A Hook Sky Claude Nougat
A Hook in the Sky by Claude Nougat
I ordered this book immediately after I had briefly met Claude Nougat - a wonderful, extremely talented, exquisite lady, married to an exceptionally interesting and good humoured Italian nobleman. The copy lay for a couple of months in my library, without attracting my attention until I decided to give it a try. Honestly, I could not stop. I read it through at one go, not losing interest for a second. It's really a page-turner! Claude Nougat smoothly moves through the dwindling, almost extinct relationship of a couple, long married and in reality souls long apart, but she does so without instilling the usual sense of remoteness or bleakness. On the contrary she creates the attraction of the different poles that fire and crack as soon as they get within close range to each other. There is love, pathos, art, drama, understanding, remoteness, and humiliation. Claude Nougat creates a network of sentiments and anecdotes, which kept me hooked to the very end. Even the inevitable can be moulded into an exciting expectation. `A Hook in the Sky' is not to be missed! I shall certainly move on to her other books `Flying in the Past', `Into the Fire' and `Out of the Ashes'
Philip Farrugia-Randon
A Hook in the Sky by Claude Nougat
BalasHapusI ordered this book immediately after I had briefly met Claude Nougat - a wonderful, extremely talented, exquisite lady, married to an exceptionally interesting and good humoured Italian nobleman. The copy lay for a couple of months in my library, without attracting my attention until I decided to give it a try. Honestly, I could not stop. I read it through at one go, not losing interest for a second. It's really a page-turner! Claude Nougat smoothly moves through the dwindling, almost extinct relationship of a couple, long married and in reality souls long apart, but she does so without instilling the usual sense of remoteness or bleakness. On the contrary she creates the attraction of the different poles that fire and crack as soon as they get within close range to each other. There is love, pathos, art, drama, understanding, remoteness, and humiliation. Claude Nougat creates a network of sentiments and anecdotes, which kept me hooked to the very end. Even the inevitable can be moulded into an exciting expectation. `A Hook in the Sky' is not to be missed! I shall certainly move on to her other books `Flying in the Past', `Into the Fire' and `Out of the Ashes'
Philip Farrugia-Randon
I just bought and read Claude Nougat's A Hook In The Sky, a look into two rare and exotic worlds--contemporary fine arts and international politics. I purchased it out of curiosity, enjoyed reading it, recommend it to those interested in the lives of a cast of exciting characters drawn with a firm and understanding hand. Though many of the players, particularly Robert's mother, as well as Natasha and Noir, revolve like uniquely constituted satellite moons around the central characters of Robert and Kay, there is much that is fresh, interesting and unexpected in this book as the protagonist wends his way to a new understanding of who he is and what he wants out of the remaining years of his life.
BalasHapusFurther reflection on Hook: the thing is, while Boomer Book it is in spades, it feels like a broader "Nora Roberts" audience appeal as well. '
The author's natural revelation (evolving from story line) of the multi-generational aspects of the character elationships should make this a work interesting to readers of all ages sensitive to the nuances, the joys and pitfalls of attractions flung headlong across sometimes formidable and seemingly prohibitive personal as well as social barriers. That is a mouthful, and I know I'm not saying it very well; but in reading Hook, I was reminded yet again of the many adventures life holds for those open to the possibilities.
A Hook in the Sky, by Claude Nougat, is considered a BB (baby boomers) novel. It tells the story of a husband and wife that have nothing in common. The husband is a Frenchman named Robert who has recently retired from his work with the United Nations. The wife is Kay, a much younger woman who's only passion is art. When Robert retires, all of their differences really start to take a toll on their marriage, leading to a separation. During their separation, Robert and Kay really begin to explore themselves. Through his life adventure, Robert finds that he would do anything to win Kay back and get back to what is familiar to him. To do so, Robert decides to work on becoming a contemporary artist knowing that art is the way to Kay's heart. Robert comes up with "A Hook in the Sky," a project that can forever change them and what their future may hold.
BalasHapusI absolutely loved this story. Though I am not old enough to fully enjoy this baby boomer tale, I found myself completely drawn into what the story held. The characters were very well developed and you couldn't help but feel for them both. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone! Great job to the author. I will be looking for more by Mrs. Nougat!
