Though I found the first book in the series to be, overall, a better written novel & less reliant on some showy machinations (the constant perspectivaThough I found the first book in the series to be, overall, a better written novel & less reliant on some showy machinations (the constant perspectival shifts became tiring at times, and felt like possible cop-outs), the plot here made the world of that novel more expansive, by demonstrating a counterpoint to Doro's godlike control of his universe, and Emma's limited and moral contrast to him -- by presenting Mary, capable of that same power, but with the moral center (and "wholeness") that Doro lacks. As such, the ethical quandaries of this novel felt, to me, as if they had higher stakes for the character we spend most of the novel following, and present wonderful moments of interpersonal conflict between Mary and her lover, her followers, and, of course, Doro too.
I'd like to read the rest of the series; I'll probably take a bit of a break for the time being, though....more
Somewhat sentimentally, I decided this would be a fun book to read following my migration to Brooklyn earlier this autumn. Of course I'd heard of it aSomewhat sentimentally, I decided this would be a fun book to read following my migration to Brooklyn earlier this autumn. Of course I'd heard of it as a trendy 2013 read, but more interesting to me was the way so many critics, with surprise, decided that Waldman (a ~~**woman**~~ writer) had elegantly evoked compassion for a male protagonist that himself seems not wholly compassionate towards the women he talks to, flirts with, is the friend of, fucks, dates, and so on. Personally, I find the notion that artists shouldn't or can't effectively imagine the interiors of people different from themselves (on the bases of gender, race, sexuality, etc) to be an incredibly outmoded analytic formula, and one that tends to perpetuate deterministic ideals of identity rather than to dismantle them.
By the same token, I was surprised by how subtly Waldman had written Nate P's psychic world and how nuanced was his emotional relation to women. In a few moments, I felt that his thinking about the various women in his life sounded a bit too on the nose, as though a commenter from Jezebel.com (sorry y'all, the comments on that site are so reductive that the site seems to be, finally, working more against than with feminist causes) had ventriloquized a generic male 'antagonist'--but for the most part, Waldman does a phenomenal job of imagining the ways in which we are shockingly capable of holding a multitude of responses and feelings towards others at once, often many which seem incongruous with one another, contradictory. And particularly the ways in which affection and cruelty are twinned in our handling of those we are most attached to.
That said, the novel ultimately seemed to me a bit flimsy. It captured a certain moment and a certain place--its idea of gentrifying Brooklyn, particularly those who are generating the gentrification in their late 20s and early 30s, seems fairly spot on, though of course I've only been here a few months now. Nate is a wonderfully intricate character, too. But then, it feels, by the end, to be primarily a 200 page character study--something that may have been more effective as a 30-50 page short story or novella (are we calling these "novelettes" now?), with a heartier emotional punch. As it was, it felt thinner and thinner as the novel chugged along. An enjoyable read, though, and one that does manage to capture something about the transient status of the heart which is here and there very moving....more
You just can't go wrong with Munro. I'll say, though, that this one was the least engaging collection of hers I've read - it's a debut, so in some senYou just can't go wrong with Munro. I'll say, though, that this one was the least engaging collection of hers I've read - it's a debut, so in some sense, you can tell she hasn't quite hit her stride in terms of prose and pacing, even if the material that she makes so astonishing later in her career is also the subject matter of this book. The last three or four stories are just fantastic, though. ...more
I think I give White the benefit of the doubt because (a) "City Boy" is so great; and (b) he's a queermo, like me. But in point of fact, neither of hiI think I give White the benefit of the doubt because (a) "City Boy" is so great; and (b) he's a queermo, like me. But in point of fact, neither of his novels that I've read were really that fabulous. Maybe this is a lil' whiff of my latent snobbery coming out, but I found this and "A Boy's Own Story" to be glorified erotica, rather than a measured exploration of queer subjectivity in the mid-century cultural and political American context. And I can't figure if I'm a snob or if White toots his own supposedly "high art" horn too loudly. "City Boy" is great as an historical piece of titillating gossip, and it feels important because it traces the development of a gay history that, I think v importantly, White repudiates as originally political. His sense of gay revolution is that it was, from the outset, about sexual radicalism - a turning away from heterosexual norms, rather than a rhetorical diatribe or investment in civil legalese. And it's exciting to read because White knew everyone and fucked most of them, and he has great stories about familiar figures. But the two novels redirect that energy into flat characters and endless series of similar sexual encounters. When the protagonists find "love" (structured as psychologically more important and healthy counters to the anonymous sex they've been shamefully having until that moment), one wonders: who are these people and what would ever generate actual emotional resonance between them? This one in particular sets Maria up as the enigmatic center of the novel, but she never really lives up to that dream - she seems banal rather than quirky, undeveloped rather than mysterious. She's a Holly Golightly or a Sally Bowles without any of the fun or the actual nuance.
