been changed, and the copyright page warns nosy readers that “all characters, events, and incidents have been fictionalized.” Isn’t that the case, though, with anyone’s family history? We all live and move and have our being in a discombobulated library of familial tales that get more dubious the further they deviate from what we need to be true. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
As the title suggests, though, it’s not exactly a novel — or not only a novel. Rather than being cut from whole cloth, “This Strange Eventful History” is quilted from scraps of memory treasured in the author’s attic for decades. To a certain extent, the project began with a 1,500-page memoir written out by Messud’s paternal grandfather, who was born in what was once French Algeria. Now, after a lifetime of reflection, Messud has published a book that imagines how three generations of the Cassar family rode the geopolitical waves from World War II into the 21st century.
Literary spelunkers may expect the voyeuristic thrill of climbing through the life of the author who wrote “The Emperor’s Children,” “The Woman Upstairs” and other terrific novels, but there are treasures here far beyond the merely autobiographical. The names have been changed, and the copyright page warns nosy readers that “all characters, events, and incidents have been fictionalized.” Isn’t that the case, though, with anyone’s family history? We all live and move and have our being in a discombobulated library of familial tales that get more dubious the further they deviate from what we need to be true. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
July 30, 2024
Now Long listed for Booker 2024
Messud has crafted a peripatetic novel based on her family history that stretches over most of the twentieth century. Her prose is elegant but this didn't completely work as fiction for me and I think I might have preferred the material as memoir.
There's a clear comparison to be made with Leïla Slimani's ongoing fictionalising of her family history set in Morocco (Le pays des autres) as opposed to Messud's Algeria but their writerly strategies are quite different: Slimani keeps her work tight, focusing closely on a few characters so that we get to know them intimately; Messud does the opposite - she takes a far more scattershot approach jumping between focalised characters, places and times over a near century from 1927 to 2010. The result for me was too distancing. It's a shame as the two openings are engrossing: a first person narrative from a descendant in 2010, and a third person story of her grandparents facing separation due to WW2. But after that, as we sweep through time in jumps of about a decade, I lost the connection to the story.
There are indications that this wants to be about, in part, the results of French colonialism in Algeria but the topic feels underweighted. It's not just big political movements like independence which are lost in the sweep but there's some confusion about the status of the Cassars and whether they have Algerian antecedents or are completely French. This is important because the framing device is that one of the factors behind the family's sense of homelessness springs from their colonial rootlessness: 'and the cost of their forefathers' sins, will be for them and their children to be cast from that illusory paradise, to wander the earth, belonging nowhere.'
In the end, I think I wanted a book that is more intimate like the opening of this one - once we jumped forward to the first ten year gap and a whole host of new characters appeared, I couldn't help feeling a bit short-changed. But that's a mismatch between me and the book: readers wanting a more sweeping history of a family's burgeoning generations through the twentieth century may well love this.
Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley
Messud has crafted a peripatetic novel based on her family history that stretches over most of the twentieth century. Her prose is elegant but this didn't completely work as fiction for me and I think I might have preferred the material as memoir.
There's a clear comparison to be made with Leïla Slimani's ongoing fictionalising of her family history set in Morocco (Le pays des autres) as opposed to Messud's Algeria but their writerly strategies are quite different: Slimani keeps her work tight, focusing closely on a few characters so that we get to know them intimately; Messud does the opposite - she takes a far more scattershot approach jumping between focalised characters, places and times over a near century from 1927 to 2010. The result for me was too distancing. It's a shame as the two openings are engrossing: a first person narrative from a descendant in 2010, and a third person story of her grandparents facing separation due to WW2. But after that, as we sweep through time in jumps of about a decade, I lost the connection to the story.
There are indications that this wants to be about, in part, the results of French colonialism in Algeria but the topic feels underweighted. It's not just big political movements like independence which are lost in the sweep but there's some confusion about the status of the Cassars and whether they have Algerian antecedents or are completely French. This is important because the framing device is that one of the factors behind the family's sense of homelessness springs from their colonial rootlessness: 'and the cost of their forefathers' sins, will be for them and their children to be cast from that illusory paradise, to wander the earth, belonging nowhere.'
In the end, I think I wanted a book that is more intimate like the opening of this one - once we jumped forward to the first ten year gap and a whole host of new characters appeared, I couldn't help feeling a bit short-changed. But that's a mismatch between me and the book: readers wanting a more sweeping history of a family's burgeoning generations through the twentieth century may well love this.
Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley
September 1, 2024
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024
Listen, this could have been a great novel about the intergenerational effects of colonization, mainly the feeling of alienation and rootlessness that just follows wherever the characters go, but alas, it's just a thematically unfocused family saga full of rather lifeless literary personnel. The text revolves around the Cassars, a family of pieds-noirs, so of ethnically French people born in Algeria during the colonial rule. We meet them during WW II, follow them through Algerian independence that basically loses them a homeland that was never theirs to begin with, then follow the three generations chapter after chapter of moving through France, Australia, the US, Canada, and Argentina. The whole thing is mostly told chronologically, but with slight time jumps between the seven parts (see the seven ages of man in As You Like It).
The problem here is that the structure with the movement between places is set up to make aforementioned point about colonialism and the lack of a home/center, while the characters are occupied with a plethora of often unrelated things - that isn't to say that they should be fully defined by their heritage, but if they struggle with unfulfilled dreams of becoming a writer or their sexuality or a strained marriage, those things shouldn't be listed, they need to be narrated in an engaging way. I felt with no one in this book, because the people remain narrative ideas, human-shaped plot points.
This is all so timid and held-back, and it wanders off in all directions without really telling me why the individual parts are important to the whole, or should be interesting as a vignette. Messud, whose fraternal grandparents are Algerian, has apparently read an account of over 1,000 pages by a family member that inspired her to write this, and Chloe, the only character that speaks from her own point of view instead of being narrated by an omniscient voice, seems to be tethered to the author. The result though is a novel that comes off as an agglomeration of individual life events of people, a text that lacks stringency and depth. I really struggled to finish this.
No Booker material, IMHO.
Listen, this could have been a great novel about the intergenerational effects of colonization, mainly the feeling of alienation and rootlessness that just follows wherever the characters go, but alas, it's just a thematically unfocused family saga full of rather lifeless literary personnel. The text revolves around the Cassars, a family of pieds-noirs, so of ethnically French people born in Algeria during the colonial rule. We meet them during WW II, follow them through Algerian independence that basically loses them a homeland that was never theirs to begin with, then follow the three generations chapter after chapter of moving through France, Australia, the US, Canada, and Argentina. The whole thing is mostly told chronologically, but with slight time jumps between the seven parts (see the seven ages of man in As You Like It).
