Briefly, A Delicious Life

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I howled and howled, and the daughter looked up, eyes wide, suddenly afraid. She seemed at last to sense the danger she was in, to understand that the thing she was growing beneath her skin might one day burst out of her so violently and bloodily that she or it or something might die. funny, righteous ghost, she&#8217sbeen hanging around the monastery since her accidental death, spying on Briefly, A Delicious Life is the story of Blanca, a ghost who died young and stays close to a small village in Mallorca where she lived. ⁣Blanca has seen people come and go, live and die, but never has she has such a fascination as she does with George, a woman who dresses like a man and recently arrived at the former monastery with her boyfriend, Chopin, and her two children, Solange and Maurice. ⁣ I went into this book almost completely blind and I’m so glad I did! it’s a beautifully romantic historical fiction, filled with music, love, and humility. the book focuses on gender roles quite a lot, which was really interesting to read about, as the book is set in 1800’s Paris and Mallorca. George, one of our central characters, rejects marriage and typical women’s fashion, adopting trousers and suits for most of the book.

Blanca’s ability to affect the world around her is limited and often depends on the strength of her emotional state. The stronger her feelings, the more impactful her influence. What is the significance of her powers operating this way? What does this say about the importance of one’s emotions? Many thanks to Pan Macmillan, Picador, Nell Stevens, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review** We’re really going to stay here?” Maurice, hovering in the doorway from the garden, looked uncertain. Blanca draws readers along on a tour of own past and George’s. Like any benevolent ghost, she’s a fan of pranks, but also hopes that she might use her power of omniscience to reverse tragic trajectories. A lover of men in her lifetime, she’s now enamoured with women in the hereafter, and outraged at how, even centuries later, women’s rights and desire are still being ignored. This is an earthy, impish, sexy read. Though it starts to wear a little thin before the end, it’s still well worth the ride. As things grow more difficult in Mallorca, George becomes exhausted. She wonders, “What am I to make of life?” reminding Blanca of her own struggle to rationalize her existence after death. How does each character make sense of these existential questions?This reading group guide for BRIEFLY, A DELICIOUS LIFE includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book. I honestly do know what is up with people that they’ll be, like, okay, 16th century ghost, and she's gay for George Sand seems legit, wait “tasked” has been used as a verb, THAT IS A BRIDGE TOO FAR. nell stevens is an amazing writer. I could have highlighted every paragraph in this book because they were so lyrically told. it adds to listen to the mentioned Chopin compositions that make up some chapters of the book, because the music adds so much to the writing that I couldn’t even understand fully until I listed and read (swipe for the playlist) Imagine you are about to bite into an apple. Imagine never having bitten into an apple before. The fruit at your lips is an unknown thing. It might burst like a tomato! Yield like a peach! Snap like a carrot! [...] This is what it was like for me, the first time I heard Chopin play the piano.’ The reason why I don't rate this higher is because I am not certain of what the central exploration is of the story. I am unsure if it is love, if it is perspective, if it is the significance of time. All these things are heavily present in the fabric of the narrative and yet I'm not sure which one I was supposed to pay the most attention to since all of them are delicately touched upon yet not intricately enough pursued. That being said, I thought it was interesting how this is a book that recenters a heavily male dominant event in history (Chopin's creation of the Raindrop Prelud) focuses on George Sand and her emotions as she watches her lover fade away and her family fall apart. My rating would be higher if such a theme would be more apparent to me simply because on the other hand I don't have an upbeat tempo to keep me interested in reading for longer periods of time.

Nell Stevens’s hugely accomplished debut novel evokes a sense both of place and time with a confidence that augurs well for her future career. She mixes historical fact with the fantastical in her account of Chopin and George Sand arriving at a Mallorca monastery in 1838, only to be met by Blanca, the centuries-old ghost of a teenage girl who died cruelly young, who makes Sand confront truths about gender and sexuality that she might have preferred to ignore. The book is attuned to both contemporary and timeless concerns and grips throughout. This Much Is True George and her family clash with the villagers several times throughout the novel. Did you sympathize with one group over the other? What grievances did you feel were justified? Do you think a resolution could have been reached?Stevens has published two memoirs. Bleaker House (2017) is about a period living on Bleaker Island in the South Atlantic. [3] [4] Mrs Gaskell and Me (2018) draws on her own life and that of the English novelist Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865). [5] Her first novel Briefly, a Delicious Life was published in 2022. [6] She was shortlisted for the 2018 BBC National Short Story Award, [7] and has written for publications including The New York Times, Vogue, The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian and Granta. [8] You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. Blanca's afterlife as a spirit able to inhabit people's minds to 'live' through their senses, also allows us to view their memories and, thus, read their histories through glimpses of their memory. As a plot device, this didn't make me uncomfortable. I can see how it might be jarring for some readers, such a convenient authorial contrivance as it is. But I find that I could reconcile that cost with the wealth that it reaps in terms of opportunities to explore physicality and sensuality. Basically, Blanca could take me anywhere she likes, as long as she keeps describing what she sees, feels, smells, tastes, and hears: 'I felt a wrench in the silence that followed. There was something about Chopin's music that lodged itself between your teeth - where teeth had been - or slipped through your ribs - where ribs had been - and became a new part of your body - where body had been. There was something about it that gave you a body to borrow, and let you live in it, briefly, extraordinarily.'In this regard, I would say disregard the blurb about 'Briefly, a Delicious Life': phrases like 'emotionally moving' and 'surprisingly touching' fall far short of the mark for Stevens's fiction debut and, in my opinion, 'romantic fixation' is the very last thing I'd identify as its subject matter. The core of this piece of writing is the impact upon the mind of the physical senses, as all of the quotes above demonstrate. Stevens achieves this in a manner that's vivacious, hefty, absolute, not - as the blurb would have it - merely 'charming' and 'original'. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month.