From Publishers Weekly
It takes sangfroid and skill to write a contemporary love story featuring the metaphysical poetry of John Donne and the art of calligraphy, but British writer Docx, in his debut novel, carries it off with wit and sophistication. His protagonist, Jasper Jackson, is a Londoner whose current job is to transcribe the Songs and Sonnets of John Donne for a wealthy client. Like Donne, Jasper is also a relentless womanizer, a charming cad who lives for love affairs. When the woman of his dreams appears in his own garden, Jasper succumbs to real love for the first time and slowly begins to realize what it feels like to be the pursuer rather than the pursued. In a clever reversal of chick-lit roles, the lovely Madeleine, a travel journalist, plays the part of the rakes of yore, while Jasper pours his woes into the willing ear of his best friend. There are many contrasts here, between ancient art and contemporary manners, between ribald conversation and metaphysical elegance of expression, between the intellectual and the erotic. Docx prefaces each chapter with the sonnet Jasper is working on, and close reading reveals that the subject of each poem corresponds to Jasper's emotional state. Using sites in London, Rome and New York, he allows Jasper to fulminate about the meretricious standards of 21st-century culture (scenes in the Tate Modern are deliciously on target). Readers of conventional romantic comedy may find more to chew on here than they're expecting, but the double surprises that end the narrative are diabolically satisfying.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Booklist
Two passions animate Jasper Jackson's life. The twentysomething Brit is a dedicated womanizer, unable and unwilling to ever commit, and always on the hunt. Jasper is also a talented calligrapher, hard at work these days transcribing
Songs and Sonnets, by John Donne (another serial seducer), for a wealthy client. After a particularly ugly breakup with his current girlfriend, Jasper falls truly, madly, and deeply in love for the first time, with beautiful, sexy, and intelligent Madeleine, who seems to reciprocate his feelings yet is at the same time somehow elusive and evasive. The novel ends with two delicious plot twists, and Jasper, to his sorrow, learns what it's like to be the one in a relationship who loves the most. Docx's intelligent and humorous first novel succeeds beautifully on a number of levels--the writing is confident without calling attention to itself; even the most minor characters, like Jasper's grandmother (who only appears in one scene) and his best friend, William, are fully developed and probably worthy of novels of their own.
Nancy PearlCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
