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Beautiful Ruins

by Jess Walter

3.68 · Rating Details · 121,051 Ratings · 13,312 Reviews

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again ...more

Hardcover, 337 pages

Published June 12th 2012 by Harper (first published June 2012)

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Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2012

100 books — 503 voters

Best Books of 2012

3,264 books — 9,436 voters

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Community Reviews

(showing 1-30)

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Mar 06, 2013 Diane Yannick rated it it was ok

This book started with such promise. Pasquale was a great character and I would have enjoyed following his story. The Italian setting was lush and Dee Moray's story was interesting until it got crushed by all the random characters and story lines. Richard Burton and Liz Taylor? Really? Just seemed like a mishmash of people who were trying too hard to convey messages.

I could not wait to finish this book and escape from these people who make life so damned complicated for themselves and others. F ...more

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Jun 25, 2013 Jason rated it really liked it

Shelves: for-kindle, reviewed, 2013, wine-club

Preconcetti sventato ancora una volta!

Whoever designed the cover of this novel and came up with its title (because I refuse to believe either of these disasters were Jess Walter’s doing) must have had one thing in mind: make this book appear to be as much of a chick-lit beach read as possible. And yes, while there are certainly elements of the chick-lit beach read here—some tender relationships, a sprinkle of sentimentality, a romance or twelve—it would be highly unfair to categorize it as so, b Preconcetti sventato ancora una volta!

Whoever designed the cover of this novel and came up with its title (because I refuse to believe either of these disasters were Jess Walter’s doing) must have had one thing in mind: make this book appear to be as much of a chick-lit beach read as possible. And yes, while there are certainly elements of the chick-lit beach read here—some tender relationships, a sprinkle of sentimentality, a romance or twelve—it would be highly unfair to categorize it as so, because this book smashes that label to pieces and even transcends whichever other label one might try to apply to it. Beat that, labels!

Walter is a skilled writer. For such a short book with its surprisingly large cast of characters, including (believe it or not) Richard Burton, Walter manages to do draw out each of them fully and beautifully, flaws and all. Traversing from post-war Italy to modern-day Hollywood and back again, the plot is expertly constructed. Though it does, at times, meander into predictable territory, it never stays there long, and the care with which Walter crafts the relationships among his characters—whether it be between a mother and her son, a young man and his comrade, or a widow and her never-forgotten flame—is a care reminiscent of that shown by Krauss in The History of Love. In fact, I think both novels succeed on a similar level (besides shattering my preconceptions), which is to address the often competing themes of desire and responsibility, imagining the possibilities of a life-that-could-have-been while ultimately reconciling it with the life-that-is.

But also, yes. It is a love story:

And the robot loves his master, alien loves his saucer, Superman loves Lois, Lex, and Lana, Luke loves Leia (till he finds out she’s his sister), and the exorcist loves the demon even as he leaps out the window with it, in full soulful embrace, as Leo loves Kate and they both love the sinking ship, and the shark—God, the shark loves to eat, which is what the mafioso loves, too—eating and money and Paulie and omertà—the way the cowboy loves his horse, loves the corseted girl behind the piano bar, and sometimes loves the other cowboy, as the vampire loves night and neck, and the zombie—don’t even start with the zombie, sentimental fool; has anyone ever been more lovesick than a zombie, that pale, dull metaphor for love, all animal craving and lurching, outstretched arms, his very existence a sonnet about how much he wants those brains? This, too, is a love story.

And also, yes. Parts of it do take place on the Italian Riviera.

Get over it. ...more

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Apr 30, 2013 Richard Derus rated it it was ok

Shelves: pearl-ruled

Pearl Ruled

Rating: 2.5* of five (p88)

Story of romantic love at first sight ranging from 1962 to the present, and involving a staggering amount of cluttered narrative and facile, stereotypical characters.

The writing is perfectly serviceable, though without any distinguishing characteristics. It's like those MFA bores all are. I put this down three hours ago, and already I had to look up the main characters' names: Pasquale and Dee Moray.

In 10 minutes, I won't remember either one.