All this said, as a pulpy read, it has its moments. I do find it troubling that White's personal history of gayness seems so much more astute and radicalized than his novelistic renderings of it, but the sex can be pretty hot and of course, I'm a sucker for any portrayal of past gay lingo, the faggot underground, and so forth. I just wish that by the end of the novel, I actually gave half a shit about the characters I'd joined for 200 pages....more
The first 2-3 essays of the book are just astonishing. I've been perusing Sontag's journals for the past year or so, and her intellectual range leads The first 2-3 essays of the book are just astonishing. I've been perusing Sontag's journals for the past year or so, and her intellectual range leads you perilously near to pure jealousy, but then you concede her anomalous mind and simply admire it instead. This seemingly limitless curiosity and brute capacity for knowledge is best exhibited in those first 2-3 essays (particularly the first two, which is why I keep saying "2-3"), and also remains less cloyingly didactic there. For example, her consideration of Diane Arbus at length maintains a level of contemplation and engagement - a recognition of both the potentially nihilistic and exploitative registers of Arbus's "freak" work and its power of imagination and sidewise cultural commentary - that falls by the wayside in the latter half of the book, where I felt lectured to in a more dogmatic mode. The later essays tend to sound polemical, in the negative sense of that word, rather than exploratory.
This, for me, is the key difference between someone like Sontag and someone like Didion, to whom comparisons - at least I've noticed this lately - are often drawn. Sontag centers her self in the essays; Didion seeks always to efface herself, though this effacement can be even more telling than Sontag's calling her own bluff. Point being, Sontag can sometimes irk me because her sexy essayistic writing begins to feel claustrophobic; I feel as if I've been seduced into agreeing necessarily with points that aren't as fully developed as they could be. I want to feel that a claim is arguable, and that the writer has enabled dialogue. In the later essays of this book, Sontag writes her readers into a corner. Either way, certainly the most exciting writing on photography I've read....more
I'll confess: this doesn't have the effortless quality of the best of "Self-Help" or "Birds of America," but it is certainly worth your time if you enI'll confess: this doesn't have the effortless quality of the best of "Self-Help" or "Birds of America," but it is certainly worth your time if you enjoy Moore's work. Some of the humor here feels replicative rather than necessary or simply organic, but when she's on, she's one of the only writers who compels me to literally laugh out loud (which can, if you're a regular subway-passenger and cafe-camper, be v likely disturbing to those sitting around you, silently enjoying their George R.R. Martin). The thing about Moore's humor is that it's never quite innocent; it often reads as reactionary to some compulsion, anxiety, or general philosophical crisis. This seems nowhere more apparent than in "You're Ugly, Too," which is, over-anthologized or not, a phenomenal piece of short fiction. The exchange between the protagonist and the man she's been set up with on a balcony gradually escalates from those humorous exchanges to a moment where you legitimately question the woman's mental stability, or lack thereof. I found myself wondering what terrible trauma would coalesce as the banter teetered over the precipice of nerves and into outright hostility. But Moore doesn't overdo it; she never does - this is also skillfully handled in the title story, where, in the climax, I thought, "Ah, fuck, she finally boiled the egg too long," but then she reels it all back in and enables the story's resolution in a perfect, basically banal manner.
