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3.18 AVERAGE
3.18 AVERAGE
Wow, the first 100 pages. After that, disappointing. How long can I read about one man's relationship, when said relationship is little more than a series of conversations about said man's friends and how much he doesn't know if he likes them?
Seems like the review I write for every "It Book of 20--." Starts strong, but the premise is better saved for a short story.
Seems like the review I write for every "It Book of 20--." Starts strong, but the premise is better saved for a short story.
Ah, so this is why my relationships in my early/mid-20s were so screwed up!
Unfortunately, were you to recommend this novel to a young man in his early/mid-20s, he wouldn't get it, or if he did, intellectually, I doubt it would change his behavior.
I can't really review The Love Affairs of NP without spoilers, but this is about as probing an analysis as there can be of a young man's solipsism. The novel is in 3rd person, but the narrator knows everything the protagonist, Nate, is thinking; meanwhile his love interest, Hannah, is only revealed through quoted dialogue. So as readers, we get to understand what Hannah is expressing while Nate just doesn't get it.
The last 50 pp. (chapter 15 to the end) is about as good as anything I've read in the last few years.
A couple of things:
(1) A couple of reviewers have invoked Jane Austen as the model for this novel. But that is wrong. It's George Eliot and Henry James all the way. Indeed, I would say that as a relatively short novel, it has more in common with James's early more satirical fictions. The epigraph is from Eliot (Romola), and there is a rather key reference to Madame Merle (p. 130) that in context suggests how much growing up Nate really needs to do.
(2) Insofar as the novel is thinking through some Henry James thematics . . . Is this even possible in a novel with sex scenes? I have to say, the power of James comes from what he can't narrate, according to his own predilections and the norms of the time. I really think Adelle Waldman is going to emit a 5-star novel if/when she attempts to tell a story involving older adults.
Unfortunately, were you to recommend this novel to a young man in his early/mid-20s, he wouldn't get it, or if he did, intellectually, I doubt it would change his behavior.
I can't really review The Love Affairs of NP without spoilers, but this is about as probing an analysis as there can be of a young man's solipsism. The novel is in 3rd person, but the narrator knows everything the protagonist, Nate, is thinking; meanwhile his love interest, Hannah, is only revealed through quoted dialogue. So as readers, we get to understand what Hannah is expressing while Nate just doesn't get it.
The last 50 pp. (chapter 15 to the end) is about as good as anything I've read in the last few years.
A couple of things:
(1) A couple of reviewers have invoked Jane Austen as the model for this novel. But that is wrong. It's George Eliot and Henry James all the way. Indeed, I would say that as a relatively short novel, it has more in common with James's early more satirical fictions. The epigraph is from Eliot (Romola), and there is a rather key reference to Madame Merle (p. 130) that in context suggests how much growing up Nate really needs to do.
(2) Insofar as the novel is thinking through some Henry James thematics . . . Is this even possible in a novel with sex scenes? I have to say, the power of James comes from what he can't narrate, according to his own predilections and the norms of the time. I really think Adelle Waldman is going to emit a 5-star novel if/when she attempts to tell a story involving older adults.
So the good folks at Henry Holt and Co. are pushing The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. as a book with “the most (frighteningly) realistic male character of 2013” at its center. It's a marketing move, I get that; I'm not knocking the wise choice of catering to machismo men and jilted women with the same book. Such a move can, however, make way for giving the Man-Hater's camp some fodder, so let me step up on my soapbox here for all to see and say “yes, Nathaniel Piven is certainly one very accurate sampling of a male character, but by no means does he embody the definition of male personality. Thank you.”
Nathaniel Piven is sort of a jerk, but I think that's giving him too much credit. I think I was supposed to walk away hating Nate more than I did, because, let's be “realistic” here, the girls climbing all over Nate weren't exactly not asking to have their hearts trampled on. Yes, Hannah was quite likable and I did feel bad for her, but it's almost as if she thought if she threw herself at Nate, he'd respect and love her. Ladies, sex does not equal love. Respect rarely comes from having sex with someone on a first (or second) date. But, I forget, I stepped off my soapbox in the first paragraph.
