The Past - Hardcover

Pauls, Alan

3.73

1,060 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 184343220X ISBN 13: 9781843432203

Publisher: Random House UK, 2007

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A stunning tale of love gone bad: passion, obsession, sex, and cocaine, all in excess riveting from start to finish. R�mini splits up with his girlfriend of 12 years, Sof�a. The parting is initially amicable and he moves on, carefree, with a new zest for life. Hungry to make up for lost time and keen to forget the past, he finds a younger girlfriend and starts using cocaine. Sof�a, however, finds herself unable to let go, and continues to reappear on R�mini’s horizon. As hard as R�mini tries to forget, Sof�a will not let him. Though the apparently idyllic relationship is over, their love has not died, merely taken on a different form. As time passes and their paths continue to cross, the past festers and torments them, like an infection. Told through a series of flashbacks, this complex and multi-layered novel is a stunning achievement, bringing to mind the works of Nabokov and Proust, while critics have also alluded to Philip Roth and Martin Amis.

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About the Author:

Alan Pauls has published four novels, including Wasabi.

Review:

"It soars in terms of style... Alan Pauls' finest work so far, displaying a rare intelligence... a momentous novel" * Times Literary Supplement * "Almost 18th-century in its philosophical meandering, and emotionally and rationally, deeply satisfying" * Independent * "A dazzling sexual odyssey... Alan Pauls is destined to be more widely celebrated" * Glasgow Herald * "Beautifully written, bold and powerful" * Time Out * " A novel that is brilliant enough to raise itself effortlessly above and beyond the level of the vices it portrays: strange art and reckless passion, cocaine, excessive exercise and other forms of addiction" * Le Monde *

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