Title      : The Help

Writer  : Kathryn Stockett

Year     : 2009 (movie tie-in international edition first published in 2011 by Berkley Books)

Language          : English

Finally I got this book finished. After two months of delaying and pausing, I could finally read the last page of the book in the middle of my busy time. Well, since it’s a nice and ‘happy’ reading (looking back at Minny here), I didn’t suddenly, and remorsefully, stop and went on instead. This is the third ‘elaborating-prejudice’ book I’ve read (after To Kill A Mockingbird and The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter), and the second about black people after To Kill A Mockingbird.

I couldn’t say that this is a true story, but I bet it’s quite based on some true characters in reality, as the writer herself puts it vaguely in her acknowledgement. There’s this first character named Aibeleen, a black maid in a white ‘indifferent’ family. She’s good at nursing kids for she loves all children, considering her own dead son. She’s so close to her charge Mae Mobley, who’s pathetically lack of her own mother’s love. Apparently, this mother, Miss Elizabeth Leefolt, is not only indifferent to her own child, but also to everything ‘important’ surrounds her. She only care about her hair, sewing clothes, and socializing with her friends. I daresay that she doesn’t even care about Aibeleen being black. Say, Aibeleen is lucky enough to work there, if not for the ‘strictness’ between the “white” and the “black” drawn by her boss’ friend.

Then the second black maid is Minny Jackson, my favorite character here. She’s good at cooking but is unfortunately always being fired by one white family after another because of her mouth. The last thing she has to endure is being called a thief by the daughter of her last white boss, Miss Hilly Holbrook. When she is anxious for being unable to get another job while she has five kids at home, a ‘dawn’ comes to light. That, if I can call it a “dawn” and a “light”. She gets a job waiting on Miss Celia Foote, a wife to Johnny Foote, Hilly’s ex-boyfriend. And as she puts it, she is waiting on the laziest and the foolest person in U.S. of the A. I really like that line. Indeed, Celia is all of those types of a person. More than that, in my opinion, a headless ‘beautiful’ woman. But she is kind to Minny, and even though she’s white she consider Minny as her own friend.

Skeeter Phelan, a white young lady, very much close to her former maid Constantine, is never happy about the segregation put between white and black people. Moreover, that the segregation is strongly affirm by her own friend, Hilly. She’s sick watching her own ‘kind’ putting aside ‘another’ kind of people who’s worthy of respect, despite their color. Thus, she is up to an idea to change the situation, at least for herself, at least in her own environment. But she doesn’t know what to do. What with the political and social condition at that time, 1960s, in Jackson, Mississippi. A Southern area of America which, if I can remember, were willing to go war with the North because they want to preserve the black people slavery.

But then she decide to write. Beside, she herself wants to be a writer for so long but doesn’t anything to write. She thinks she can do this, anonymously. Thus she asks Aibeleen for help, something which she knows is very much dangerous.

She moves on however, with Aibeleen helping her, dragging Minny and all other maids into ‘participating’ in this dangerous mission of change, even though there’s no other maid but Aibeleen and Minny willing to do it before the case with Yule May, Hilly’s own black maid. That case of Yule May proves to be the real starting point of the book Skeeter writes. And then there they go, change starts with a whisper, the tagline says.

The book is so hilarious. I rarely read a novel which has such lively and real characters with enticing plot and great meaningful messages at one time. I bet everybody reading it hates Hilly Holbrook, or at least pitiying her for every step she makes. Well, I both hate and pity her, actually. Every hateful person is pitiful, if you know what I mean.

My favorite quote is this:

“She, the one who took her clothes off for that guy—said I was a whore to my daddy, a whore to Mississippi.”

To me, this is the best quote of the book, albeit it is not said by one of the main characters. And indeed he is a whore, or Hilly, for that matter. This sentence does not only represent an ironic character of Stuart Whitworth, but also the whole ironic system of ideology of the whole world. When someone is following a certain ideology, and thus, willing to worship that ideology until abandoning their everything for the sake of the ideology, then he/she is a whore to that ideology. Stuart may be just an ordinary supporting character is the story, but his presence is important, in my opinion, to remind us readers of what we are for all this time.

You know what’s the best thing I thank God about this story? That Johnny Foote actually drops Hilly off before he meets Celia and he actually never listens to Hilly anymore. Ha!

I cannot say that this book is better than To Kill A Mockingbird (it’s hard to decide, you know), but I can say that this one is more real in how the writer created all of the characters and built the plot. My best and favorite character is certainly Minny Jackson, what with her funny dialogues and cynical thinking about white people which is then useless when she faces someone Celia Foote in a chaotic household.

