As Max Saw It - Hardcover

Begley, Louis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679433074 ISBN 13: 9780679433071

Publisher: Knopf, 1994

Synopsis

Two men are classmates and friends at Harvard, though never all that close: Max, a brilliant student with a touch of the aesthete's affectations about him, and Charlie, some years older, having served in the Korean War. As Max sees it, Charlie excels in a single scull, soaks up martinis, and enjoys the favors of a particularly glamorous Radcliffe girl.
Twenty years later, not having seen each other since college, the two men meet unexpectedly as guests at a villa on the shore of Lake Como. Max is now a law professor, circumspect and slightly sorry for himself - a man to whom relationships do not stick. Charlie has become a celebrated architect, the most successful member of their class. Beautiful when a young man, he has ripened into a foul-mouthed, golden-tongued giant: a demigod and a bully. In his imperious way, he proclaims that Max will henceforth be one of his chosen intimates.
Charlie is right. Max's life becomes increasingly intertwined with Charlie's, and with that of Toby, Charlie's adolescent companion. When Toby is stricken by a devastating illness, Charlie performs an act of coolly calculated self-sacrifice, the only gesture he thinks will make a difference. Max bears witness, and learns a lesson that may at last complete his sentimental education.
With all the force and elegance of his earlier work, Louis Begley's masterful new novel tells a gripping story of friendship and mortality.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"[A] Perfectly Constructed Novel...The time is 1974, and Max, who is fleeing from the wreckage of his first marriage, is a summer-house guest on Lake Como, where he encounters the two characters who will shape his life over the next 20 years: Charlie Swan, a Harvard classmate from the 1950s turned famous architect...and Toby, a poised and polymorphous teenager who is soon to become Charlie's protege and lover."

-- Time

"Elegant And Powerful...Charlie Swan is a grand invention -- a big, booming American who bears evidence of Begley's admiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald. Begley does a superb job of gradually involving Max, his narrator and Charlie's friend, as a loving witness and an inseparable participant....[A] startling feat."

-- The New Yorker

"Elegantly Wrought...As Max Saw It, without ever mentioning the word, confronts AIDS and the bravery, sacrifice, commitment and horror it engenders....Pain there may be, but such sublime writing as this can make us cry as well."

-- Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Begley Remains A Writer Of High-Order Virtue -- smart about the secret movements of the heart, keen to know the last lies we cling to, and unafraid to tell us the dire truths central to our business of living and loving....This is a novel about the gulf between sense and sensitivity, the difference between wisdom and intelligence."

-- The Miami Herald

"Begley's Impeccable Artistry Spins A Magical Web of shared consciousness not only for his characters, but for our time....Begley shows he is a consummate stylist."

-- USA Today

About the Author

Louis Begley’s novels include Kill and Be Killed; Killer, Come Hither; Memories of a Marriage; Schmidt Steps Back; Matters of Honor; Shipwreck; Schmidt Delivered; Mistler’s Exit; About Schmidt; As Max Saw It; The Man Who Was Late; and Wartime Lies, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Irish Times/Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize. His work has been translated into fourteen languages. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0679433074
• ISBN 13: 9780679433071
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 145