Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful and surprising, 27 Aug 2002
By A Customer
The less you know about the plot of this novel the better. Let the story unfold from page to page and I think you will be as enchanted as I was. The characters are so real and mostly likeable, and the settings, particularly Nebraska, are evocative. It also has some funny parts (especially the plane journey) and the details about magic are enthralling. Before I had even finished it I was wondering how soon I could read it again!Readers who like Anne Tyler's books will also like this.
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21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Subtle & Enjoyable Read, 12 Aug 2003
I came to this book because I'd enjoyed Bel Canto so much, and was surprised by the back cover description which made it sound as though it was going to be almost a fantasy novel. I did keep on expecting the book to leap into high magic, and in a way it did. There's an element of the familiar in it - like Jane Smiley and Ann Tyler, documenting mid-west, mid-nowhere America, but she also plays some superb wild cards that do tip the balance out of reality for odd moments. There are strange dream-world insights and conversations, and there is a bit of the supernatural too, although this stays in the realm of card tricks that are REAL rather than tricks. All in all these add up to a captivating read and the effect is, yes, magical. The characters are stunningly realised, not a wooden or 2D one among them, but Simone Parsifal - the magician's assistant herself - is a stellar creation: guileless without being naive, traumatised without being schmaltzy, and vividly, vividly alive. I could go on - but simply, I am very, very impressed by this novel.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Touching tale of love, loss and magic, 3 Jan 2008
Ann Patchett has constructed an enchanting and touching story in the tale of Sabine, the grieving assistant to, and widow of, Parsifal, a gay magician. As she struggles to recover from losing Parsifal, Sabine finds new meaning and zest for life in the family he kept hidden from her for more than twenty years.
Patchett succeeds in vividly evoking the two contrasting principal settings in the novel - busy, hot and sticky Los Angeles, and the insular, bleak, cold Nebraska town of Alliance. Patchett's characters are intriguing and well-realised. I particularly liked the depiction of Sabine's caring and committed, if somewhat overprotective, parents - the kind of people frequently seen in real life, but rarely considered worthy of committing to fiction. They take a minor role in the story but are, like all this novel's players, utterly convincing.
This book has a few imperfections. I didn't mind the dream sequences, in which Parsifal, and his lover, Phan, who has died of complications from AIDS, visit Sabine whilst she sleeps, but I can see why some readers might feel they are a little forced. And most readers will probably guess the secret (other than his still-living family) that Parsifal has long kept from Sabine. That Sabine spends so much of her life maintaining a love for a man whom she knows could never properly return her affection in the way that she craves may grate with some. Nevertheless, despite its flaws, this book is exceptionally readable, fulfilling and nothing less than a delight.
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