THE VINTNER'S LUCK

"A week after midsummer, when the festival fires were cold, and decent people were in bed an hour after sunset, not lying dry-mouthed in dark rooms at midday, a young man named Sobran Jodeau stole two of the freshly bottled wines to baptize the first real sorrow of his life."
The year is 1808, the place Burgundy, France. Among the lush vines of his family's vineyard, Jodeau, 18 years old and frustrated in love, is about to come face to face with a celestial being. But this is no sentimental "Touched by an Angel" seraph; as imagined by Elizabeth Knox in her wildly evocative and original novel, Xas is equipped with a glorious pair of wings ("pure sinew and bone under a cushion of feathers") and an appetite for earthly pleasures--wine, books, gardening, conversation, and, eventually, carnal love.

The fateful meeting between man and angel occurs on June 27. After an evening during which Sobran spills all his troubles and Xas gently advises him, the angel promises to return on the same night next year to toast Sobran's marriage. Thus begins a friendship that will last for 55 years, spanning marriages, wars, births, deaths, and even the vast distances between heaven, earth, and hell. In addition to the wonderfully flawed Sobran and his mysterious angel, Knox brilliantly limns secondary characters who are deeply sympathetic--from Sobran's unstable wife, Celeste, and his troubled brother, Leon, to his dear friend and confidante, the Baroness Aurora. Love, murder, madness, and a singular theology that would make a believer out of the most hardened atheist all add up, in The Vintner's Luck, to a novel that will break your heart yet leave you wishing for more. --Alix Wilber

The first time I read, The Vintner's Luck I immediately read it again. This book so moved me and touched me that I had to go back and revisit it again and again. I think I've read it five times. It's the kind of book I wish I had written. The movie is out, but not available in the states yet. It stars the incredibly sexy and talented Gaspard Ulliel as the fallen angel, Xas. He was in the prequel to Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Rising. Not his best work unfortunately. He was also in Paris, Je'taime, A Very Long Engagement and one of my favorites, The Brotherhood of the Wolf. The vintner is played by Jeremie Renier who was also in Brotherhood and En Bruges. Here's a link to the trailer.

A Perfect Waiter by Alain Claude Sulzer

I just finished this novella and wanted to recommend it. I love stories like this because it reflects so much of what my life is like. So much unrequited love and so many unresolved affairs. The author's writing style is very old world and hearkens back to another time as the novel goes between events from the mid sixties and 1936 just before war breaks out in Europe. I found this review that says it better than I can.

The Bookseller's Book News editor, Benedicte Page writes:

On an autumn afternoon, when the leaves are just turning and there’s the first hint of winter chill in the air, there is nothing more pleasurable than reading melancholy novels about frozen emotions, unfulfilled lives and thwarted love affairs. (Or is that just me?) So the other Sunday I reached for my proof of A Perfect Waiter by Alain Claude Sulzer (Bloomsbury, January), translated from the German by John Brownjohn, with a feeling of eager anticipation, suspecting that this story of a doomed gay relationship between two young waiters in a grand Swiss hotel in the 1930s would strike just the right note. It did. Erneste, the “perfect waiter” of the title, is now middle-aged, and has no life beyond his role in the hotel restaurant, where he is devoted to playing his part with absolute punctiliousness and attention to detail. Yet beneath his very proper exterior burns a private passion, the treasured memory of his illicit affair with a handsome young waiter, Jakob, 30 years before. Jakob soon left him for a famous writer, a guest at the hotel, but Erneste has never ceased to think of his former lover, and when a letter arrives from America, bearing Jakob’s name, his emotions are stirred afresh. Sadly, Jacob’s return will not bring Erneste any happiness - on the contrary, it will only underscore his desolate sense of loss. One may struggle to understand quite how the unremarkable Jakob wrought such havoc for three decades in poor Erneste’s heart. But love is blind, and this slender tale is a mood-piece as much as anything: an elegantly written, brooding tale of yearning, loneliness and regret, with a very classic feel. Reading on my sofa in the autumn sun, I enjoyed it thoroughly.