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zwagrowska 's review for:
A Single Man
by Christopher Isherwood
To those who rated this 3 stars or above... did we read the same book?
It was weird and off-putting, alongside being poorly written. I'm surprised this was even given enough attention for a film adaptation, but I suppose I can't speak on something I haven't watched. As for what I did just read...
I was teased by the blurb. "With devastating clarity and humour", "the soul's ability to triumph over loss and alienation". Yet I saw none of this in the book. George's character is flat, Isherwood gives little both to his grief and to the characters who surround him. 'A Single Man' is a non-story. I'm struggling even to write a review because there is not much to discuss. I can see where the story would have headed had it been written with appropriate attention to detail and emotion, but unfortunately I simply did not care.
I did not care for the students... (specifically Kenny), I did not care for Charlotte, whose relationship with George is oddly undefined- why are they both British, are they siblings? How do they know each other? Often I found Isherwood placing irrelevant sentences into the novel which had no relevance toward the wider story. When George decides he does not need Charlotte in America, he states he does not need a sister. So are they siblings after all?
When George goes to the canyon, we get a strange line, "now he zips up his pants and gets into the car and drives on..." There was no mention of him taking them off initially.
On the whole the novel felt poorly edited, and perverse in a way which does little to intensify the novel's development. George's death felt underwhelming, I simply did not care. His attempt seduction of Kenny was weird and I found that the novel tried to make up for a 12 year old reading comprehension level with out of place philosophising. I benefitted nothing from George's rumination on experience in his house, or the Socratic dialogue when in exchange with Kenny at the bar. It all felt manufactured to fit a poorly written introspective character. In the end the oddly masturbatory scenes of the novel overpowered any attempt to produce a depth of message.
Best encapsulating the feel of this novel is the very beginning, where George's reading of Ruskin is interrupted by a "bowel movement", prompting him to sit on the "john".
It was weird and off-putting, alongside being poorly written. I'm surprised this was even given enough attention for a film adaptation, but I suppose I can't speak on something I haven't watched. As for what I did just read...
I was teased by the blurb. "With devastating clarity and humour", "the soul's ability to triumph over loss and alienation". Yet I saw none of this in the book. George's character is flat, Isherwood gives little both to his grief and to the characters who surround him. 'A Single Man' is a non-story. I'm struggling even to write a review because there is not much to discuss. I can see where the story would have headed had it been written with appropriate attention to detail and emotion, but unfortunately I simply did not care.
I did not care for the students... (specifically Kenny), I did not care for Charlotte, whose relationship with George is oddly undefined- why are they both British, are they siblings? How do they know each other? Often I found Isherwood placing irrelevant sentences into the novel which had no relevance toward the wider story. When George decides he does not need Charlotte in America, he states he does not need a sister. So are they siblings after all?
When George goes to the canyon, we get a strange line, "now he zips up his pants and gets into the car and drives on..." There was no mention of him taking them off initially.
On the whole the novel felt poorly edited, and perverse in a way which does little to intensify the novel's development. George's death felt underwhelming, I simply did not care. His attempt seduction of Kenny was weird and I found that the novel tried to make up for a 12 year old reading comprehension level with out of place philosophising. I benefitted nothing from George's rumination on experience in his house, or the Socratic dialogue when in exchange with Kenny at the bar. It all felt manufactured to fit a poorly written introspective character. In the end the oddly masturbatory scenes of the novel overpowered any attempt to produce a depth of message.
Best encapsulating the feel of this novel is the very beginning, where George's reading of Ruskin is interrupted by a "bowel movement", prompting him to sit on the "john".