Summary
Summary of Aymeris
Key ideas
Key idea 1
Loss turns care into confinement
Georges Aymeris is still a small, silent child when his adored brother Jacques suddenly dies. Told that Jacques is with God, Georges tries to imagine where he has gone and even hopes to follow him through the same illness. The adults’ grief leaves him bewildered.
His elderly parents, who have already lost children, protect their remaining son from games, cold and every possible danger. Their love offers safety but leaves little room for freedom. This mixture of loss, tenderness and confinement shapes the man Georges will become.
Key idea 2
First love meets social barriers
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Key idea 3
Art offers no certain refuge
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Key idea 4
Admiration becomes a cruel dependence
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Key idea 5
The artist grows bolder and shyer
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Key idea 6
Devotion repeats a familiar pattern
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Key idea 7
New places bring familiar uncertainty
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Key idea 8
Freedom remains tangled with family
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Key idea 9
Each escape echoes the old home
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
Readers who love richly furnished novels of Paris, painting and family life, who enjoy sharp portraits of salons and studios, and who like a narrator who keeps a close, affectionate eye on one troubled man.
What this book is
Aymeris is a novel by Jacques-Émile Blanche, the painter and writer who knew the Paris of artists, salons and society at first hand. It follows the life of Georges Aymeris, a painter born into an old lawyer's family in Passy, from the sickly child of elderly parents to a restless man at the edge of a changing century. It was written in the years around the First World War, and a friend of the painter tells it, drawing on letters and journals.
You meet a boy raised among people he calls centenarians, a mother who loves him fiercely and a father who cannot speak his heart. You follow him through a siege, a revolution, a painful first love, art schools, rival masters and a long run of women who both draw him in and hurt him. Along the way you see Paris, London and Italy through the eyes of a man who wants to be free and does not know how.
The book gives you a portrait of a family, a class and an age, full of sharp comic scenes and real sorrow. Let us begin where Georges himself begins, with a brother's sudden illness in the Bois de Boulogne.
In this summary
- 1A boy meets death too soonFree
- 2Jessie and the first love
- 3Failing at school and finding painting
- 4Studios, masters and public shame
- 5The Princess and the Siren's snare
- 6Darius, bohemia and the ruin of a name
- 7Rosemary, a father's last words and a mother's end
- 8Exile, Cynthia and a restless son
- 9What the book is really about
- 10How the story is told
Key point 1 of 10
A boy meets death too soon
The story opens in the last years of the Second Empire. Georges Aymeris is a pale, silent child who still wears skirts, while his brother Jacques is a sturdy fourteen-year-old whom everyone adores. One Thursday in May, during a drive in the Bois de Boulogne, Jacques turns pale and points to his side. Within days he is gone, and Georges is told only that his brother is with God.
The boy believes what he is told, but he needs to picture it. He asks where Paradise is and wonders whether it lies at Père Lachaise or Montmartre. He even complains of pains in his own side, hoping to be sick in the same way and follow Jacques. The adults whisper, dress in black and call him poor little one, and he cannot work out why.
The narrator explains that Georges's parents were old when he was born. His father Pierre, a kind and gentle lawyer, married his cousin Alice late in life. She is sharp, nervous and quick to speak. They have already lost two children, so they wrap their last son in wool, forbid games and hover over every cough.
This early shock shapes the whole man. From that day Georges mixes keen insight with a trust in others that he never outgrows. The book returns again and again to this boy who learned too young that everything ends.
The household is full of other figures too. Aunts Lucile and Caroline, his father's sisters, criticise everything, while his nurse Nou-Miette guards him with fierce country sense. Georges calls them all centenarians, and the word stays with him for life.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
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What does Georges’s pity make possible and dangerous?
Right. “Throughout, pity is both Georges's best gift and his weakness, since it makes him generous and also makes him easy to use.”Not quite. “Throughout, pity is both Georges's best gift and his weakness, since it makes him generous and also makes him easy to use.”
What contradiction does the narrator see in Georges’s development?
Right. “He also sees that the artist in him grows bolder while the man grows shyer, and the two never quite meet.”Not quite. “He also sees that the artist in him grows bolder while the man grows shyer, and the two never quite meet.”
How do Georges’s new surroundings relate to his childhood home?
Right. “A studio, a villa or a hotel becomes another version of the house in Passy, and each woman he loves takes up some part of his mother's role.”Not quite. “A studio, a villa or a hotel becomes another version of the house in Passy, and each woman he loves takes up some part of his mother's role.”
Questions about Aymeris
What is Aymeris about?
It follows the painter Georges Aymeris from his sheltered childhood in Passy through his love affairs, studio rivalries and travels in London and Italy, told by a close friend using letters and journals.
Is Aymeris based on a true story?
It is a novel, though its author, Jacques-Émile Blanche, was a painter who knew the Paris art world well, and many real artists and writers appear in its pages, such as Degas, Mallarmé and Manet.
Who are the main people in Aymeris?
Georges Aymeris is the painter at the centre. Around him stand his mother Alice, his father Pierre, the governess's sister Jessie, the Princess Peglioso, his model Rosemary and the English widow Cynthia Merrymore.
What does the title Aymeris refer to?
It is the family name of the hero, Georges Aymeris, and also of the old Parisian professional family from which he comes, whose habits and fears shape his whole life.
Is Aymeris easy to follow?
Its scenes are lively and often funny, with sharp dialogue, vivid portraits of salons and studios, and diary and letter passages that let you hear the hero's own voice. The narrator also guides you throughout.
