The White Rose

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1455530816
• ISBN13: 9781455530816
• Release Date: March 2015
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Like a great Woody Allen film.

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.

A perfect bloom!

THE WHITE ROSE is everything a novel should be. This is a beautifully written book, and author Jean Hanff Korelitz is to be congratulated. The story is rich and complex. There are a variety of plots and subplots, each of which is compelling enough to be the center of its own novel. The story gets off to a slow start, which serves neither the author nor her readers well. Yet once one immerses oneself in these characters, THE WHITE ROSE is touching and gripping. There are a multitude of love affairs described, with excellent descriptions of passion. There are different versions of the story of the White Rose, including the real one about a small group of upper class Germans who resisted the Nazis. There are details about the highest levels of academia and scholarship, and about the lifestyles of those New Yorkers who, quietly and without ostentation, are very, very rich. THE WHITE ROSE is filled with amazing insights, so incisive and so clear that these literally are breathtaking. The only quibbles go to the author's descriptions of cooking. In one scene, on a day she describes as warm, a character puts on a tweed jacket and necktie to reduce a sauce and boil some pasta. Please! Who wears wool to labor over a hot stove? In another scene, a different character cooks a brisket in less than an hour. It takes more than an hour simply to prep a brisket, and the cooking needs four to six hours. Didn't anyone associated with the manuscript--author, agent, editor--have a clue? The other issue is the author's sense of direction. The route she suggests using between Manhattan and East Hampton is preposterous. Once again, this weird discrepancy stops the lovely flow of her story. Yet as a book, THE WHITE ROSE is the finest use of the metaphor of the rose as an example both of the life cycle and a thing of pure beauty since the excellent novel THE ROSE GROWER was published in 2000. THE WHITE ROSE is a perfect bloom.

A multi-layered treasure

I very much enjoyed reading "The Sabbathday River" by this author a few years back, so I grabbed this book when I saw it in the store. "The White Rose" is very different from her last novel, but just as good if not better. This is a multilayered story that keeps the reader digging for more--just when you think you have it figured out, the plot takes a different direction. The characters are well-drawn and believable--some likeable, some not. The descriptions of New York City society are good and the historical details a nice addition. I'll be thinking about this book for awhile.

a romantic comedy you can feel good about loving

This book is a breezy, fun read but it also makes you think. There are elements of social comedy and farce, as well as delicious accounts of sex. It's a very hopeful book that cheers for its middle-aged heroine without bashing men. It's a book where (almost) all the characters grow from and are strengthened by the ordeals they endure. There is history here, and scholarship, and a social conscious, but mostly it's just a fun romp.

Extremely satisfying!

I truly enjoyed reading The White Rose. The pace of the book was just perfect: lots of background, in-depth character analysis, but enough action to keep me engrossed in the plot. Marian is quite a believable person; it was easy to identify with her struggles. I loved Oliver, and cheered him on, especially later in the book (can't say what he does, exactly, or it will give away the surprise) when the fate of the woman he loves rests squarely on his ability to foil a plan. The plot is intricate, and the ending is surprising. I highly recommend The White Rose.