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skyeuqx's review against another edition
dark
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Lesbophobia, Murder, Sexual assault, Abortion, Alcoholism, Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Incest, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, and War
elli135's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Child death, Murder, and Abortion
leoniepeonie's review against another edition
4.0
So unsettling and nauseating in the best way. It started off feeling exaggerated and like some sort of parody but then became so painful and pernicious and ACCURATE and hit all the harder because of the apathy of the prose and Praxis' approach to everything. The defeats and competitions playing out among women only to other women's detriment were so well-written and it was just an absolute wild ride.
ashleylm's review against another edition
2.0
Liked it at first (she's a good writer, she has a terrific voice and writes vivid and interesting characters). But plotwise, this was dreary as all get out. There were sections that were so slow and pokey, and then she'd whip across several years in a paragraph, and I didn't enjoy the pacing. The viewpoint character was sort of awful, but I don't think the writer thought she was awful (I'm fine with awful characters, so long as the author realises--it's why I can't read Patricia Cornwell).
It very much put me in mind of two things.
1. There was a mini-resurgance in the late 60s, 70s, early 80s, of books about roguish anti-heroes who often wander through life in a picaresque way, experiencing the world and either reacing or being curiously unmoved by it. I wish I could throw out some perfect examples, but they've slipping out of my brain. Maybe--something like The Sot-Weed Factor or The World According to Garp (which I loved, and is better than most) or Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and they're often associated with free love and hippie ideals, etc., and you kind of get whacked on the head with a message that there are other (better) ways to live. Which was great and necessary at the time--now we can cohabit without marriage, have children, be gay, love someone of a different race, etc., and (at least in my community!) you don't get shunned for any of that. But it's a bit old-fashioned now, we get it. It's not her fault, she wrote in 1978. But I'm not feeling it now as I might have then.
2. It's essentially Moll Flanders rewritten (herself an roguish antihero), and I like Moll Flanders, but I don't need a new one.
What I loved about the books of hers that I did love was that the plots were rather high concept and rivetingly interesting. A woman who systematically sets out to destroy the life of the woman who stole her husband? Gripping! A waif, separated from her family, wanders (in a picaresque way, though life) until eventually reunited in the most surprising manner? Moving! But Praxis just drifts around, never doing anything worth writing a novel about, and finally at 80%, having determined (Internet) what the hinted eventually murder was, I don't need to read anymore. I'm out, and over to Station Eleven which begins promisingly too. Fingers crossed.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!
It very much put me in mind of two things.
1. There was a mini-resurgance in the late 60s, 70s, early 80s, of books about roguish anti-heroes who often wander through life in a picaresque way, experiencing the world and either reacing or being curiously unmoved by it. I wish I could throw out some perfect examples, but they've slipping out of my brain. Maybe--something like The Sot-Weed Factor or The World According to Garp (which I loved, and is better than most) or Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and they're often associated with free love and hippie ideals, etc., and you kind of get whacked on the head with a message that there are other (better) ways to live. Which was great and necessary at the time--now we can cohabit without marriage, have children, be gay, love someone of a different race, etc., and (at least in my community!) you don't get shunned for any of that. But it's a bit old-fashioned now, we get it. It's not her fault, she wrote in 1978. But I'm not feeling it now as I might have then.
2. It's essentially Moll Flanders rewritten (herself an roguish antihero), and I like Moll Flanders, but I don't need a new one.
What I loved about the books of hers that I did love was that the plots were rather high concept and rivetingly interesting. A woman who systematically sets out to destroy the life of the woman who stole her husband? Gripping! A waif, separated from her family, wanders (in a picaresque way, though life) until eventually reunited in the most surprising manner? Moving! But Praxis just drifts around, never doing anything worth writing a novel about, and finally at 80%, having determined (Internet) what the hinted eventually murder was, I don't need to read anymore. I'm out, and over to Station Eleven which begins promisingly too. Fingers crossed.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!
stanro's review against another edition
3.5
I vaguely recall, without having ever read, Fay Weldon as a bit controversial back in the day.
It was interesting reading this book published in 1978. Written from the perspective of a woman named Praxis living a strangely unstructured and some would say destructive life, the character’s obliviousness to feminist thinking is obvious from this perspective.
