{"product_id":"9781841955209","title":"Madame","description":"\u003cbr\u003eThe comic \"sentimental education\" of a schoolboy who falls in love with his French teacher. Madame is an unexpected gem: a novel about Poland during the grim years of Soviet-controlled mediocrity, which nonetheless sparkles with light and warmth.\u003cp\u003eOur young narrator-hero is suffering through the regulated boredom of high school when he is transfixed by a new teacher --an elegant \"older woman\" (she is thirty-two) who bewitches him with her glacial beauty and her strict intelligence. He resolves to learn everything he can about her and to win her heart.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn a sequence of marvelously funny but sobering maneuvers, he learns much more than he expected to--about politics, Poland, the Spanish Civil War, and his own passion for theater and art--all while his loved one continues to elude him. Yet without his realizing it, his efforts--largely bookish and literary--to close in on Madame are his first steps to liberation as an artist. Later, during a stint as a teacher-in-training in his old school, he discovers that he himself has become a legendary figure to a new generation of students, and he begins to understand the deceits and blessings of myth, and its redemptive power.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA winning portrait of an artist as a young man, Madame is at the same time a moving, engaging novel about strength and weakness, first love, and the efforts we make to reconcile, in art, the opposing forces of reason and passion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Canongate Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47061917991152,"sku":"9781841955209","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781841955209_p0.jpg?v=1763741175","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781841955209","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}