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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
It was kind of a slog, but mostly an entertaining slog.
Do not read this book.
This book! Wow, this book has really pissed me off. (spoiler alert)
It draws you in with this great, smart, feminist character who speaks so many languages I actually had to keep looking up words while I read. I loved it! She was sexy, she was devil-may-care.
Then she gets lured into relationship with a “great man” (yes, he’s older and she’s hot with big boobs) and ensures a trip across the desert to this community he has built that to save women — it only accepts women who were rejected and they run everything. Sounds somewhat promising, right?
She falls in love, becomes his helpmate. Gross, but ok.
But then HE goes off into the desert, and she starts spinning.
The ENTIRE third half of this book is her spinning about him — and then he comes back from the desert as the f-in Buddha and she continues to spin, then finds him a YOUNGER lover, leaves, and builds her career off of knowing him. And then, of course, she goes back to him. UGH!!!! And this won awards?
This book! Wow, this book has really pissed me off. (spoiler alert)
It draws you in with this great, smart, feminist character who speaks so many languages I actually had to keep looking up words while I read. I loved it! She was sexy, she was devil-may-care.
Then she gets lured into relationship with a “great man” (yes, he’s older and she’s hot with big boobs) and ensures a trip across the desert to this community he has built that to save women — it only accepts women who were rejected and they run everything. Sounds somewhat promising, right?
She falls in love, becomes his helpmate. Gross, but ok.
But then HE goes off into the desert, and she starts spinning.
The ENTIRE third half of this book is her spinning about him — and then he comes back from the desert as the f-in Buddha and she continues to spin, then finds him a YOUNGER lover, leaves, and builds her career off of knowing him. And then, of course, she goes back to him. UGH!!!! And this won awards?
This book has no business being as good as it is! Reminded me of [b:The Last Samurai|190372|The Last Samurai|Helen DeWitt|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348618641l/190372._SX50_.jpg|376680] in its freewheeling expansiveness.
"Causing active ongoing pleasure in your mate is something people tend to restrict to the sexual realm or getting attractive food on the table on time, but keeping permanent intimate comedy going is more important than any other one thing. Naturally it was living with Denoon that gave me this notion in its developed form as opposed to the bare inkling I got during the evening in question. I'm not talking about having a sense of humor you apply to the ups and downs of living together. I'm talking about being comedically proactive. Ultimately I was better at this than Denoon was. I don't know why being funny for someone was such a new idea for me. It had never occurred to me in connection with any other male I had been serious about. Denoon had early on made it clear I was free to include him and his foibles as ingredients and props in my routine if I felt like it, by not objecting when I did. So he was different. Or was it just that I was dealing for the first time in my life with an actual mature male, a concept which up until then I had considered an essentially literary construct and a way of not asking the question of whether or not in fact the real world reduced to a layer cake of differing grades of hysteria, with the hysteria of the ruling sex being simply more suppressed and expressing itself in ritualized forms like preparedness or memorizing lifetime batting averages that no one associates with hysteria. I was surprised at how pleased I felt to get such deep, easy, thorough laughter out of him" (221–222).
"Causing active ongoing pleasure in your mate is something people tend to restrict to the sexual realm or getting attractive food on the table on time, but keeping permanent intimate comedy going is more important than any other one thing. Naturally it was living with Denoon that gave me this notion in its developed form as opposed to the bare inkling I got during the evening in question. I'm not talking about having a sense of humor you apply to the ups and downs of living together. I'm talking about being comedically proactive. Ultimately I was better at this than Denoon was. I don't know why being funny for someone was such a new idea for me. It had never occurred to me in connection with any other male I had been serious about. Denoon had early on made it clear I was free to include him and his foibles as ingredients and props in my routine if I felt like it, by not objecting when I did. So he was different. Or was it just that I was dealing for the first time in my life with an actual mature male, a concept which up until then I had considered an essentially literary construct and a way of not asking the question of whether or not in fact the real world reduced to a layer cake of differing grades of hysteria, with the hysteria of the ruling sex being simply more suppressed and expressing itself in ritualized forms like preparedness or memorizing lifetime batting averages that no one associates with hysteria. I was surprised at how pleased I felt to get such deep, easy, thorough laughter out of him" (221–222).
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
challenging
funny
informative
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
vocab! and i rly pondered this rating but in the end i simply did not like the plot or characterization enough even tho it made me think about sociology for the last two weeks
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Rush wrote this book wanting to show the world his experience of being Nelson, a desired biography, but could have executed it much better. However, it gets 3.75 stars because it is truly unlike anything else I have ever read and I found myself enjoying being in on the bit with the narrator. One of my favorite elements of a novel is when an author creates de-ja-vu for the reader. This happens a few times in this book, and each instance is incredibly satisfying.