That is a big pr ...more

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Nov 19, 2012 Julie rated it really liked it

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, usa-contemporary, italy-theme-setting, read-2012, best-of-2012

I got a table at the Rainbow Room
I told my wife I'd be home soon
Big ships are approaching the docks
I got my hi-fi boom box
Mashed potatoes in cellophane
I see my life going down the drain
Hold me baby and don't let go
Pretty girls help to soften the blow

Palm trees; the flat broke disease
And LA has got me on my knees
I am the bluest of blues
Every day a different way to lose

The Go Getter
I'll be the Go Getter
That's my plan
That's who I am
The Go Getter
Yeah the Go Getter

The Go Getter The Black K ...more

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Apr 03, 2012 switterbug (Betsey) rated it it was amazing

After looking up various images of the 1963 movie, CLEOPATRA, the film that critically bombed but was lit up by the scandal of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, I saw a coastline of Italy that looked exactly like the cover of this book. It is a most felicitous cover that captures the mood and time that this novel begins, in 1962. A parochial innkeeper, Pasquali Tursi, lives in a rocky coastline village called Porto Vergogna (Port of Shame), a place the size of a thumb between two mountains, and ref After looking up various images of the 1963 movie, CLEOPATRA, the film that critically bombed but was lit up by the scandal of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, I saw a coastline of Italy that looked exactly like the cover of this book. It is a most felicitous cover that captures the mood and time that this novel begins, in 1962. A parochial innkeeper, Pasquali Tursi, lives in a rocky coastline village called Porto Vergogna (Port of Shame), a place the size of a thumb between two mountains, and referred to as "the whore's crack."

One day, Pasquali is stunned by the vision of a young, striking, blonde American actress, Dee Moray, from the movie set, and baffled why she is staying at his inn. He learns that she is sick, and waiting for the famous publicity agent, Michael Deane, to take her to Switzerland for treatment. She stays at the ramshackle inn for a few days. Walter depicts their friendship with exquisite wistfulness and beauty. Her Italian and his English are as rocky as the cliffs surrounding the village, but a meeting of the souls eclipses language. On an outing together, they climb the cliffs high above the Ligurian Sea so that Pasquali can show Dee five frescoes painted on the wall inside a machine-gun pillbox bunker left over from World War II. At this scene, I almost wept. These frescoes become the most poignant visual metaphor of the book.

Alvis Bender, an American writer with writer's block, traumatized from his experience in the war, stays at the inn annually, and has left his one devastating chapter in the drawer in Dee's room. It is an astonishing chapter, one of the highlights of the novel. It is a treat to witness the variety of stories that make up Walter's one larger story.

The novel alternates non-linearly from 1962 to contemporary time in Hollywood, Calfornia, where Claire Silver, a scholar of film archives, works for the now legendary film producer Michael Deane. Claire is on the cusp of quitting her job and leaving her boyfriend, and is suffering from several regrets. She is braced for another insipid film pitch when she receives a surprising visitor.

In this pensive, reflective, aesthetically pleasing, and geographically stunning story, we meet a disparate cast of characters that are ultimately linked. There's also a washed-up rock musician, a frustrated screenwriter, and a cameo appearance by a certain alcoholic son of a Welsh coal miner--a brief but rollicking insertion of a true-to-life legend that is so spectacular and credible, it almost outshines the rest of the book. But the rest of the novel is exquisite, so that the scenes in repose combine with eye-popping chapters, and give the book a sublime balance.

The story has an undulating, timeless presence. Patience is rewarded, as it ascends toward its peak with a languid pace. The outcome may be a little too neat for some readers, but it is a minor flaw that is incidental to the mature and subtle elegance rendered on every page. As time passes, it continues to echo with its alluring characters, resonating themes, and delicate visual beauty and symmetry. ...more

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Sep 23, 2016 Perry rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: amados-libros

Heart-Stabbing Elaboration of Beauty

I kept this book on my shelf untouched for nearly 4 years after I couldn't make it past page 20. In April, with the spring weather, I decided to dust off its pretty jacket and read it. So many have reviewed this novel in the time since I bought this that I doubt many will even read this review. But ... I just feel compelled to add...

I was wowed, nearly speechless by the adductively alluring setting, ruins welling within me even now, months after my farewell ...more

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Feb 22, 2013 Steve rated it really liked it

In 2006, Janet Maslin of the NY Times said, “Jess Walter is a ridiculously talented writer.” That’s been a blurb on every book he’s written since. I can see why, especially since I happen to agree. This, his most recent novel, showcases these talents well. The writing is effortless, the plot is engaging, the characters are memorable, and it’s full of fun and insight. The social commentary is awfully good, too, meaning I approve of the targets he pokes at.

The story begins in the early 1960’s in In 2006, Janet Maslin of the NY Times said, “Jess Walter is a ridiculously talented writer.” That’s been a blurb on every book he’s written since. I can see why, especially since I happen to agree. This, his most recent novel, showcases these talents well. The writing is effortless, the plot is engaging, the characters are memorable, and it’s full of fun and insight. The social commentary is awfully good, too, meaning I approve of the targets he pokes at.

