Rating: 
Summary: Lust after a death sentence
Review: After being told that you had only a limited time to live because you had a terminal cancer disease, why would you think of your life after death? Many reasons, my friend. Firstly, because many of your fellow human beings are so egotistical that they cannot imagine a world without their presence. OK, so that is the first answer. But the second, which is a bit more subtle and not the first to spring to mind: because they have a hell of a lot of living to do in the meantime. That is quite simply the situation of our hero who is diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer and not a lot of life to fill in. So what does our hero do? He gets going in the best way for him. He indulges an artistic side of his life by going back to Venice to salivate over some of the richest art treasures in Europe and co-incidentally let his libido run its natural course. Two women help him on his merry way and why not? His wife, whom he respects in his own eccentric way, is not of the physical persuasion. So he reaps where he can, with truly male enthousiam and self-indulgence. Don't read this if you actully believe in strictly monogomous protocols. This is for the honestly weak of flesh and the lustfully strong of mind. There is no pretence and no hypocricy. The writing is direct, but never simplistic. Keep your wits about you. The legalistic periodic structure of the sentences does not let the reader slacken his attention. You will be drawn into the humanity of the scenario and the basic sexual needs of a man that knows that life is soon to end. There is no misery here because there is too much to be lived in a finite time frame. Read this if you have ever lusted after something beyond the bourgeois definition of marital fidelity. Mistler is faithful to his wife in his own way and she would not expect anything more. What he craves knowing that the Grim Reaper is at the end of the tunnel, is a sense of having lived: no regrets and no self-recrimination. Read this book if you have a feeling of not having lived your dreams. Read it because you feel that you have not yet dared to think outside the square. But do not leave it too late. Are you sexually honest with yourself? If not, don't read this book. Otherwise you will be disappointed in yourself. Question: did Mistler die fulfilled? Were his sexual escapades only a metaphor for his attempt to escape the prison of his own shortcomings? Read it to find out. Louis Begley writes with an incomparible directness that the reader has to decide for himself and is inevitably drawn into the struggle of another's final zest for life. This book made me review my own as yet unfulfilled dreams. It might do the same for you. This is powerful writing within a contained framework of logical and direct prose. No superfluous frills here.
Rating: 
Summary: Life after the "final verdict"
Review: After reading "All about Schmidt" I was attracted to read another book by Louis Begley. This has to be a recommendation of the author. He must be doing something right to qualify for more hours of my discretionary time. Perhaps I was attracted by his grammatical English, which is sadly becoming rarer with an almost universal expectation of little more than bare communication on the lowest level. His legal background is evident in a few periodic sentences of tedious length. There are few and they give way to a simple and wonderfully direct prose for human reaction and emotion. If you were given a finite life expectancy, how would you react? This is the stuff of TV human interest programs. What does our legally trained author offer beyond the banal? Firstly, this is a truly positive book. Nothing morbid here. It is a litany of human passion, self-indulgence and self-gratification. And why not, if you have only a few months to live. The message is Horace's old maxim "carpe diem." Live life. Don't wait. Our hero, Thomas Mistler, in fact had to wait till he had a terminal report from his doctor. But his unexpected reaction is one of freedom from what had restricted his inner-most emotions before knowing that life was not to continue in its bourgeois continuum apparently foreever. So the reader is part of his late emotional and sexual emancipation. He enjoys what many secretly dream of without the burden of middle class values and narrow religious scruple.Don't read this if you are concerned with the thoughts of an older man who is still sexually alive and well. Don't read it if you are bound by the rules of middle class restrictions of the "apropriate," whatever that may be. This should be compulsory reading for those with a serious, or life-threatening condition. Forget the gloom. Just for once, let your real feelings come to the fore. Not to forget Louis Begley's wonderfully succinct and irnonic style, let me assure you that this is a book for those who appreciate irony and grit. Older readers might even find it educational!
Rating:
Summary: Life after the "final verdict"
Review: After reading "All about Schmidt" I was attracted to read another book by Louis Begley. This has to be a recommendation of the author. He must be doing something right to qualify for more hours of my discretionary time. Perhaps I was attracted by his grammatical English, which is sadly becoming rarer with an almost universal expectation of little more than bare communication on the lowest level. His legal background is evident in a few periodic sentences of tedious length. There are few and they give way to a simple and wonderfully direct prose for human reaction and emotion. If you were given a finite life expectancy, how would you react? This is the stuff of TV human interest programs. What does our legally trained author offer beyond the banal? Firstly, this is a truly positive book. Nothing morbid here. It is a litany of human passion, self-indulgence and self-gratification. And why not, if you have only a few months to live. The message is Horace's old maxim "carpe diem." Live life. Don't wait. Our hero, Thomas Mistler, in fact had to wait till he had a terminal report from his doctor. But his unexpected reaction is one of freedom from what had restricted his inner-most emotions before knowing that life was not to continue in its bourgeois continuum apparently foreever. So the reader is part of his late emotional and sexual emancipation. He enjoys what many secretly dream of without the burden of middle class values and narrow religious scruple. Don't read this if you are concerned with the thoughts of an older man who is still sexually alive and well. Don't read it if you are bound by the rules of middle class restrictions of the "apropriate," whatever that may be. This should be compulsory reading for those with a serious, or life-threatening condition. Forget the gloom. Just for once, let your real feelings come to the fore. Not to forget Louis Begley's wonderfully succinct and irnonic style, let me assure you that this is a book for those who appreciate irony and grit. Older readers might even find it educational!
