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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
a great novel of the PhD student and Africa genre. Philip Larkin said he'd ask himself four questions: can I read it? Absolutely! Do I believe it? Mostly, but where I don't entirely I like where Rush tries to take us. Do I care for it, and at what level? Yes, and very much! This is a smart book that takes us into an interesting multilevel experiment.
I tried. Goodreads tells me I've been trying for 6 months. I know this book has its renewed interest more recently (as I hear from the nyt, so assuming that's a few months-years out of date https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/style/mating-norman-rush.html). I think I might be too old for it? Or just not as interested in romantic explorations?
I enjoyed a lot of the language in the book, which sometimes had a Nabokovian tinge - but I guess the plot totally faltered for me, and I started to find the characters and their actions tedious. Maybe the reader is supposed to feel mired in the "utopia," but it just got tired.
I was really intrigued by the whole "idioverse" concept, and I liked how it was portrayed, but I just couldn't stay with it:
"Rush has a genius for depicting language that grows out of sustained romantic partnership—what the unnamed narrator-protagonist of “Mating” called an “idioverse,” a private patois made up of shared references and sayings, occasional neologisms, and common words that have taken on new meanings."
I enjoyed a lot of the language in the book, which sometimes had a Nabokovian tinge - but I guess the plot totally faltered for me, and I started to find the characters and their actions tedious. Maybe the reader is supposed to feel mired in the "utopia," but it just got tired.
I was really intrigued by the whole "idioverse" concept, and I liked how it was portrayed, but I just couldn't stay with it:
"Rush has a genius for depicting language that grows out of sustained romantic partnership—what the unnamed narrator-protagonist of “Mating” called an “idioverse,” a private patois made up of shared references and sayings, occasional neologisms, and common words that have taken on new meanings."
The young, self deprecating protagonist wanders in Botswana, engaged in semi-existential Pensées on and throwing anthropological jargon around. The "liberated" mood, a privileged young woman with a mocking tone, and the total antipathy I felt about her reminds me of Fear of Flying, another case in the long queue of over hyped books.
But to be fair: descriptions of Botswana are really interesting and I am going to find a decent book about the country.
But to be fair: descriptions of Botswana are really interesting and I am going to find a decent book about the country.
It was slow and I had to return it to the library
I don't usually read romance novels because the genre tends to be less intellectually literary than I prefer. When I learned of "Mating," I had high hopes that perhaps this would strike the balance between intellectual rigor and passion that I've hoped for. Not only was it not that, but it felt like a very dry narrative for anyone who is not actually in academia or specifically interested in the fields of sociology or anthropology. A little over halfway into the book it was clear that the focus was going to remain more on the protagonist's reflections on her environment and her neurotic processing of her own feelings, her interactions with others, her past and her imagined future. It's a long read, so I did the unspeakable thing of skipping ahead through sections and chapters hoping to find a reason to keep trudging through the many tedious parts. I failed to find any. I hate not finishing a book when I've invested as much hope and time as I did with this, but there's too many other books I'm excited to read to force myself to continue such an unsatisfactory reading experience.
challenging
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I feel so complicated about this book. It’s beautiful and pretentious and *highly* problematic, and charming and has moments of total insight. I don’t really know how to interpret this novel that seems primarily about feminism and gender with a smattering of race written by a white man in the voice of a white woman living in Botswana. But still.
An intellectual love story that has a very unique perspective, however the author uses so many big words you practically need to have a dictionary on hand to read it. The descriptions of the relationship between the unnamed narrator and Denoon is very realistic, especially regarding the thought processes surrounding the courting process and the intricacies of their established relationship. The last act of the book feels oddly out of place for the main character, however I feel like this can be attributed to her own personal flaws that she selectively overlooks. Good book though, albeit dense.
I'm not sure. I get the feeling in the current revival this book tends to be overpraised. Then again, it was often a lot of fun to read. To some extent, it made me think of Bellow's style and Bellow's protagonists: like them, the protagonist/narrator of this novel is very intellectual and spends a lot of time inside her head, she's very allusive and tends to want to show off her knowledge. On the other hand, in the end the storyline rather fizzles out. The narrative seemed to foster expectations of revelations to come that never came, an unmasking of the guru that never materialized. I can see why Jonathan Yardley responded so critically to the novel and its colgrad language (‘To read Mating is to be given a life sentence in graduate school’) in The Washington Post. And then again I can also see the appeal of this.
I am rather puzzled that in the recent revival this seems to now be touted mainly as a panegyric of the successful marriage. Do people gloss over that the couple break up in the end, and Denoon trades in his narrator/protagonist for a younger woman? I think if the novel has one failing, it that Rush didn't flesh out the diabolical aspect of his Denoon a bit more. As it stands, he's portrayed as an all too human Christ like figure (a deeply atheist Christ, let it be said). I dunno.
Good book club fodder, anyway. Except for its length, maybe.
I am rather puzzled that in the recent revival this seems to now be touted mainly as a panegyric of the successful marriage. Do people gloss over that the couple break up in the end, and Denoon trades in his narrator/protagonist for a younger woman? I think if the novel has one failing, it that Rush didn't flesh out the diabolical aspect of his Denoon a bit more. As it stands, he's portrayed as an all too human Christ like figure (a deeply atheist Christ, let it be said). I dunno.
Good book club fodder, anyway. Except for its length, maybe.
I wondered why so many reviews talked about the vocabulary of "Mating"...until I googled some of the words I didn't know while reading and the top results all referenced this very book. Talk about obscure...
That and the elevated intellectual tone made this book take quite a while to get through...I can't say I exactly enjoyed reading it, although some parts were quite funny, and it cleverly and importantly hit on some issues in international development, feminism, and love that made me think.
That and the elevated intellectual tone made this book take quite a while to get through...I can't say I exactly enjoyed reading it, although some parts were quite funny, and it cleverly and importantly hit on some issues in international development, feminism, and love that made me think.