A HOOK IN THE SKY is a hair-raising coming-of- (Baby Boomer) age story, but an exclusive focus on that dimension may obscure its delicious complexity. Anne Korkokeakivi, writing for THE MILLIONS, notes that French novels tend to be "... dark, searching, philosophical, autobiographical, self-reflective, and/or poetic (without being overwritten)." Author Nougat isn't French, but her protagonist is, and the novel's style fails none of these criteria. Indeed, it reads like the haunting, subtitled movie you discuss with friends for months!
BalasHapusThe principal narrator, Robert, casts light on a heretofore uncelebrated stage of life - the third. He is retiring from a career at the U.N. and painfully unsure of his next step. Kay, his American wife, is twenty years his junior and deeply involved in her work as the owner of a trendy New York art gallery. The couple is childless, a decision made years earlier by Kay without Robert's knowledge or consent, the revelation of which decision causes the couple to separate. Robert is abruptly alone, trying to recapture an abandoned version of himself - the (traditional) artist he wanted to be before choosing a more practical career. He may stay with that career as a consultant, but instead dives headlong into the unknown.
His story is direct, seemingly honest and never "overwritten." He describes exotic Italian locales, his loathing for Modernist art and details of his affairs with an old friend and the friend's troubled daughter in a seductively boundaried style. The reader, while mesmerized by the written proximity of sunlit Italian villas, the inner workings of the U.N., heady discourses on art and the palpable disintegration of a marriage, is nonetheless aware that much remains mysterious, unsaid. Robert is a quiet man, and yet his story is borne forward with an impossible-to-put-down momentum. SOMETHING is about to happen, and it does.
What happens is a fascinating shift, reminiscent of that in Muriel Barbery's THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG. Once a straightforward, uncompromising tale of one (admittedly privileged and cultured) man's transitional crisis, the novel suddenly blossoms into a sort of conceptual magic show. It's a wild ride into symbolic territory that may jar readers who were expecting either consistency or a sweet, comfortable ending. After bitter confrontations over Kay's passion for Modernist art, Robert uncharacteristically agrees to create a huge Modernist installation, a towering, dangerous, Escheresque maze of aluminum ladders rising to... a hook. Unreachable but omnipresent, the hook both looms above and incites the conflicting struggles of the lives below. Robert and Kay's conflict over art reflects both their personal discord and a larger philosophical perspective from which Kay emerges monstrous, a shallow, desperate pawn in the capitalist game. But neither does Robert emerge a hero. He chronicles, but does not alter, the horrific/fantastic concluding events (unreported here to avoid spoiling their effect on readers). Robert is Everyman, but an Everyman who can tell a story!
Digital publishing is still a chaotic undertaking and the text has some missing commas and an odd use of "news" as a plural noun ("The news today are promising."), but these typographical glitches are few and subsumed in the multilayered intelligence of the book. Ideal for book clubs, A HOOK IN THE SKY poses questions for which there may be no answers, but about which endless discussion will be compelling.
What a five star review means to me is loving the story, and anticipation in picking up my Kindle every chance I got to dive back into it..
BalasHapusAt first I did not think I would be able to get into the story, as I have no interest in political issues, but the more I read of the story and the characters, the more I got hooked.
Also, the art world is a big part of this story, and having no interest in that either, again I felt I might not want to continue.
Once the meat of the story was revealed I wanted more and more. It turned into an exotic read for me, being just a normal U.S. citizen, I started enjoying the 'scenery'...
The author has a unique storytelling style and the writing is superb. Characters were interesting, story was good, and I highly recommend this book to anyone who is searching for a very enjoyable retirement romp.
A Hook in the Sky opens with what all of us who have spent the majority of our careers in fields where we intended to Help the World find ourselves.....answering to a political appointee who has neither the background nor true inspiration that could truly do for humanity what should and could be done should the politicians bow out of the scene and leave the real work to those of us who truly want change and improvement for all. His attempt to bring back to his world those whom he thought he needed show how futile our own attempts at not marching forward and accepting our earned rewards of new friends and true soul-mates just waiting for us slows us in this world where true friends will be our just reward where true retirement is only at death.
BalasHapusA Hook in the Sky follows the adventures of a recent retiree who leaves the toxic environment of a career he has come to hate and falls into the art world where he is surrounded by family, friends, and lovers who heap negative input on him. Yet, he finds a way to express himself and survive the negative input. A Hook in the Sky has excellent characters, interesting plot, social and artistic commentary, wonderful scenes in many international locations, and action.
BalasHapus
BalasHapus