So, all that being said, the characters were very well written because Adelle Waldman really got into Nate's psyche. And she did a fabulous job of showing the other characters' sardonic perceptions through Nate's eyes. Nate suffers from a mental illness of some kind, but it is never presented as such; rather, his illness is seen as more of a gender issue. Clearly, the author wants you to believe that being a man is a mental... wait, no—forgot I wasn't going there again.
Okay, the book. So I liked the book (despite my aforementioned peeve), but my ability to enjoy it may have had something to do with the fact the whole thing felt more like satire, commenting on the publishing industry and the lives of the literati. And if that's the case, maybe Waldman isn't poking at me as a man, but at the industry in general. If so, I say game on; we all know everything we've ever heard about the unlikable chums in that group is true.
I can't help but wonder if I've just somehow proven that I, too, am like Nathaniel P.
Nathaniel Piven is sort of a jerk, but I think that's giving him too much credit. I think I was supposed to walk away hating Nate more than I did, because, let's be “realistic” here, the girls climbing all over Nate weren't exactly not asking to have their hearts trampled on. Yes, Hannah was quite likable and I did feel bad for her, but it's almost as if she thought if she threw herself at Nate, he'd respect and love her. Ladies, sex does not equal love. Respect rarely comes from having sex with someone on a first (or second) date. But, I forget, I stepped off my soapbox in the first paragraph.
So, all that being said, the characters were very well written because Adelle Waldman really got into Nate's psyche. And she did a fabulous job of showing the other characters' sardonic perceptions through Nate's eyes. Nate suffers from a mental illness of some kind, but it is never presented as such; rather, his illness is seen as more of a gender issue. Clearly, the author wants you to believe that being a man is a mental... wait, no—forgot I wasn't going there again.
Okay, the book. So I liked the book (despite my aforementioned peeve), but my ability to enjoy it may have had something to do with the fact the whole thing felt more like satire, commenting on the publishing industry and the lives of the literati. And if that's the case, maybe Waldman isn't poking at me as a man, but at the industry in general. If so, I say game on; we all know everything we've ever heard about the unlikable chums in that group is true.
I can't help but wonder if I've just somehow proven that I, too, am like Nathaniel P.
I read this in a tiny Mexican fishing village, where a man said to me "Don't take this personally, but the U.S. Empire -- it's going to fall."
A good reminder to keep with me while reading this vapid and insufferable novel about vapid and insufferable literary people in Brooklyn. These characters seem to think their precious thoughts and words and sad, empty lives are universally admired, are the pinnacle of success, and continue carrying out their 'decadent' little rounds of brunches and essays and sexual exploits with the assumption that all eyes are on them, long after we've grown bored and turned our gazes elsewhere. The praise on the dust jacket sounds almost frantic, like people who recognize themselves in the book are desperate to convince their own selves that their lives are meaningful, are NOT boring, are the middle of something.
I do think it's valuable that the book shows the way the main character gaslights and emotionally wrecks the women he's with. There was even some satisfaction in seeing how a 'nice guy' douchebag (spoiler alert!) remains a douchebag. But for all the self-conscious 'liberalism' in this book I was surprised nobody could ever muster the phrase "White Feminism." Any given episode of Girls contains more interesting characters and deeper political analysis than these 242 pages.
This book reminds me: that world is spent; is over, irrelevant, done-for. The witty-well-educated-rich-white Literary Empire has tried it's best to conjure up a good story, and it's failed. The stories that move us will come from elsewhere -- and when they do come from New York, it will be from that "Consuela or Imelda or Pilar or whatever" who cleans this asshole's toilet.
