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bwristlock_esq's review
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
This is a good book, in a funky roman-a-clef way. (reviewers call it this, but I don't know what real events it puts a mask on) There's basically a whirl of really well-depicted characters who constitute three couples (broadly), the men of whom are left-wing (broadly) intellectuals (narrowly) in NY in the 1930s. I gather from other writing about this book that the author (Tess Slesinger) married such a man and presumably really came to regret it. It's a story that's the practice to the theory of Sadly, Porn, in that all of its characters are caught in this loop of either ascetic disregard for everyone around them ("No, I can't have a child (though we both want one) because it would interfere with my Revolutionary Project. (there isn't one)"), repeated emotional pump-and-dumps ("Now that we've had sex for the first time and you know a little more about me, my appeal to you, hence your appeal to me, is fading, because I can no longer see myself idealized through your eyes") or pure intellectual self-fondling. ("Before I start my magazine, I have to know exactly what to call it, and the exact shingles of my intellectual positions. I can't just publish essays, I mean what am I, a Trotskyist? (Being perceived to be a Trotskyist is worse to me than being accurately perceived as what I am, which is a guy without a magazine).") The whole thing ends in a ridiculous party where a guy self-sabotages everything in an explicit rather than implicit way, which is kind of a step forward for him.
It's neat, it's fun to read, and if you're an intellectual and/or leftward-leaning, it might be a pretty useful warning too. There's not necessarily an antagonistic contradiction between enjoyment and critique, or more importantly between understanding and action. Lenin knew this. We could all stand to know it too, or at least to be reminded.
It's neat, it's fun to read, and if you're an intellectual and/or leftward-leaning, it might be a pretty useful warning too. There's not necessarily an antagonistic contradiction between enjoyment and critique, or more importantly between understanding and action. Lenin knew this. We could all stand to know it too, or at least to be reminded.
sophronisba's review
2.0
I just didn't like this book--too bitter and too dated. Neither of those qualities are faults, necessarily, but I still didn't like it.
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