The story begins in the early 1960’s in a remote fishing village just beyond Italy’s fashionable Cinque Terre. Young Pasquale, fresh out of college, has come back home to run his family’s small hotel. A beautiful American actress named Dee arrives (mistakenly?) as a guest. She was originally in Rome for the filming of Cleopatra. Though Pasquale’s English is not great, and he’s also a bit shy, his earnest good intent makes an impression. But she’s sick (dying?). We then cut to contemporary America – Hollywood – the epicenter of both glitz and schlock. Claire is a film-loving assistant at Michael Deane’s studio. Deane, a cheeser of some repute, began his career as a production assistant for Cleopatra, later became a big-time producer, then fell off the pace awhile before getting his groove back via reality TV. (Walter’s skewering of this broadcast idiocy is something all but the lowest of brows can appreciate.) Anyway, Claire is about to give up when two visitors show up. One is a young writer hoping to pitch his sensationally bleak movie idea and the other is an older Italian gentleman there to see Michael.

So that’s how it sets up. We then get the back story that brings us up to the present. And what a story it is. One of the characters is an American writer (a car salesman, really) who visits Pasquale’s hotel annually with the intention of writing a book, but in practice to drink wine. He did manage a chapter, though, and the truth is it’s very good. We also witness some touching scenes where Pasquale and Dee connect, if only briefly, at soul level. Then there was the whole Cleopatra circus. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (or Lizard as I like to think of them in this era of Brangelina) took some managing, and Deane was the man tasked with the job. The Welshman was a handful with his unslakable thirsts. His cameo role was one of the highlights of the book.

Fast-forwarding a few decades we meet Pat who is all about wine, women and song. At least the song part had at one time provided an income. He’s in rather dire straits when we meet him, though. Naturally, his story connects with the others. Back in Hollywood, agendas are identified and actions are taken. Now, in the time-honored tradition of keeping important plot points to one’s self, I hereby button my lip.

I’ve been a Jess Walter fan for several years now. He’s one of those writers who’s found the sweet spot between flourishes and flow. He never appears to be trying too hard while giving us bright, shiny nuggets in an entertaining way. Richard Russo identified this talent early in Walter’s career, which is meaningful since Russo is another writer I’d put in that category. My expectations for a Walter book are high. In fact, I may have rounded down from 4.5 stars to 4 because I know his capabilities. The shortcoming in this work, I felt, was in his character development. He tended to trade depth for breadth. With as many as 8 POV characters, it would have been nice digging deeper into a select few. But hey, let’s end this on a positive note. This is a very readable book — by a ridiculously talented writer.
...more

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Jul 26, 2013 CLM rated it it was ok

Shelves: fiction, italy, 20th-century, 21st-century, united-states, book-group

Some authors can juggle intertwined characters and a disjointed assembly of characters in a way that starts making sense, allowing them to pull all the characters and plot together effortlessly at the end (Kate Atkinson, among others). I did not feel that Jess Walter had that skill; the characters did not appeal to me; and if I hadn't been reading for my book group, I probably would not have bothered to finish.

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Sep 21, 2014 Melki rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, love-the-cover, best-of-2012

Last week, I was dreading seeing my dental hygenist. Not just for the usual reasons - (I brush & floss 3 times a day, yet she has to scrape and scrape with her little implements, and it makes me feel like an unclean swine!) - but, because we always talk about books. I knew she would ask about what I was currently reading, and I had no clue how to describe the magic of Beautiful Ruins in between all that scraping and suctioning.

Even now when my mouth is NOT crammed full of tubes and metal hoo ...more

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Apr 21, 2016 B the BookAddict rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Everyone should read this book

Recommended to B the BookAddict by: Angela Always reading

Shelves: favourite-authors, fiction, bury-me-with-this-book

Jess Walter and I have not seen eye to eye on another of his novels but after reading Beautiful Ruins, we have definitely kissed and made up. Actually, we may well be 'besties'. He may have 'beautifully ruined' me for the next dozen or so books that I read; this, his latest novel, could easily become my reading yardstick. It is thought-provoking, serious, insouciant and amusing; it strolls across your consciousness with a lazy charm. Each character is lovingly crafted; Jess Walter knows what he ...more

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Jul 08, 2012 Trish rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, audio, funny, author-i-d-most-like-to-meet, italy

A favorable review today in The New York Times said Jess Walter’s new book is like a film script, but to my way of thinking it is more like Walter as a one-man performance artist, who suddenly pulls all kinds of horns, drums, bells and other props out of his bottomless pockets to illustrate a point, to make us laugh, to break into our attention and to declare: “are we entirely mad?” His work is brilliantly interpreted and performed by Edoardo Ballerini on audio, and to hear the thick and heavy t ...more

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Aug 21, 2016 Dem rated it liked it

3.5 Stars

This is the type of book that determines your next vacation.

Sometimes its not the plot that makes a book memorable but beautiful descriptions of a place and it's inhabitants that can charm and dazzle the reader.

