I didn't quite know what to make of this novel. I loved the period and setting; between the two world wars in France and Faulks is undoubtedly a good writer. In the book we read of Anne, previously orphaned and now as a young woman trying to make a fresh start away from Paris where her family were mired in scandal. When Anne starts a romance with an older, married man you know there are going to be problems. I don't want to give spoilers but I didn't love it and I thought I would.

"Hartmann nodded. 'What is the matter with this country? Why can't we produce a single man to run efficiently what should be one of the most civilised nations in the world?'
"'Because we're only drawing on half the proper capacity,' said Antoine. 'The men who should be leading this country are dead and buried on the battlefields of the Western Front.'
"'So ensuring that history will briefly repeat itself.'"

Bleak, right? This is the first novel of Faulks's that I've read, and it won't be the last - I'll make sure of it - but it's a bloody tough ride.

The story focuses on a lonely, mysterious girl called Anne, who takes up waitressing at the Hotel du Lion d'Or in Javilliers, France. It is tremendously sad: a tale of love between the First and Second World Wars, of abandonment, and of hindsight.

Indeed, knowing what we do as readers today, about what would happen in the years to follow the moment in which this book is set, we are gifted with the ability to consider the novel as a modern wedge between two catastrophic world events. It seems to be Faulks's attempt as an author contemporary to our age, to cover both the ennui that followed the Great War, and the discontent that would call in the Second.

Politics and historic movements give context to the story, but they do not make Faulks's novel the engaging read that it is. What gives it life, is not just the world in which his characters live, but the depth of personalities that the author presents to us, and the credibility of their human emotions and experiences.

Each character has an internal life; each contributes to the interconnectivity of Janvilliers, or to France as a whole. A network of relations develops between colleagues, friends, both old and new, and family members. Characters play off against each other; none are entirely independent, but have to survive in a world in which their actions have social consequences. And what Faulks constructs through this delicate arena of inter-personal relations, is a dynamic that is threatening to crumble at any point--much like the 'peace for our time' rhetoric of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in Britain would be torn apart by events outside of his control, in the geo-political sphere that revolved in the 1930s, the time in which Anne is in Javilliers.

Charles Hartmann - Anne's lover, and a married man, as well as an apparently recurring character in Faulks's fiction - struggles to 'desist' from his temptations. His wife Christine is barren, and living a life that seems between love and death. And the agora-phobic Patron of the Lion d'Or doesn't even know the name of the manager he employs to run the hotel, as he fails to engage with the world. He tells Anne to 'stop and look at the list of names' at the 'memorial in the Place de la Victoire' when she next passes it; he wants her to 'try to imagine that they're not just letters chipped into rock but that each one has a face, a laugh, a look.' He says his time could have ended with them, in a compressed moment of extreme melancholy.

There are more examples of torture, from other characters, who suffer from unexpressed passion, loss, or sheer dissatisfaction. There is not a happy soul in this novel; its occupants live in temporary states of happiness, and fleeting moments that have their time and leave.

Anne herself is a stranger in a new town at the beginning; at the end, she is still a stranger, with no real optimism, in Paris--a city with which she is at least familiar. She carries little physical baggage with her, but psychologically she is loaded with pain and anguish. The Girl at the Lion d'Or is an exploration of that psychological state, which is continually put down to 'abandonment,' by the narrator.

I wouldn't say that I very much enjoyed this novel, because of the depressing nature of it. There is little hope and less positivity. But it is a superbly crafted work; I felt like my focus was being guided by a master.

So I'll return to Faulks's fiction. This seems to be the year to read Birdsong - being one hundred years on from the start of the Great War in which it is set - so maybe I'll read that. But perhaps for now, I'll move to a lighter read or a work of non-fiction. This short novel was very draining.

So a Guardian article called this a romance novel and now I am intrigued.

This is the 2nd of 3 books of Faulks' French trilogy that I have read. I found myself being compelled to read it, yet actually wanting to put it down for a while. It felt way too personal, like I was reading someone's diary in a manner of speaking. Faulks seems to be able to get inside his characters' minds, where thoughts are often messy and incomplete and puzzling. Unlike Birdsong, he does not wrap it up and put a bow on it.......Not light reading and don't read it in the winter-time when it's gray and cold.