The problem here is that the structure with the movement between places is set up to make aforementioned point about colonialism and the lack of a home/center, while the characters are occupied with a plethora of often unrelated things - that isn't to say that they should be fully defined by their heritage, but if they struggle with unfulfilled dreams of becoming a writer or their sexuality or a strained marriage, those things shouldn't be listed, they need to be narrated in an engaging way. I felt with no one in this book, because the people remain narrative ideas, human-shaped plot points.
This is all so timid and held-back, and it wanders off in all directions without really telling me why the individual parts are important to the whole, or should be interesting as a vignette. Messud, whose fraternal grandparents are Algerian, has apparently read an account of over 1,000 pages by a family member that inspired her to write this, and Chloe, the only character that speaks from her own point of view instead of being narrated by an omniscient voice, seems to be tethered to the author. The result though is a novel that comes off as an agglomeration of individual life events of people, a text that lacks stringency and depth. I really struggled to finish this.
No Booker material, IMHO.
September 5, 2024
Longlisted for the 2024 Booker prize
A globetrotting family history that touches upon colonialism, templates of relationships and love of parents and grandparents handed down through generations (and the importance of selecting the right spouse) and in general dealing with life's disappointing aspects
Just as I was old enough to have learned that everything is precarious I also was old enough to understand you can’t say that.
Claire Messud writes a family saga which is inspired on her own family history. Normally I don't like generational historical fiction as a genre much, but in This Strange Eventful History we get to follow mainly Francois and Denise, siblings whose life span WWII to the new millennium. In part one the child perspective on fleeing WW II to Algiers was very well done, but his father perspective from Greece, which mostly was “How could this happen to France”, and “I dislike Charles de Gaulle”, was decidedly weaker.
This book feels a bit like 2021 Booker prize nominated Great Circle, minus the horrible modern day thread of that book.
Family values play an important role (Men mustn’t be weak, weakness was shameful) and Francois turns into Frank in the US where he ends up studying at Harvard. Denise meanwhile struggles with mental health but manages to get a job in Buenos Aires.
There is enormous, but largely uncommented upon, privilege in this book. From a brother who goes to Harvard, has a Fulbright scholarship and goes to a Swiss MBA, to a sister who goes to Argentina, is on lithium and engages with literature, expat life in the form of golfing and visits of Borges to the bookstore she works in, while the father of the family works for an oil company and ends up as a director. All in all the dying parents, tensions in marriages, dementia and other more mundane negative life experiences seem limited compared to the overall getting ahead and prosperity of the family, which includes intercontinental air travel in the 1960s and positions as professor at the University of Chicago.
There is a breakdown in the past of Francois which is interesting (as is the depression of his sister) but not much mentioned further upon. Often times when characters where complaining how tight money was and how hard things where I ended up thinking they have rich people problems.
Francois even sounds like a millennial, he wants to see the whole world and reflects excessively on missed chances while living in Australia, Canada, New York and earning a 1 million miles frequent flyer status. As a general manager of an aluminium plant, travelling up- and down to New York in the private corporate jet he is still complaining, people nowadays wouldn’t even have such careers and perks. Also there is some discussion on the way gender roles not just limit women but also force men into the role of provider but I seriously lacked any reflective ability in Francois and his wife Barbara, who just ends up complaining about a Valentine trip to Miami (again, sign me up for that!).
Not to say that the author does not draw up layered, interesting characters, that she certainly does well with Barbara, Denise and Francois all three being well executed in my view. Denise even reminded me quite vividly of some of my own aunts. Also the fear of saying things making things so, leading to unspeakable silence between partners and parents and children, is interesting enough.
Still I was not blown away on a sentence level and for a book titled “eventful” there aren't that many life changing events happening, people seem stuck in the furrow of their life, which is realistic but not necessarily super engaging for 450 pages long. Also the revelation at the end of the book felt rather random bolted on.
Overall however a solid 3 stars from me for this historical novel.
Quotes:
Why must she be herself? Why was it so unacceptable to be herself?
But self interest is generally humanity’s motivation, non?
We are always already guilty
How exhausting it was, reflected Denise, simply to be alive
Dying was long, hard work
It is like you think someone should come along and save you
She had been a constant disappointment then, simply from being herself
Family life, like playing chess, involved always thinking a few steps ahead
All life and generations collapsing like an accordion
Just try not to think of it
Not only to always work hard but that he must be the top, the way his father had been the top.
That not to be the top was to fail
We’ve got to turn towards life, towards light
A globetrotting family history that touches upon colonialism, templates of relationships and love of parents and grandparents handed down through generations (and the importance of selecting the right spouse) and in general dealing with life's disappointing aspects
Just as I was old enough to have learned that everything is precarious I also was old enough to understand you can’t say that.
Claire Messud writes a family saga which is inspired on her own family history. Normally I don't like generational historical fiction as a genre much, but in This Strange Eventful History we get to follow mainly Francois and Denise, siblings whose life span WWII to the new millennium. In part one the child perspective on fleeing WW II to Algiers was very well done, but his father perspective from Greece, which mostly was “How could this happen to France”, and “I dislike Charles de Gaulle”, was decidedly weaker.
This book feels a bit like 2021 Booker prize nominated Great Circle, minus the horrible modern day thread of that book.
Family values play an important role (Men mustn’t be weak, weakness was shameful) and Francois turns into Frank in the US where he ends up studying at Harvard. Denise meanwhile struggles with mental health but manages to get a job in Buenos Aires.
There is enormous, but largely uncommented upon, privilege in this book. From a brother who goes to Harvard, has a Fulbright scholarship and goes to a Swiss MBA, to a sister who goes to Argentina, is on lithium and engages with literature, expat life in the form of golfing and visits of Borges to the bookstore she works in, while the father of the family works for an oil company and ends up as a director. All in all the dying parents, tensions in marriages, dementia and other more mundane negative life experiences seem limited compared to the overall getting ahead and prosperity of the family, which includes intercontinental air travel in the 1960s and positions as professor at the University of Chicago.
There is a breakdown in the past of Francois which is interesting (as is the depression of his sister) but not much mentioned further upon. Often times when characters where complaining how tight money was and how hard things where I ended up thinking they have rich people problems.