Rating: 
Summary: Exquisite perfection and even readable
Review: Exquisite novel featuring an older American businessman, quite successful, an ad man actually, who receives a diagnosis of terminal cancer and repairs to Venice solo leaving behind (and uninformed) his wife and son. On my list of Best Books Read This Year.
Rating:
Summary: Female readers, beware
Review: I enjoy reading Louis Begley, but I do get a bit tired of his all conquering male sex gods. Why do women fall for these over-the-hill guys? Don't know. The writing is excellent and insightful, however, so well worth reading. If only I understood the last sentence I might know if Mistler's Exit was to be a good one or not.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring and shallow
Review: I was extremely disappointed by this work. I had high expectations after reading a review in a newspaper. The book's appearance is beautiful, but the content is simplistic, with under developed one-dimensional characters. The storyline sounded complex and probing but the story had no depth and simply skimmed with highlights on this and that. The details that were provided were inconsequential and did nothing to develop the characters or make the story more interesting. The only reason I almost finished it was I kept on thinking "It has to get better...The writing will change and something interesting will happen." Do not buy this book. You can have mine.
Rating:
Summary: Boring and shallow
Review: Once again Louis Begley has written a beautiful, elegant and spare novel that has not one extraneous or superfluous word in it. Though a slim volume, it is dense with stunning sentences, and themes. They are like jewels, to be read and savored over and over again as were each of his previous books. I love this guy!
Rating:
Summary: Begley Does it Again!
Review: Once again Louis Begley has written a beautiful, elegant and spare novel that has not one extraneous or superfluous word in it. Though a slim volume, it is dense with stunning sentences, and themes. They are like jewels, to be read and savored over and over again as were each of his previous books. I love this guy!
Rating:
Summary: Six Months to Live
Review: Thomas Mistler, a very successful (but not especially ethical) CEO, learns he has terminal cancer. To cope, he takes a solitary trip to Venice, where his goal is to explore his past and to adjust to his six-months-to-live medical status.
On the plus side, Begley shows how Mistler uses the art and locale of Venice, as well as the people he meets, to come to terms with his life and familial regrets, as well as the world of achievements and missed opportunities he will leave behind. From this perspective, the book describes an intriguing, albeit depressing, vacation. This is the story of a man tying together loose ends.
On the other hand, I read this book as a comment ONLY on the life of Thomas Mistler who, to use Tom Wolfe's term, is a master of the universe. For me, its revelations and resolutions made sense for Mistler. But universality is absent.
A good book for Louis Begley fans.
Rating:
Summary: Contemplating A Death in Venice.
Review: Thomas Mistler, the founder and CEO of a world-renowned, New York advertising agency, is not a very likable person. A self-indulgent WASP who enjoys the high life, he is accustomed to getting his own way both in business and in his personal life. Married to an "appropriate," pedigreed wife, with whom he has an appropropriate, conventional home life, he also pursues other women attracted to his "glitz." Suddenly, Mistler discovers that he has liver cancer, too far advanced to make treatment a viable option without interfering with the quality of his remaining days.
With remarkable sang-froid, Mistler decides not to tell his family, feigning a business trip to Europe so that he can have a week by himself in Venice to prepare for the inevitable. To his surprise, he discovers a young woman in his hotel room, a photographer he has just met at a dinner party who is attracted to him but also wants to work for his agency. With Lena he revisits many of his favorite places, and indulges in sensual pleasures, fine wines, and foods before his insensitivity drives her away.
Alone, Mistler explores his past and contemplates his relationships with his father, his father's mistress (Tante Elizabeth, whom he adores), his wife and son (who has escaped to the West Coast to become a writer), friends from school, and ultimately, "the girl who got away," a Radcliffe classmate when he was at Harvard, who is now living in Venice. Unsentimental, Mistler makes no excuses for what he gradually begins to see as his faults. While he knows he will not change, at this point, he also knows, as an advertising man, that he has the power to affect how he himself may be viewed in the future if he acts appropriately now.
The Venice setting is perfect for this book about a man contemplating death. The canals are polluted and devoid of life, and the city itself survives only through an enormous effort to hold back the sea. Resembling Hades and its series of rivers, Venice also features gondoliers in black boats who resemble Charon, the old man who ferries the dead across the River Styx to Hades, and when Mistler buys a black wherry from a boatman, all the imagery comes together. Though the main character may not be someone with whom the reader will identify, his behavior and actions are consistent with his personality. Author Begley conveys Mistler's formality and his inner feelings in elegant language, completely appropriate for Mistler, and his insights into life's big questions are thoughtful. Mary Whipple
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