The Marriage of Opposites

If you are a lover of beautiful language and historical fiction, this is definitely a book for you. Alice Hoffman's novel about the beloved Parisian artist, Camille Pissaro, comes alive as she paints with words, a beautifully described life on the island of St. Thomas in the early 1800's. All of the characters are wonderfully described and portrayed, especially Camille's mother, Rachel Pomie', who is a strongwilled, deeply rebellious, girl who wishes only to read and visit Paris. Her mother, a taciturn and mysterious, woman tries in vain to get Rachel to conform to a culture in which women are property and are to be seen and not heard. Rachel's father, a respected business man in the small Jewish community, runs a mercantile business which will ultimately be passed down to male heir. Fearing the worst, he arranges a marriage for Rachel which will protect and
ultimately grow the store. Rachel's best friend, confidant, and seer, tells her that this will not be her only marriage, but true love will ultimately come to her. Rachel marries the older widower, Isaac, who has three children. They will go on to have four more together. While not actually loving each other in the traditional sense, they have a respectable and comfortable life together. Upon his death, the store goes to Frederick, Isaac's nephew, who arrives in St. Thomas from Paris. He and Rachel eventually fall in love, but are denied marriage within the Jewish community because of a technicality in their laws. They go on to have seven children, Camille is the youngest, and has inherited his mother's strong willed personality with a tendency to go against the grain. His life is devoted to art along with solving an island mystery for someone he loves deeply.
While this review might give the impression of a romance novel, it goes much deeper than that. All of the characters come to life as their personalities are painted onto this canvas. This is a richly written book with mystery and mystique woven into every page. From the occult of the culture to the rich heritage of the Jewish community, you will want to savor every word of this majestically crafted book

In this very atmospheric, visual, historical novel, Hoffman tells us the story of Rachel Pomié and Frédéric Pizzarro. Their son was the renowned French Impressionist painter, Camille Pissarro. From blurbs, I gather that blending in magic, folktales, and romance is a trademark of Hoffman that also makes this novel poetic. My art book club chose this book because it was about Pissarro, but you needn’t be an art enthusiast to enjoy this dramatic story.

The book begins when Rachel is a little girl in St. Thomas (early 19th c.). The island with its heat, vivid flora and fauna, and multi-cultural history becomes a main character in the book. She wraps us up in elaborate folktales and religious and cultural background. Most residents speak several languages, including French and Danish. There are still slaves on the island, which is a Danish colony. Rachel’s family is Jewish, so they have their own strict guidelines for behavior and ritual, and Rachel isn’t inclined to accept the rules of others. Yes, there’s plenty of conflict, scandal, and hidden secrets.

When Camille is old enough to become interested in art, he shows he inherited his mother’s rebellious nature. The novel shifts toward him as the main character about halfway through the book. Some of the narrative takes place in Paris.

The beginning of Chapter 11, set in 1855, the buildup to the Civil War, chilled me: “There was trouble brewing in America, a lawlessness that sometimes portends war.”

A fascinating story of French Jewish family who immigrated to St. Thomas Island rather than to the US in the 19th century. The author has written other wonderful books but this was my favorite. The novel is true to real story.

The author should have planned and followed an outline for her book. It rambles on and on with new characters constantly being added, disappearing and reappearing. There is a lack of structure and clarity. Her descriptive passages of flowers, fish, foligage, rain and tea parties are excessively redundant. I have spent a lot of time in the Caribbean and her descriptions are, for the most part, pure fantasy. You have to list the characters from the beginning of the book to keep track of how they relate to one another or you will get lost.

Exquisitely beautiful writing but the plot was so slow. Had to discipline myself to finish it.

I really couldn't connect with the characters or find enjoyable the superstitions and religious constraints maintained by them. Rachel just wasn't someone I liked. Also the atmosphere of 19th century St Thomas with the heat, humidity, bugs, storms and disease just wasn't appealing to me. The short period in Paris were the best parts. Also I listened to the audiobook and how it was split between three readers just did not make any sense to me.

This is historical fiction at its finest. In this book, the author tells the story of the life Rachel Pomie, mother of impressionist painter Camille Pissaro. She was born and raised in the early nineteenth century on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas, which was then ruled by the Danish. Her family had fled from France and settled in St. Thomas, where they became part of a small, self-contained Jewish community.

Her story is one of great passion, confrontations with the social order of the time, and self-determination. The author tells it in prose so lush and descriptive it is almost magical. It is as if the author were painting the lives of the characters before the reader's very eyes. The story of the life of Rachel Pomie held me captive from start to finish. I simply loved reading this book!

Main character, Rachel, held my interest for half the book. But I grew to dislike her in the second half. Her behavior became inexplicable and unreasonable. The prose is choppy.

It is a beach book. Skimpy vocabulary. It is written for the kind of readers who like Soap Operas. It was the first book by A. Hoffman I read and it is the last.

I bought the book because of the back cover description but what a disappointment. It was a tedious read at best. All the people were one dimensional and I found their constant rudeness irritating. I'm also not a fan of short choppy sentences. There wasn't one character I could say I really liked or cared about. All the way through I kept thinking, this story is so bland, bland, bland. Leaves falling on people's heads, pelican's flying above them and sentences like, "the sewing fell from her lap in a coil..." A coil? And on and on with silly stories of mythical people and birds and RAIN. I read it and finished it because I paid for it. Would I by another book by this author? No.

And I really have to question the comments from book 'critics' that I see are used on the covers to promote books today...for example: USA Today - "Astonishing storytelling". Many of these quotes are so generic that I really question if they read the book at all. Don't think so or it would have more likely read "Unastonishing storytelling".