Francois even sounds like a millennial, he wants to see the whole world and reflects excessively on missed chances while living in Australia, Canada, New York and earning a 1 million miles frequent flyer status. As a general manager of an aluminium plant, travelling up- and down to New York in the private corporate jet he is still complaining, people nowadays wouldn’t even have such careers and perks. Also there is some discussion on the way gender roles not just limit women but also force men into the role of provider but I seriously lacked any reflective ability in Francois and his wife Barbara, who just ends up complaining about a Valentine trip to Miami (again, sign me up for that!).
Not to say that the author does not draw up layered, interesting characters, that she certainly does well with Barbara, Denise and Francois all three being well executed in my view. Denise even reminded me quite vividly of some of my own aunts. Also the fear of saying things making things so, leading to unspeakable silence between partners and parents and children, is interesting enough.
Still I was not blown away on a sentence level and for a book titled “eventful” there aren't that many life changing events happening, people seem stuck in the furrow of their life, which is realistic but not necessarily super engaging for 450 pages long. Also the revelation at the end of the book felt rather random bolted on.
Overall however a solid 3 stars from me for this historical novel.
Quotes:
Why must she be herself? Why was it so unacceptable to be herself?
But self interest is generally humanity’s motivation, non?
We are always already guilty
How exhausting it was, reflected Denise, simply to be alive
Dying was long, hard work
It is like you think someone should come along and save you
She had been a constant disappointment then, simply from being herself
Family life, like playing chess, involved always thinking a few steps ahead
All life and generations collapsing like an accordion
Just try not to think of it
Not only to always work hard but that he must be the top, the way his father had been the top.
That not to be the top was to fail
We’ve got to turn towards life, towards light
Shelved as 'not-finished'
August 25, 2024I'm giving up on this one after reading about a third of the pages. It has become a chore to read on. I don't know why Booker Prize books, or nominees for the Long List as in this case, and I never agree.
June 14, 2024
Superbly crafted and written historical fiction drawn from Claire Messud ‘s own family history. The narrators span three generations over seventy years across the globe. This is not an action novel; it is a slow burn of character development set against the displacement and immigrant experiences caused by World War II. Messud is a master storyteller with her finger on the pulse of her characters. They all felt so true and real to me - I hated to lose them at the conclusion of the book. They all felt like family - flawed but beautifully and perfectly human.
Be prepared for a dense novel, full of long luscious sentences and intellectually challenging but rewarding writing. I absolutely loved this and admired it in equal measure.
Be prepared for a dense novel, full of long luscious sentences and intellectually challenging but rewarding writing. I absolutely loved this and admired it in equal measure.
June 13, 2024
This book snuck up on me. Like its surprising ending! At first, I thought it was too disjointed and unsatisfying for that reason - we start with one family member and then leap a decade into the future and find ourselves in the life of someone else. But the layers actually all add up to create very rich characterizations and a weighty and fascinating story. At the end, it becomes a story about the end of life and love at the end of life for two different generations. As the child of elderly parents who are devoted to one another, there was so much that resonated for me in these chapters. by the end, I was very emotionally involved and also wowed by Messud’s craft.
September 17, 2024
The publishers clearly had trouble blurbing this, because I was so unsure of what to expect going in, and by the end felt that the blurb captured nothing of what was the essence of this spectacular novel. However, I should levy that criticism carefully, because I am also finding it difficult to capture my thoughts and response to it in words. This is a big, broad, expansive novel, that crosses decades, borders, and political climates. It’s a tangled web of complex, flawed family history. It is always compelling, but managed to grow on me the more I read. A gritty look at identity, statehood, belonging, family (and all its attendant duties), and love. I know it will reward a reread. How did this miss the shortlist? I don’t know.
Shelved as 'abandoned'
August 16, 2024Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024
Notes about why I gave up: I am yet to find a multigenerational saga that I liked so I was not excited about this one. I only tried to read it because it was long-listed for the Booker Prize 2024 and I had it available on Everand. I made it to two hours of audiobook thank to the wonderful narrator Cassandra Campbell who is excellent with voices and accents. Alas, it was not enough to keep me interested. The novel is based on the author's real life history and I have this feeling that it would have worked much better as a memoir than a novel. Too many details, descriptions and the like without becoming intimate with the characters.
Notes about why I gave up: I am yet to find a multigenerational saga that I liked so I was not excited about this one. I only tried to read it because it was long-listed for the Booker Prize 2024 and I had it available on Everand. I made it to two hours of audiobook thank to the wonderful narrator Cassandra Campbell who is excellent with voices and accents. Alas, it was not enough to keep me interested. The novel is based on the author's real life history and I have this feeling that it would have worked much better as a memoir than a novel. Too many details, descriptions and the like without becoming intimate with the characters.
August 7, 2024
Ok - so I've read a Kindle Sample of this - and I don't need to read any further to know this is not for me.
I've included a sample of the writing, and then written my objections beneath - because and let's be clear about this - this is not simply about my personal taste. This is poor writing.
Lucienne, Tata Jeanne, and the children had departed from the train station, near the commercial port late on the morning of May 21. The day was hot even before noon, and in the taxi - crossing town past the vast Jewish cemetery, with its white marble headstones glittering, past the White Tower, that stolid cylindrical blockhouse with its crenellated cap, along the seafront of shimmering, endlessly mobile wavelets clamoring at the sea wall, and on the horizon, like the eye of eternity, Mount Olympus, home of the gods, wreathed in a dispassionate haze - even as Gaston kept one eye on all these things, he gazed also at his wife, Lucienne, trying to memorize her in every detail. She sat quietly beside him, her cheeks flushed, her short forehead beaded from the exertions of departure, her hands in her lap folded around the wrinkled linen handkerchief with which she dabbed, periodically, at her temples or at the corners of her eyes. They traveled alone in one taxi; Tata Jeanne and the children were in another, just behind them. Because of this in spite of the driver, he reached to stroke her hair, her cheek.
"Aini," he said, almost trembling. And then nothing more. All his emotion in that private name. They both knew this was the moment for their real farewell, rather than in the chaos of the station with the children and their aunt, broad-hipped, thick calved Jeanne all but blind behind her glasses, almost like a third child.
Overwrought - a good adjective to describe the above. Some might say but that's exactly the scene, a wife leaving her husband - possibly never to see him again - the date is 1940. The Germans have marched into Paris. Lucienne with her two children will flee across Europe from Salonica to her "home" in Algiers, Algeria.
Next objection - what is the "White Tower"? Something important? It's been allocated three adjectives. Possibly an important landmark in Salonica, along with the Jewish cemetery - and the wavelets? I guess if I had visited Salonica I might be interested to hear about those real-life landmarks, or even if we had been placed into Salonica - as a reader, but the narrative has only situated us, so far, in the small village of L'Arba, Algeria where the family have ended up. So I'm feeling an odd - disconnect, in relation to that long-winded description. Oh I get it - the grandeur of the scene is linked to this momentous moment in this couples life?