A story of greed, treachery and romance set on a rocky patch of Italian coastline in 1962.

The stroy is told in chapters that go back and forth in time and I was lucky enough to have been given a copy of this as a kris Kringle bookclub gift and I had it on audible as well. The ...more

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Aug 03, 2016 Kristilyn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2012, physical-book

I had been hearing so many wonderful things about Jess Walters’s Beautiful Ruins that when HarperCollins Canada tweeted that they’d be having a Twitter chat for the book, I just had to pick up a copy. The idea of Italy mixed with that beautiful cover made it a pretty easy sell for me.

Of course, when I finished the book and sat down to write this review, I was stuck. The entire book was a mix of SO MANY THINGS. First of all, there’s travel, music, books, movie pitches, acting, movie stars, relati I had been hearing so many wonderful things about Jess Walters’s Beautiful Ruins that when HarperCollins Canada tweeted that they’d be having a Twitter chat for the book, I just had to pick up a copy. The idea of Italy mixed with that beautiful cover made it a pretty easy sell for me.

Of course, when I finished the book and sat down to write this review, I was stuck. The entire book was a mix of SO MANY THINGS. First of all, there’s travel, music, books, movie pitches, acting, movie stars, relationships, Hollywood, Italy, Italian thugs — just to name a few. Second of all, there’s romance, humour, sadness, whimsy, longing, love, etc. And third of all, there’s a HUGE cast of characters.

Now, one would think that there would be way too many things to keep track of, but in a weird way, it all works. From the first few pages of the book, when I met Pasquale, a young Italian man with dreams of building a beach in front of his hotel, I was hooked. I loved the dreamy quality of Pasquale’s character. He’s a lover of life, a big dreamer. In fact, a lot of the characters in the book are big dreamers — at least, all the main characters are. That’s one of the wonderful things about the book — not only does it take the reader away to a different place, to different scenery, but it forces the reader to dream along with the characters, which is an amazing thing.

The thing that really got me with this book was the fact that every single character had a role — an important role — and even though the cast was huge, it wasn’t hard at all to keep track of who everyone was. There was also a really wonderful blend of romance and whimsy, hilarity and sadness — all of which fit together so perfectly and which really made me want to turn the pages faster.

Jess Walter is a pretty amazing writer. I loved how he constantly kept me on my toes as he flipped from Italy in 1962, to Hollywood in the present day, to a book chapter, to a play, to … so many other things! At every chapter end, I didn’t know what to expect next. The passing of time, the mix of old-time whimsy with new-age conveniences, the constant message of patience — it just all worked. Ultimately, the best story of the book – to me, at least — was the story of Pasquale, which was the most romantic and dreamy story of them all.

Honestly, I wish I could read more books like this! When I turned the last page, I was so happy to feel content. No loose ends — but just one question left hanging in the air. Of course, if you want to know that, you’ll have to read it yourself!
...more

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Jul 24, 2015 Michael rated it it was amazing

Shelves: humor, california, fiction, italy, romance, movies

I was delighted by the humor and touching sentimentality in this tale about second chances to repair broken dreams. For me, it was a fun mash-up of a madcap romantic comedy of the Hollywood type and a serious deflation of the same scenario. I would follow happily along for long stretches, confident that the characters silly troubles would be resolved by the end. Then I would get bowled over with the serious and sometimes brutal truths that emerge along the way.

At the start, the action alternate I was delighted by the humor and touching sentimentality in this tale about second chances to repair broken dreams. For me, it was a fun mash-up of a madcap romantic comedy of the Hollywood type and a serious deflation of the same scenario. I would follow happily along for long stretches, confident that the characters silly troubles would be resolved by the end. Then I would get bowled over with the serious and sometimes brutal truths that emerge along the way.

At the start, the action alternates between a group of disappointed characters in a backwater Italian seacoast town in 1962 and a set of people in contemporary Hollywood dreaming of pulling off the next big successful movie. For the first setting, enter stage left is Pasquale. He manages the only hotel (“Hotel Adequate View”) in a tiny cliff town where he has returned from an academic life (and failing love relationship) in Florence to take care of his ailing mother after his father died. His dream of turning this run-down community of old fishing families, Porto Vergogne (“Port Shame”) into an attractive resort is obviously foolish. But the arrival of a lone American actress one day, Dee Moray, electrifies his hopes. Unfortunately, she is ill and seems to have been dumped there for some reason by a dastardly lover associated with the movie she had a part in being filmed in Rome (details withheld as spoilers). In a lovely set of exchanges and soul sharing, Pasquale falls for her, and soon he takes noble action to advocate for her cause with those who have wronged her.

