Title: The Last Enchantments
Author:Charles Finch
Published: January 28th 2014 by St. Martin’s Press
Genre: Adult Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Adult Fiction
Rating: 4/5
Synopsis:
The Last Enchantments is a powerfully moving and lyrically written novel. A young American embarks on a year at Oxford and has an impassioned affair that will change his life forever
After graduating from Yale, William Baker, scion of an old line patrician family, goes to work in presidential politics. But when the campaign into which he’s poured his heart ends in disappointment, he decides to leave New York behind, along with the devoted, ambitious, and well-connected woman he’s been in love with for the last four years.
Will expects nothing more than a year off before resuming the comfortable life he’s always known, but he’s soon caught up in a whirlwind of unexpected friendships and romantic entanglements that threaten his safe plans. As he explores the heady social world of Oxford, he becomes fast friends with Tom, his snobbish but affable flat mate; Anil, an Indian economist with a deep love for gangster rap; Anneliese, a German historian obsessed with photography; and Timmo, whose chief ambition is to become a reality television star. What he’s least prepared for is Sophie, a witty, beautiful and enigmatic woman who makes him question everything he knows about himself.
For readers who made a classic of Richard Yates’s A Good School, Charles Finch’s The Last Enchantments is a sweeping novel about love and loss that redefines what it means to grow up as an American in the twenty-first century.
Review:
I was excited when the book showed up on my Kindle. The Last Enchantments was a book I could not wait to read. I loved it, but I found myself disappointed at the characters. Will, most of all, was completely flawed and not all that likable. He leaves for Oxford it seems on a whim at the beginning of the book. Although losing in the 2004 Kerry Campaign, he seems to still have a solid future at home in America with his girlfriend Alison. They both have similar ideals as they were both involved in the campaign and both showed fervor and a strong sense of righteousness in their political beliefs. So it seems almost astonishing to me that he would leave this woman; a woman that cared enough to check his bags, and made sure he had his passport before he left for his flight to England.
As solid as his life was at home, he longed for Oxford and he longed for academia once again. He reminded me of friends that continued their academic future just because they loved higher education. Yuck, right?
But I think that is what the author intended. Maybe I’m being presumptuous. After all, if a story needs to be told, why not make the story interesting by presenting a complicated protagonist? I really did not like Will and I think that was one of the main reasons I continued to read. Perhaps to see if he redeemed himself in the end. Although, you the reader will have to read and judge that for yourself.
He is also a bit of an Anglophile. I swear, this character wanted to be born with an English accent. If only. He fell in love with England at an early age. So in this respect, it would believable that he would want to visit there.
“Why had they once made me so happy, I wondered? The calm, the civility, the safety, I suppose—lengthening shadows on the cricket pitch, tea at five—all of it foolish. There’s no lasting safety to life. The only thing that will become of anyone is death. Yet: I felt an exhaling happiness to gaze out at the English sunlight, the English trees. Soon enough I fell asleep again.”
There were many happy moments in the book, lots of partying and memories that will be treasured. But Will only seemed to be entirely happy when situations were complicated; and I don’t believe that Will took into consideration the importance of England’s socioeconomic classes. There was friendliness among compatriots laced with snobbery of their upper class upbringing. And with relationships that were formed, there was that question lingering in the back of one’s mind, would you marry up or marry down? Do you stay with your own kind or take that risk?
“The self, what a brute it is. It wants, wants. “
The book has that modern day Shakespeare-esqe feel. A bit sad really to be pining for someone that is not completely committed to you. There were many moments you want to slap the shit out of Will.
But all things considered, the writing was pristine and flowed very nicely. The images of Oxford will be sweetly remembered, as with the colorful array of unforgettable characters. And I know that in the beginning of this review it may seem like this reviewer did not appreciate the book. But on the contrary, I loved this coming of age novel. Where are we in life, why am I here, and what is it am I really wanting for my future? Those are the questions that Will needs answered ,and we follow him during his time of discovery at Oxford.
The best part, “Hater’s gonna hate.” I loved Anil!
The song lists in the book were pretty awesome, and unfortunately no Spotify list exists for this book. So I shall provide one below, since I really loved the music list 🙂
The Clamming by Reed Whitmore
I go digging for clams once very two or three years
Just to keep my hand in (I usually cut it),
And whenever I do so I tell the same story
Of how at the age of four I was trapped by the tide
As I clammed a sandbar. It’s no story at all
But I tell it and tell it; it serves my small lust
To be thought of as someone who’s lived.
I’ve a war too to fall back on, and some years of flying,
As well as a high quota of drunken parties,
A wife and children; but somehow the clamming thing
Gives me an image of the louder events: me helpless,
Alone with my sandpail,
As fate in the form of soupy Long Island sound
Comes stalking me.
I’ve a son now at that age.
He’s spoiled, he’s been sickly.
He’s handsome and bright, affectionate and demanding.
I think of the tides when I look at him.
I’d have him alone and sea-girt, poor little boy.
And pass on the weeping, keep the thing going.
The self, what a brute it is. It wants, wants.
It will not let go of its even most fictional grandeur
But must grope, grope down in the muck of its past
For some little squirting life and bring it up tenderly
To the lo and behold of death, that it may weep
Son, when you clam,
Watch out for the tides and take care of yourself,
Yet no great care,
Lest you care too much and brag of the caring
And bore your best friends and inhibit your children and sicken
At last into opera on somebody’s sandbar. Son, when you clam,
Clam.
Charles Finch is a graduate of Yale and Oxford. He is the author of the Charles Lenox mysteries. His first novel, A Beautiful Blue Death, was nominated for an Agatha Award and was named one of Library Journal’s Best Books of 2007, one of only five mystery novels on the list. His first contemporary novel, The Last Enchantments, will be published at the end of January. He lives in Chicago.
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