The thing about short fiction is that I always gush over it (when I like it), but I never remember it. There are, I guess, six other stories in this collection, only one of which I recall not really enjoying (I think it was the first one, in fact), but I can't offer more about these 5-6 pieces. Moore seems somewhat anomalous in modern short fiction, though, because she refuses to choose either high art self-aware sentimentality or minimalist nihilism, which her contemporaries usually do - she's always tiptoeing a high wire while juggling these and other forms. Thing is, usually she lands and you're awed at her uncanny precision, and sometimes, though rarely, it never quite cooks through....more
Allegedly a children's novel, this book has an overwhelmingly "adult" sensibility, notably in its chilling interest in the polymorphous eroticism of tAllegedly a children's novel, this book has an overwhelmingly "adult" sensibility, notably in its chilling interest in the polymorphous eroticism of the child's body (the school of fish kissing every inch of Emily, or her later bizarre encounter with the micro-alligator), concerns of adult neglect, sexual development, probable rape, and the murder of an innocent man by a girl barely into her teen years. If I'd known of it, though, I probably would have read it when I was young - I was onto Stephen King's It and The Stand by 11 and 12, respectively, after all. A wonderful adventure-on-the-high-seas tale that also puts into question the notion of the child as an innocent; these children have difficulty with attachment and even basic empathy (they seem to forget their brother's brutal death almost instantaneously!). Emily seems to me the centerpiece in character here - the scene where she comes to recognize her self *as* a self is wonderfully drawn and philosophically nuanced, not to mention quite heretical and hilarious (she wonders whether she may, in fact, be God). One of my favorite discoveries of the year so far, in a year littered with a number of required re-reads....more
I didn't read much Sendak as a child, so this was a fun experience - the illustrations are intricate and often incredibly disturbing - and the story iI didn't read much Sendak as a child, so this was a fun experience - the illustrations are intricate and often incredibly disturbing - and the story itself reminded me in strange ways of Rosetti's "Goblin Market." A book concerning the fear of changelings, doublings, children being held perhaps too accountable for very grown-up responsibilities. ...more
Was surprised to realize I hadn't actually read this as a child; only seen the film and (my childhood is mostly opaque to me) possibly seen a stage prWas surprised to realize I hadn't actually read this as a child; only seen the film and (my childhood is mostly opaque to me) possibly seen a stage production.
Any rate, an interestingly written - stylistically - tale, and one far darker than I remembered. Hate, hate, HATE the gender politics of this book, though. Come on. Tink is basically a slutty baby incapable of complex emotions, and NATURALLY, has to be sexually jealous of Wendy (whose only proper function is as a mother) to the point that she tries to Fatal Attraction her. Also a bit disturbing that the Darling ancestry basically farms its young girls out to Peter, because OH MY STARS! how disgusting and useless women become when they're no longer young and virginal.
*fart noise* Give me a break, Barrie. There's some good stuff here, but even if I wanted kids, I wouldn't indoctrinate them with this until they were old enough to recognize that a fun story and a good story are not necessarily the same thing....more
It's a wonderful novel. I'll confess - don't be displeased with me!!! will my snob privilege be revoked??? - that I found this less breathtaking & lesIt's a wonderful novel. I'll confess - don't be displeased with me!!! will my snob privilege be revoked??? - that I found this less breathtaking & less fascinating, largely because, in many ways, it felt as if we were watching the Swann/Odette affair, and its beautiful psychological and affective intricacies, play out with different characters. It didn't surprise me; it didn't necessarily innovate. And so much of the charm of the first book, particularly with the narrator's childhood & Proust's ability to recapture the perceptive strangenesses of youth, isn't on display here.
But then again, I was trying to read this in French and English at the same time, which was difficult, because my French is wayyyyy rusty. Also, I was entirely bored with Swann's Way the first time I tried it out, so perhaps if I live long enough to both finish the entire series and re-read it, I'll not only admire, but idolize this one too....more
V different from the only other Carson I've read, Autobiography of Red (& looking forward to its sequel, < Red Doc, coming in March, 2013! How's that V different from the only other Carson I've read, Autobiography of Red (& looking forward to its sequel, < Red Doc, coming in March, 2013! How's that for a little itty bitty winking free ad, Mz Carson?).
Tackles, according to the back cover, Keats' notion that "Beauty is truth, truth beauty..." in his "Ode on a Grecian Urn." I don't know if that was actually Carson's project here - the "Urn" never appears in the epigrams to each tango; these are largely from some tragedy play he wrote that I didn't even know existed ("Otho the Great"? Also known as "What the Hell is This? This Ain't "Ode to a Nightingale!"). A bunch from "Ode on Indolence" as well, but v little from any of the "major" Keats verses.
