This is a beautifully written book. It's not a book for people who like action packed novels. It reminds me of one of those French films where nothing much happens but where relationships, emotions and ideas are explored. Set in the 1930s it looks back to the first world war and its effects on those who remain, at antisemitism, the politics in France at the time and to the growing threat from the Germans. I wish it had been a longer book. This is Sebastian Faulks at the beginning of his writing career. The only other book he has written at this point is A Fool's Alphabet. Birdsong, Charlotte Gray, Engleby and others are yet to come.

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This book, by Sebastian Faulks, is about a mysterious young woman named Anne Louvet, a Parisian transplant to the n  French countrysiden in the 1930s. We don't know a lot about who she is or where she came from, but it's clear she's hiding some secrets from her past.

Anne starts working as a waitress in a hotel, the Hotel du Lion d'Or, and meets a cast of characters, including the manageress, a harsh woman who doesn't care for Anne's confident, Parisian manner; Roland, a young man who is creepily interested in Anne; and customers like Monsieur Hartmann, with whom Anne eventually falls in love.

Though he's married, she and Hartmann begin a chaotic love affair, and the whole novel is set upon a backdrop of France between two world wars. News trickles in about the persecution of Jews in Germany and the plight of French politics at the time, creating this vivid historical atmosphere that doesn't feel overwrought. It was also written in the late 80s, but doesn't read like an old book. It feels timeless, and is written beautifully and simply.
Favorite quote:

From an early age she had developed the art of being alone and generally preferred her own company to anyone else’s. She read books at enormous speed and judged them entirely on her ability to remove her from her material surroundings. In almost all the unhappiest days of her life she had been able to escape from her own inner world by living temporarily in someone else’s, and on the two or three occasions that she had been too upset to concentrate she had been desolate.

Recommended for:
If you like romance, historical fiction, inter-war Europe, or character-driven fiction!

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Its 3.5 stars. I enjoyed this book , I somehow did not know where it was taking me. There seemed a lot of threads of characters , who had a vague link but gave more flesh to the storyline. I have not read Sebastian Faulks for a long time and it was interesting to be reintroduced to him. The ending certainly left me with many questions about human nature.

Straightforward and well-written story of a love affair in France between the wars, hinting of the coming WWII. The character of Anne is well drawn, strong and resilient, although mired by her lower social standing. Hartmann, an assimilated Jew, less strong, but also a product of his bourgeois social class. I wonder what became of him and his Arian wife during WWII? Well written, if not a bit over-bearing by the author, but not enough to destroy the story. Sometimes it is best to assume the reader is paying attention to the events and can comprehend the internal thoughts and passions of the characters, without having it regurgitated for whole pages. But all in all an excellent novel. I will continue to check out Sebastian Faulks.

I enjoyed reading this book. Very well written and the main characters well portrayed. But they aroused more my curiosity than my empathy. During the first half of the book curiosity about Anne's mysterious past; and during the second half curiosity about the future of their relationship. But in the end the characters left me pretty cold in spite of what I thought were Faulks' fine attempts at depth of character.

Author has a point to make regarding how deep our feelings go when holding onto past experiences, traumas, pain and sadness. He is especially adept at men's feelings in the person of the main character, Hartmann. Takes place after WWI with the Germans threat of advancing again. There is a resilency to the characters and the message which is that you can survive and get through your pain. Story is a bit choppy however, but the writing is good and pictorial.

The Girl at the Lion d'Or is a fairly short novel, set in France between the two world wars. It forms part of a trilogy of novels, to which Birdsong also belongs. I have read none of Faulks’ work previously.

There is a short introduction, where Faulks explains his idea behind the novel: a newspaper article from the times describing how a young woman had broken into the home of a senior official in France, but was not caught. It is always fun to take a simple moment and create an elaborate back story, so I was looking forward to seeing what was going to lead the girl, ‘Anne’, there.

Anne arrives in a small village - Janvilliers - from Paris, taking up the post of waitress at a local bar and hotel. She is beautiful, young and nursing a secret past - what tragic heroine isn’t? Whilst in Janvilliers, she encounters Charles Hartmann who is older than her and married, having fought in WW1. They become enamoured with each other and have a love affair before Hartmann breaks it off and goes back to his wife. For reasons I’m not entirely sure of - to protect Anne in the long run perhaps. Anne heads back to Paris, breaks into the house mentioned above for shelter, and then goes off to find her own way in life. A ray of hope perhaps, but I’m not sure how great life in Paris in the late 30s will turn out to be.

There are two shadows hanging over this book. One is of the past - Anne’s family tragedy and Hartmann’s army career. Characters mention all the best men being dead and a huge loss of their population. One character we see very little of is the Patron of The Lion d’Or. He is referred to by other staff members as a very busy and important man, but when Anne finds him, he is a small man, suffering from agoraphobia post-war. He asks Anne to not just walk past the war memorial in the village, but to look at the names and see each face and hear each voice. It is little moments like this that are beautifully captured and it sets the key theme of loss.

The other shadow is that of the future. Characters worry about politics, about the Germans, about the threat of another war. They say it is not possible - there are not enough men and they couldn’t go through the horror again.

Overall however, I found it to be like a small watercolour. A beautiful capture of the moment, but lacking anything more. I was unconvinced by the love affair. It seemed to grow out of nothing and ended for odd reasons. The original idea for the novel - of the girl mentioned in a newspaper was good, but it is barely even a moment in the novel. Her reason for being there was just a broken heart and being a bit lost. It is well written but wasn’t the plot for me.

“The Girl at the Lion D’OR”. Anne Louvet, a young woman wanting to escape from a sad past in Paris, arrives at the Hotel Lion D’Ore for a job as waitress. She meets a cast of characters she soon warms up to and soon has a quick love affair with a married troubled lawyer from the first war. She soon tells him about her past. They both realize they have so much baggage from the past that they have to end the affair and move on. We also learn about the politics of the 30’s in this book.
Love Sebastian Faulks books and can’t wait until I read another.

It has taken me about a year to finish this short novel; I just didn't feel anything for the protagonists. I found the prose mostly staid and wooden. The book started off in an interesting manner, but went downhill rapidly for me. I didn't understand the tendency to romanticise men's desires, and then to justify them, whether the circumstances were suitable or not. I also felt like the author hardly tried to probe how women felt about the turmoil in their lives - this, with a female protagonist. I probably shouldn't have begun my Faulks reading with this book.

Classic Faulks. atmospheric, understated, wonderful

Short and sweet Sebastian Faulks novel about a couple of lovers. This is one of those rare books where I fully empathised with the characters and felt as though I knew them as though they were a real friend. It has to be a good story for you to feel like that. I'd definitely recommend it and read it again as a quick holiday read.

I think this is a beautifully crafted book, and it's by coincidence that I read it about a year after reading Birdsong. This is the second in the French trilogy. I believe that the beauty of the read lies in the simplicity and the believability of the plot, Anne, the protagonist is instantly likeable and though I think the phrase 'a real page turner' is a bit worn out, that's exactly what I found. Even now, a few days later, I'm reflecting on what made me so curious, interested and fascinated by the characters. Perhaps it's Faulks' ability to develop them in such a nurtured way. I'll leave it a while before turning to Charlotte Grey.