Back in present times 50 years later, we have the pleasure of the company of Claire, who works as a development assistant to a once highly successful Hollywood producer, Michael Deane. She hitched her wagon to him as a better dream than her unrewarding academic studies of film. But after a dry period with only a stupid reality TV show and Zombie B-movie, she gives herself one more day of listening to film pitches to discover a worthy prospect for a quality film or else she will jump ship for a different job. She is also on the verge of dumping her porn-addicted boyfriend, the source of a number of belly laughs for me. At the last minute, two men show up. One is a young guy, Shane, who wants to sell his implausible idea for a tragic movie about the Donner Party (remember the tale of starvation and cannibalism among pioneers caught in a blizzard crossing the Rockies?). The other man is an elderly Italian who wants to see Deane about the whereabouts of an actress Claire never heard of. Surprisingly, when called to the scene, Deane is interested both in producing the movie and wants to drop everything to help the Italian find the missing actress.

The rest of the book works to bring the two sets of characters together to make a single story. There are about a dozen characters, each with their own story related to ruined dreams, but as they all work toward some form of healing solution, their stories blend in a satisfying illusion of unity.

One of the most poignant side stories concerns the only other regular foreign guest, Alvis. He is an alcoholic American who served in Italy during World War 2 and comes to secluded Porto Vergogne to work on a novel to make sense of that experience. A passage from the one chapter he has managed write captures a bit of his sad state:

God this life is a cold brittle thing. And yet it’s all there is. That night I settled into my mummy bag, no longer myself but a played-out husk, a shell.

Years passed and I found myself still a husk, still in that moment, still in the day my war ended, the day I realized, as all survivors must, that being alive isn’t the same thing as living.

Though he works as a car dealer in America, he once worked as a college lit teacher and thus had the skills to mystify Pasquale with this exchange when when as a boy he asked Alvis why he came to Italy to write:

“Stories are nations, empires. They can last as long as ancient Rome or as short as the Third Reich. Story-nations rise and decline. …”

Pasquale grinned. “And if I ask if stories are empires, you’ll say .—“

“Stories are people … your father is a story. Our stories go in every direction, but sometimes, if we’re lucky, our stories join into one, and for awhile, we’re less alone.”

“But you never answered the question,” Pasquale said. “Why you come here.”

Bender pondered the wine in his hand. “A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.”

“That’s only three.”

Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.”
...more

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Feb 09, 2015 Kelly (and the Book Boar) rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2015, liburrrrrry-book

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

Beautiful Ruins was the third book in my library Winter Reading Challenge. I don't know wtf is going on, but I'm having a hell of a time finding a winner. Curse you, library!!!!

Nah, not really. In all seriousness, if I weren't such a voracious reader I would have been able to find plenty of good books on the recommendation list . . . but since I've already read Eleanor & Park and The Lover's Dictionary and High Fidelity, etc., etc ...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Gary the Bookworm rated it really liked it

Beautiful Ruins is a revelation. It contains shimmering prose and a life-affirming message. Spanning 50 years and two continents, it asks some tough questions about how to define success and happiness in our media-driven, celebrity-obsessed culture. It artfully encompasses such disparate events as the filming of Cleopatra in the 1960's and the tragedy of the Donner Party over 100 years earlier. It skewers the modern entertainment industry for its preoccupation with ratings and admonishes us t ...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Kate rated it it was ok

I am not going to recommend you read this because you will judge me for it long before you tire of the written tics, redundancy, and the repeated use of characters' full names.

If you were to read this, explicitly violating my not-recommendation and expunging my role in the whole thing, the last quarter of the book might be the best, save for the last chapter which is one of those annoying scrolling summaries at the end of a film of all of the characters' happy endings. A very wrong note. The aut ...more

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Aug 08, 2012 Jaclyn rated it liked it

A couple weeks ago a friend told me that Jess Walter's "Beautiful Ruins" was the book of the summer. I walked straight to Barnes & Noble after we finished lunch to buy it. The man at the checkout counter said that all sorts of people had been buying this book. After all, it combines Italy in the 1960s with Hollywood then and now. It deals with love, disappointed expectations, responsibilities, movie magic, tragedy - the whole gamut of human drama.

And yet, it's not love for me. There wasn't ...more

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Jun 30, 2013 Diane rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, italy, modern-fiction

What a marvelous novel! I thought this would be a fun and fast read, but there were surprising depths to this book that is part historical fiction, part insider-Hollywood, part redemption and part love story.

The book opens on a tiny fishing village in Italy in 1962. An American actress comes to a small hotel to recuperate from an illness. The hotel owner, Pasquale, falls for her beauty and wants to help her. He will slowly learn her secrets and why she was sent to his village.

