Mistler's Exit

Rating:
Summary: If you're really rich, and you know you're gonna die...
Review: what would you do? Mistler's decision is interesting: He goes to Venice. He appreciates the knowledge that he is to die because it defines the horizon of his life. This horizon is no longer receding before him. Things are set, fixed now, for eternity. He knows what is going to happen, and he knows exactly what he wants to do. And Mistler is a man who believes in remaining in control, even when that control has apparently been removed.

Begley is the master of the portrayal of the east coast establishment culture of wealth and privilege, and Mistler is an unapologetic member of this tribe. He is hard to like, but difficult to ignore. Mistler may be deceiving himself, but his self-deception is a mixture of wariness, craftiness, and an almost touching transparency, especially when he is together with an old school flame. And the writing, as it always is with Louis Begley, is superb.

EKW