Rating: 4.5

Title      : To Pleasure A Prince (The Royal Brotherhood #2)

Writer  : Sabrina Jeffries

Year     : 2005 (Indonesian edition first published in 2011 by Gramedia Pustaka Utama)

Language          : English (translated into Indonesian by Anggraini Novitasari)

Well, finally I got hold on this book! As a fans of Sabrina Jeffries (yes, recently), I was really excited to read this one (the second installment of The Royal Brotherhood series). Ah, not really, actually, at the first time, since the synopsis didn’t interest me. But then I pushed myself to read To Pleasure A Prince, and voilà, I LIKE IT!! More and more than the first book.

The scheme of the story is just typically Jeffries: running an agreement and falling in love in the middle of the plan. And yes, the agreement between Marcus North, a.k.a the sixth Viscount Draker, and Miss Regina Tremaine is quite silly in my opinion. Regina wants Marcus to give way to her brother’s courtship to Marcus’ sister, Louisa. Somehow, Regina believes that her brother, Simon Tremaine (Duke of Foxmoor) really has a feeling on Louisa and intends to marry her. Marcus won’t agree because he knows Simon is Prinny’s right hand and he knows that marriage is not his intention. So, the agreement is made up: Marcus will let Simon court Louisa if Regina let him court her. As simply as that. So much for a serious thing.

And then the ‘courtship’ goes on. As the four of them go to the parties, opera, balls, and such (as you know it always exist in this historical-romance-kind of story), the sparking emotion and desire between Marcus and Regina rise up to the fever pitch (sorry for my ‘too-much’ language). But, like other stories written by Jeffries (assuming from my experiences reading her two Royal Brotherhood series and translating her two Swanlea Spinster series), the two different points of view of the main characters sometimes, somehow, are wracking havoc between the two of them. Marcus accuses Regina as La Belle Dame Sans Merci who’s always toying men’s affection, while Regina refuses those men because of her ‘secret’. Regina accuses Marcus being arrogant and stubborn, while Marcus is actually hiding his past.

The shocking part of the story is when Marcus feels insulted at being ‘toyed’ by Regina, she has to apologize and explain her real reason making ‘another’ agreement with her brother, Simon. She runs after him and gets inside his coach, making a scandal of herself. Thus, she and Marcus have to marry for the sake of her reputation in the society. Well, I was quite shock finding the main characters are getting married in the middle of the plot. Though the marriage is indeed the beginning of the climax.

Considering the simplicity of the story and the usual predictable plot, you readers might have some question in your mind: so why do I like this story, especially better than the first Royal Brotherhood series’ installment? First, I always like Sabrina Jeffries whatever the stories she wrote. Seriously. I like her writing-style, I like her smart humor, I like her meaningful and funny dialogues, and certainly I like her deep characters and emotion. Second, I like this one better than In the Prince’s Bed because the problem suggested here is more complex. I thought Marcus’ character is deeper, plus his horrid past with Prinny makes him ever harder to decipher. Reading this second book of Royal Brotherhood is just like reading the second book of Swanlea Spinster, A Notorious Love, the book I translated. Somehow you’ll find yourself crying at the end of the book.

Well, for all the qualities of the book, I still have an objection inside: the title. YES. For a nice book with a nice story, the title ‘To Pleasure A Prince’ is just too bawdy, if you know what I mean. Not to mention the original book cover.

Rating: 3

Title           : The Lady Chosen (Bastion Club Series #1)

Writer       : Stephanie Laurens

Year          : 2003 (Indonesian edition first published in 2011 by Dastan Books Indonesia)

Language: English (translated into Indonesian by Anggraini Novitasari)

So, now I’m reading Stephanie Laurens’ Bastion Club Series. I didn’t read the prequel (Captain Jack’s Woman) and jumped instantly instead into this first books of the series. I’m now very much under the spell of Sabrina Jeffries, but Stephanie Laurens has amazed me as much as Jeffries has. When my sister read this “The Lady Chosen”, I was kinda curious: what’s behind it? Since I like reading anything written by male authors and/or something which is “manly”, I thought I was going to read this series. Seven swell-headed ex-spies must be interesting.

Okay, let’s talk about the story. For those of you who expected a great detail “detective” story by a “romance” novel writer, you’d better think TWICE. This ain’t gonna be a good answer you, people. Romance is romance, none other than that. The main core of the story is about two people loving each other, DONE. So, even if it’s a “detective” kind of story, it can’t possibly be GREAT, and I have to admit it myself.

