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Title: Great House
Author: Nicole Krauss
Genre: Contemporary literary fiction
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: In gorgeous, deeply insightful prose, the author tells the story of four families whose lives each touch upon a specific desk--a New York writer, the husband of a Cambridge writer, a Israeli lawyer with a failed-writer/judge son in London, and a would-be Oxford writer dating the son of a kind of psychotic Israeli antiques dealer--and who each discover that their lives are meaningless and empty and they've totally fucked up the relationships that really mattered to them. Only the desk gets resolution.
Thoughts: On a sentence level, the writing truly is gorgeous. Distractingly so, actually--many of the phrases pull you out of the story so you can turn them over in your mind like a shiny bauble. She repeatedly tosses off searing insights that make you realize that yes, that's exactly what people are like and you can't believe you never thought of that before. The characters are deeply, richly drawn. There's a suitably ambitious theme about putting together memories that ties in the title near the end. So really, from the perspective of the typical literary fiction critic, this book most likely counts as a wild success.
My objection? This isn't a story; it's a still life.
Oh, each character gets their own realization of the hollowness of their life and where their worst mistakes were. Hubris is shattered. You even have a decent idea of most of the characters' ultimate fates. Every fate happens off-screen; no realization is accompanied by a decision to change. It's more that each character realizes that their life was ultimately something of a charade and perhaps they're not as good people as they thought they were. Woe. The end.
So while I enjoyed each sentence on its own, I found the overall effect unbearably pretentious and self-absorbed. Look, I realize that we're all flawed and that having all "heroic" characters is unrealistic. But at the same time, I don't believe that we're all flawed beyond redemption and I do believe it's possible for us to rise up within our own lives. Yes, reality doesn't get tied up in a neat little bow. But some things do get resolved. For that matter, if I only wanted to examine depressing people's inconclusive lives, I could read the newspaper more. I do, in fact, demand more from my fiction and I don't think that's unreasonable.
Also, the number of writers in this book is ridiculous, given how little she really engages with that fact. Oh, there's some self-flagellation over how a writer distances herself from others, uses them as mere fodder, is a bad person, blah blah blah. It's all done coyly, "look, isn't it deep and revealing how I reveal my own flaws through my characters?" And that theme is quickly dropped. Despite the fact there are two successful writers, one poet, and two unsuccessful writers, plus a couple academics, very little is done with the theme that basically everyone in the book is either a writer or directly related to one. It's as if the author's social circle is so writerly and self-involved that she's forgotten the fact that most people are not actually writers. Most of them are also of Jewish descent. If we're going to focus so rigorously on reflecting the world as it really is, it would be nice to have less privileged and more diverse characters included.
In short--beautiful style, but pretentious and self-absorbed.
Author: Nicole Krauss
Genre: Contemporary literary fiction
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: In gorgeous, deeply insightful prose, the author tells the story of four families whose lives each touch upon a specific desk--a New York writer, the husband of a Cambridge writer, a Israeli lawyer with a failed-writer/judge son in London, and a would-be Oxford writer dating the son of a kind of psychotic Israeli antiques dealer--and who each discover that their lives are meaningless and empty and they've totally fucked up the relationships that really mattered to them. Only the desk gets resolution.
Thoughts: On a sentence level, the writing truly is gorgeous. Distractingly so, actually--many of the phrases pull you out of the story so you can turn them over in your mind like a shiny bauble. She repeatedly tosses off searing insights that make you realize that yes, that's exactly what people are like and you can't believe you never thought of that before. The characters are deeply, richly drawn. There's a suitably ambitious theme about putting together memories that ties in the title near the end. So really, from the perspective of the typical literary fiction critic, this book most likely counts as a wild success.
My objection? This isn't a story; it's a still life.
Oh, each character gets their own realization of the hollowness of their life and where their worst mistakes were. Hubris is shattered. You even have a decent idea of most of the characters' ultimate fates. Every fate happens off-screen; no realization is accompanied by a decision to change. It's more that each character realizes that their life was ultimately something of a charade and perhaps they're not as good people as they thought they were. Woe. The end.
So while I enjoyed each sentence on its own, I found the overall effect unbearably pretentious and self-absorbed. Look, I realize that we're all flawed and that having all "heroic" characters is unrealistic. But at the same time, I don't believe that we're all flawed beyond redemption and I do believe it's possible for us to rise up within our own lives. Yes, reality doesn't get tied up in a neat little bow. But some things do get resolved. For that matter, if I only wanted to examine depressing people's inconclusive lives, I could read the newspaper more. I do, in fact, demand more from my fiction and I don't think that's unreasonable.
Also, the number of writers in this book is ridiculous, given how little she really engages with that fact. Oh, there's some self-flagellation over how a writer distances herself from others, uses them as mere fodder, is a bad person, blah blah blah. It's all done coyly, "look, isn't it deep and revealing how I reveal my own flaws through my characters?" And that theme is quickly dropped. Despite the fact there are two successful writers, one poet, and two unsuccessful writers, plus a couple academics, very little is done with the theme that basically everyone in the book is either a writer or directly related to one. It's as if the author's social circle is so writerly and self-involved that she's forgotten the fact that most people are not actually writers. Most of them are also of Jewish descent. If we're going to focus so rigorously on reflecting the world as it really is, it would be nice to have less privileged and more diverse characters included.
In short--beautiful style, but pretentious and self-absorbed.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 02:59 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 01:01 pm (UTC)From:This was such a New York novel, too, despite a bunch of it being set in Israel and elite English universities. Basically, "Hi, I'm written for book clubs of educated Jewish women living on Long Island".
no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 03:52 pm (UTC)From: (Anonymous)YES YES YES, but also needed a far better edit. To many repeated phrases annoyed me. Frankly, I'd label it a pretentious failure.
xxxxxxxxxx
no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 04:46 pm (UTC)From:The more I think about this, the more annoyed I am. The only character I was particularly invested in was the Jewish father, and she dumped him, too. She laid down all these mysteries (why did the son come back? How did the poet know the English author? Who was her lover? How did the lover get the desk?) and then deliberately doesn't answer them, thumbing her nose at you and your bourgeosie need for answers.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 07:52 pm (UTC)From: (Anonymous)First, I finally got to the "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." Excellent writing and what I suspect is an equally good translation, but too much perversion for my taste. Just don't need it for the plot. The author had some kinky personal issues to work out, but not on my time.
That said, I enjoyed the setting and all that Swedish stuff, especially the flavor of the names and the places. I've been to Gamal Stan so it was fun to read about it and be able to visualize it. However, one volume in the series is enough for me.
xxxxxxx
However, one
no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 08:10 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-01-29 03:41 pm (UTC)From: (Anonymous)How in the world did this series of books get so popular? Every single person I've spoken to who's read Dragon Tatoo or seen the movies has said exactly the same thing. And I know nothing about Sweden, so the names and descriptions of the country didn't even appeal to me. Half decent mystery, good writing and characterizations, but not worth all the garbage that went with it.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-29 07:58 pm (UTC)From: