You Fascinating You eBook Germaine Shames
Download As PDF : You Fascinating You eBook Germaine Shames 
Behind Every Great Love Song is an Unforgettable Woman.
In the final weeks of 1938, in the shadow of Kristallnacht and imminent war, a heartsick Italian maestro wrote a love song called “Tu Solamente Tu.”
Its lyrics lamented his forced separation from his wife, the Hungarian ballerina Margit Wolf, in the wake of Mussolini’s edict banishing foreign Jews from Italy. The song, first recorded by Vittorio de Sica in 1939, catapulted to the top of the Hit Parade and earned its composer the moniker “the Italian Cole Porter.” The German version, “Du Immer Wieder Du,” would be performed by Zarah Leander, the foremost film star of the German Reich, and its English counterpart, “You, Fascinating You,” by the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band.
Twenty-two years would pass before the maestro and his ballerina again met face-to-face.
You, Fascinating You begins as a backstage romance and ends as an epic triumph of the human spirit.
Praise for You, Fascinating You
"A love story reminiscent of that of my grandparents. I could not put it down." Kinga Nijinsky
“Germaine Shames’ beautiful depiction of the life of Margit Wolf and Pasquale Frustaci is told with such vivid and haunting detail, it's as if the reader is propelled back in time to witness a devastating journey of shattered dreams, juxtaposed with the strength and courage of the human heart. A tragic story, beautifully written.”
Susan Jaffe, “America’s quintessential ballerina”
"Germaine paints a vivid and accurate portrait of the world of ballet in pre and post-war Europe. The epic drama expected on the ballet stage is dwarfed by the tragic real life events of her ballerina heroine, Margit Wolf. Penetrating descriptions of political brutality and the prepossession of romantic love, an ever present theme in classical ballet, make for a page-turning, impelling read."
Janet Panetta, Ballet Master Pina Bausch
"Shames captures the essence of a ballerina with such expertise in her riveting story. Dancers succeed by creating beauty from effort; this book, too, shows that exquisite art can be made from history's hardships." Elana Altman, soloist dancer, San Francisco Ballet
"An epic story and a true story. Margit Wolf's life is the kind of character journey that makes for great movies." Howard Allen, "the Script Doctor"
“Shames' faithful, carefully researched portrayal of (ballerina Margit) Wolf's blindness and history's cruelty makes this a compelling read.” Elizabeth Evans, author of The Blue Hour
“Compelling, heart-wrenching, and heroic.” Jim Bencivenga, Christian Science Monitor
"They say love is blind, and so is a ballerina's resolve -- in You, Fascinating You Shames captures both." Georgia Reed, actress and dancer
You Fascinating You eBook Germaine Shames
You, Fascinating You is another excellent book by journalist, novelist, and screenwriter Germaine Shames. I have read and greatly enjoyed two of her previous novels, Hotel Noir and Echo Year, and a volume of short stories, Wars of the Flesh. In this novel, Ms. Shames writes a story of love and war based on the life of Margit Wolf, a ballerina trained in her art during the pre-World War II years in Budapest, Hungary. Margit, a beautiful woman from a Jewish family, narrates her life of dance and adventure beginning in the 1920s when she and three ballet friends were recruited in Budapest by an "impresario" with doubtful credentials to travel and dance in local musical shows in Italy. Her life goal was to dance ballet at La Scala in Milan and considered the opportunity to travel to Italy the first step in a wonderful career. Margit soon realized that there was a long road to her dancing goal. Although strong in character, Margit's dreams slowly faded as love, war, and persecution affected her along the road.As a young dancer in Italy, Margit formed a relationship with an orchestra leader, Neapolitan Maestro Pasquale Frustaci. The love between the two was destined to last a lifetime, though most of the time the Jew and Gentile were separated by the edicts of war. Margit became restricted in travel out of Hungary while Pasquale returned to his family and career as composer/conductor in Naples. Margit describes her personal restrictive circumstances and the general increasingly deadly persecution of Jews in Hungary in the 1930s and 1940s. The will to live remained strong within Jewish families but the living conditions deteriorated during the War to bare survival. As time went by, Margit began to wonder if she, her son, and Pasquale would ever live together again.
Ms. Shames is a great story teller with a talent for giving life to characters while maintaining her distance from them. They do not speak her thoughts "out of character" as is the case with many novelists. I think of her talent as a "dissociative" approach to writing and believe it allows characters to experience their own genuine motivations and emotions. Another wonderful talent is Germaine's ability to represent time in her novels in a foreshortened manner that heightens the dramatic intensity of her stories. The reader notices a jump from one point of the narrative to a later one in terms of hours, days, and even years. By leaving out much of the daily circumstances and details of development over the years, the reader feels with high impact the excitement, contentment, boredom, and pain of the characters' lives as they return to the page after time has elapsed. The reader intuitively knows the important unwritten background details of their lives. Time itself is a character created by Ms. Shames (as it was with Proust and Joyce) allowing the reader to soar ahead of both the limits of ordinary and extraordinary experience of the characters. The reader can envision a play taken directly from the novel.
Well, that is exactly what Germaine Shames is doing, developing a musical play based on her novel. The title, You, Fascinating You, is a love song written by Pasquale lamenting the forced separation from Margit and their long period of separation. The reader anticipates a reunion, but given the circumstances, is it possible? I highly recommend this novel, and I plan to see the play when it is ready for the theater.
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You Fascinating You eBook Germaine Shames Reviews
You, Fascinating You by Germaine Shames is a graceful, haunting book that brings its small part of history to life vividly. As a reader you find yourself immersed in a world full of happiness, sadness and looming terror perfectly realised on the page.
