The Bernini Bust by Iain Pears

I am not a great fan of art thrillers but this book caught my eye when I was in the market for old books. The book was published in 1992 and this is not quite old for me to put my hands on. In fact, most of the books that I’ve read were old and if it is one of the latest titles mostly it is borrowed J

The whole narrative revolves around a Bernin bust, a murder and the will of a millionaire. The whole story telling is a lot witty and it humors you in its own peculiar way. The book is small so it didn’t take much time to finish.

As it is a thriller I’m not giving much details of the plot here but if you get a chance read it (it will take some 1-2 hrs) to get to the end. Loved the style of author crisp and fast paced with all the spices of a thriller.

The Chouans by Honoré de Balzac

This is one of the novels that I read just for the description given on the back side of the book about the author Balzac. And I was not really disappointed after finishing it (it took me more than a month).

Balzac is a famous French novelist (I came to know it later) and this novel is considered as his first successful novel. I’ve not read the other titles by him but I can say he is a good writer.

The narrative is quite descriptive (which I think is a kind of style of writing for all the classics). The scenes are described in such a detail that with a little bit of imagination you can actually put the whole scene together and that is a beauty of the writing.

The plot is simple as a love story of lady (Marie de Verneuil) who is trying to find love and respect and a leader ( Marquis de Montauran) with revolutionary idea to change how the things working in the country (the scene is set in 1799 during the post-war uprising of France). The whole story has a lot of twist and turns involving love, betrayal, misunderstanding and an army. The story ends on a sad note but it shows that the doubt is a poison for any relationship. If you don’t believe than there is no escape and future for such relationships.

I loved the overall flavor of the book but I’m sure that most of the readers who don’t have a taste for long narrations and classics may not like it or will tag it as bore.

A good book indeed. Looking forward to read some more from Balzac.