Tristan Wemyss has to find a wife SOON if he doesn’t want to lose all of his heritage money, which he has to get to support his ton-kind-of-life his family member have. So, he gets his eyes on Miss Leonora Carling, his neighbor at Montrose Place, beside which his Bastion Club house is located. Unfortunately, some thief has been plaguing this beautiful lady he cannot persist. Tristan wants to solve this thief thing by himself, but Miss Carling is always shadowing him in his mission. He knows then that this independent lady really wanna lies her finger on this mission herself.

The story goes quite a very long long to come to conclusion. Some may call it “dragging” or something, but I like it anyway. After some “romantic scenes” between Tristan and Leonora, and how they get along together, finally realizing the love between them, the mystery of the thief coming into Leonora’s house is looming almost at the end of the book. Quite relief, right?

In short, I like this one. Oh, I actually “almost” read the prequel, but the first pages of Captain Jack’s Woman made me dizzy with its pathetic writing style. I don’t know, Laurens did well in this “The Lady Chosen” book, but the prequel was annoying me, indeed. Well, some people might not like the long and long plot and the “dragging” flow of the “Lady Chosen” story, but it’s okay with me. Seriously, I don’t mind the “slow motion”, I enjoyed it. Oh, for those of you readers who are used to Orhan Pamuk’s long and long plot and “dragging” flow, you’ll know what I mean.

So, I’m looking forward the next book now: A Gentleman’s Honor.

Rating: 3

Title      : One Day

Writer  : David Nicholls

Year     : 2009 (first published in Great Britain by Hodder and Stoughton)

Language          : English

Didn’t realize at first that this novel had come out as a movie. Even as I saw the ‘romantic’ book cover, a man and a woman locked in an intimate embrace and kissing. A very light sweet kissing, not the passionate or lewder one. Once I got a look on the cover, I decided that I had to buy and read it.

The ‘love story’ begins with a not-lovely night of two just-graduated people, Emma and Dexter. They’ve known each other all along at University, but just start to get along at the graduation night. Yes, imagine that. Emma is so in love with Dexter, having had a crush on him the since the days of her study at University; but Dexter is a promiscuous kind of man, if I may say, and doesn’t see her until that graduation night. So, they spend the night together. No, they do not do anything but talking, hugging, and kissing. Until they separate to each other’s way at the end.

The story continues at the exact date of the next year (the same date always appears in every year along the book) when Dexter goes on his traveling around the world and Emma sticks around in England with despair, hopeless life, no self-confidence, and depressing one-way love. After that, the next first chapters of the book will drag you through the pace in which Emma is so desperate about her life and her love to Dexter, while Dexter is taking his time enjoying life and having fun, with no concern whatsoever about Emma’s feelings. He only knows that he likes Emma too, and considers her as his friend. That’s what they are, Em and Dex, Dex and Em, for years.

Until the pace is increasing where Emma can no longer ‘wait for’ Dexter and move on having a relationship with another guy, someone who really loves her. But as her relationship goes on, she realizes that she cannot love him back and still think of Dexter. Unfortunately, her friendship with Dexter is on the way to devastation, so she finds herself having an affair with some other man.

The next pace finds Dexter falling in love with a woman, and then marry her. Unfortunately, again, that happens when his friendship with Emma recovers. So, when his marriage is not on the right track, he can always turn to Emma, who is taking Dexter’s marriage ‘quite’ seriously that she finds herself reluctant to accompany Dexter in his loneliness.

The pace then moves on to Dexter’s divorce (caused by his own old flat-mate), his sudden lack of self-confidence, his sudden desperation, and a time when he and Emma start their ‘love relationship’ in Paris. They’re finally married, but that’s not quite successful either.

The interesting thing about this book is not only the always-same date of every year of each chapter, but also the pace of the story, the pace of the character development in each chapter, the pace of the friendship and most importantly, the pace of those two people’s lives. How can you hang out with the same person for nearly twenty years and not realize, or not want to realize perhaps, that that one is the one for you for all this time? When I read Dexter’s sadness and regrets at the end of the story it felt like I wanna shout out to him: “It’s your own faults, dude!”.

Well, the story is well-told, but sometimes I found it not so emotional. I don’t know why. This is the very first time I read a British love story/romance novel, and I still don’t know how them British authors create a love story formula. It just didn’t make me cry when it’s supposed to make me ‘cry’.

