{"id":7455,"date":"2018-09-04T07:26:11","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T11:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7455"},"modified":"2019-04-17T18:32:20","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T22:32:20","slug":"paris-in-the-present-tense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7455","title":{"rendered":"*****Paris in the Present Tense"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Paris\"

pixabay, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

By Mark Helprin, narrated by Bronson Pinchot \u2013 On those days when you just can\u2019t face another serial killer and would like a crime novel more akin to eating a warm and soothing dish of cr\u00e8me caramel, this literary novel, which includes crimes great and small, may be just the thing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s pleasantly reminiscent of the best-seller A Gentleman in Moscow<\/a><\/em>. In both books, an elderly man of old-school culture is coping quite well, thank you, due to the habits of a lifetime and despite the political shifts that destroyed his world and continue to threaten it. These same habits have unexpectedly prepared both books\u2019 protagonists for a brave enterprise on behalf of someone they love.<\/p>\n

With the audio version of Mark Helprin\u2019s book, there is the additional pleasure of Bronson Pinchot\u2019s narration, his French accent as musical as the book\u2019s hero, Jules Lacour.<\/p>\n

Lacour is a cellist, a Jew, living and teaching in Paris and nearing the end of his career. He has a daughter and a seriously ill grandson. His time of life and an impending domestic disruption prompt many reflections on his past life\u2014his happy marriage to Jacqueline and his unhappy early childhood. Born during World War II while his parents were hiding in an attic in Reims, his first years were lived entirely in whispers. After years of hiding, the family was discovered just as the Nazis were fleeing, and the young Lacour saw his parents shot to death in the street.<\/p>\n

While Lacour\u2019s reflections on present-day Paris are like a love letter to the city, his shattered childhood is never far away. One evening, he sees three young man attacking a fourth man wearing a yarmulke and shouting anti-Semitic slogans. Lacour doesn\u2019t hesitate to intervene. To their surprise, the spry old man manages to kill two of them, while the third runs away, as does their intended victim.<\/p>\n

The story now becomes something of a police procedural, with two mismatched detectives trying to figure out how to work together. Narrator Pinchot captures their distinctive accents and the humor in their cobbled together, if dogged partnership.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Lacour is presented with the opportunity to write a jingle for a big US financial services company (telephone hold music), and the way he and the American who recruits him talk past each other is highly entertaining.<\/p>\n

But the situation does not evolve as Lacour expects, the police are suspicious, and he must devise a clever new crime that is both undetectable and foolproof in order to get his last wish. Although the novel moves at a stately pace, Pinchot\u2019s narration never flags. Treat yourself!<\/p>\n

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Click the photo below to order this book.
\n<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mark Helprin, narrated by Bronson Pinchot \u2013 On those days when you just can\u2019t face another serial killer and would like a crime novel more akin to eating a warm and soothing dish of cr\u00e8me caramel, this literary novel, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"*****Paris in the Present Tense - Jules Lacour is a charming, erudite cellist with a clever criminal streak.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[77,52,40,126],"tags":[1404,1320,1405],"class_list":["post-7455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-books","category-crime","category-fiction","category-reading-2","tag-mark-helprin","tag-paris","tag-paris-in-the-present-tense"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1Wf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7455"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7889,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7455\/revisions\/7889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}