Next objection - Poor Tata Jeanne - the unwed, older sister of the beautiful Lucienne, because Lucienne must be beautiful; and tragic - the two go together, "N'est pas?" Broad-hipped, thick calved and glasses - that's Jeanne - the non-beautiful woman - not married, no children, a child herself - anyone spotting any stereotypes here?
Next objection - small but irritating. The family are departing from the train station - clear enough. Do we need to know it is near the commercial port? We have been told several times, that they do get a boat from Marseilles to cross to Algiers.
Next - wrinkled, LINEN, handkerchief - and the second taxi - with the lesser mortals. These adjectives are packed in to allow us to understand that this family are used to certain standards - they occupy a certain class - a certain economic class. Ms Messud has gone over-time here - sort of similar to "white marble headstones glittering," and
" . . . the White Tower, that stolid cylindrical blockhouse with its crenellated cap, along the seafront of shimmering, endlessly mobile wavelets clamouring at the seawall, and on the horizon, like the eye of eternity, Mount Olympus, home of the gods, wreathed in a dispassionate haze -"
Sorry couldn't resist including ALL of that all over again. Mount Olympus - 'home of the gods' - in case you didn't know - reader.
And if anyone suggests to me that "endlessly mobile wavelets clamouring at the seawall" is poetic - I will SCREAM - don't forget they're also SHIMMERING.
Have I made my point?
I've included a sample of the writing, and then written my objections beneath - because and let's be clear about this - this is not simply about my personal taste. This is poor writing.
Lucienne, Tata Jeanne, and the children had departed from the train station, near the commercial port late on the morning of May 21. The day was hot even before noon, and in the taxi - crossing town past the vast Jewish cemetery, with its white marble headstones glittering, past the White Tower, that stolid cylindrical blockhouse with its crenellated cap, along the seafront of shimmering, endlessly mobile wavelets clamoring at the sea wall, and on the horizon, like the eye of eternity, Mount Olympus, home of the gods, wreathed in a dispassionate haze - even as Gaston kept one eye on all these things, he gazed also at his wife, Lucienne, trying to memorize her in every detail. She sat quietly beside him, her cheeks flushed, her short forehead beaded from the exertions of departure, her hands in her lap folded around the wrinkled linen handkerchief with which she dabbed, periodically, at her temples or at the corners of her eyes. They traveled alone in one taxi; Tata Jeanne and the children were in another, just behind them. Because of this in spite of the driver, he reached to stroke her hair, her cheek.
"Aini," he said, almost trembling. And then nothing more. All his emotion in that private name. They both knew this was the moment for their real farewell, rather than in the chaos of the station with the children and their aunt, broad-hipped, thick calved Jeanne all but blind behind her glasses, almost like a third child.
Overwrought - a good adjective to describe the above. Some might say but that's exactly the scene, a wife leaving her husband - possibly never to see him again - the date is 1940. The Germans have marched into Paris. Lucienne with her two children will flee across Europe from Salonica to her "home" in Algiers, Algeria.
Next objection - what is the "White Tower"? Something important? It's been allocated three adjectives. Possibly an important landmark in Salonica, along with the Jewish cemetery - and the wavelets? I guess if I had visited Salonica I might be interested to hear about those real-life landmarks, or even if we had been placed into Salonica - as a reader, but the narrative has only situated us, so far, in the small village of L'Arba, Algeria where the family have ended up. So I'm feeling an odd - disconnect, in relation to that long-winded description. Oh I get it - the grandeur of the scene is linked to this momentous moment in this couples life?
Next objection - Poor Tata Jeanne - the unwed, older sister of the beautiful Lucienne, because Lucienne must be beautiful; and tragic - the two go together, "N'est pas?" Broad-hipped, thick calved and glasses - that's Jeanne - the non-beautiful woman - not married, no children, a child herself - anyone spotting any stereotypes here?
Next objection - small but irritating. The family are departing from the train station - clear enough. Do we need to know it is near the commercial port? We have been told several times, that they do get a boat from Marseilles to cross to Algiers.
Next - wrinkled, LINEN, handkerchief - and the second taxi - with the lesser mortals. These adjectives are packed in to allow us to understand that this family are used to certain standards - they occupy a certain class - a certain economic class. Ms Messud has gone over-time here - sort of similar to "white marble headstones glittering," and
" . . . the White Tower, that stolid cylindrical blockhouse with its crenellated cap, along the seafront of shimmering, endlessly mobile wavelets clamouring at the seawall, and on the horizon, like the eye of eternity, Mount Olympus, home of the gods, wreathed in a dispassionate haze -"
Sorry couldn't resist including ALL of that all over again. Mount Olympus - 'home of the gods' - in case you didn't know - reader.
And if anyone suggests to me that "endlessly mobile wavelets clamouring at the seawall" is poetic - I will SCREAM - don't forget they're also SHIMMERING.
Have I made my point?
August 18, 2024
(Book 3 of my Journey through the booker prize longlist )
DNF at page 220
1 ⭐️
When I saw that the booker prize longlist came out I decided to challenge myself to read as much as I can before the shortlist was decided, I find it so exciting to be able to try and predict the winner, however; since there is 13 books on the longlist I know I will not be able to get through them all & I had to prioritise the books I think sound the most intriguing… along comes This Strange Eventful History
Okay, Let me start off by saying, Messud's writing is delicate and skillful.... for the first 50 pages. Fictionalising her families story over generations as they move between Salonica and Algeria, US, Australia and a few other places. This sounded like it was going to be so interesting and emotional, I love character studies and when a novel follows a set of characters and really fleshes them out... This was not that.
My first issue is the time jump, we go from one narrator to another with a decade of time in between, leaving me feeling cold and disconnected and having to pick up the pieces. I felt like everything was happening in between the lines and we were getting told how the characters felt rather than getting shown, Consequently this led to paragraphs upon paragraphs with upwards of 20+ commas of just rambling nonsense.
The introduction and first 50 pages where brilliant! It drew me in with a promise of a beautiful and determined story, but it fell completely flat. It just ended up becoming absolutely dull. The title felt like a lie!
There was another small thing whilst reading and that was the copious use of French phrases woven into the story, as a non French speaker, these were thrown in with no context or explanation and I felt really confused and once again disconnected. In the past I have read stories that weave in phrases from another language flawlessly and I have had no issue, here it just took me out of the pages.