The book is a fictionalized account of the lives of Hungarian ballerina Margit Wolf and Italian composer Pasquale Frustaci aka "the Italian Cole Porter". You, Fascinating You breathes soul into their life story, amidst the European setting before, during and after WWII.
The author has done a magnificent job recreating the era for her book, with not only place and facts, but with mood, language and emotion. From the first page you feel as if you are there, in Hungary, in Italy, peering into the lives of these people. I was captivated by the story, how the two main characters interacted, the choices they made and how their lives and their futures were swept into and changed by events beyond their control. It's a book overflowing with love, sorrow, loss and perseverance.
I much as I enjoyed it however, once or twice the author's choices in book structure bothered me. She rightly focused on certain events and years and skipped over some others, which gave the book an interesting surreal touch, especially near the end. But I found, where in most instances that added to the pleasure in reading, on a couple of occasions it fell flat for me. Overall though, I highly recommend, You, Fascinating You.
I listened to this book on Audible.com which was provided to me for my honest review.
I loved listening to this story and the narration was very easy listening as the readers voice was perfect for the character. The story follows a ballerina through her hardships and love (infatuation which is not always returned) with the Italian composer. As Margit is forced to separate from her husband when the Nazis invade the story takes a turn and she is clinging for life and also suffers a separation from her son. This story was hard to listen to at times but none the less it is a historical novel which is fiction but still based around a time in the world when there was a lot of suffering. A great listen!
I enjoyed this book through the audio copy and it took my breath away. I loved just sitting back and listening to the magnificent narration of You, Fascinating You. It's the first book of this author's that I've had the honor of listening to (or reading) and I was impressed. The story of the ballerina Margit, and her true love, her maestro taking years to reconnect, during one of the hardest eras in history. It's a powerful story, and listening to this you can really feel the emotions running throughout the story. An epic story and well worth the read and listen. The final chapter brings a lot of pain, remembrance and even small hope for what may come next. Highly recommended.
Just finished reading this book - couldn't put it down. Beautifully written story of a Hungarian Jewess who is a ballet dancer and her experience of life during the second world war.
great
The book jacket does not do justice to Germaine Shames' "You, Fascinating You." It's not a boy-meets-girl love story with a piece of memorable music thrown in for a title. It's the story of a Jewish ballerina's survival in Nazi Europe. It's the story of an independent artiste, who tries to balance her career alongside a free-wheeling, often-broke, Italian-Catholic husband. It's the story of a mother who loses her only son for years and literally walks from village to village to find him after she is released from a concentration camp. The novel is based on a true story, which heightens its impact, and the telling of it is riveting. I hope Shames is working on her next book. (Note I am not a friend of the author. I am simply a person who loves a good read. I notice there is only one copy left on . This either means that other people have discovered it or there hasn't been enough publicity to warrant additional copies. Read it and spread the word).
You, Fascinating You is another excellent book by journalist, novelist, and screenwriter Germaine Shames. I have read and greatly enjoyed two of her previous novels, Hotel Noir and Echo Year, and a volume of short stories, Wars of the Flesh. In this novel, Ms. Shames writes a story of love and war based on the life of Margit Wolf, a ballerina trained in her art during the pre-World War II years in Budapest, Hungary. Margit, a beautiful woman from a Jewish family, narrates her life of dance and adventure beginning in the 1920s when she and three ballet friends were recruited in Budapest by an "impresario" with doubtful credentials to travel and dance in local musical shows in Italy. Her life goal was to dance ballet at La Scala in Milan and considered the opportunity to travel to Italy the first step in a wonderful career. Margit soon realized that there was a long road to her dancing goal. Although strong in character, Margit's dreams slowly faded as love, war, and persecution affected her along the road.
As a young dancer in Italy, Margit formed a relationship with an orchestra leader, Neapolitan Maestro Pasquale Frustaci. The love between the two was destined to last a lifetime, though most of the time the Jew and Gentile were separated by the edicts of war. Margit became restricted in travel out of Hungary while Pasquale returned to his family and career as composer/conductor in Naples. Margit describes her personal restrictive circumstances and the general increasingly deadly persecution of Jews in Hungary in the 1930s and 1940s. The will to live remained strong within Jewish families but the living conditions deteriorated during the War to bare survival. As time went by, Margit began to wonder if she, her son, and Pasquale would ever live together again.
Ms. Shames is a great story teller with a talent for giving life to characters while maintaining her distance from them. They do not speak her thoughts "out of character" as is the case with many novelists. I think of her talent as a "dissociative" approach to writing and believe it allows characters to experience their own genuine motivations and emotions. Another wonderful talent is Germaine's ability to represent time in her novels in a foreshortened manner that heightens the dramatic intensity of her stories. The reader notices a jump from one point of the narrative to a later one in terms of hours, days, and even years. By leaving out much of the daily circumstances and details of development over the years, the reader feels with high impact the excitement, contentment, boredom, and pain of the characters' lives as they return to the page after time has elapsed. The reader intuitively knows the important unwritten background details of their lives. Time itself is a character created by Ms. Shames (as it was with Proust and Joyce) allowing the reader to soar ahead of both the limits of ordinary and extraordinary experience of the characters. The reader can envision a play taken directly from the novel.
Well, that is exactly what Germaine Shames is doing, developing a musical play based on her novel. The title, You, Fascinating You, is a love song written by Pasquale lamenting the forced separation from Margit and their long period of separation. The reader anticipates a reunion, but given the circumstances, is it possible? I highly recommend this novel, and I plan to see the play when it is ready for the theater.
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