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caterinaanna's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting set of short stories plus novella linked by characters who share names and aspects of their lives, or, perhaps, life. The conceit is one which is less confusing than it might appear on paper: the initial tales act as an amuse bouche for the longer history and each is echoed in the story of what one comes to think of as the real Benna and Gerard. I'm not altogether sure it belongs on the 1001 list (I discovered it was there long after I read it), but it is very clever, enjoyable in a melancholy way and certainly has some lovely lines. One of my favourite: How can you trust a word whose first letter you don't even pronounce?
debnanceatreaderbuzz's review against another edition
4.0
Gerard and Benna. Benna loves Gerard. No, Benna and Gerard are friends. No, Benna and Gerard are neighbors.
Thus, this novel. The identities of Benna and Gerard ebb and flow through this novel, changing in each chapter, each subchapter. A daughter appears, but, no, she is an illusion. A friend appears, but, no, she, too, is imaginary. Or are they?
Nothing is clear in this novel of relationships and meaning. A good choice for a re-reading, I think, and discussion.
Thus, this novel. The identities of Benna and Gerard ebb and flow through this novel, changing in each chapter, each subchapter. A daughter appears, but, no, she is an illusion. A friend appears, but, no, she, too, is imaginary. Or are they?
Nothing is clear in this novel of relationships and meaning. A good choice for a re-reading, I think, and discussion.
bibliocyclist's review against another edition
4.0
"Basically, I realized, I was living in that awful stage of life from the age of twenty-six to thirty-seven known as stupidity. It's when you don't know anything, not even as much as you did when you were younger, and you don't even have a philosophy about all the things you don't know, the way you did when you were twenty or would again when you were thirty-eight."
"It's not that I wanted to be married. It's that I wanted a Marriage Equivalent, although I never knew exactly what that was, and often suspected that there was really no such thing. Yet I was convinced that there had to be something better than the lonely farce living across town or hall could, with very little time, become."
"Where does love go? When something you have taped to the wall falls off, what has happened to the stickum? It has relaxed. It has accumulated an assortment of hairs and fuzzies. It has said Fuck It and given up. It doesn't go anywhere, it's just gone. Energy is created, and then it is destroyed. So much for the law of physics. So much for chemistry. So much for not much."
"Between large and small, between near and far, there was no wisdom or truth to be had. To be near was to be blind; to be one among so many was to own no shape or say."
"Jolly X-mas from Santa and his subordinate clauses."
"It's not that I wanted to be married. It's that I wanted a Marriage Equivalent, although I never knew exactly what that was, and often suspected that there was really no such thing. Yet I was convinced that there had to be something better than the lonely farce living across town or hall could, with very little time, become."
"Where does love go? When something you have taped to the wall falls off, what has happened to the stickum? It has relaxed. It has accumulated an assortment of hairs and fuzzies. It has said Fuck It and given up. It doesn't go anywhere, it's just gone. Energy is created, and then it is destroyed. So much for the law of physics. So much for chemistry. So much for not much."
"Between large and small, between near and far, there was no wisdom or truth to be had. To be near was to be blind; to be one among so many was to own no shape or say."
"Jolly X-mas from Santa and his subordinate clauses."
ambassadorfae's review against another edition
5.0
I was just reading an interview with the author where she said that this book got so many bad reviews that she had to stop reading them. That made me sad. Wherever she may be, I would like her to know that it has been a favorite of mine since I first read it in 1991. I was 20 years old. It astonished me with its creativity, intelligence, richness of detail, clever wordplay and zany humor. I had never seen anything like it. And I had read everything. Particularly the classics! I was an English major in addition to a lifelong bibliophile. I read French literature in the original French. I read philosophy for fun. In my mind, today's bestselling authors should have mandatory and strict lessons with Professor Moore. They need her help. What I didn't recognize at the time is the cynical streak in her writing. While I don't like it, I also can't fault anyone for it. Life makes us all cynical after a while. There are no permanent cures for it, but some temporary measures can last a long time. These include sex with a bearded madman in a tent (especially in the rain), carb-loading in a foreign country while watching snow fall on a lighted bridge, surviving an up-close encounter with a wild animal, and certain strains of soft harp music.
jeremiah's review against another edition
I liked the first half of the novel, that is, the initial variations, or "anagrams," but the final part of the book, "The Nun of That" wasn't all that great to me. Moore spends too much time being silly; for example, "The ants are my friends / they're blowing in the wind" refrain. However, based on interviews, I think she's aware of how that tendency was out of balance in previous works. There was some great jokes in this one, though, and the first sentence is hilarious. My favorite part was when Benna whacks her now ex-friend over the head with a ketchup bottle and suffers zero consequences.
anndouglas's review against another edition
4.0
This is one of Lorrie Moore's earlier books (her second, published in 1986). What amazes me, as someone who started with her more recent books, is how well she was writing early on in her career. The quirky characters, the word play, and the distinctly Lorrie Moore descriptions ("The weekend appeared before her like a lovely hammock strung between two wide weeks," pg. 105).
