Paul A Novel

Daisy Lafarge — 2022

A sharp, timely debut about a young woman’s toxic relationship with an older man and her battle to free herself from the suffocating expectation to be “good” When personal scandal forces her to leave Paris, Frances, a young British graduate student, travels to southern France one summer to volunteer on a farm. Almost as soon as she arrives, she is pulled into a relationship with the farm’s enigmatic owner, Paul, a well-traveled older artist. Alone in a foreign country, drawn into his orbit, and eventually tangled up in his sheets, Frances starts to lose herself in Paul’s easy, experienced charm. Yet over the course of three intense weeks, as she discovers more about Paul and the people surrounding him, she realizes that she’s caught in an emotional battle of wills that threatens to stifle her voice and crush her autonomy. Coming to terms with what’s happening to her and wresting control from an older man with dark secrets of his own are at the heart of this compelling, unsettling novel. By turns the story of how a modern woman finds the inner strength to regain her sense of self and a fascinating exploration of the power dynamics between men and women, Paul is a deeply human novel that holds a mirror up to many of the issues that people confront today.

Reviews

althea@littlelamb

Jan 19, 2024

Paul (the book) started off promising, but when Paul (the character) began to reveal his true self, there was little holding me to the story. I felt as suffocated as Frances, finding nothing appealing or redeeming about what I was reading. I suppose it was an interesting character and relationship study, but in the end I just went “all of that for what?”

Maggie@magspot

Aug 30, 2022

Often compared to Sally Rooney, this novel follows a young women, traveling and lost. Frances describes herself as, “formless except for the shape I can make by curling around others.” She leaves her studies in Paris and goes to the French countryside at the recommendation of A.B., her professor and the man who recently cut off their affair.

She plans to travel and work on farms to pay for her food and lodging. The first farm she plans to stay with is Paul (heavy “and all she found was Earl” energy here).

Describing himself, Paul tells Frances, “at the heart of it, I would say I am a discoverer.” And he is, if you define “discoverer” by the actions of those who have previously claimed the title- Columbus, de Soto, etc. Paul takes the words of others and makes them into what he wants them to mean. He’s cruel and hypocritical. His farm is a failure or a fraud. His ego is enormous and his talents are few. His time abroad was spent taking mediocre photos of the people and capitalizing off them. When Frances sees his work, she asks, “whose permission had he asked to take her photo?”

Still, Frances is drawn into Paul’s orbit. What she sees in him, we can’t exactly know. The narrator is objective, so see Paul as he is: rancid. But repeatedly, Frances describes feeling secure around him, or around any self-assured older man that shows her attention, even when she dislikes them. She has floated, after all, straight from A.B. to Paul. She hears both of their voices in her head interchangeably, abdicating any need to form her own opinions.

Dread builds throughout the book every time Frances bites her tongue. Frances will find herself, and she’ll be absorbed into Paul’s stench. The pull of this book is not discovering this fact, but watching Frances discover it and decide if she cares.

Really clever allusions to art, history, and religion. Vivid descriptions, both of beautiful pastoral France and the creeping rot of all that is Paul.