Overall my expectations were not met at all and I was so upset to have to DNF. I would be really surprised if this ends up on the shortlist...
DNF at page 220
1 ⭐️
When I saw that the booker prize longlist came out I decided to challenge myself to read as much as I can before the shortlist was decided, I find it so exciting to be able to try and predict the winner, however; since there is 13 books on the longlist I know I will not be able to get through them all & I had to prioritise the books I think sound the most intriguing… along comes This Strange Eventful History
Okay, Let me start off by saying, Messud's writing is delicate and skillful.... for the first 50 pages. Fictionalising her families story over generations as they move between Salonica and Algeria, US, Australia and a few other places. This sounded like it was going to be so interesting and emotional, I love character studies and when a novel follows a set of characters and really fleshes them out... This was not that.
My first issue is the time jump, we go from one narrator to another with a decade of time in between, leaving me feeling cold and disconnected and having to pick up the pieces. I felt like everything was happening in between the lines and we were getting told how the characters felt rather than getting shown, Consequently this led to paragraphs upon paragraphs with upwards of 20+ commas of just rambling nonsense.
The introduction and first 50 pages where brilliant! It drew me in with a promise of a beautiful and determined story, but it fell completely flat. It just ended up becoming absolutely dull. The title felt like a lie!
There was another small thing whilst reading and that was the copious use of French phrases woven into the story, as a non French speaker, these were thrown in with no context or explanation and I felt really confused and once again disconnected. In the past I have read stories that weave in phrases from another language flawlessly and I have had no issue, here it just took me out of the pages.
Overall my expectations were not met at all and I was so upset to have to DNF. I would be really surprised if this ends up on the shortlist...
January 16, 2024
This strange eventful history that made a life. Not good or bad — rather, both good and bad — but that was not the point. Above all, they had been, for so long, wildly curious. Just to see, to experience all that they could, to set foot anywhere, to speak to anyone, taste anything, to learn, to know.
This Strange Eventful History is “inspired by” the stories of author Claire Messud’s family (she stresses in an afterword that this is a work of fiction, but that “the Cassar family’s movements hew closely to those of my own family”), and initially, I thought that that would be fascinating: the novel begins with a mother fleeing with her children back to the Algeria of their birth at the dawn of WWII as her Navy officer husband watches France fall to the Nazis and awaits orders from his diplomatic posting in Greece. There was a nugget of something very interesting in that — a white family whose ancestors had been in Algeria for over a hundred years, and who thought of themselves as 100% belonging there and also 100% French citizens — and after the African country gained independence in 1962, these “pieds-noirs” had to make a home elsewhere in the world (along with the “harkis”: the reviled indigenous Algerians who had fought on the side of France in the war of independence), and this was a history I didn’t know and was eager to explore. But that’s not really what this novel is about. Instead, this reads like a domestic drama as we follow three generations of the Cassar family — from France to Australia, Argentina, and Canada — and delve into their educations and relationships and careers; flitting among a largish cast of characters in a book that ultimately felt too long. I was often bored, recognised that many long stories were probably included because they were based on real events (although with little literary or entertainment value), and when something startling did happen, I recognised it as one of those “truth is stranger than fiction” situations that probably shouldn’t be included in a novel. This might have worked better as a straight memoir — with plenty of Algerian history included — and while I can’t deny that Messud writes lovely sentences, this was, overall, just okay for me. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
I’m a writer; I tell stories. I want to tell the stories of their lives. It doesn’t really matter where I start. We’re always in the middle; wherever we stand, we see only partially. I know also that everything is connected, the constellations of our lives moving together in harmony and disharmony. The past swirls along with and inside the present, and all time exists at once, around us. The ebb and flow, the harmonies and dissonance — the music happens, whether or not we describe it. A story is not a line; it is a richer thing, one that circles and eddies, rises and falls, repeats upon itself.
François was eight when he travelled with his mother and younger sister to Algeria to wait out the war, his father writing to him that, “it was their place, the part of France where they belonged, that they were still building and perfecting.” And although François would eventually move to Paris for his education, when he received a Fullbright scholarship to Harvard, he was determined to perfect his American accent and reject his Frenchness; eventually marrying a Canadian woman and (after several other adventures) settling down in the States. François aspired to an academic career, and although he made it to grad school, having a wife and responsibilities forced him to compromise his dreams; becoming a corporate stooge, an alcoholic, and an unhappy bully to his wife and daughters.
Meanwhile, his parents — who had a perfect, storybook marriage — joined the expat community in Argentina with the daughter who felt responsible for taking care of them, and when they visited François’ family in America, it gave the only opportunity to revisit the question of the French in Algeria. François’ teenaged daughter Chloe (as “the writer of the family”, I assume she’s a stand-in for Claire Messud herself) “volunteered the accepted truism that the French presence in Algeria had been fundamentally wrong”, and while her Aunt Denise would bristle, “De Gaulle threw away our lives and our history because it was expedient, because of public opinion, the opinion polls of arrogant people in the metropole who couldn’t find Algeria on a map, who didn’t even know we spoke French, for God’s sake,” Denise and François’ father, Gaston, had a more provocative response: “When France embarked upon the Algerian undertaking, it was in the spirit, exactly, of the British in America or Australia…Might we not acknowledge that Australia and the United States are simply more successful examples of settler colonialism — no less unjust, no less brutal, simply with a fuller obliteration of the native cultures?” Naturally, like all of us in North America (and, one presumes, in the antipodes as well), Chloe doesn’t like this comparison, but that’s pretty much the end of the debate — and I would have liked much more of it.
Again: what we do get is a lot of writing on the domestic; from the lingering death of François’ father-in-law to Denise’s secret diaries (found by Chloe after her aunt’s death and shared with us here because, “surely she’d hidden the notebook there for someone to find, the stuff of novels: if she’d wanted it never to be found, then she would have thrown it away. What was writing for, if not to communicate? There was no such thing as writing that did not signify.”) There was a mundanity to it all that gave the sense of real life: and although in the prologue Messud writes that bit about constellations and connections and everything repeating upon itself, there were just too many “characters” swirling about in this, doing ordinary things despite an extraordinary backstory, for a wholly satisfying novel (and, again, I would not have minded all of the minutiae if this was a straightforward biography.)
To be sixty-five was to know that you dreamed the lazy lunch beneath the plane trees and window shopping along the Croisette, but that death was what was real; to be thirty-two, as Chloe was, meant you could still pretend the inverse was true. And still, why not, for the afternoon, dream?