The other reason I say this is because there are conflicting readings of the "truth beauty" bit, which is spoken not by the poem's narrator, but by the urn, and which could well be a sort of mockery or witticism - or otherwise a not-necessarily-sincere advisement. This is a reading I'm partial to myself, & it laughs in the faces of all those people who probably hand-sew that Keats quote onto their homemade heart-shaped pillows & post it under 'religious views' on facebook or whatever. Stupid dummies.
Certainly, if Carson agrees that the 'beauty' of the husband has its own kind of truth, it's truly an unfortunate truth, because it only really predisposes the desirer to self-deception, tomfoolery, and eventual heartbreak. The husband in question is an absolute dog - quel rat! - cheating, lying, stealing, with a crazy ass friend who talks like the back of a cereal box. And not, like, an adult cereal, like Cheerios - we're talking Count Chocula here.
Being Anne Carson, there's also a great deal of Greek - myth & etymology - involved, which is fun & well done, but which at times does seem a bit strange. I don't know. The collision of the dominant Keats intertext with the Greek haphazardly thrown in just feels distracting at times, even when it is beautiful. But that's just me being nit-picky.
Basically, it's awesome. Why don't more people read Anne Carson? ...more
I am so incredibly torn here. Do I give it 3 stars; 3.5; 4? Five, as a knock-on-wood charm to ensure that Atwood published another 100 books in my lifI am so incredibly torn here. Do I give it 3 stars; 3.5; 4? Five, as a knock-on-wood charm to ensure that Atwood published another 100 books in my lifetime? I'm going to go with 3, reluctantly but honestly and with a clear conscience. If you've ever talked books with me, you know I'm an Atwood devotee, to the point that I have an Atwood-inspired tattoo on my lower back (yep, bitches, and it's basically the best tramp stamp ever).
It's just that I found this to be an incredibly uneven conclusion to a wonderful trilogy. It's Atwood, so you know it's still a great ride and will be moving, philosophically fascinating, and narratively engaging at turns. But usually Atwood juggles all three of these things at once, and consistently. MaddAddam unfortunately actually has them "at turns" in the most literal sense. Its emotional scenes are a bit flimsier than usual; its action is really more akin to an action film than something that doles out plot-driven scenes that also do important conceptual work; its ideology is sometimes tedious.
Shockingly, the Crakers ended up being my favorite part of the novel--Blackbeard in particular--after having found them a bit cloying in the previous two installments. Their evolution, unfortunately, seemed at the expense of other characters' being as nuanced as they were before. Toby seemed the most palpable victim of a more simplistic approach to characterization--and notably, her lovesickness came as a real disservice to the resourceful, guarded, powerful, complicated woman we met in Year of the Flood. I guess I also just found the central setpiece, the great "battle" against the Painballers, to be a bit minimalist for a 400 page novel. It didn't have the sense of consequence the conflicts of the other two novels featured--it felt as thought it should have been an episode in a broader struggle. This is the apocalypse we're concerned with, after all. I realize this wasn't the only thing the novel attempted to reckon with, but it did have a lot of narrative energy devoted to it and I simply wasn't as invested in it as I had been in the narrative momentums of the others.
I mean, duh. Again, this is Atwood. It's like being sad about winning 14 million rather than 15 in a lotto. So read it--certainly if you started the trilogy already. I just almost wouldn't have minded her more effectively closing it out in the last novel....more
I want to review this, but I think mostly I would gush & blabber. Butler is always wonderful; here, she's in top form. Her handling of the slave tradeI want to review this, but I think mostly I would gush & blabber. Butler is always wonderful; here, she's in top form. Her handling of the slave trade and the sort of consciousness which might emerge in a context where slavery has legal justification is just so smart - and best of all, is both allegorical and historical. One need not force a reading of the "fantastical" qualities of this novel onto political facts, because her own universe inhabits those historical and political worlds, they are inextricable. Also Anyanwu is hella badass! ...more
A brief and ultimately flimsy novel that treads familiar territory - young, beautiful, off-kilter woman (complete with easy Plath allusions!) infiltraA brief and ultimately flimsy novel that treads familiar territory - young, beautiful, off-kilter woman (complete with easy Plath allusions!) infiltrates affluent & emotionally deadened nuclear family - in occasionally interesting ways. The prose itself is good, and the characterization once in a while veers into nuanced psychological portraiture, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd more or less read this book before, and read it better. One that comes to mind is Hollinghurst's "Line of Beauty," which essentially has this novel as one of its strong sub-plots. But I think it remains a strength because it remains slightly out-of-focus. When it's the only investable narrative, it reads tiredly. I wanted more from the hysterical-Lolita theme. Nevertheless, it's a quick, pleasantly summerish read, if that's what you're seeking out....more
I've been meaning for three months now to write a "proper" review of this novel. Presently, it seems so far off in my mind that an improper review wilI've been meaning for three months now to write a "proper" review of this novel. Presently, it seems so far off in my mind that an improper review will simply have to suffice.