A super book. Can't quite believe I've never read one of his before; maybe put off a little by disparaging comments about Birdsong? Anyone complaining about limited action is perhaps not sensitive enough to setting and character, on which this book depends. There is a sense of something looming over the protagonists, both personally and in a wider sense, as France recovers from one war and braces itself for another. Perhaps the sense of inescapability reminds me of Greek Tragedy? The story is supremely well told, in the sense of a narrator sounding like he's feeling his way, just like the protagonists. My only complaint is that it didn't last longer - though it has got me eager for the next part of the trilogy.

I couldn't criticise Sebastian Faulks' style of writing in this book, and I was looking forward to reading it after loving Birdsong and Charlotte Gray. Unfortunately I was a little disappointed. The relationships he writes about are reminiscent of the ones in Birdsong and Charlotte Gray, and I was drawn into the initial plot with the introduction of Mattlin and Hartmann. But as the story unwound at the end, I felt quite unsatisfied with the way it finished. Maybe that's just personal preference, but I was expecting a little bit more.

Not my favourite out of the three, but definitely worth a read.

Book indeed beautifully written, but the story is atrociously common... There's really nothing special about the characters... I'm disappointed, because at first, it seemed to have a lot more potential... But as I was reaching the end, everything got predictable and quite uninteresting...
Too bad!

There's something different about this book for sure. It's set up as a stereotypical love story but develops into something with a more grounded, gritty feel.
It's a relatively short book - only 250 pages long, and from experience with other short stories by Sebastian Faulks ('A Possible Life'), I was sceptical about how developed the story would be. Previously, I found Faulks skipped over essential events and rushed what could have been a memorable story. However, The Girl at the Lion d'Or is something quite different.
The book follows a waitress, Anne, who moves to an unremarkable French Town. She carries with her a sense of guilt ridden abandonment and appears to have always been betrayed by those who should have been pillars of support. The idea of being powerless to fate is key in the novel.
So far, so depressing - right? Well, it has lighter moments, but on the whole this novel maintains a murky atmosphere - France is on the brink of WW2 and this fear creeps into the story.
Anne's relationship with an unavailable man drives the novel, it is clear from the beginning that it'll never be, but there is a naive sense of hope and intrigue that causes a slight questioning of whether they could be together.
Overall this is a sorrowful novel, but I really don't think you should let that put you off! If anything it is likely to be a more realistic - it takes a step away from some of the slightly more gushy novels set in 1930s France.
I did enjoy this story and was surprised at some of the cut throat reviews on this book! Faulks works this story well - my only complaint? The ending was a little rushed - a considerable amount seemed to happen in the last 50 pages.. C'mon Mr Faulks, keep the pace!

129, The Girl at the Lion D'or by Sebastian Faulks
A slim romantic novel set in 1936 with an almost basic plot about an unhappy orphaned lower class girl, Anne, and an unhappily married Jewish man, Hartmann, (a World War I veteran) who meet in a village bar where she is working after running away from her home. She has a secret about her father who was involved in a 1917 mutiny and her mother, who was driven to suicide by the publicity and the attitude of the village. She is trying to stay out of sight. She is unappreciated by the manager of the café in Janvilliers and is a misfit. On her day off, she goes to clean the house of her lover and his wife. Her lover sets her up in her own apartment and tongues wag. Anti-semitism is increasing and so is her lover’s guilt. He dumps her just as Hitler is coming to power. I found it slow but others love it. I may not read him again.

Anne is a young woman who has fled Paris, and is trying to find a place where she belongs. She gets a job at the Lion d'Or as a barmaid, and is thrown into a quick love affair with a man who lives right outside of town. You learn about her past, and her family's past. And Hartmann is a man who seems to disengage from those around him (possibly a side effect of The Great War?).
It's a small book, so you don't really get to know any of the characters all that well. The book is a kind of snapshot in these two peoples lives. The historical aspect was kind of cool. It takes place between the two World Wars, and the political unrest that was in France at the time.

Not really sure what I made of this. Did we really leave the characters any better off than when we started? This is a kind of snap-shot peep into peoples lives. This is what happened then, like a brief glimpse into someone’s window as you walk buy. All you know is pretty much what you just saw in that instance: I guess there are too many why’s in my mind, questions not really asked, never mind answered by the plot.

Adultery with very few consequences. Interesting portrait of between-wars French society. Excellent prose, as usual with Faulks.