The flashback port ...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Mark rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction

I would never have suspected that a novel about a small town actress, a decrepit Italian hotel, an ambitious writer, a crass Hollywood producer and Richard Burton would have me turning to grab this book at every spare opportunity, and allow me to stretch my lunch hour without guilt to finish the book.

In the early 60s, Pasquale has taken over his family's completely out of date hotel in a village so small that tourist boats never come there -- except one day, when one does, and deposits a beautif ...more

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Oct 27, 2012 john Adams rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed

Beautiful Ruins

I bought this book because I heard the author on NPR and he was this super nerdy guy who talked like an economist and who said things like, “When you compare the decline of cultures, for example the decline of Rome or Imperial Britain, one can make a few general conclusion, such as, wealth shifts to the top and the masses are consciously placated...” etc etc. Then I heard the book was fiction and my reaction was: “Whaaatt!?! Fiction from this guy, called Beautiful Ruins, I gotta Beautiful Ruins

I bought this book because I heard the author on NPR and he was this super nerdy guy who talked like an economist and who said things like, “When you compare the decline of cultures, for example the decline of Rome or Imperial Britain, one can make a few general conclusion, such as, wealth shifts to the top and the masses are consciously placated...” etc etc. Then I heard the book was fiction and my reaction was: “Whaaatt!?! Fiction from this guy, called Beautiful Ruins, I gotta buy this book.” I supposed I hoped for something apocolyptic, something along the line of The Road. And so when I started reading and when I discovered it is an unrequited love story about a Hollywood actress and an Italian teenager, I was a little taken back. Beautiful Ruins is a well-written story about failure. Everybody fails. They fail at love. They fail at work. They fail at success. Nobody wins. The book is its strongest at capturing failure twenty/thirty years down the road, when the person who failed has moved on, lived a life, looks back, and judges their choices. The different characters capture these moments at different times. There is a young, hopeful scriptwriter who sells his movie, but only because it is so awful it will never get made. The main protagonist, a young hollywood actress, is shoveled out of Cleopatra because she is pregnant. Once kicked out of the movie she falls truly, romantically in love to an Italian boy with whom life’s circumstances make love impossible. The book twists the lives of many different characters and interlocks their moments of failure and their futures. It’s sad--but not that sad--and poignant. Trying to figure what to make of this book, especially in context of the interview I heard on NPR, I began to view the story in its entirerty as an attempt to capture the decline of America through Hollywood, the placaters. Beautiful Ruins casts Hollywood as the pinnacle, the place to be. But when seen up close and personal it’s a miserable den of facelifts and drug dependence where success is measured, not in artistic accomplishments, but dollars and where genius is subjugated to wet T-shirts and nipple slips. Beautiful Ruins asks the audience to think about our culture and what it says about where we are going. It doesn’t give any answers; it’s not that simple. It’s more of a you-be-the-judge type of situation. (If you are wondering about my judgement I could sit here and talk about it for days, but it would boil something like: “We are not unilaterally declining. It depends on what you choose to focus...” Nice, measured, and uncomitall. [catch me at another time and I’ll proclaim, with a stamped fist, that “domesday is on the horizon”].)

P.S. Thanks to a friend who admitted to me that she, and not just me mom, read my goodreads. Thanks. It’s good to know that I am not drunken idiot...all the time. ...more

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Jul 03, 2012 Jeanette "Astute Crabbist" rated it it was amazing

Shelves: five-star-fiction, europe-and-british-isles, all-fiction, domestic-and-relationship-fiction, america

"Isn't it enough to be out walking together in the sunlight?"

Yes. Yes indeed.

This isn't quite five-star material, but it was so touching and original and unexpectedly funny that I won't quibble over imperfections.

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Dec 21, 2016 Emer (ALittleHaze) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Lovers of old Hollywood glamour

Shelves: 5stars, the-chosen-ones, all-the-pretty-covers, read-in-2015, reviewed

"And even if they don't find what they're looking for,
isn't it enough to be out walking together in the sunlight?"

These past few weeks I have been sorting through my Goodreads shelves, writing up old reviews and having many arguments with myself over what makes a book five stars and which books should sit on my 'The Chosen Ones' shelf.

