The White Rose
by Jean Hanff Korelitz
On This Page
Description
Passion, infidelity, social climbing, and one very special white rose weave a seductive narrative in this intelligent and tender novel. At forty-eight, Marian Kahn, a professor of history at Columbia, has reached a comfortable perch. Married, wealthy, and the famed discoverer of the eighteenth-century adventuress, Lady Charlotte Wilcox, she ought to be content. Instead, she is horrified to find herself profoundly in love with twenty-six-year-old Oliver, the son of her eldest friend. When show more Marian's cousin, the snobbish Barton, announces his engagement to Sophie, a graduate student in Marian's department, Marian, Oliver, and Sophie finds their lives woefully entangled, and their hearts turned in unfamiliar directions. All three of them will learn that love may seldom be straightforward, but it's always a gift. From the West Village to the Upper East Side, from the Hamptons to Millbrook, "The White Rose" is at once a nuanced and affectionate reimagining of Strauss's beloved opera, Der Rosenkavalier, and a mesmerizing novel of our own time and place. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
The White Rose is one of the most enjoyable books I've read in the past two years - a wickedly funny, often poignant entanglement of lives among the hierarchy of New York Jewish society which plays in the mind like a great Woody Allen film or stage play. Korelitz's spot-on characters are carried along in an engaging plot, and even when their road ahead seems easily preordained, her twists, turns, and tangents rarely fail to surprise. Ostensibly about an affair between a married 48-year old professor at Columbia and the 26-year old son of her oldest friend, it delves incisively into the many ways we can choose to love, allow ourselves to be open to possibillities, or deny ourselves happiness.
I read The Plot and The Latecomer by this author. I enjoy her writing style very much because she has a way of drawing you into the the story with the smallest details. However, I did not enjoy this book as much as the other two I've read by Jean Hanff Korelitz. This was an early work, so giving her room to grow, which she did in her later works.
I wasn't sure where this book was going at the beginning --- but I absolutely loved it! The creativity of the story goes right along with her other books that I've read---first, Admission and then A Jury of Her Peers----I'm about to go back and change my review of Admission--I wish I had already read the other two! Such completely different stories--detailed and complete! She is a terrific writer---wonderful detail and a real feel for character development. I am going to go and find her other novel ASAP: The Sabbathday River.
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
15+ Works 5,737 Members
Jean Hanff Korelitz was born and raised in New York City and graduated from Dartmouth College and Clare College, Cambridge. She is the author of the novels A Jury of Her Peers, The White Rose and Admission, as well as Interference Powder, a novel for middle grade readers, and The Properties of Breath, a collection of poetry. Her newest novel, You show more Should Have Known, made the New York Times bestseller list. A film version of Admission starring Tina Fey, Paul Rudd and Lily Tomlin was released in March 2013. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Goldmann (45965)
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The White Rose
- Original title
- The White Rose
- Original publication date
- 2004
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 119
- Popularity
- 274,477
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.75)
- Languages
- English, Finnish, German, Italian
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 14
- ASINs
- 3