However, One Day by David Nicholls is a very good story. I really like it. That lack of emotion (at least for me) doesn’t really matter. It’s very great of Nicholls to catch people’s life paces and character development and then cram them into twenty years of twenty three chapters. For those of you who are not used to British-English and how the British authors form their jokes, you might not like it. It depends on your own taste.

Rating: 3.5

Title      : Never Let Me Go

Writer  : Kazuo Ishiguro

Year     : 2005 (Indonesian edition first published in 2011 by Gramedia Pustaka Utama)

Language          : English (translated into Indonesian by Gita Yuliani K.)

If you’re not used to something absurd, then I think you have to prepare yourself to wrack your brain to read this one. That, if I can you call it absurd. For me, it’s like reading Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood (and his other novels, I assume, since I never—or haven’t—read those other ones). Well, if you’re as crack-brained as I am, you have to be prepared!

I know of the movie first, though haven’t watched it, then some reviews told me that it was adopted from a novel. Thank God I have a chance to read the novel first, this novel. Let get to the point. In a nowhere place in England, there’s this school named Hailsham. Inside, human beings are being ‘created’ (if I may say so) to provide organ donation for people outside in the real world. Those human beings are not only  ‘created’, but also educated and prepared to be donors, the great one.

Problems come when those donors are not being told what will they be in the future, what will they do with their ‘bodies’. The guardians guarding them in this Hailsham only raise them as ‘normal’ kids, ‘normal’ teenagers, whom then are being released to the outside world to do whatever they ‘assume’ they have to do.

So, when Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, three best friends in Hailsham come to this ‘assumption’ and then realized what they are and what they have to do outside Hailsham, they’re kind of “Okay, that’s what we’re gonna do, right? Let’s just do it!”. But inside, they know that they want something more. They want the real life of the ‘real’ people. Which they cannot get.

Okay, when I say this novel is absurd, I mean it. But luckily, the plot is great and the story-telling style of the writer is just nice to follow. That helps, actually. And the idea is very much humanist: talking about how these modern people think that they can do whatever they wanna do with technology with no concern for the consequences (in this case are on the donors), and also how the arrogance of those modern people is all just about politics (who supports who, who stands for who).

This novel is great, and will be better (for me) if not that absurd. It’s really nice of Ishiguro to have such kind of idea. Worth reading, indeed.

Well, now I’m looking for the movie. So late, I know. But I just wanna know the outcome of the this story on screen, knowing that Keira Knightly playing a role there.

Rating: 3

Title      : The Winner Stands Alone

Writer  : Paulo Coelho

Year     : 2008 (Indonesian edition first published in 2009 by Gramedia Pustaka Utama)

Language          : English (translated into Indonesian by Rosemary Kesauly)

After a month of delaying, I finally finished this book. It’s the thickest Coelho’s book I’ve ever read. And the most boring too, if I may say. Seriously, reading this book is merely like watching a Hollywood movie with unpredicted ending. I expected it to be more meaningful than killing people for the sake of love or hatred.

So this is about Igor, a successful Russian telecomunication businessman who lost his wife in the middle of their ‘happy’ marriage, which is considered not happy at all by the wife, Ewa. She is so afraid of her ‘beasty’ husband who seems to be not himself anymore after the success of his huge business. So she leave him, they divorce, and Ewa marry another success man.

So, Igor goes to Cannes Film Festival in France to catch his ex-wife, to remind her that he will, and can, destroy other people’s world just to show that he still loves her, to get her back. He has killed four people with four different ways and patterns, and after the murder he always send a message to Ewa to tell her about his ‘destroying other world’. Unfortunately, Ewa doesn’t catch the ‘message’.

In this story, Coelho does a mingled plot with many different characters, though the main character is still Igor, the mysterious businessman. Here, while doing and reaching his mission, Igor meets many people (beside his victims) who have their own problems in life and their own personalities.

Generally, it is quite a nice novel to read. But I couldn’t still stop yawning even when the murdering scenes happen. Seriously, this is not really interesting for me.

Rating: 2.5

Title      : In The Prince’s Bed (The Royal Brotherhood #1)

Writer  : Sabrina Jeffries

Year     : 2004 (Indonesian edition first published in 2011 by Gramedia Pustaka Utama)

Language          : English (translated into Indonesian by Anggraini Novitasari)

This is the second book by Sabrina Jeffries I read. I was kinda curious with her other historical romance novel. Unlike A Notorious Love, I don’t really like this one.