A good reminder to keep with me while reading this vapid and insufferable novel about vapid and insufferable literary people in Brooklyn. These characters seem to think their precious thoughts and words and sad, empty lives are universally admired, are the pinnacle of success, and continue carrying out their 'decadent' little rounds of brunches and essays and sexual exploits with the assumption that all eyes are on them, long after we've grown bored and turned our gazes elsewhere. The praise on the dust jacket sounds almost frantic, like people who recognize themselves in the book are desperate to convince their own selves that their lives are meaningful, are NOT boring, are the middle of something.
I do think it's valuable that the book shows the way the main character gaslights and emotionally wrecks the women he's with. There was even some satisfaction in seeing how a 'nice guy' douchebag (spoiler alert!) remains a douchebag. But for all the self-conscious 'liberalism' in this book I was surprised nobody could ever muster the phrase "White Feminism." Any given episode of Girls contains more interesting characters and deeper political analysis than these 242 pages.
This book reminds me: that world is spent; is over, irrelevant, done-for. The witty-well-educated-rich-white Literary Empire has tried it's best to conjure up a good story, and it's failed. The stories that move us will come from elsewhere -- and when they do come from New York, it will be from that "Consuela or Imelda or Pilar or whatever" who cleans this asshole's toilet.
Well-written and astute, but the main character irritated me so much, I had to push myself to read onward and not just abandon him in a corner as I would if I encountered him in real life at a party.
This book had moments of prose that felt SO TRUE. Ideas I have been trying to write or think about for a long time, just presented on the page in one sentence. Naturally, I thoroughly liked the blaming of the man in situations where the 'emotional' woman would typically be at 'fault'.
I tend to pick books about upper crust, ivy league grads, ambitious, in their mid-twenties (because hey! I can relate!), and upon finishing them feel guilty that I didn't read something more important.
I tend to pick books about upper crust, ivy league grads, ambitious, in their mid-twenties (because hey! I can relate!), and upon finishing them feel guilty that I didn't read something more important.
So according the FULSOME praise on the book's dust jacket, Adelle Waldman is an incisive social commentator who has exploded the world of dating in today's Brooklyn and plumbed the depth of sensitive literary man's ego etc etc etc. One particularly adoring reviewer goes as far as to compare her to Jane Austen...
... which is not how I felt about this book. Look, its fine. Actually, its pretty readable, engaging, at times it borders on laugh out loud funny. I whirled my way through this book, and to give Walman her credit, she's a good writer. Waldman has some interesting things to say about how men and women behave in relationships, and I'm willing to skip over the lengthy sections in which the main character muses on the intellectual inferiority of women because I'm pretty sure these were sections where the author felt she was being particularly edgy, and deliberately trying to bait "humourless feminists." Nope, I'm totally willing to accept that your self-involved self-proclaimed postfeminist protagonist secretly does not actually respect women. It seems entirely in keeping with his character.
Mostly, I just don't know how many more novels about bored, privileged, upper-middle class, ivy-educated white people who have romantic problems I need to read. The fact that Nate feels guilt about his own easy life, that he himself questions whether he should be so entirely devoted to dissecting the minutae of his own life instead of actually participating in improving himself or the world doesn't stop me, as a reader, also finding him tedious. I mean, throughout my English literature degree I used to get annoyed at people who said they didn't like the book because they "couldn't relate" to the main character - but to be honest, it wasn't even that I particularly disliked Nate (if only!) but just that he was such a thoroughly perfect example of such an utterly boring type of person that by the end of the novel I just felt vaguely bored. This isn't particularly aided by the fact that the plot is pretty flimsy and nothing ever feels massively at stake (in either material or emotional terms). The novel takes us through a series of social engagements where Nate makes the kind of banal observations beloved of columnists everywhere (brunch is annoying! I hate gentrification of my previously ethnic neighbourhood even though I am self-evidently a part of the problem!) and nothing happens and nothing changes. Ultimately, I do not care a jot whether Nate will end up with cardboard cutout A or B, or blissfully on his own, contemplating his own literary genius.