Of Smith, I say: I hated White Teeth (or, as my brilliant Turkish undergrad prof who taught the book pronounced it, "White Teat"); I loved On Beauty; I'm neither here nor there on her essays, though everyone seems to become one giant pleasured clit over them. I can't figure this. There are brilliant essayists, but Smith - despite her generally ponderous and emotionally available essayistic style - is not one of them. So go read that Joni Mitchell piece again; go read that one where she talks about tripping at a rave again - and think about what you've done. Good essays. Not great.
Why the rant. She is, on the other hand, a wonderful, if flawed, novelist, in the classic sense. She doesn't just borrow Forster (On Beauty) or (here) Joyce and the modernists. She embodies a kind of novelistic sensibility that seems largely to have died out after 1945. Which isn't to say that there are no more great novelists, but that Smith operates in an earlier register - her investment in the kind of fleshy characterization of the old school seems outmoded, though still lovely to experience. Outmoded, not dated. There are a few writers who still do this kind of character; Alice Munro comes to mind, or Ian McEwan, or A.S. Byatt. In NW, for example, Smith doesn't generate a vacuous cipher character (Natalie) to explore some kind of academic problematic: that Natalie is a cipher fundamentally deepens her as a character, not a cultural concern.
At one moment, Natalie murmurs a line that I haven't been able to forget in the four months since I've finished this: "I just don't understand why I have this life." This is not discourse-analysis; it's a fundamentally human moment of existential despair.
Which isn't to say "fuck contemporary lit!" or "I hate the academy!" (I don't; I work for it) - but to suggest that Smith seems to be, at base, working in a domain that most writers don't seem to concern themselves with anymore. There's a level of emotional sincerity - maybe earnestness is the better term - to her interest in her characters that strikes me the marker of her greatness as a novelist, the reason she doesn't feel over-saturated by faddishness.
That said, this tries to be an experimental novel and, largely, isn't really. The long third section, tiny numbered fragments tracking the progress of Keisha-Natalie from childhood to the present, is as close as we get, but it doesn't, finally, seem Joycean, but rather like flash-fiction, in the vignette mode. I personally loved that portion of the book, though it seems a number of critics and reviewers found it incapable of impact. The Leah, Felix, and vignette sections all seemed profoundly successful to me in establishing a world and a set of characters with whom we are capable of identifying or at least sympathizing with. The prose is stunning. The only thing that didn't quite hang together for me was the very end...not [SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!] Natalie's apparent breakdown, but the very very very final pages. Not because they seemed unbelievable, but because it felt that Smith meant to write another concluding section. I seriously flipped through the white pages at the back of the book and wondered for a moment whether I'd gotten a bad copy. It felt incomplete, and not in a "how queer, this resists resolution" sort of a way.
Giving it 5 though, because everything to that point was so wonderful to me. Looking forward to a re-read....more
I read this a little too soon after Too Much Happiness, which may be for me Munro's most consistently astonishing collection. Which is to say, these aI read this a little too soon after Too Much Happiness, which may be for me Munro's most consistently astonishing collection. Which is to say, these are fantastic in the way Munro always is; they inhabit their geographies, in both a sort of spatial & natural sense, and also in the sense that Munro must write smallish towns better than anyone, ever, hands freaking down. O'Connor and Faulkner come to mind, too, but they write about the experience of small town life incredibly well from one or two angles; Munro writes about it from every possible vantage point, and everything and everyone in the town comes boiling into full presence, not simply her protagonists or her central family. The prose, as always, stopped me short, breathless, etc. And needless to say, Munro can give you an enormous sense of a person with one or two minute turns of phrase, or a snatch of dialogue.
