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    The Life of Elves
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    The Life of Elves
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    The Life of Elves
    Ebook275 pages4 hours

    The Life of Elves

    By Muriel Barbery

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    The villagers had never seen anything like it: dense white curtains of snow that instantly transformed the landscape. Not in autumn, not here in Burgundy. And on the same night a baby was discovered, dark-eyed little Maria, who would transform all their lives.















    Hundreds of miles away in the mountains of Abruzzo, another foundling, Clara, astonishes everyone with her extraordinary talent for piano-playing. But her gifts go far beyond simple musicianship.















    As a time of great danger looms, though the girls know nothing of each other, it is the bond that unites them and others like them, which will ultimately offer the only chance for good to prevail in the world.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGallic Books
    Release dateMay 3, 2016
    ISBN9781910477274
    Unavailable
    The Life of Elves
    Author

    Muriel Barbery

    Muriel Barbery is the author of six previous novels, including the IMPAC-shortlisted, multimillion-copy bestseller The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Published in France in 2006 and in the UK in 2008, the novel was translated in 44 countries, selling more than 10 million copies worldwide, and was described by Le Figaro as ‘the publishing phenomenon of the decade’. Barbery has lived in Kyoto, Amsterdam and Paris and now lives in the French countryside.

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    Reviews for The Life of Elves

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    • 4/5
      I DO NOT LIKE FABLES! However, this gets 4 stars for its exquisite prose!
    • 2/5
      I was so disappointed in this book, especially after loving The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I got about halfway and just gave up. The two storylines were just not that interesting, taking too long to develop, and I couldn't really keep the characters straight because they didn't make much of an impression on me. It's almost a great book. I love the premise, but the execution was lackluster.
    • 5/5
      I planned to begin reading Muriel Barbery’s latest novel, La vie des Elfes (The Life of Elves), after breakfast one morning. I did not stop until I passed well over 100 pages. I was enthralled. My heart is firmly in the 19th century – George Eliot, the Brontës, Austin, Crandall, to name a few, so I love the detailed descriptions of landscapes, pastoral scenes, and peasants. I felt those places when I read Elves. It is like a painting. I see some figures, some color, some light, but it doesn’t move me. Then I see Monet’s “Haystacks,” and I am driven to tears. Likewise there are novels I enjoy, but every once in a great while, a real masterpiece comes along that moves me on so many levels. This novel is one of those. I hear the voices, the wind, and the raining beating on the thatched roofs. This is no ordinary novel.Muriel Barbery was born in Morrocco, but her family left for France when she was only two months old. She studied there and received a certificate for entry into government service 1990. In 1993, she taught Philosophy in several colleges. She gave up teaching and lived for two years in Japan. Muriel has written two previous novels, including the internationally renowned The Elegance of the Hedgehog. She currently lives in Europe.The Life of Elves is a lyrical, mesmerizing story of discord among living beings. The war this launches upsets the balance of nature. Two young women – one born in France and the other in Italy – possess magical powers. The two children possess supernatural powers, which allow them to resist the encroaching army. The Italian girl, Clara, possesses an extraordinary power to hear music and visualize the notes. She learns to play the most complicated compositions with almost no training. The Spanish girl, Maria, who later moves to France, is able to understand and communicate with nature. As the children develop their talents, they are able to see, hear, and communicate with each other.Barbery writes, “There was a fallow field, overgrown with sleek serried blades of grass, rising gently to meet the hill through a winding passage, until it reached a lovely stand of poplar trees rich with strawberries and a carpet of periwinkles where not so long ago every family was permitted to gather wood, and would commence with the sawing by first snowfall; alas that era is now gone, but it will not be spoken of today, be it due to sorrow or forgetfulness, or because at this hour the little girl is running to meet her destiny, holding tight to the giant paw of a wild boar. // And this on the mildest autumn evening anyone had seen for many a year. Folk had delayed putting their apples and pears to ripen on the wooden racks in the cellar, and all day long the air was streaked with insects inebriated with the finest orchard vintage. There was a languidness in the air, and indolent sigh, a quiet certainty that things would never end, and while people went about their work as usual, without pause and without complaint, they took secret delight in this endless autumn as it told not to forget to love” (19-20). The prose reminds me of a Monet canvas.Throughout the novel, Barbery has sprinkled some wonderful moments. For example, when Maria approaches a table “with three cloves of garlic and her glass [which] is an arrangement for the eye that pays tribute to the divine” (79). She slightly moves one of the cloves. Some pages later, Barbery explains, “The paths of fate: a garlic clove moved one millimeter and the world is utterly changed; the slightest shift disturbs the secret position of our emotions and yet it transforms our lives forever” (114).The Life of Elves by Muriel Barbery will give the reader pause to stop – on almost every page – to consider her words, to wonder at the beauty and timelessness of her prose. 5 stars --Chiron, 4/16/16
    • 3/5
      I should have known better. I can’t abide elves and fantasy foolishness, but I loved Muriel Barbery’s first two novels and took a chance on this one. Elves who appear as real people battle dark forces. Two girls – Maria in France and Clara in Italy – are key to the battle. Clara has the gift of remote vision that seems to be activated when she plays the piano. Maria is like a little girl field marshal for the elfin forces. There’s some beautiful language, but I got lost.