1. Should I only rate a book five stars if I've read it more than once and been besotted with it on each occasion?
2. Should I wait at least half of a year to ...more

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Mar 04, 2013 Marialyce rated it really liked it

Shelves: march-2013

Wonderful, book that keeps one totally engaged from the beginning to the turning of the last page. There was not a dull or uninteresting section in the entire three hundred plus pages. I loved the intertwining of the characters and their stories as they played out their lives against the backdrop of Hollywood during the Cleopatra days of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, to the tiny Italian town where so much of the action of the life of this book took place. The characters were wonderful, so human ...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Laura Smith rated it it was ok

Shelves: book-club

Set in one of my favorite places on earth, the picturesque Ligurian Sea, this novel had me at "hello". However, the beautiful Italian coastline, romantic movie stars and unique characters couldn't hold my attention for long. I felt the main crux of the story dragged me through some pitiful relationships and characters making poor life choices over and over again. I was frustrated with them, annoyed by their self pity and self destruction. But in the end, the book turned back to its beginning glo ...more

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Aug 06, 2012 Cheryl rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, literature, library, america, italy

“Se non è vero, è ben trovato. . . .” “Even if it is not true, it is well conceived."
Indeed it is.
This old Italian proverb is tucked away on the copyright page, without any translation. (“Beautiful Ruins is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, and any real names or locales used in the book are used fictitiously. Se non è vero, è ben trovato. . . .”)
I saw it only on finishing the book, and it was like a final and unexpected small rewar “Se non è vero, è ben trovato. . . .” “Even if it is not true, it is well conceived."
Indeed it is.
This old Italian proverb is tucked away on the copyright page, without any translation. (“Beautiful Ruins is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, and any real names or locales used in the book are used fictitiously. Se non è vero, è ben trovato. . . .”)
I saw it only on finishing the book, and it was like a final and unexpected small reward from the author to the reader.

Beautiful Ruins is a cinematic book --I couldn't stop seeing it as a movie in my mind. Wonderful scenery (eg,small fishing village in Italy, early 1960s, vs studio lots of present day LA), old-fashioned movie star glamour and present day Hollywood drek from an insider view, heart-warming plot lines (love, lost love, redemption etc), great array of characters, and good supply of memorable quotes and snappy dialogue. Does Walter already have the screenplay halfway done?

The story switches between Italy and America, hopping amongst the decades from the 1960s until the present. The author matched his voice to the temporal setting. Scenes in present day Hollywood were funny, ironic, hectic. But he drops the tone for the old Italian stuff in the 60s. It is slower, more reflective

“I’ve been thinking about how people sit around for years waiting for their lives to begin, right? Like a movie. ...But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.”

One of the characters is an aging movie producer — botoxed and surgerized into a plastic simile of a human face (George Hamilton is the image that comes to mind),—and his guiding philosophy, his key to understanding human nature and thus the secret of his success, is: “We want what we want.”
And what we want is not always what we say it is. The story knowingly basks at times in sentimentality, maybe because readers (many) want that, even if we say we don't. Satirical humour helps sharpen up the edges of the threatening sentimentality.

One great scene sounds like it could have been from a Humphrey Bogart movie:

“A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.”
“That’s only three.”
Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.”

All loose ends at the end of the story are not only fully accounted for, they are thoroughly tied up, and the package is very much finished.

“The smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.”

Great read, well-paced, wonderful prose, smart and funny when it needs to be. Recommended ++.
How long before the movie version? ...more

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Sep 21, 2012 Louise rated it did not like it

Shelves: literature-fiction

Story Description:

HarperCollins Publishers|June 4, 2012|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-0-06-220713-5

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away, wh Story Description:

HarperCollins Publishers|June 4, 2012|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-0-06-220713-5

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio’s back lot searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the star struck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow. Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.

My Review:

I was very disappointed in this novel. For all the hype and drum rolls I heard, I expected an interesting and phenomenal read – boy was I wrong!

It’s hard to explain but I actually found the story confusing at times and at other times rambling on and on and on but really not going anywhere. I will admit that I skipped and just skimmed through some of the chapters just so my misery could end a tad sooner.

Giving an undesirable review of a book bothers me greatly but when I began this book review blog I vowed to be honest. And, just because I didn’t enjoy Beautiful Ruins doesn’t mean that you won’t. I’ve read many glowing reviews so I know a lot of people did enjoy it thoroughly and I sincerely hope that you will too.
...more

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Jun 29, 2015 Jenna rated it it was amazing

This has now become one of my favorite reads in a while. The writing was engaging and smart. The characters were memorable and intriguing. The author just had a way of sucking me in so effortlessly that I couldn't seem to put the book down, nor did I want to.

There are several characters involved and time shifts from the past to the future but it does so in a way that the shift was natural. I tend to not enjoy books that shift too much but this wasn't the case for me with this novel.

