I managed to get halfway through this book before putting it down. It was interesting enough, I just was not getting into the story like I do with a good book.

I actually only got through half of this before becoming too unmotivated to pick it up and finish it...enough said.

Hmmm.

This is the third Diane Johnson book I read and I really had trouble keeping my mind from wandering during it. Not that it was bad, it just didn't hold my attention the way L'Marriage and L'Divorce did, and it was mostly about who got what inheritance. I found the testament laws of France and England interesting, as I work Estate and Trust law, but I wonder if someone who didn't work in that field would find about the pages and pages of fighting over who got what.

Affairs? Yes, there are some, but L'Affaire means "the business" in French, so I'm sure she held double meaning in her title. I found the first part of the book, set in the ski lodge, much more interesting than the second part, when it moved to Paris. Some characters could have been cut out, there were way too many.

I'm not sad I read it, I just feel a little let down at what could have been.

Somehow this book just never took off enough to be really engaging. I remember quite liking Johnson’s previous books, Le Mariage and Le Divorce, but this one didn’t live up to them. The cultural differences seemed too magnified, almost mean and petty, and the bureacratic details came across as tedious for some reason. Still, I almost became engaged with the characters, but not quite.

A pleasant beach read: simple storyline with engaging pace throughout. I was initially attracted by the illustration, as with all D. Johnson's books.

I found this third Diane Johnson novel about Americans in France just as worthy as Le Divorce and Le Mariage in terms of its humorous and serious look at the struggle for French and American people to comprehend and accept each others' cultural issues. Central in L'Affaire (2003) is Amy Hawkins, a newly wealthy dot.com executive from Palo Alto, who wishes to broaden her sophistication by living in Paris. The story begins, however, in the ski town of Valmari in the French Alps, where Amy becomes involved in the drama of an English-American couple who were injured in an avalanche. Amy’s ill-advised, but well-meaning choice to finance the elaborate medical care necessary to fly the elderly husband to England where he dies, is symbolic of typical good-hearted, but bumbling American judgment in all realms
Throughout the course of the story, Amy acquires some skills through her French cooking classes, but she cannot buy culture. “No amount of effort will ever make Amy sound French." Complicating Amy's struggle is French-Tunisian snob Emile, a self-proclaimed anti-American. "He everywhere found examples of the detestability of Americans—brash, arrogant, loud-talking, and loud-dressing bullies with no understanding of other cultures, a complete lack of interest in things beyond themselves, and concerned only with American hegemony. He would not voluntarily make the acquaintance of one, and didn’t anticipate that he’d had to" (118-19).
tLater, Amy asks Emile if, for all his assumed expertise on Americans, he has ever visited the United States. “Certainly, not,” he says (322). The eventual brief affair between these two characters indeed seems doomed from the outset. At her good-bye party, given for her French friends on the eve of her return to Palo Alto, Amy serves typical California fare such as enchiladas, nachos, quesadillas, prawns marinated in lime juice, and margaritas. Her friend Géraldine intervenes, however, to make sure there are some French-style hors d’oeuvres and two versions of the chili. “For those—almost every French person—who weren’t fond of spices, it would be chili without chili powder, more of a boeuf bourguignon with beans” (333).
t Johnson’s novels all end with an ultimately pessimistic view of Anglo-French romances. Most of the English or American pairings with French peoples fail or do not seem destined to last. But the romp through the cultural differences seems to have been an enlightening, if often aggravating, one for all involved. Differences in cultural practices and preferences have scarcely been resolved, disagreements as to which culture is the most sophisticated—or the least irritating—is still a matter of opinion on both sides.

Admire Diane Johnson's writing and of course loved the European setting and pathos. Interesting flawed characters and relationships. But this was not a page-turner and I had a hard time staying engrossed. In the end, I wanted more intensity and action. Thought the story had more potential than was realized.

Definitely better than Le Divorce, but still just ok. I don't think I will read any more of Diane Johnson's books even if they take place in France...

enjoying this book, great writing, very interesting. Mostly takes place in France (so far).

It’s a more “realistic” Eat, Prey, Love. If the goal is to become more “cultured” and life’s goal is not set simply on finding one’s true love. (And if the main character has a lot more money)

Very introspective. Beautiful / glamorous settings but a little less plot driven which I feel is a missed opportunity for the writer. The characters feel a bit stereotypical but maybe because that is the intent of the book (I.e., to explore our international stereotypes are molded / challenged / dealt with in real life).

3 star rating given there are a lot of missed opportunities to make the book a bit more of an exciting page turner. Ending was also a bit more anticlimactic.
But prose was elegant, beautiful, and many many passages are thought provoking that linger in your mind for a few days afterwards.

Call me superficial but I am becoming a fan of Diane Johnson. This does not equal her first novel, Le Divorce, and Amy does not become a presence immediately, the way Isobel does - but then Amy is a very different sort of American girl. You will either like her or you won't - she sort of grew on me in the course of the book. She has a tabula rasa quality and a lust for self-improvement which is more interesting as she begins to interact with the people she meets in France and begins to change.

It is a kind of coming of age book, even though she's already 30 years old. However, the characters I love in this book are Posy, the perpetually pissed off yet passionate English girl who REALLY does not fit into the French society, and Kip, the snowboarding teenager from California who has to learn to take care of an 18-month-old baby and deal with the loss of his family all in one day.

We are treated along the way to even more of Johnson's mordant portraits of the rich French ladies who groom rich American ladies to find husbands and/or lovers by way of cooking and language classes. A world in itself, which I am content to never experience personally. GAH!

Three stars, because it's a slow starter, but as it progressed, I was impelled to give it four - nah, leave it at three - but it is fun and ends up being a bit more than fun, with some deeper interactions between the characters.

A great read for the homeward bound leg of a business trip! Just for fun.