But that is the point of this very clever book.
I enjoyed it.
It was interesting reading this book published in 1978. Written from the perspective of a woman named Praxis living a strangely unstructured and some would say destructive life, the character’s obliviousness to feminist thinking is obvious from this perspective.
But that is the point of this very clever book.
I enjoyed it.
bergrun's review
5.0
Gat ekki hætt að lesa þegar ég byrjaði. Mjög nútímaleg og flott bók (fyrir utan able-isma í lokin) og gaman að lesa textann. Þetta er raunsæ og súrsæt saga um konu sem hrærist, eins og við öll, í kynjakerfinu og segir frá henni ströggla við að finna sína eigin rödd og köllun þar. Hún er sorgleg, ótrúlega fyndin og virkilega áhugaverð.
readerstephen86's review
4.0
SUMMARY - An atmospheric book about lost time. Rape, murder, abandonment and madness are but the backdrop to a story about seizing the day, whatever life throws at us.
Most times when I pick up a book, I won't know much if anything about it beyond the flyleaf. Looking at Weldon's cover for Praxis, what might I expect? The title suggested an aridly intellectual mind; the picture perhaps an allusion to art criticism or maybe feminism?
If you'd given me a plot summary I would probably have been even further from the truth. You could say that this is a novel about abandonment, lesbianism and sexual exploration, sex work, incest, madness, women's lib, and perhaps define it as a murder mystery, although this is left portenteous but unrevealed until the very end. These themes are all very much present and get explored, but writing them down gives a false sense of sensationalism. It was the humdrum moments that spoke most powerfully in my reading. For instance, I remember Praxis cleaning under a cooker in passages when her husband usurps the right to education, and think back to her first uncleaned and unwarmed house that spoke to dysfunctional family life and self-abasement. These are not pivotal moments, but speak volumes about the circumstances and feelings of Praxis, who turns out to be a complex and ever-evolving person.
We get suburban interwar upstairs-downstairs life where class and gender split the family; wartime sexual opportunism and trajedy (with shades of Elizabeth Bowen), post-war Mad Men-cum-Truman Show domestic hell, complete with advertising campaigns, spouse-swapping, and the tedium of suburban existence. It felt like Weldon had soaked up the atmosphere of these times, and it was this backdrop as much as the often acidically-delivered incident that I loved. It's full of tragedy, but I didn't feel it radiated the pessimism that some other reviewers have perceived. There are moments of hedonistic joy and deeper-seated love, albeit transient. This is a book about time. Yes there is loss, but there is always hope. Read this and you will want to seize the day.
Most times when I pick up a book, I won't know much if anything about it beyond the flyleaf. Looking at Weldon's cover for Praxis, what might I expect? The title suggested an aridly intellectual mind; the picture perhaps an allusion to art criticism or maybe feminism?
If you'd given me a plot summary I would probably have been even further from the truth. You could say that this is a novel about abandonment, lesbianism and sexual exploration, sex work, incest, madness, women's lib, and perhaps define it as a murder mystery, although this is left portenteous but unrevealed until the very end. These themes are all very much present and get explored, but writing them down gives a false sense of sensationalism. It was the humdrum moments that spoke most powerfully in my reading. For instance, I remember Praxis cleaning under a cooker in passages when her husband usurps the right to education, and think back to her first uncleaned and unwarmed house that spoke to dysfunctional family life and self-abasement. These are not pivotal moments, but speak volumes about the circumstances and feelings of Praxis, who turns out to be a complex and ever-evolving person.
We get suburban interwar upstairs-downstairs life where class and gender split the family; wartime sexual opportunism and trajedy (with shades of Elizabeth Bowen), post-war Mad Men-cum-Truman Show domestic hell, complete with advertising campaigns, spouse-swapping, and the tedium of suburban existence. It felt like Weldon had soaked up the atmosphere of these times, and it was this backdrop as much as the often acidically-delivered incident that I loved. It's full of tragedy, but I didn't feel it radiated the pessimism that some other reviewers have perceived. There are moments of hedonistic joy and deeper-seated love, albeit transient. This is a book about time. Yes there is loss, but there is always hope. Read this and you will want to seize the day.