I don’t know why Jeffries chose to use the already used plot and mold of the main characters. But here’s the thing: Alexander Black, the main male character here is a combination of Griff Knighton (A Dangerous Love) and Daniel Brennan (A Notorious Love), and Katherine Merivale, the main female character is a combination of Rosalind and Helena Laverick. She might think that it’s kinda funny to mix up all those interesting characters at one person, but as a reader, I don’t.

Well, the story starts when Alec (or Alexander Black) knows that he is one of the bastard sons of the Prince of Wales a.k.a Prinny. He finds the other two closer at hand, Lord Draker and Gavin Byrne. Feeling hit by the same horrible destiny of being the bastard sons of Prinny, together they found The Royal Brotherhood to reach their each goal. In this story, Alec wants Lord Draker and Byrne to help him finding a rich heiress to marry so he can safe his troubled estate.

So he meets Katherine Merivale, with the help of Gavin Byrne. He instantly spots her as his potential “rich heiress to marry” and court her, despite his own interest and desire toward her. Katherine, on the other hand, also needs to marry someone so she can inherit her grandfather’s money to pay all of her family’s debt. So, secretly, both Alec and Katherine has their own goal of intending to marry. And they made their agreement, both without knowing the real intention of each other.

But the more Alec courts Katherine, the more he finds the desire inside him toward her growing bigger and bigger. He doesn’t know why he only wants her while there are so many rich heiresses in London. While Katherine, despite her relationship with her childhood friend, Sydney, also finds that Alec is putting flames inside her heart with his touch, kisses, seduction, etc.

The pace of the story is much the same as A Notorious Love (I’d say following then, considering A Notorious Love came out first in 2001 while this one came out first in 2004): how the deal made, how the desire burns at the first time, the courtship, etc, until the Hollywood kind of ending.

Fortunately, Jeffries still has her wit in her. Almost all the conversations here are both funny and smart at the same time, triggering your brain to think and relax when reading them. I don’t really like the story, but I still like the way Jeffries made her lines and arranged her typical conversations.

Rating: 3

Title        : By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Writer     : Paulo Coelho (translator: Rosi L. Simamora)

Year        : 1994 (Indonesian edition first published in 2005 by Gramedia Pustaka Utama)

Language              : Portuguese / English (translated into Indonesian)

I can’t count anymore the numbers of Paulo Coelho’s books I’ve read, though I haven’t read all of them. I have been so much curious about this book but happened to get the opportunity to read it a few days ago (in the middle of my own messy business, yes). So, this book is amazing, it is. As usual, Coelho filled it with the religious message of Christianity without insulting other religions. I feel safe reading his books, and that’s why I like them.

From a distant point of view, this book may talk about love between two childhood friends meeting again at a certain occasion. But it’s not merely about that, for sure. Pilar, a grown up woman who has a settled life in Zaragoza and has planned her life so carefully that she believes she wouldn’t be hurt anymore, meets again with her childhood friend/love interest whom she calls “he”. He is now dedicating his whole life for worshiping God and spreading miracles and preaching. However, what he wants is other than, if I can’t say more than that. He still loves Pilar, and he wants her to be his.

No, it’s not a typically just another love story about two childhood love interests going back together and pursuing their long-lost love. It’s about what love is, how you differentiate one type of love (to God) to another one (to people, especially the people we love). Pilar once refuses to take her childhood friend’s love for her because she doesn’t want to be hurt anymore, because she has settled down all her life visions in a straight track without any annoyance. But he comes to her and say he loves her, he is so earnest that she can’t refuse his love anymore, she can’t even hesitate. But when she is already sincere in taking everything to get the love of her life, something out of her prediction happens. Something about him changes.

I think what Coelho wanted to reveal in this book is that human’s love to God is not only demonstrated through worshiping God in such religious rituals, but also through human’s love to each other, including to one we love. By sharing our love and prove it to someone that we love, we have also already practiced our love to God. Love for each other is the manisfestation of the love to God. It doesn’t necessarily need the explicit rituals or something like that.

Oh, last but not least, I wish I can meet a man like “he”. Seriously.

Rating: 3.5

Title      : The Pilgrimage

Writer  : Paulo Coelho

Year     : 1987 (English edition first published in 1992)

Language          : Portuguese (translated into English)

This is the fourth books of Paulo Coelho after The Alchemist, Veronica Decides to Die, and The Devil and Miss Prymm that I have read so far. It is said to be the first work of Coelho written far before The Alchemist. As stated by the title, the book is a record of a religious activity of the writer, who is Paulo Coelho himself, when he was young and seeking for the highest level of his religious conquest.