As the novel ends, the fourth generation is running around while their forebears wink out one by one: this is a long way from WWII and Algeria and France — these kids are fully American and divorced from their pieds-noirs roots. For this reason, I can appreciate why Messud would want to memorialise her family’s history for future generations — and why she would want to include so many people who don’t really affect the “plot” — but I found it a bit of a slog to get through.
October 4, 2024
Claire Messud: author of The Burning Girl a book I lavished 5 stars on in 2017 and an author I meant to explore more from but have never revisited. Luckily she has found herself on the 2024 Booker Longlist with this multi-generational saga that is loosely based upon her family history.
I understand some of the criticism this novel has received—it's long, not much "happens," there are a lot of characters and details, decade-long time jumps, and yet intangible magic kept me turning the pages.
My updates tell the story :
I am only halfway through because I am savouring all the little details. Another book where History is happening off-stage but the impacts reverberate down the generations. I love this! Certainly 5-stars
a few days later this -
Well that last 100 or so pages really dragged and was depressing as hell.
Reflecting on the reading journey, it is almost a metaphor for life, as presented in this novel, where everyone's demise is quite protracted. In the spirit of embracing Life, I will ignore the tedious parts of this and remember the good times: Algeria, Denise, the War Years, and the globe-trotting.
A pleasant, if long diversion but The Burning Girl was better!
I understand some of the criticism this novel has received—it's long, not much "happens," there are a lot of characters and details, decade-long time jumps, and yet intangible magic kept me turning the pages.
My updates tell the story :
I am only halfway through because I am savouring all the little details. Another book where History is happening off-stage but the impacts reverberate down the generations. I love this! Certainly 5-stars
a few days later this -
Well that last 100 or so pages really dragged and was depressing as hell.
Reflecting on the reading journey, it is almost a metaphor for life, as presented in this novel, where everyone's demise is quite protracted. In the spirit of embracing Life, I will ignore the tedious parts of this and remember the good times: Algeria, Denise, the War Years, and the globe-trotting.
A pleasant, if long diversion but The Burning Girl was better!
May 27, 2024
I read this with the energy of a kid who hates summer reading.
September 8, 2024
There's neither anything strange nor eventful about this novel. I'd suggest changing the title to This Slow and Painfully Boring History.
August 4, 2024
The title is a lie!
Everything is a scene—or a tableau, if you will—every moment remembered vividly, places painstakingly described in paragraph sentences, characters experiencing themselves contemplating life on countless afternoons. However, the worst crime, for me, is that the children and grandchildren are treated like narrative tools, leading them—especially François—to think, talk, and act like characters in a Proustian mise en scène. In attempting to fictionalise her family’s journey, which started with reading her grandfather’s memoir, Messud took on the role of a chronicler. As a writer, Messud chose which moments were novel-worthy, with the structure and time jumps from 1940 to 2010, but the family chronicler took over thinking everything was important and interesting, in other words, strange and eventful. Maybe Messud could have followed in Maria Stepanova’s footsteps and written this as a nonfiction work.
Should I avoid Booker’s multigenerational sagas or simply writers writing about their own families? If you want to exhaust yourself with details, names, and descriptions of people you won’t remember or care about, knock yourself out!
DNFed @ 55ish% and skipped to the Epilogue.
⇝ 1.5 stars
Everything is a scene—or a tableau, if you will—every moment remembered vividly, places painstakingly described in paragraph sentences, characters experiencing themselves contemplating life on countless afternoons. However, the worst crime, for me, is that the children and grandchildren are treated like narrative tools, leading them—especially François—to think, talk, and act like characters in a Proustian mise en scène. In attempting to fictionalise her family’s journey, which started with reading her grandfather’s memoir, Messud took on the role of a chronicler. As a writer, Messud chose which moments were novel-worthy, with the structure and time jumps from 1940 to 2010, but the family chronicler took over thinking everything was important and interesting, in other words, strange and eventful. Maybe Messud could have followed in Maria Stepanova’s footsteps and written this as a nonfiction work.
Should I avoid Booker’s multigenerational sagas or simply writers writing about their own families? If you want to exhaust yourself with details, names, and descriptions of people you won’t remember or care about, knock yourself out!
DNFed @ 55ish% and skipped to the Epilogue.
⇝ 1.5 stars
September 22, 2024
Generally when the Booker novels are made public, I try my hardest not to read reviews, especially ones that are filmed on YouTube, or Booktube as it’s known but the ones for Claire Messud’s This Strange Eventful History could not be avoided and they were all negative, with the word boring being thrown about. The common factor which also united these videos is that all the critics were either millennials or gen z.
The book is a family saga which starts off in 1942 where Gaston Cassar (incidentally it’s a common surname in Malta) is stationed in Salonica while his wife, Lucienne and two children, Francois and Denise move to their native Algeria, due to the German invasion.
Throughout the rest of the book we jump from The States , Argentina, Australia, Canada and France, where the Cassar family go through the trials and tribulations of life: Francois wants a perfect marriage like his parents, his wife Barbara is unsure about their marriage, while their children go through the same motions, even when they reach adulthood with their children. While Gaston and Lucienne experience the pitfalls of old age yet revel in the strength of their love. Denise has mental health problems which strengthen the bond between here and her brother, much to Barbara’s chagrin. As Booker novels are linked This Strange.. also spoke about the futures of some characters briefly, like in the other longlisted novel, Headshot.
As for themes there’s mental health , life, love and death , parent/sibling relationships, religious beliefs, war and colonialism. Historical figures also make guest appearances, notably deconstructionist philosopher, Jacques Derrida, social theorist, Raymond Aron and author Borges.
This Strange Eventful History is old school Booker novel: it is a slow burn which demands your time as the Cassar family tree branches out and events unfold. Which brings me back to the hate by younger generations on YouTube. Is a rich time consuming book considered boring? or is there something wrong with patience levels? there are many memorable moments in the novel from Francois’ Havana adventure to Denise discovering an English- German bookstore in Buenos Aires. This Strange Eventful History also as a backing in reality as the author’s grandfather wrote a family history which Messud consulted. Honestly if someone lambasts a book because it involves time to read it then there is something seriously wrong.
The book is a family saga which starts off in 1942 where Gaston Cassar (incidentally it’s a common surname in Malta) is stationed in Salonica while his wife, Lucienne and two children, Francois and Denise move to their native Algeria, due to the German invasion.
