The Knowledge of Water edition by Sarah Smith Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks
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In her second Alexander Reisden and Perdita Halley novel, Sarah Smith delves even more deeply into the realm of deception, forgery, and menace that she has made so uniquely her own. Set in Paris during the devastating flood of 1910, and redolent of the colorful bohemian atmosphere of the time, The Knowledge of Water is a lush, complex, beautifully written novel about the consuming pleasures of passion and the obsessive perils of art.
Three years ago, the enigmatic Alexander von Reisden proposed to the young and very lovely Perdita Halley on a train between Boston and New York. Though initially accepting, Perdita later declined, fearing that marriage would compromise her dream of becoming a concert pianist. Now Perdita has come to study at the famous Conservatoire in Paris, the endlessly romantic city where Reisden heads an institute that specializes in diagnosis of the insane. Little suspecting the depths of each other's desires, and defying social convention, Perdita and Alexander plunge into an erotic, all-consuming affair that seems destined for tragedy. For Perdita cannot marry and attend the Conservatoire; and Alexander remains haunted by guilt and a dark secret from the past. Then an American acquaintance arrives, turning mere gossip into grand scandal.
As incessant rain pours down on the city of light, an intricate network of plots and counterplots swirl around the couple. Perdita's friend, the eccentric writer, Milly Xico, hatches a plot of sweet revenge against her former husband. And a deliciously elegant game of art and life turns deadly serious as a madman stalks first Alexander and then Perdita, threatening to destroy them both in retribution for a murder they know nothing about--or do they?
Sarah Smith has the born novelist's gift of creating a world more real, more compelling, than our own--a world of fascinating, intimately realized characters, strangely deceptive appearances, and mounting suspense. In The Knowledge of Water, Sarah Smith gives us that rare reading experience--a novel as intelligent in its style as it is haunting in its revelation.
The Knowledge of Water edition by Sarah Smith Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks
The Knowledge of Water is the second part of a trilogy, and meant to be read as such. It's interesting to see how an author can take the same set of characters, add some new ones, and further develop their personas around a completely different plot. The Vanished Child was about guilt and survival. Knowledge is about forgeries, layer upon layer of them. On the surface is the question of artistic dishonesty. Who is the forger of the works of the great Mallais? Slightly deeper is the question of identity, and to what extent an individual should be willing to compromise him/herself in the name of love. The broadest question is that of the rights and abilities of early 20th century women - who loses more by suppressing their talents, the women themselves or society as a whole? Who has the right to decide their fates?Swirling around Reisden and Perdita as they struggle with these issues are the rapidly rising waters of the Seine and the intentions of a killer.
As other reviewers have noted, the center of the story does slow to a crawl as the various characters work their way through their choices to come to ultimate decisions. Patience is rewarded, however, by surprises in the final 20 pages.
On to the third and final volume of this series.....
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The Knowledge of Water edition by Sarah Smith Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks Reviews
I just finished Sarah Smith's The Knowledge of Water. Absolutely incredible, with passages at the end that are worth reading, and reading again, and then stopping to savor. It's a book about passion, and in particular the passion for one's art, one's calling, and how people honor that passion in the context of a whole life -- not "fit it in," because passion cannot be accommodated, does not fit comfortably around the edges -- and it's about how expectations twist people's lives. And it's about women, their expectations for themselves, men's expectations, about the choices they make, about what it does to a person to give up her truth in order to do the laundry and buy the groceries and raise the children.
There are no bad guys in this book. There is a pianist who loves a man, but who for days leading up to her first public performance forgets to write to him. There is a doctor who gets caught up in saving his hospital and forgets that he has left his bride-to-be in a cheap hotel. There is, yes, a wedding that comes off in a paragraph, because the story is not about weddings but about marriage, of which the wedding is only an incidental part. There are discussions of love and risk and art and truth and forgery. I think -- although I won't know for years -- that this book will bear reading and re-reading, and may be one of the ten books that I would take to a desert island.
I was reading this book in Penn Station, waiting for a train, and had to sit down on the floor because I was so far into the book that I was beginning to lose track of where I was.
