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Winner of the National Book Award: A Novel of Fame, Honor, and Really Bad Weather by Jincy Willett
matthew_p's review
4.0
Funny and difficult. Dorcas is a complex protagonist, seeming to love what she hates and hate what she loves, with true humanity. Highly recommend.
harvio's review
3.0
- I really wanted to like this novel because I loved Willett's only other book "Jenny And The Jaws Of Death", published back in 1987 (I gave it 5/5). That first book is one of my favourite collections of short stories. This novel, however, is stylistically choppy and awkward, but even before I realized this I took a (admittedly shallow) dislike to the protagonist's name - Dorcus.
librarychic's review against another edition
4.0
As usual, great character development and smart writing. I'll probably read it again in a few years.
fablejack's review
3.0
Really funny at times and with excellent and intriguing use of language, which is one of the things I liked most about "Jenny and the Jaws of Life." However, the main characters seem underdeveloped though it's all about the characters. For example, the narrator alternately let us know her or her sister and then would distance us from either of them, which I found distracdting and made it harder to engage. Really picks up when Conrad enters the picture around page 100.
roarajane552's review
1.0
The thing is, I picked up this book because of the bold title. Who names their book "Winner of the National Book Award"? Surely someone who takes risks and has a wicked sense of humor. It sold me, it worked. And I do believe Willett is capable of those things. The problem is, this book reads like a first draft. It's a jumble of great ideas and clever punchlines that get lost in masturbatory prose, poorly developed characters and a weak framework.
The story focuses on twin sisters Dorcas and Abigail. A man comes between them, Abigail kills him, goes to jail awaiting trial, and Dorcas (a librarian) sits down to read her sister's newly published biography. Each chapter (mostly) begins with the opening paragraph of each chapter of the bio until Dorcas butts in and tells her own version of the events.
The biggest "uh-oh" moment I had as a reader was when I reached a particularly clever line spoken by Dorcas about "power and dignity." I even went to underline it. And then Willett spent the rest of the book patting herself on the back for being so clever. It was unbecoming, at best. It only highlighted to me how clever Willett thinks she is in general, and the constant comparisons of her characters to mythical heroes and beasts were insufferable by the end.
There is no discernible character arc for Dorcas or the intruding man or...any of the other characters except for Abigail. I felt no empathy whatsoever for any of the characters - none were endearing and none had qualities I could connect with. Dorcas, arguably the main character, consistently made unexplained choices that only made her unlikeable and unpredictable. This, if I had to choose one thing, is Willett's fatal flaw. There are countless side characters, NONE of which have anything to do with the plot. And you know Chekhov's gun rule? "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." That one. There were about 18 figurative guns in this book, and none of them were fired.
Finally, in theory, the framework is clever, but in practice Dorcas gives away too much of the story of the murder for the reader to care about getting to the end. There's no surprise - no drama. Save yourself the time and don't bother picking this up.
The story focuses on twin sisters Dorcas and Abigail. A man comes between them, Abigail kills him, goes to jail awaiting trial, and Dorcas (a librarian) sits down to read her sister's newly published biography. Each chapter (mostly) begins with the opening paragraph of each chapter of the bio until Dorcas butts in and tells her own version of the events.
The biggest "uh-oh" moment I had as a reader was when I reached a particularly clever line spoken by Dorcas about "power and dignity." I even went to underline it. And then Willett spent the rest of the book patting herself on the back for being so clever. It was unbecoming, at best. It only highlighted to me how clever Willett thinks she is in general, and the constant comparisons of her characters to mythical heroes and beasts were insufferable by the end.
There is no discernible character arc for Dorcas or the intruding man or...any of the other characters except for Abigail. I felt no empathy whatsoever for any of the characters - none were endearing and none had qualities I could connect with. Dorcas, arguably the main character, consistently made unexplained choices that only made her unlikeable and unpredictable. This, if I had to choose one thing, is Willett's fatal flaw. There are countless side characters, NONE of which have anything to do with the plot. And you know Chekhov's gun rule? "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." That one. There were about 18 figurative guns in this book, and none of them were fired.
Finally, in theory, the framework is clever, but in practice Dorcas gives away too much of the story of the murder for the reader to care about getting to the end. There's no surprise - no drama. Save yourself the time and don't bother picking this up.
leucocrystal's review
5.0
Just as brilliant and dark as I remembered, if not even more so, reading it now when I'm older. Still my favorite of Jincy's works so far.
gglazer's review
2.0
The funniest thing about this book was its title. As one of the other commenters said, it really suffered from bad advertising -- if it had been billed as "biting" or "incredibly sarcastic" rather than "hilarious," maybe my expectations would have been different.
But as it stood, this story about the stereotypical brilliant spinster librarian was just so very meh. I liked Dorcas' character and clearly felt her revulsion for her twin sister, I liked the structure running parallel to the biography, I like that the spinster librarian was allowed to get trashed alone in her library on a weekend, but there was just no narrative tension.
But as it stood, this story about the stereotypical brilliant spinster librarian was just so very meh. I liked Dorcas' character and clearly felt her revulsion for her twin sister, I liked the structure running parallel to the biography, I like that the spinster librarian was allowed to get trashed alone in her library on a weekend, but there was just no narrative tension.