Reviews

Quicksand by Nella Larsen

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joanna_blemont's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

mariahistryingtoread's review against another edition

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5.0

Helga Crane is a woman who doesn’t know what she wants, only what she doesn’t and only when she’s already in the thick of it. In the end she is doomed to a life of quiet suffering all because there’s something deeply unwell at her core that she can’t fully explain and is terrified of examining.

I'm not biracial, but as someone who has spent my entire life feeling kind of off and out of place no matter how hard I try, this spoke to me tremendously. My heart aches for the disquiet that Nella Larsen must have felt.

I cried like a baby when it was all over.

rileyblundellwriter's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes

5.0

savaging's review against another edition

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4.0

Larsen writes the life of Helga Crane, a young black woman in the 1920s, with the kind of psychological nuance that Henry James brought to the lives of white aristocracy. It's a beautiful and brave book (for instance: delving into pleasure is Helga's high point, while her moral fall consists of finding God and a husband). Sometimes the sentence structure irritated me - such beautiful, lush settings made me want beautiful sentences too. The narrative arc felt like it also had structural flaws that jostles the reader around a bit -- but a fascinating book (that passes the Bechdel test in chapter one and keeps on going!).

toadsandtales's review against another edition

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medium-paced

3.25

dogsbooksandpizza's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was a tougher read than Passing because it feels both so much more personal to Larsen (closer to her actual life) as well as larger in scope regarding the struggles of a person with mixed-race heritage. I found the second half of the book to be especially challenging, as Helga careens from one desire to the next in a well-intended but self-destructive manner. Since Larsen never had children herself, I assume the ending was paradoxically one of the more autobiographical aspects, as I assume this is how she felt about the prospect of having her own children. I appreciated the book even more after a spirited conversation with one of my students (Emily L.) about it, and she pointed out some elements I hadn’t considered. We discussed the elements of the novel that mirrored “quicksand,” as well as some connections and contrasts to Passing.