The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro: And Other Stories

By Paul Theroux

Book Overview

From the best-selling author of Dark Star Safari and Hotel Honolulu, Paul Theroux's latest offers provocative tales of memory and desire. The sensual story of an unusual love affair leads the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618265155
• ISBN13: 9780618265152
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.3" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Great Fiction

I highly recommend this book, along with My Secret History and My Other Life. Let other people write multi paragraph reviews, I'll just say that these three books are Theroux's best fiction. Add a star for each of the following circumstances that apply: 1. if you grew up Catholic, 2. if you are a male, 3. if you grew up in the northeastern U.S.

When the student becomes the teacher....

At the heart of the four stories in this exceptional collection is the exploration of power relationships in which the master becomes the slave, sometimes by choice, sometimes by manipulation or deceit, and sometimes as a matter of circumstance. Theroux is intrigued by what happens when a rich, aristocratic woman allows herself to be sexually dominated by a young, poor recent college graduate, or when a white South African writer, consumed by passion for a poor black woman, finds himself losing everything he has as a result of his pursuing her. In two other stories, he skillfully examines a group of young boys as they seek revenge against their priest, and a retired lawyer who finds himself at the mercy of his hired help after he follows them on their Las Vegas vacation. Each story is a classic case of role reversal. In each, the typical lines of authority are turned upside down, resulting in some fascinating discoveries about the essence of relationships and human character. The first and title story is by far the best; both the story and the prose attain a height of mastery that aren't quite achieved in the following three stories. The writing has an ease and a grace that are hard to find, that only come from the most gifted of writers. And this is indeed writing with purpose. The `grafin', or countess, in this story, is an exquisitely drawn character, a perfect balance of royal aloofness and pretension with human vulnerability and insecurity. The other three stories are treasures as well, though on a second tier. Of them, the best is "An African Story," in which Theroux first summarizes a half-dozen novellas written by a fictitious South African writer, then tells of the tragic downfall of the writer. The writer's stories, in many ways, foreshadow his own life's events in a way that underscores the intrinsic ties between life and literature.

When I'm Sixty-Four....

I've always been a Paul Theroux fan so I found his latest fiction, THE STRANGER AT THE PALAZZO D'ORO, interesting for a couple of reasons: The first is that we're reading about a 60-year-old man dealing with desire through his own life and the lives of others. Whether it's an aging countess from his own past or the ridiculous or tragic friends dealing with their own much-younger lovers, it was fascinating for me to read about people still grappling with lust, love and loss at a point in their lives when they should've figured that all out by now. Perhaps that was Theroux's point: our own hearts will always remain a mystery no matter far we go or how much we see. How much of this book reflects Theroux's own life? That was the other reason I found this book so enjoyable: the first two novellas felt full of details from his own youth and I caught glimpses of incidents that would turn up in his earlier novels. The countess in the first novella reminded me of the "patroness" from MY SECRET HISTORY. The boys plotting their revenge in the second novella reminded me of the comically-absurd caper of MURDER IN MOUNT HOLLY. The girl relieving herself outside of the boy's tent flashed me back to the "mutant" girl in the bathtub in O-ZONE. Ultimately, I felt like I was listening to not only a great storyteller but also an elder trying to pass something on. And it might be a warning.

Boys will be boys

Paul Theroux's characters -- men and boys mostly -- don't evolve much beyond coming to terms with their their sexual desires, but these are compelling yarns that illustrate how everyday life can sometimes take a hard right into the Twilight Zone. The lengthy title story is your basic young-man-comes-of-age-with-older-woman, but its Italian venue and sexual slavery angle make it offbeat enough to hold the reader's attention through 108 pages. "An African Story," about a massive power shift in the relationship between a white landowner and his black mistress, also sucks in the reader with its twists and oddities. The foreign locations play to Theroux's strengths as a master travel writer. There is a novella about growing up in the U.S. that has its moments, but it's pretty basic boys-at-large material. The final tale about a retired lawyer obsessed with his Hawaiian maids recalls the African tale and has a curious charm. Theroux writes beautifully at times and these are fine stories for the most part, but there are better recent story collections working the same turf -- Richard Ford's "A Multitude of Sins" comes to mind. And the title story of Elmore Leonard's "When the Women Come Out to Dance" seems to capture what Theroux is in search of here in far fewer pages.

From the perspective of a sixty-year-old looking back

This collection of stories presents a 21-year-old art student narrator - a countess traveling with a companion who witnesses aging and decay in a golden age of Europe. Written from the perspective of a sixty-year-old looking back on her life, this blends short stories and novels in a vivid portrait of a Europe changed.