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Mar 07, 2013 Suzanne rated it really liked it

This sounds silly, but Pasquale had me from "Hello," so to speak as he heaved rocks, a Syssiphean task, to create a tennis court for his newly acquied hotel, An Adequate View. His courtly attention to Dee Moray contrasted with Michael Deane's lack of attention and Richard Burton's childish forgetfulness and Pasquale's own cowardly treatment of his own "lover."
Pasquale's childhood friend, the drunk American Alvis Bender writer/car salesman, Shane Wheeler, an American ne'er do well writer and Pat This sounds silly, but Pasquale had me from "Hello," so to speak as he heaved rocks, a Syssiphean task, to create a tennis court for his newly acquied hotel, An Adequate View. His courtly attention to Dee Moray contrasted with Michael Deane's lack of attention and Richard Burton's childish forgetfulness and Pasquale's own cowardly treatment of his own "lover."
Pasquale's childhood friend, the drunk American Alvis Bender writer/car salesman, Shane Wheeler, an American ne'er do well writer and Pat Bender a recovered addict musician/writer all have stories to tell. It's never easy for any of them.
Wheeler pitches a movie called Donner. It's a metaphor for much of life. Then and now, brave people, hopeful people, spouses, children, rich and poor, strong and weak set out to cross the mountain. Lots of adversity! Many don't make it. Some scheme against others. Some are cannibalized. Sometimes friends valiantly come together and defend and share. Yet many die.
Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins which features a tiny Italian cove, Porto
Vergogna, Port Shame, and Hollywood, port shame, bounces between 1962 and the present with flashbacks to WWII fluidly.
Dee, Liz(yes, The Liz), Lydia, Claire, Amedea are all beautiful accomplished women who allow themselves to be abused by their men. Eventually their strength is revealed.
Alvis Bender begins his novel at the end and never is able to get past it. He tells young Pasquale, "Imagine the truth as a chain of great mountains, their tops way up in the clouds. Writers explore these truths, always looking for new peaks...Stories are people...Our stories go in every direction, but sometimes, if you're lucky,our stories join into one, and for awhile, we're less alone."
For me, The Beautiful Ruins are the young lives which are crippled by drugs, liquour, fame,and bad choices. Happily Walters has a magic wand and he fantastically sets some of his characters lives so that they are able to move forward. Others, like most in the Donner party do not make it over the mountain. ...more

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Jul 17, 2016 Chrissie rated it it was ok

Shelves: fiction, art, italy, great-britain, usa, scotland, audible, love, returned, 2016-read, deals

Well crafted, but not for me. Stunning narration by Edoardo Ballerini.

I'll start with the good. There is humor; we get to laugh at human behavior. Then the mood swings and it turns philosophical in tone and these lines spoke to me too. The author understands people and not just one kind but different types. He captures each one’s essence. He captures the feel of different places and different modes of life. One being the life in a small village on the Ligurian Coast in the 60s. Another being th Well crafted, but not for me. Stunning narration by Edoardo Ballerini.

I'll start with the good. There is humor; we get to laugh at human behavior. Then the mood swings and it turns philosophical in tone and these lines spoke to me too. The author understands people and not just one kind but different types. He captures each one’s essence. He captures the feel of different places and different modes of life. One being the life in a small village on the Ligurian Coast in the 60s. Another being the cinema world both then and today. The famous and the wannabees. The story is well constructed; all the ends tie up neatly.

But me? First of all I do not like books that jump back and forth between different times and places. Too confusing, too much of a struggle. I am not enticed by the puzzle of working out how all the threads tie together. There are lots of characters in this book, and yes by the book’s end you do understand exactly how the events evolved and what happened to each. Yet because there are so many and because I was so busy trying to unravel the knot I had less time to focus on each individual. I prefer fewer characters with more attention to each. I am not looking for characterizations of individuals but rather a study of their complexities. Only three of the characters (Pasquale, Dee Moray and Michael Deane) are portrayed with any depth; all the other characters fall on the side. Parts of the book drag, primarily because these sections were devoted to numerous characters for whom I felt no connection.

A story that ties up neatly is not what attracts me to a book even if I can admire the author's prowess.

I am really not interested in the cinema world of today or the 60s. You get a bit about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, but way too little to give a hoot about them personally. Richard Burton does play a central role in the plot.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Edoardo Ballerini. It concludes with a section narrated by the author. He personally loves audiobooks and reads his own books out loud. You catch errors by doing this. When you listen you perceive incongruities not seen when you read a written text. The narrator was well chosen. He does a fantastic job. You hear the humor and the wisdom and the Italian dialect is fantastic. You have to hear Pasquale talk. It is marvelous. In my view he is the central character. The parts about Pasquale and his friends, they are the best parts of the book, but unfortunately the book is not just about him and them.
...more

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About Jess Walter

Jess Walter is the author of five novels and one nonfiction book. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages and his essays, short fiction, criticism and journalism have been widely published, in Details, Playboy, Newsweek, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe among many others.

Walter also writes screenplays and was the co-author of Christopher Darden’s 1996 b ...more

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Quotes from Beautiful Ruins

“Sometimes what we want to do and what we must do are not the same. Pasquo, the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.” — 166 likes

“His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.” — 93 likes

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