drewjameson 's review for:

Sophie's Choice by William Styron

3.0

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I had major problems with the way Styron chose to tell this story. He frames the story of Sophie's escape from the Holocaust, her unbelievably horrifying choice, and her need to punish herself with an abusive relationship entirely inside the voice of a spoiled, whiny, loquacious and unfocusedly horny Southern dingus (who is almost certainly a stand-in for Styron himself). Stingo's voice gives a tedious, masturbatory cast to the whole novel and makes the central Holocaust story feel boring. There's a world of difference between writing a novel about writing novels and recording your own struggle to figure out how to tell a story about an event so horrible it cannot be captured or recreated.”