Paulo was nearly getting his highest level symbolyzed by the receiving of a new sword from his Master in the Tradition. But a little mistake brought him something worse than disaster. He had to start his religious conquest and learning from the very beginning, and go through the trial which was called the Road to Santiago. Worse, the Road to Santiago was in Spain, whereas he is, like we all know now, Brazilian living in Brazil. He had to find his new sword somewhere along the Road to Santiago. And no doubt, he wanted, and had to, succeed.

Determined to get his new sword taken back by his Master for his mistake, he traveled to Spain guided by someone from the Tradition. And his guide was named Petrus, a very mysterious man. With him, Paulo was going the Road to Santiago in mixed feelings moods, and experienced some extraordinarily supernatural superstitious experiences, and even some ridiculous ones. He was also having a unique and unexplainable relationship with Petrus. Sometimes he thought that he he loved Petrus, and sometimes he thought he hated him. He had to undergo many things including the tearful ones until he got his new sword from his Master.

This book is very much religious, no doubt, until sometimes in the middle of the story I didn’t really get the idea. I could extract some of the philosophical notions inside it, however, even though with difficulty. It is harder to read this book rather than to read The Alchemist.  One thing that I could see clearly from this book is that, sometimes people do not, or cannot, believe in him/herself and that he or she can do something beyond. But sometimes also, people are too much confident about doing something that they do not know what meaning they are looking for exactly. Thank God I read the English version, so I could quite understand the content of this book.

Rating: 3

Title      : Last Tango in Paris

Writer  : Robert Alley (translator: Rama Romindo Utomo)

Year     : 1973 (Indonesian edition first published in 2011 by Serambi Ilmu Semesta)

Language          : English (translated into Indonesian)

This novel entitled Last Tango in Paris may remind you all readers of a classic movie back in 1972 with the same title. And yes, it is the adaptation (I’d like to say so) of the movie starred by Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider. Last Tango in Paris is said to be one of the all-time most popular movies, and also one of the most controversial one. Full of sex, it is, hence triggering some people to think that the movie-makers might actually merely want to make a porn movie. However, the depth of the characters is undeniable, and this book represents it in a correct way.

Set in Paris (of course), the book talks about what had been told in the movie, it’s about two people encountering incidentally in a certain part of Paris and suddenly having sex in an empty apartment without knowing each other. Paul and Jeanne are the names of those unexplainable characters. Once catching each other’s eyes, the passion and lust of the two immediately rise up and they cannot help having sex. Paul, left by is wife for a sudden suicide, is merely seeking an escape from his loneliness and emptiness, while Jeanne, a committed young woman having already a fiancé, is absurdly seeking something “different”, some challenge to win over. She needs to run away from her daily straight life to something challenging and uncommon.

Then the brief sex between them continues to take place, certainly in that empty apartement in an area called Rue Jules Verne. They don’t know each other (even don’t bother to say their names), don’t care about what happens or has happened to each other before they arrive at the apartement, and don’t care about what happens outside the apartment. They just meet, they come to the empty apartement, and they have sex for the sake of each’s pleasure and, or, escape. I haven’t watched the movie, to be honest, but I know that the visualization of the sex the main characters have must be wild and vulgar for the description by Robert Alley, the writer, in the book says so.

Though full of sex, Last Tango in Paris is somehow telling about the emptiness and loneliness of the hearts, the hidden sadness which cannot be revealed, and the complexities of people’s characters (in this case are of Paul and Jeanne). The characters of the two are just complex that people who watched the movie or read the novel may have to think about something beyond the sex presented in front of them. Paul may be a rude, arrogant, unloving person, but inside he is lonely and empty, hungry of love from a woman, he horribly needs something which he cannot get from his already dead wife. And Jeanne, on the contrary, is a loving young woman, nice, soft, and sexy, yet she is also a wild inside, someone who seeks for challenge and straying from the straight way. However, in the end, she only wants to get away from the challenge she’s already gotten and back to her “normal” life.

The storyline may be just straight and doesn’t have such a twist and turn to trigger more interest, but the depth of the characters provided by Alley along the dialogues and sentences may give the readers the reasons why those people act like that. The language is very romantic and dramatic, makes it seem as though a great love story instead of merely a sex story. All in all, I’d like to say that this novel, in particular, is a romantic character-deep sex story.

Rating: 3