Throughout the rest of the book we jump from The States , Argentina, Australia, Canada and France, where the Cassar family go through the trials and tribulations of life: Francois wants a perfect marriage like his parents, his wife Barbara is unsure about their marriage, while their children go through the same motions, even when they reach adulthood with their children. While Gaston and Lucienne experience the pitfalls of old age yet revel in the strength of their love. Denise has mental health problems which strengthen the bond between here and her brother, much to Barbara’s chagrin. As Booker novels are linked This Strange.. also spoke about the futures of some characters briefly, like in the other longlisted novel, Headshot.
As for themes there’s mental health , life, love and death , parent/sibling relationships, religious beliefs, war and colonialism. Historical figures also make guest appearances, notably deconstructionist philosopher, Jacques Derrida, social theorist, Raymond Aron and author Borges.
This Strange Eventful History is old school Booker novel: it is a slow burn which demands your time as the Cassar family tree branches out and events unfold. Which brings me back to the hate by younger generations on YouTube. Is a rich time consuming book considered boring? or is there something wrong with patience levels? there are many memorable moments in the novel from Francois’ Havana adventure to Denise discovering an English- German bookstore in Buenos Aires. This Strange Eventful History also as a backing in reality as the author’s grandfather wrote a family history which Messud consulted. Honestly if someone lambasts a book because it involves time to read it then there is something seriously wrong.
September 4, 2024
Claire’s got her editor tied up in a gimp suit in her basement
July 16, 2024
This novel sounded so wonderful – the story of a displaced Algerian (French) family from WWII to the present day, written by Claire Messud (a woman who knows how to write) and based upon her family’s history. However, for me, it fell a little short of my expectations – and I know I am an outlier in this viewpoint. We follow the family from the invasion of France, at which time the mother and children (Francois and Denise) are returning “home” to Algeria, while the father remains at his posting in Greece. We watch as, after WWII, Francois studies in France and the United States and marries a Canadian. Meanwhile (after the Algerian revolution) his parents move to Buenos Aires. Francois’ professional life takes his family to Australia and, ultimately, to the northeastern United States. Throughout his life, Francois searches for home and, unable to find home in either a location or his family (his Canadian wife had a close, complicated relationship with her mother), he journeys though life as a sad and displaced person. Denise’s life also reflects her constant displacement. She turns to alcohol as a refuge and has difficulty sustaining meaningful relationships. The underlying theme of the novel is the effect of constant and lifelong uprooting and displacement, which, of course, some family members handle better than others (Francois’ parents have a lifelong loving relationship and seem happy anywhere in the world). By reading this book, I learned a lot about Algeria, France and life after WWII in places like Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, for me, the novel read like a non-fiction family history. There is a reason I read fiction: I like the imagination created in deeply drawn fictional characters, beautifully described setting and interesting plots. I like to wonder “What is going to happen next?”, and that just didn’t happen with this novel. That said, Claire Messud did an excellent and important job of portraying the plight of her displaced family.
November 12, 2024
A writer and his readers, in different realms.
While initially quite taken with the writing - and the promise of a lengthy, multi-generational family saga - I confess to having gradually lost interest in this one. For all the care and devotion applied to La Famille Cassar, I did not ultimately share in Messud's obvious sympathetic kindness toward her characters or their various plights. In fact, I did not like many of them. I especially found the near-constant adulation of "mythic love" cloying.
3.5 stars
While initially quite taken with the writing - and the promise of a lengthy, multi-generational family saga - I confess to having gradually lost interest in this one. For all the care and devotion applied to La Famille Cassar, I did not ultimately share in Messud's obvious sympathetic kindness toward her characters or their various plights. In fact, I did not like many of them. I especially found the near-constant adulation of "mythic love" cloying.
3.5 stars
August 25, 2024
An exploration of French colonialism dressed up as a generational family saga. Overall, I did enjoy this book, but there were a few things holding it back from excellence. 1) I don’t think the theme of French colonialism and its legacy were explored with much depth until maybe the last third of the book (so I spent a lot of time wondering what this book was trying to accomplish or if it even had anything to say). 2) The writing style and characterization felt clinical and far too distant to really work as a family saga. I mean, generational family dramas are supposed to be immersive, and for at least the first half, it felt rather cold and aloof.
By the second half, I started to see it as something special. I’ll say that the most interesting characters and arcs were François and his sister Denise (young to old), and they’re the best examples to convey what Messud was trying to do. Also, those last chapters were quite piercing and emotional, chipping away from the icy tone that came before.
“Life, I reassured myself upon replacing the handset, was not a fiction. When I read a novel or watched a film, I could so often predict what would happen next. Plot felt to me inevitable. But in life, turns were not programmed or decided, and we had agency over only some small aspects of our stories. Implacable chance ruled. As passengers, we could not determine whether the plane crashed; or as patients, whether the operation proved fatal. Imagining did not make it so— thank goodness. But how much of our lives did our minds control? And what of love?”
By the second half, I started to see it as something special. I’ll say that the most interesting characters and arcs were François and his sister Denise (young to old), and they’re the best examples to convey what Messud was trying to do. Also, those last chapters were quite piercing and emotional, chipping away from the icy tone that came before.
“Life, I reassured myself upon replacing the handset, was not a fiction. When I read a novel or watched a film, I could so often predict what would happen next. Plot felt to me inevitable. But in life, turns were not programmed or decided, and we had agency over only some small aspects of our stories. Implacable chance ruled. As passengers, we could not determine whether the plane crashed; or as patients, whether the operation proved fatal. Imagining did not make it so— thank goodness. But how much of our lives did our minds control? And what of love?”
October 11, 2024
I read this for a reading group and it gave us so much to discuss. It is only the second book I have read by Claire Messud. I read her debut, When the World Was Steady, many years ago, did not get on with it, so never read another until now.
This Strange Eventful History is at once strange, eventful, and historical. One needs to pay attention, look at maps and tolerate many shifts, much emotion. (There are maps in the hardcover but I had to make my own family tree.) The payoff for all that, however, is huge. From Algeria to France to South America to Canada to the United States, this family grew and changed and managed to stay connected.
Now I have changed my mind and plan to explore more of Claire Messud’s work. She took her own family and turned it into fiction. A feat in itself.
This Strange Eventful History is at once strange, eventful, and historical. One needs to pay attention, look at maps and tolerate many shifts, much emotion. (There are maps in the hardcover but I had to make my own family tree.) The payoff for all that, however, is huge. From Algeria to France to South America to Canada to the United States, this family grew and changed and managed to stay connected.
Now I have changed my mind and plan to explore more of Claire Messud’s work. She took her own family and turned it into fiction. A feat in itself.
May 25, 2024
Not terrible, just oh so dull...