... which is not how I felt about this book. Look, its fine. Actually, its pretty readable, engaging, at times it borders on laugh out loud funny. I whirled my way through this book, and to give Walman her credit, she's a good writer. Waldman has some interesting things to say about how men and women behave in relationships, and I'm willing to skip over the lengthy sections in which the main character muses on the intellectual inferiority of women because I'm pretty sure these were sections where the author felt she was being particularly edgy, and deliberately trying to bait "humourless feminists." Nope, I'm totally willing to accept that your self-involved self-proclaimed postfeminist protagonist secretly does not actually respect women. It seems entirely in keeping with his character.
Mostly, I just don't know how many more novels about bored, privileged, upper-middle class, ivy-educated white people who have romantic problems I need to read. The fact that Nate feels guilt about his own easy life, that he himself questions whether he should be so entirely devoted to dissecting the minutae of his own life instead of actually participating in improving himself or the world doesn't stop me, as a reader, also finding him tedious. I mean, throughout my English literature degree I used to get annoyed at people who said they didn't like the book because they "couldn't relate" to the main character - but to be honest, it wasn't even that I particularly disliked Nate (if only!) but just that he was such a thoroughly perfect example of such an utterly boring type of person that by the end of the novel I just felt vaguely bored. This isn't particularly aided by the fact that the plot is pretty flimsy and nothing ever feels massively at stake (in either material or emotional terms). The novel takes us through a series of social engagements where Nate makes the kind of banal observations beloved of columnists everywhere (brunch is annoying! I hate gentrification of my previously ethnic neighbourhood even though I am self-evidently a part of the problem!) and nothing happens and nothing changes. Ultimately, I do not care a jot whether Nate will end up with cardboard cutout A or B, or blissfully on his own, contemplating his own literary genius.
Despite my continuous irritation with the book's subject and his somewhat callous tendencies, I felt a slight endearment for him. It was like reading about a foolish friend who always seems lost and rudderless. The first few chapters were hard to get through (reference aforementioned irritation) but I soon found myself flying through the misadventures of Nate's life with enthusiasm and curiosity about what predicament he would land in next. Kudos to Adelle Waldman for keeping me fascinated by this character I had a love/hate relationship with from page 1 to the end!
***SPOILER***
Self-absorbed, self-proclaimed intellectual guy ends up with shallow, silly, emotionally manipulative woman because she is tiny and hot.
For a guy who spends most of his time over-thinking, there is surprising little in the way of self-reflection from Nathaniel/Nate. His self-reflection seems to amount to two questions and four tick boxes...
1) Am I happy in this moment? Yes/No
If no, I will do everything in my power to make everyone around me miserable. I'm not actually curious as to why I'm miserable, I just know that I am and surely it's someone else's fault.
2) Does my behavior make me an asshole? Yes/Maybe
Probably maybe, but that doesn't make me an asshole.
Ugh. I'm not saying Nate doesn't sound like a totally plausible modern man...he is. But, just, ugh!
(And, I think "High Fidelity" did a better job examining dating from a male perspective.)
Self-absorbed, self-proclaimed intellectual guy ends up with shallow, silly, emotionally manipulative woman because she is tiny and hot.
For a guy who spends most of his time over-thinking, there is surprising little in the way of self-reflection from Nathaniel/Nate. His self-reflection seems to amount to two questions and four tick boxes...
1) Am I happy in this moment? Yes/No
If no, I will do everything in my power to make everyone around me miserable. I'm not actually curious as to why I'm miserable, I just know that I am and surely it's someone else's fault.
2) Does my behavior make me an asshole? Yes/Maybe
Probably maybe, but that doesn't make me an asshole.
Ugh. I'm not saying Nate doesn't sound like a totally plausible modern man...he is. But, just, ugh!
(And, I think "High Fidelity" did a better job examining dating from a male perspective.)