Word: leoã
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...traces Leo Hoffman in his evolution from Hungarian peasant boy to American spy. Alienated from his family by his intelligence and appearance, Leo attracts the attention of his teacher, a member of the Hungarian bourgeoisie, performing a turn of the century Teach for America stint. The teacher convinces Leo??€™s family to send him to Budapest for schooling. There he meets the Countess Julia, a friend of his foster mother who initiates him to the ways of sex at the tender...
...that occasion, and those that follow, seem gratuitous, Malcolm explains in an interview with The Crimson that she intended the episode to account for the gradual dissolution of Leo??€™s moral fiber...
...Leo??€™s gift for languages draws the attention of the rising fascist government, which recruits him as a translator. This takes him to Paris, where he meets the love of his life, who agrees to marry him on the strength of one pastry. But a twist of events sparked by the discovery of his Jewish heritage forces him to flee to Shanghai to start anew...
...title of the novel indicates, Malcolm intends to explore the consequences of fleeing and, if not forgetting the past, then omitting it. Leo??€™s efforts to protect his family from the truth range from the understandable (blindfolding his daughter as they pick through the debris of a bombing) to the absurd (refusing to tell his wife about his financial devastation...
More devastating for the novel itself is the way it infantilizes the women in Leo??€™s life. Their perpetual innocence about the reality of their lives makes strong female characters hard to come...