September 5, 2024
This is a mostly autobiographical novel that covers 3 generations of the author’s family. It begins with the Nazi invasion of France. Gaston is the patriarch, born in French Algeria and a member of the French navy. He and his wife Lucienne are devoted to each other and have children Francois and Denise. Francois and his wife and their children live all over the world as do the whole family. They live through devastating world events. Gaston is stationed in Salonica, Greece, at the beginning where 40,000 Jews were deported to their deaths at Auschwitz. The fight for independence in Algeria. The waffling of the French navy in its decision whether to support the Nazi invaders or the Free French.
I’m uneasy with the idea of a life as a novel. I didn’t think I demanded plot in a novel but then again. A novel like this is one event after another, no real arc. But the author addressed this! “Life… was not a fiction. When I read a novel or watched a film, I could so often predict what would happen next. Plot felt to me inevitable. But in life, turns were not programmed or decided, and we had agency over only some small aspects of our stories.”
A very satisfying and propulsive read.
I’m uneasy with the idea of a life as a novel. I didn’t think I demanded plot in a novel but then again. A novel like this is one event after another, no real arc. But the author addressed this! “Life… was not a fiction. When I read a novel or watched a film, I could so often predict what would happen next. Plot felt to me inevitable. But in life, turns were not programmed or decided, and we had agency over only some small aspects of our stories.”
A very satisfying and propulsive read.
June 30, 2024
I loved this book right from the first chapter. The first chapter takes place during the childhood of Francois Cassar and his little sister Denise, French Algerian children during World War Two. It describes their walk out into the countryside outside the little town of L'Arba. I decided to take a little nap after reading the chapter. When I woke, I was surprised not to find myself in Algeria. That is how beautiful and evocative this book is. I didn't just feel like I was there. A little sleep-addled, I literally thought I was there.
Francois, Denise and their mother Lucienne had to flee to Algeria when Germany attacked France in World War Two. Their father Gaston was a naval attache, working for the French government in Greece. He had to remain available to the government, but he sent his wife and children to stay with relatives in Algeria. The family are what the French call pied-noirs (black feet), French families who have lived long enough in a colony to have ties there (and it's not clear if the Cassars are, as Francois' in-laws put it later, "entirely white"). When Algeria wins its independence in the early 60s, the Cassars find themselves without a country. The Algerians don't want white French people any more, and the French accept them as citizens, but look down on them as Algerian.
Itineracy becomes a family theme, as the next two generations of Cassars live all over the world: France, England, the U.S., Canada. For a while even Gaston, Lucienne and Denise live in Argentina. Neither Francois nor Denise will settle for anything less than the beautiful love story that their parents have lived, completely devoted to each other. Neither of them will achieve that. The closest Denise comes to marriage is a long-distance, mostly imaginary affair. And Francois' marriage is troubled. But part of the beauty of this story is that, troubled as they are, the family becomes each other's home.
Secret-keeping is also a family tradition. There is a huge, scandalous secret that comes out at the very end of the book.
A gorgeously-written multi-generational family story about how we carry on despite our sorrows and continue to love despite our differences and about the true meaning of home.
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Author of The Saint's Mistress
Francois, Denise and their mother Lucienne had to flee to Algeria when Germany attacked France in World War Two. Their father Gaston was a naval attache, working for the French government in Greece. He had to remain available to the government, but he sent his wife and children to stay with relatives in Algeria. The family are what the French call pied-noirs (black feet), French families who have lived long enough in a colony to have ties there (and it's not clear if the Cassars are, as Francois' in-laws put it later, "entirely white"). When Algeria wins its independence in the early 60s, the Cassars find themselves without a country. The Algerians don't want white French people any more, and the French accept them as citizens, but look down on them as Algerian.
Itineracy becomes a family theme, as the next two generations of Cassars live all over the world: France, England, the U.S., Canada. For a while even Gaston, Lucienne and Denise live in Argentina. Neither Francois nor Denise will settle for anything less than the beautiful love story that their parents have lived, completely devoted to each other. Neither of them will achieve that. The closest Denise comes to marriage is a long-distance, mostly imaginary affair. And Francois' marriage is troubled. But part of the beauty of this story is that, troubled as they are, the family becomes each other's home.
Secret-keeping is also a family tradition. There is a huge, scandalous secret that comes out at the very end of the book.
A gorgeously-written multi-generational family story about how we carry on despite our sorrows and continue to love despite our differences and about the true meaning of home.
Like my reviews? Check out my blog
Author of The Saint's Mistress
April 1, 2024
This completely enveloping story tells the tale of three generations of a French-Algerian family from the 1940s to 2010. Gaston and Lucienne wonder if their love is the masterpiece of their lives and little do they know that the perfection of their relationship will set a standard for following generations. As a member of the French Navy, he and his family live around the Mediterranean with the plan to return to their beloved Algiers, But even though the Cassar family has lived in Algeria for more than a century, they must leave when Algeria becomes independent of France. They are unmoored, even though son Francois is gathering advanced degrees across Europe and North America; his attempt to free his family from what he sees as their genteel poverty.
But there's a strangeness--their Gaston's anxious daughter Denise will spend her whole life wondering who and what she is. Francois, their son, marries a woman so different that it's hard to imagine them on the same astral plane. There's anxiety, depression, paranoia in the Cassar family, not so different from many families, yet somehow very different indeed. What if the grandparents' deep and abiding love is more than the family understands?
I was embraced by "This Strange Eventful History" from the first paragraph. Claire Messud's expression of Algeria in the 1920s when Gaston and Lucienne's unlikely love blossoms is entrancing, as is raising their family around the middle east before WWII, and taking refuge in Algeria during the war and seeking a place in the world that has changed. Messud smoothly changes the POV between the characters at different stages of their lives with deep and satisfying result.
I am grateful to WW Norton and Netgalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.
But there's a strangeness--their Gaston's anxious daughter Denise will spend her whole life wondering who and what she is. Francois, their son, marries a woman so different that it's hard to imagine them on the same astral plane. There's anxiety, depression, paranoia in the Cassar family, not so different from many families, yet somehow very different indeed. What if the grandparents' deep and abiding love is more than the family understands?
I was embraced by "This Strange Eventful History" from the first paragraph. Claire Messud's expression of Algeria in the 1920s when Gaston and Lucienne's unlikely love blossoms is entrancing, as is raising their family around the middle east before WWII, and taking refuge in Algeria during the war and seeking a place in the world that has changed. Messud smoothly changes the POV between the characters at different stages of their lives with deep and satisfying result.
I am grateful to WW Norton and Netgalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.
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