So it's good. It's Munro. It's great. Just to say that I can't really remember the particularities here; which stories did I worship, and which did I simply adore? I'll tell you what, though: I love all the prostitutes in the final "autobiographical" pieces of the book; you don't really think Munro's the type to talk about working gals, and then she does, and it's amazing. I'm sad that she's said she's retired now; that this was her last book. Also that her story "Axis," which was published in The New Yorker in, I think, 2011, wasn't included in this book. That was one of my favorites of hers, but now I only have it on a podcast somewhere......more
Possibly even better than Wolf Hall, though that was hard enough to top. This is slimmer, sharper, & more morally opaque than its predecessor. AnticipPossibly even better than Wolf Hall, though that was hard enough to top. This is slimmer, sharper, & more morally opaque than its predecessor. Anticipating the imminent tragedies looming over these figures is somehow still nail-bite-worthy, because Mantel manages to compel you to forget she's writing an historical novel about events that have come to pass, and will not change. Her prose is so clever -- even laugh out loud clever at times -- and so precise that the novel is difficult to put down on merely a stylistic basis, not to mention all the rest. Seriously, can't recommend these enough. I should really read something else of Mantel's, now....more
Of course you never want to 'award' Morrison with fewer than 5 stars - or perhaps, if you're feeling a bit like a stoic, but golden-hearted, nun with Of course you never want to 'award' Morrison with fewer than 5 stars - or perhaps, if you're feeling a bit like a stoic, but golden-hearted, nun with a very flimsy hand-slapping-ruler, you might give her 4 stars, and then, guiltily, note in your actual review that it's closer to 4.5, but that you're trying not to be an overzealous, gushing loon.
Well, I'm an evil nun, and I've decided to make a concerted effort to not pass out 4 & 5 star reviews like pennies on Halloween any longer! Look where being star-generous has gotten me! (In the exact same place I was before; reviewing books from my bed...)
Of course "Home" is good; of course it's readable & often beautiful & probably v important in some ways. Unfortunately, it's just not, and never will be, classic Morrison. Perhaps because she sets the bar so high for herself to begin with, it's more difficult to manage with a lesser novel from her? Part of the trouble is that it's just so. damn. short. I'm well aware that she's gettin' on up in the years, & that maybe she's never going to write a novel again that exceeds 200 pages. Thus a number of "major" reviews have lauded Morrison's spareness of style, her economy of words, her ability to write something fast-paced FOR ONCE IN HER LIFE. Well, I'm not certain if these same reviewers really want a Toni Morrison novel to be a fucking Gillian Flynn novel, but girl, I want more than a kind of extra long story from you! Because even the font is real big, and there's so much wasted white-space in the novel; so that 130 pages actually is probably more like 100 in any normally-formatted book!
And the trouble, finally, is this: the pacing is quick, but Morrison also refuses to allow the novel to flesh, well, anything out, at the service of keeping the narrative chugging to its inevitable conclusion. I'm not, then, sure whether I actually really give a damn whether Frank Money gets to Ycidra before the creepy philologist Dr Kevorkian does. I don't know if I've actually understood how traumatic seeing the Korean child-prostitute is for Frank, so that - gesture towards SPOILER, y'all! - the big revelation in his memory about this girl near the very end doesn't hold any water for me. I don't know who these people are, and so I have referent points for the black communities Frank is passing through from other Morrison novels, but should you have a familiarity with an author's entire body of work in order to be capable of understanding the characters in a particular novel as something other than paper-cutout versions of some abstraction? There's a usefulness to this that I can grapple with - the ways in which Morrison is suggesting that, for many without privilege, life is really mostly functional, utilitarian; energy can't be expended on soliloquizing and lamenting psychological conflicts, etc. But I just think she's managed this notion better elsewhere, perhaps particularly in "Sula," another short - but perfectly so - early novel.
The spare quality of the prose, too, is an interesting shift from a writer so late in her well-established and esteemed career. At the same time, there's a reason I've followed her career so closely over the past decade (since I wasn't really old enough to do so before) - because she's a master stylist, in addition to being an unparalleled storyteller. Here, her style works at times, but at others, it just sort of feels like Morrison's been drained - that she's tired of formulating the sorts of astonishingly heartfelt but decidedly non-sentimental metaphors that permeate her oeuvre. Additionally, the decision to alternate chapters with dreamlike, italicized addresses from Frank Money seems to me a cheap shot, and one that doesn't really succeed.
