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A review by furfff
Prosperous Friends by Christine Schutt
3.0
Christine Schutt is such an incredible writer and Prosperous Friends is such a slog. The story itself is relatively unparseable and if that were the only way to judge it, I'd go far less than 3 stars. But her style is uncommon and grand. Poetic, yeah, but almost these blast-chilled sculptural sentences you walk around to admire:
"She pulled the curtain across his face all the while seeing his face grow long and desperate, putty mobility with a hole for howling and then the tub broke apart and all turned black with the blunt conclusiveness she knew for hell."
Boom.
But... for a book that's maybe at least for one thing about relationships, it doesn't feel like it truly knows it's males very well (a fault I know can also be pointed out of a lot of otherwise great male writers about their females). It's just, Schutt is so good, it feels like the unknowing comes from uncaring for the ones she's created. They're all louts.
Like she herself says, "'Moody?' It's no use talking about him,' she said ais fi they had been talking about Clive for a long time."
Have we been talking Clive? Or any of these guys? What have we been saying about them? Other than that they're glamourous, unfeeling predators? It just feels too easy for a book that's not easy.
All of that said, if you run out of poetry, and don't mind a semi-story that you look at instead of live in, you could do worse.
"She pulled the curtain across his face all the while seeing his face grow long and desperate, putty mobility with a hole for howling and then the tub broke apart and all turned black with the blunt conclusiveness she knew for hell."
Boom.
But... for a book that's maybe at least for one thing about relationships, it doesn't feel like it truly knows it's males very well (a fault I know can also be pointed out of a lot of otherwise great male writers about their females). It's just, Schutt is so good, it feels like the unknowing comes from uncaring for the ones she's created. They're all louts.
Like she herself says, "'Moody?' It's no use talking about him,' she said ais fi they had been talking about Clive for a long time."
Have we been talking Clive? Or any of these guys? What have we been saying about them? Other than that they're glamourous, unfeeling predators? It just feels too easy for a book that's not easy.
All of that said, if you run out of poetry, and don't mind a semi-story that you look at instead of live in, you could do worse.