After reading The Vanished Child, I just had to get my hands on The Knowledge of Water. I eagerly awaited its arrival after ordering it on ... and I was disapointed.
This one is slow, and needlessly melancholy. I know it is exploring themes of repression and martyrdom, but the main characters really could have lightened up a little. In the first book, there is a good reason behind their attitudes, but here they seem forced. There are numerous subplots which unfold slowly and the main plot point is a little dull.
Don't get me wrong. This is an alright novel, but Smith ought to have stopped at the first and let us imagine the rest, because this does not stack up well. I don't think I'll read the third one.
I am a firm believer that an author should never try to write the same story over and over again just to sell books. Therefore, I was happy to read the other reviews, though negative, of Knowledge of Water. They told me that although Sarah Smith carried characters from The Vanished Child over to this book, it would not be just a rehash of the first one.
However, even if one does not compare the content of the two books, the first one is far superior, as all events turn on the central thread of the novel, the story of the 'vanished child'.
Smith chose as her central thread here the Paris flood of 1910. However, that thread frays early on, leaving too many scattered ends drifting like flotsam in the flooded Seine.
Once again, Alexander Von Reisden is the anti-hero of the story, along with Perdita, his partially sighted fiancee, who dreams of a career as a concert pianist. Perdita knows that she ultimately cannot commit to marriage, as she will one day leave to follow her passion. Reisden, still haunted by the death of his first wife (events described in Vanished Child) is content to simply let the relationship carry on as is; the same as Perdita. But, even though both feel that there is no real future for their love, passion eventually overtakes them.
Enter Roy Dougherty, police officer and friend from home (Boston) who quite correctly deduces that the relationship has progressed to being far from platonic, with the usual consequences.
Reisden is called in for questioning in the matter of a dead girl, the 'Mona Lisa'. He aides the police as much as possible, since he knew the girl in passing, and begins receiving notes asking him to 'do right by her' and see that she is 'taken care of'. Reisden and the police deduce that it is her killer making these requests, and set out to trap him.
Perdita, as well as Reisden, is drawn into an art forgery investigation, along with Dougherty, headstrong writer Milly Xico, and Reisden's 'cousin' Dotty, all convinced that Dotty's 'original Mallais painting' is nothing of the sort. Perdita takes up residence next to the widow Mallais and her shut-in brother Yvaud, befriending the kindly old woman, and soon learns that not all is as it seems.
The book is well written, but the story is what suffers from a lack of development. The central thread of this book seems to bounce back and forth. The flood; the art forgery; the dead girl; the well-meaning killer; Perdita's musical career; Reisden's mental clinic....too many focal points for one story. While I enjoyed the author's style and brand of prose once again, I was sad to see that nothing gelled into a main storyline, at least not for me. Most conflicts are resolved by the last page, but...with so many different story threads, it is hard to really enjoy any of them completely. Just when you are drawn in to one particular sub-plot the story shifts to another.
I eagerly await reading the third novel in the trilogy, A Citizen of the Country, as the reviews and book description all praise it highly.
I can only give this book 3 stars, however, and in comparison with part 1, it pales. Hopefully part 3 will even the score.
The Knowledge of Water is the second part of a trilogy, and meant to be read as such. It's interesting to see how an author can take the same set of characters, add some new ones, and further develop their personas around a completely different plot. The Vanished Child was about guilt and survival. Knowledge is about forgeries, layer upon layer of them. On the surface is the question of artistic dishonesty. Who is the forger of the works of the great Mallais? Slightly deeper is the question of identity, and to what extent an individual should be willing to compromise him/herself in the name of love. The broadest question is that of the rights and abilities of early 20th century women - who loses more by suppressing their talents, the women themselves or society as a whole? Who has the right to decide their fates?
Swirling around Reisden and Perdita as they struggle with these issues are the rapidly rising waters of the Seine and the intentions of a killer.
As other reviewers have noted, the center of the story does slow to a crawl as the various characters work their way through their choices to come to ultimate decisions. Patience is rewarded, however, by surprises in the final 20 pages.
On to the third and final volume of this series.....
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