I also loved the language used in this novel. I frequently had to google the meaning of words, the history of the discussion, and found it pleasingly challenging. I do find it incredibly frustrating when authors create a storyline to show how educated they are - this book really teetered the line here. This was coupled with the narrator only having intelligent revelations through Nelson. As if when she meets him, she loses track of her PhD (which she does) and any ability to have critical thought or pass the bechdel test. I may be exaggerating.
I realized about half way through reading that this was written by a man, something I had overlooked, but it made everything make sense. There is no hint of the woman experience in this apparently reflective book. It loses a full star on this alone. It is clearly missing from the reading experience and would have improved this book tenfold.
I also loved the language used in this novel. I frequently had to google the meaning of words, the history of the discussion, and found it pleasingly challenging. I do find it incredibly frustrating when authors create a storyline to show how educated they are - this book really teetered the line here. This was coupled with the narrator only having intelligent revelations through Nelson. As if when she meets him, she loses track of her PhD (which she does) and any ability to have critical thought or pass the bechdel test. I may be exaggerating.
I realized about half way through reading that this was written by a man, something I had overlooked, but it made everything make sense. There is no hint of the woman experience in this apparently reflective book. It loses a full star on this alone. It is clearly missing from the reading experience and would have improved this book tenfold.
adventurous
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Where to begin? Words are so dinky when you are trying to use them to describe a book you love. Though I'm sure Norman Rush would have no trouble if it were someone else's, and not his, book being adored. I'm sure that he'd not only have the words, but he'd have the perfect ones; ones you'd have to look up, but when you read the definition you think, Ah: the sentiment could not have been conveyed better.
I did have to keep the dictionary at my side while reading this, but I was grateful for the instruction couched in such gorgeous language, such profound images, such a significant story. What better way to improve your vocabulary than to do so with a heartache?
I am convinced, anyway, that Rush doesn't throw the multisyllables at us under any sort of pretense. I bet that this is probably just how he talks himself. I pictured that, after a day at his typewriter, it would be reasonable that he propose to his wife a postprandial stroll through the gloaming, these being words as close to his everyday consciousness as "dinner" is to ours.
But anyway, Mating. The premise is genius. An anthropologist falls in love. She-- yes, the protagonist is a vibrant, young-ish female portrayed perfectly by an author who is a middle-aged straight male-- she, used to the impartial observation and classification of the data of human life, is thrown into a partnership that bucks all her notions. While our nameless heroine has to blissfully and painfully parse meaning and emotion that is impossible to quantify, we non-anthropologistic readers are treated to a description of love, society, and domesticity that is unlike any of the mass of muddled instincts we normally follow in our pre- and self-scripted daily lives.
"The reason Achilles can never lay hands on the tortoise is the same reason a month has passed while I've studied the question of why I have yet to act. There is always new material to be integrated into the study of me."
To our narrator's perpetual dismay, love does seem to exist outside of the measurable continuum of humanity. But of course to acknowledge it merely as mystery is paralyzing. I'll happily throw up my hands in the face of the question, so long as I can continue to read books such as these.
I did have to keep the dictionary at my side while reading this, but I was grateful for the instruction couched in such gorgeous language, such profound images, such a significant story. What better way to improve your vocabulary than to do so with a heartache?
I am convinced, anyway, that Rush doesn't throw the multisyllables at us under any sort of pretense. I bet that this is probably just how he talks himself. I pictured that, after a day at his typewriter, it would be reasonable that he propose to his wife a postprandial stroll through the gloaming, these being words as close to his everyday consciousness as "dinner" is to ours.
But anyway, Mating. The premise is genius. An anthropologist falls in love. She-- yes, the protagonist is a vibrant, young-ish female portrayed perfectly by an author who is a middle-aged straight male-- she, used to the impartial observation and classification of the data of human life, is thrown into a partnership that bucks all her notions. While our nameless heroine has to blissfully and painfully parse meaning and emotion that is impossible to quantify, we non-anthropologistic readers are treated to a description of love, society, and domesticity that is unlike any of the mass of muddled instincts we normally follow in our pre- and self-scripted daily lives.
"The reason Achilles can never lay hands on the tortoise is the same reason a month has passed while I've studied the question of why I have yet to act. There is always new material to be integrated into the study of me."
To our narrator's perpetual dismay, love does seem to exist outside of the measurable continuum of humanity. But of course to acknowledge it merely as mystery is paralyzing. I'll happily throw up my hands in the face of the question, so long as I can continue to read books such as these.