But this novel is for die-hard Lorrie Moore fans only. The novel is complex, presenting multiple versions of the same reality. Characters morph into alternate versions of themselves. When the book comes to an end, you're left with a heightened sense of sadness because you're saying goodbye to every version of every character you encountered. I think that's the point, but it doesn't make for an easy read or an easy ending.
But this novel is for die-hard Lorrie Moore fans only. The novel is complex, presenting multiple versions of the same reality. Characters morph into alternate versions of themselves. When the book comes to an end, you're left with a heightened sense of sadness because you're saying goodbye to every version of every character you encountered. I think that's the point, but it doesn't make for an easy read or an easy ending.
gemmak's review against another edition
3.0
"At last it had been confirmed: My life was really as difficult as I had always suspected."
This quote follows Benna's, the book's most of the time narrator, discovery of a lump in her breast, but it serves as a fitting epigram for the book as a whole. The concept of this novel is that Benna and Gerard love each other sometimes, and sometimes they don't, but they are not always the same people. Lorrie Moore makes anagrams of their lives and relationships to each other in a series of chapters set in alternate realities. In one, they live across the hall from each other. Gerard loves Benna, and Benna loves no one. In another, they live in a house together but Gerard is moving across the country and leaving Benna behind. In the last, longest section of the book, Benna teaches at a community college and Gerard is her only friend. Each section analyses the difficulty of relating to someone when you want their love, and makes slow-burning loneliness something interesting to read about. It's only that the external world, the impossibility of knowing for sure that someone else loves you, has the sense of entitled drama about it.
Moore's writing is skillful and funny, like when she describes a class of students as "twenty faces with the personalities of cheeses and dial tones". She's pleasant to read, but I'm left wanting something more. Yes, love is difficult, and it's hard to find yourself alone, but I have to believe that there are more feelings in the world than love and the lack of it. Perhaps if I were a different person I would give this book four stars. Perhaps if I were nineteen again I would give it five. But me, now, can only give three because love is good, but it is not enough. All of prose is about love, and it has to be damn clever to look up above the rest. This is good, but it's not a mountain. It's only another tree in the forest at its side.
This quote follows Benna's, the book's most of the time narrator, discovery of a lump in her breast, but it serves as a fitting epigram for the book as a whole. The concept of this novel is that Benna and Gerard love each other sometimes, and sometimes they don't, but they are not always the same people. Lorrie Moore makes anagrams of their lives and relationships to each other in a series of chapters set in alternate realities. In one, they live across the hall from each other. Gerard loves Benna, and Benna loves no one. In another, they live in a house together but Gerard is moving across the country and leaving Benna behind. In the last, longest section of the book, Benna teaches at a community college and Gerard is her only friend. Each section analyses the difficulty of relating to someone when you want their love, and makes slow-burning loneliness something interesting to read about. It's only that the external world, the impossibility of knowing for sure that someone else loves you, has the sense of entitled drama about it.
Moore's writing is skillful and funny, like when she describes a class of students as "twenty faces with the personalities of cheeses and dial tones". She's pleasant to read, but I'm left wanting something more. Yes, love is difficult, and it's hard to find yourself alone, but I have to believe that there are more feelings in the world than love and the lack of it. Perhaps if I were a different person I would give this book four stars. Perhaps if I were nineteen again I would give it five. But me, now, can only give three because love is good, but it is not enough. All of prose is about love, and it has to be damn clever to look up above the rest. This is good, but it's not a mountain. It's only another tree in the forest at its side.
luiscorrea's review against another edition
4.0
Clever like a fox. Here the characters are too clever for their own good, which, in a sense is an authorial strength as much as it is a weakness and Moore is keenly aware of this. In a way, I liked the concept more than the execution. Some stories could have been longer while others could have been shorter, but here I am anagramming the anagrams. Really, really funny moments in this one that actually got me to chuckle audibly.
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