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shawcrit 's review for:
The Paying Guests
by Sarah Waters
Update: Finished, still feel like it was strong in some ways but the third part was way too long and I really stopped caring. I feel like this book could be at least 100 pages shorter, to be honest. Its a shame because the second part was really strong and I still feel the same about the aspects I note below.
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So far, I am pretty captivated by this one, but more for academic rather than emotional reasons. I think this novel is really good. It reminds me of Virginia Woolf, with all the walking, female flaneur passages. My main interests here are
1) Space. Waters uses spatial relations to reflect or amplify different social relations. At first I was kind of bored with the descriptions of such-and-such cleaning task, of the house. But as the novel progresses its easy to see how the house is a metaphor for a certain type of domesticity. There are certain queer thresholds, like the stairway, the foyer, the garden, the bathroom - all areas that are either liminal or abject in some way; these spaces are where queer potential or tension happens.
2) Queer affect. I basically think this novel should be read as a companion to Sara Ahmed's book Queer Phenomenology. There are so many poignant passages where nothing much is happening except a certain kind of "moment" or connection that, in my mind, illustrates what Ahmed is talking about when she discusses queer orientations. These moments are amazing and help to subvert the more standard melodrama of the surface plot.
3) Neat gendered juxtapositions, and their subversion. The best example I can think of is the night that Len is attacked, and comes in bleeding. He is marked by violence throughout, becoming the symbol of a fractured masculinity that is referenced throughout (i.e. post-war masculinity in the process of redefinition, class blurring, inability to provide materially leading to unrest). But Len's attack occurs in the same day that the first kiss happens. So there is, at first, a pretty typical masculine = violence, feminine = love dichtomy going on, but this is also frequently challenged (or queered).
Looking forward to reading the rest.
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So far, I am pretty captivated by this one, but more for academic rather than emotional reasons. I think this novel is really good. It reminds me of Virginia Woolf, with all the walking, female flaneur passages. My main interests here are
1) Space. Waters uses spatial relations to reflect or amplify different social relations. At first I was kind of bored with the descriptions of such-and-such cleaning task, of the house. But as the novel progresses its easy to see how the house is a metaphor for a certain type of domesticity. There are certain queer thresholds, like the stairway, the foyer, the garden, the bathroom - all areas that are either liminal or abject in some way; these spaces are where queer potential or tension happens.
2) Queer affect. I basically think this novel should be read as a companion to Sara Ahmed's book Queer Phenomenology. There are so many poignant passages where nothing much is happening except a certain kind of "moment" or connection that, in my mind, illustrates what Ahmed is talking about when she discusses queer orientations. These moments are amazing and help to subvert the more standard melodrama of the surface plot.
3) Neat gendered juxtapositions, and their subversion. The best example I can think of is the night that Len is attacked, and comes in bleeding. He is marked by violence throughout, becoming the symbol of a fractured masculinity that is referenced throughout (i.e. post-war masculinity in the process of redefinition, class blurring, inability to provide materially leading to unrest). But Len's attack occurs in the same day that the first kiss happens. So there is, at first, a pretty typical masculine = violence, feminine = love dichtomy going on, but this is also frequently challenged (or queered).
Looking forward to reading the rest.