5 posts tagged “marriage”
Slate's audio book club did a review of Philip's Roth's Everyman. One of the commentators said that John Updike had tackled "the same issue" in Villages and had done a better job. The issue was a man who narrates his life as a series of sexual conquests.
I really enjoyed Everyman. It was my first experience with Roth and I found the story rather poignant and haunting. Villages was my first experience with Updike as well. Whereas I was able to sympathize with Roth's protagonist, there was nothing to like about Updike's main character who learns nothing by the end and neither has the reader.
I really enjoyed Everyman. It was my first experience with Roth and I found the story rather poignant and haunting. Villages was my first experience with Updike as well. Whereas I was able to sympathize with Roth's protagonist, there was nothing to like about Updike's main character who learns nothing by the end and neither has the reader.
I picked this one up because it was short. Roth is one of those author's that I have on my mental to read list. This was perhaps not the best one to start with, but I did enjoy it enough to want to read some of his other works in the near future.
The book has some themes that I always find fascinating. Can people truly be monogamous? Is it really more satisfying to live an artist's life? Generally, does love keep you safe or help you make mistakes? Is progress connecting us or driving us apart?
At least in this book the answers are mostly negative. The unnamed, main character is dead at the book's opening and then we see his life mainly through his many hospital stays and his relationships with women.
The main character makes many mistakes, alienates those in his life, and doubts himself inwardly. It is interesting to note that his father and brother chose a 9 to 5 lifestyle and were happy all round and physically healthy.
On the flip side, the main character wants to be an artist his whole life. When he retires from advertising he finds that there is little long term pleasure in painting. And he soon feels he has no more inspiration for it. The artist's life is so often romanticized that it was nice to see the "boring" people end up with some happiness, at least this time.
The book has some themes that I always find fascinating. Can people truly be monogamous? Is it really more satisfying to live an artist's life? Generally, does love keep you safe or help you make mistakes? Is progress connecting us or driving us apart?
At least in this book the answers are mostly negative. The unnamed, main character is dead at the book's opening and then we see his life mainly through his many hospital stays and his relationships with women.
The main character makes many mistakes, alienates those in his life, and doubts himself inwardly. It is interesting to note that his father and brother chose a 9 to 5 lifestyle and were happy all round and physically healthy.
On the flip side, the main character wants to be an artist his whole life. When he retires from advertising he finds that there is little long term pleasure in painting. And he soon feels he has no more inspiration for it. The artist's life is so often romanticized that it was nice to see the "boring" people end up with some happiness, at least this time.
Wuthering Heights was not at all what I expected again. It happened earlier this year when I read Madame Bovary, but I think I am even more surprised at this one. Just as I walked around after seeing Last Tango in Paris saying, "how messed up are we collectively to begin to think that was a love story?" I can't help but feel similarly. While Wuthering Heights is not as messed up as Last Tango, there is no romance in this book. None. And whatever love is between Catherine and Heathcliff, it's dangerous and unhealthy--apparently not so much for themselves as for everyone else they encounter, however.
No, this book is a revenge tale. And the most disturbing one I have ever read.
And reading it alongside Of Mice and Men only solidifies the notion of "the best laid plans." If only Earnshaw Senior had not picked Heathcliff up from the side of the road...how different the lives of the characters would have been.
No, this book is a revenge tale. And the most disturbing one I have ever read.
And reading it alongside Of Mice and Men only solidifies the notion of "the best laid plans." If only Earnshaw Senior had not picked Heathcliff up from the side of the road...how different the lives of the characters would have been.
The fascinating thing about Madame Bovary is, well, Madame Bovary. Is she a sympathetic but flawed character, or is she a cruel and selfish woman?
Emma Bovary's main problem is that she believes money will end all her problems. But then most people today hold that same false belief.
I think how a person relates to this character says a lot about who he/she is.
It's sort of a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't kind of question though.
On one hand, if you sympathize with her you have to admit that you understand such a heightened level of egoism and self-delusion.
But if you don't sympathize with her it feels a bit sexist since it was a repressive, patriarchal class structure that undoubtedly created women similar to this fictional woman.
I'm still trying to figure out what I think of the character of Madame Bovary, but what I found particularly engaging about this book was its narrative form. I bet one could take a whole class on what Flaubert did with the narrative in just this one book.
One thing I can say with certainty is that my heart has never broken so much for a character as it did for the equally flawed Charles Bovary. I wonder what that says about me?
Emma Bovary's main problem is that she believes money will end all her problems. But then most people today hold that same false belief.
I think how a person relates to this character says a lot about who he/she is.
It's sort of a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't kind of question though.
On one hand, if you sympathize with her you have to admit that you understand such a heightened level of egoism and self-delusion.
But if you don't sympathize with her it feels a bit sexist since it was a repressive, patriarchal class structure that undoubtedly created women similar to this fictional woman.
I'm still trying to figure out what I think of the character of Madame Bovary, but what I found particularly engaging about this book was its narrative form. I bet one could take a whole class on what Flaubert did with the narrative in just this one book.
One thing I can say with certainty is that my heart has never broken so much for a character as it did for the equally flawed Charles Bovary. I wonder what that says about me?
There is so much that can be said about Middlemarch it is hard to know where to begin. I could start by saying that I finally get this genre thanks to George Eliot. Here are a few other observations:
On the surface the novel is about Victorian provincial life. Middlemarch, the name of the town where the characters reside, is also a character in the book.
The mastery of this novel is that Eliot creates a horde of characters, gets inside all their heads, makes them all seem real and sympathetic.
She masterly describes what made life at this time challenging and even terrifying. Marriage, culture, the economy, politics, family can all be seen with clarity. Reading this book it is impossible to say marriage was what held women back. Or that men liked being in a position of authority over women. It was just way more complicated than that.
Not to mention that there are about a dozen main characters, at least as many supporting characters, and a host of townspeople. Somehow it didn't get confusing and it stayed interesting. That is a feat in itself. This novel is one of the closest things to perfection that I've ever read.
Victorian times were in many ways like being at a high school where no one ever graduates. So there is a bit of comedy, a bit of horror, and a whole lot of gossip--all rolled into one.
On the surface the novel is about Victorian provincial life. Middlemarch, the name of the town where the characters reside, is also a character in the book.
The mastery of this novel is that Eliot creates a horde of characters, gets inside all their heads, makes them all seem real and sympathetic.
She masterly describes what made life at this time challenging and even terrifying. Marriage, culture, the economy, politics, family can all be seen with clarity. Reading this book it is impossible to say marriage was what held women back. Or that men liked being in a position of authority over women. It was just way more complicated than that.
Not to mention that there are about a dozen main characters, at least as many supporting characters, and a host of townspeople. Somehow it didn't get confusing and it stayed interesting. That is a feat in itself. This novel is one of the closest things to perfection that I've ever read.
Victorian times were in many ways like being at a high school where no one ever graduates. So there is a bit of comedy, a bit of horror, and a whole lot of gossip--all rolled into one.