Whoa. I've just really raged on. Don't get me wrong! It's good! It's a good read! Worthwhile, etc. I also confess a bias - I don't really like when Morrison perspectivizes her work from a man's vantage point. It just doesn't work for me. Which isn't to say women can't write men/men can't write women, but that Morrison - Atwood's another good example for me - doesn't seem as engaged, and it shows. BUT BUT BUT there are moments of perfect lucidity in this novel that reveal an attentiveness to community and history that only work when Morrison does them. The opening scene with Frank and Cee as children - and the cyclical return to it in the final pages - this moment couldn't be handled well by anyone else. The ways in which Morrison manages to offer trauma in the way that trauma actually appears - in other words, the way that her characters always seem to comprehend it belatedly, see it in fits and spurts, or only partially - this so effective, so perfectly crystallized. The scenes with Cee were, to my mind, the best of the book; they didn't actually feel reiterative of Morrison's earlier work, though some of the territory was already-trodden. The close of the book verges on sappiness but never quite teeters over. Again, something only Morrison seems capable of - the emotional resonance minus the saccharine stomachache.
So yes, a fine novel. With Morrison, though, you know, as her adoring fan, that she can do, and has done, better. Of course, "Love" was her absolute worst, and "A Mercy" was v good, so maybe the next one will wow me again....more
Reviews of this brief, delectable little story seem, for some reason, to hinge on whether one "likes" Holly Golightly or not. I wasn't aware that my pReviews of this brief, delectable little story seem, for some reason, to hinge on whether one "likes" Holly Golightly or not. I wasn't aware that my pleasure in a text required that I befriend fictional characters or approve of them from a morally superior standpoint. In this way, half the reviews here sound as self-serious and ridiculous as, in the novella, Madame Spanella booming, "Look. What a whore she is."
Because, hey: Holly is a bit of a whore; or at any rate, she's a girl who takes money to go to the powder room & expects cab fare, and asks for a list of the 50 wealthiest men in Brazil, "regardless of race or color." She throws around the word dyke like it's threatened with extinction, and is a bit of a racist, at least in her terminology. Doesn't seem to me that you're supposed to admire Holly, but for fuck's sake, the girl is an absolute delight & despite her faults, you certainly respect her verve. The point of Holly is precisely that she manages to charm anyone and anything against all odds. She says wonderful things like "Darling, would you reach in the drawer there and give me my purse. A girl doesn't read this sort of thing without her lipstick" - this in anticipating a letter from a man who was both meant to marry her and help raise the child he'd left her impregnated with. She rids herself of the "mean reds" (as opposed to the blues) by going to Tiffany's, where she really can't afford a thing. She calls our protagonist Fred, simply because he reminds her a bit of his brother, and she marries at 14, perhaps only because she thinks it can't possibly be legally binding.
She is, as she suggests, a wild thing - and a wild thing that feeds off the love granted it only to run off when it has its strength. This is perhaps the central difference between Capote's Holly & Audrey's - Audrey's is a lovable klutz, a beautiful airhead with a decent set of street smarts, but ultimately, one who in some sense *needs* to be captured. Or this is what the movie tells us in any case, with its rather conventional rainy-street-smooch-scene. Capote's Holly is like Nabokov's Lolita or Faulkner's Caddy - the men around her entrap her in their projected desires & fantasies. Holly isn't having any of it, & this seems to be the conflict between her and her world, and her and a number of the reviews here. The novella seems to settle on two fundamental threads: the beauty & potency of nostalgia, of tying one's sense of love on people & things & ideas which are finally indifferent (NYC or Holly or "the" writer's life, &co&co); and the danger of this, the troubling consequence of compelling someone or something to be what it is not as beholden to what you want of it. These two concerns are in conflict with one another, but also inextricable, necessarily tied.
It's a stunning meditation on this tension - but more than that, it's an immensely pleasurable read. Basically, I want to walk around describing things like Capote & talking like Holly. It's reinvigorated the deep yearning I'm harboring about moving to NYC....more
