Friday at the Branches: The Reinvention of Love

The Reinvention of Love by Helen Humphreys 2011

This is a historical literary novel set during the Napoleonic times in Paris. Like many recent novels this one is fashioned from the life of a famous person, Victor Hugo. The novel takes us through the journey of the writer from his early years as a poet who is fresh with ideas and a little insecure about how he is perceived, to a megalomaniacal man who exiles himself and his family to Guernsey. There he lords it over those around him. The irony of the story however, is that it really is not about Victor Hugo, but about his once very good friend Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve and his love affair with Adele Hugo, Victor’s wife. It is their extreme and enduring love of one another that is at the centre of the story. Their clandestine meetings and the revelation of their love is the heart of the book. Great literary writers such as Balzac, George Sand, and Dumas make appearances in the novel adding to the allure of Paris in these times.

It is a quick read and feels a bit like secretly reading some juicy bits of a diary of someone famous.