I'm not going to rate this because I'm honestly not sure what rating I'd give. This has been on my Goodreads TBR since 2012 and I wanted to finally chI'm not going to rate this because I'm honestly not sure what rating I'd give. This has been on my Goodreads TBR since 2012 and I wanted to finally check it off, but I think I knew deep down that my general dislike for "postmodernist" novels would continue with this book.
This is a clever book, I guess, and it does something experimental and different. But I was left thinking "so what?" when I finished the last page today. It is a concept piece; it does not really tell a story, or, at least, not a coherent one, and we are not encouraged to connect with the characters.
Each chapter is split into two-- the first part addressing "you", the reader, as you attempt to read If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, the second part an extract from a book that "you", the reader, are reading. Each extract is from a very different book, the stories and styles varying greatly. The reader, "you", tries to hunt down the rest of the stories he is reading, but each time he is led to yet another completely different story.
The best part was the first two chapters when I was not yet tired of the gimmick....more
A very entertaining and funny romp through one incredible day that thoroughly changes the life of middle-aged governess, Miss Pettigrew.
Some of the atA very entertaining and funny romp through one incredible day that thoroughly changes the life of middle-aged governess, Miss Pettigrew.
Some of the attitudes are dated, of course, including one antisemitic comment and lots of shit about women. But the narrative voice is charming and engaging. I was disappointed to find Watson has no other books in print....more
Part warm, lilting slice-of-life fiction, part searing social critique, there's no wonder The Home-Maker caused a stir when it was first published in Part warm, lilting slice-of-life fiction, part searing social critique, there's no wonder The Home-Maker caused a stir when it was first published in 1924.
The story follows the Knapp family-- dedicated homemaker Eva Knapp, breadwinner Lester Knapp, and their three children, Helen, Henry and Stephen. When Lester is left disabled and unable to work, Eva seeks employment in a department store and Lester takes on the role of homemaker. To the shock of their friends and neighbours, both flourish in their new roles.
That complacent unquestioned generalisation, 'The mother is the natural home-maker'; what a juggernaut it had been in their case! How poor Eva, drugged by the cries of its devotees, had cast herself down under its grinding wheels-- and had dragged the children under with her. It wasn't because Eva had not tried her best. She had nearly killed herself trying. But she had been like a gifted mathematician set to paint a picture.
What I loved about this book-- and what was a revolutionary and deeply controversial idea at the time --is that the focus is not primarily on the embittered housewife who finds new purpose and passion in a career (though, it certainly does depict that) but instead on a man bending the gender roles.
While it does show a woman crushed under the drudgery of housework and stuck in a power struggle with her rebellious youngest child, it is actually more about a husband who is most suited to the role of homemaker. Eva is a brilliant woman trapped in domesticity, but equally Lester is a passionate father trapped in his job.
At the time the book was published, feminists like Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henrietta Rodman had proposed initiatives to get women into paid work, replacing them at home with hired cleaners and childcare. But a man taking care of the home? Unthinkable! With this book, Fisher dared to suggest otherwise.
The penultimate chapter of the book is a fantastic indictment of how a man is shamed for taking care of the home. As Lester realises, the only reason this is so is because of a prejudice against the role of home-maker.
He supposed that Harvey Bronson would die of shame if anybody put a gingham apron on him and expected him to peel potatoes. And yet there was nobody who talked louder than he about the sacred dignity of the home which ennobled all the work done for its sake-- that was for Mrs. Harvery Bronson of course!
To this day, I say to any man waxing poetic about the wonderful sacred duty of homemaking that he is absolutely welcome to do it. I guarantee-- the men who spout this stuff are talking about their wives!
Well, this might be the slowest moving novel I've ever enjoyed.
The Tortoise and the Hare is set in the mid-20th Century in the English countryside, anWell, this might be the slowest moving novel I've ever enjoyed.
The Tortoise and the Hare is set in the mid-20th Century in the English countryside, and sees the (very) slow crumbling of domestic paradise and, with it, convention.
Imogen Gresham is a good, traditional woman. Young, beautiful, submissive, passively accepting and serving the desires of her husband and son. She accepts their criticisms and holds her tongue.
Yet, the more she sacrifices herself for them, the less respect she earns, and the more they come to see her as something of a fool. Her weakness enables them to walk over her further, and fosters, not love, but disdain.
Enter neighbour Blanche Silcox. A sharp, smart, middle-aged woman who rides, fishes and drives a Rolls Royce. Despite being older, unfashionable and purportedly unattractive, Imogen's husband Evelyn seems increasingly enamoured by her ability to think for herself and hold a conversation about his masculine passions. Their son, Gavin, is also mesmerised by her.
While this might seem a heavy-handed message, I'd argue it's not. It moves languidly, lacking in all drama and conspicuous statement. Imogen is a highly sympathetic, well-drawn character who genuinely loves her role of pleasing her husband and cannot make sense of the situation she finds herself in.
It is not pleasurable to watch someone who asks for so little suddenly fearful of losing what they have. I'd say the book cautions against making others your entire world at the expense of yourself. They rarely thank you for it and if, as Imogen discovers, they decide to pull away from you... what do you have left?...more
“It is not true that, in time, one ‘gets over’ almost anything. In time, one survives almost anything. There is a distinction.”
I'm so glad I found
“It is not true that, in time, one ‘gets over’ almost anything. In time, one survives almost anything. There is a distinction.”
I'm so glad I found this book thanks to the new Faber edition. What a vicious, yet entertaining, little slice of 1920s life in NYC. Just as heart-wrenching as Edith Wharton, but more salacious.
It's hard to describe Ex-Wife because, on the one hand, it's a very entertaining soap opera about marriage, divorce, love affairs and scandal... but, on the other hand, it is deeper, more meaningful and more sad than it would first appear. It's a story about women, marriage and relationships; about how women gained some freedoms but lost other things. It contains depictions of domestic abuse, sexual assault, (view spoiler)[loss of a child and abortion (hide spoiler)].
Pat has just been left by her husband, Peter, and this loss devastates her. Pat pretty much touches upon every state of grief as she attempts to move on and reevaluate her life's path now her dreams are shattered.
Parts of it are horrible to read. While Pat certainly wasn't blameless in the decline of their relationship, Peter is a piece of shit by my 21st Century standards, and I felt intense horror and secondhand embarrassment for Pat as she attempts to hold onto him long after he has dumped her.
Lucia, another "ex-wife" and a fabulous character, supports Pat through her recovery, offering advice, encouragement and no small amount of humour.
The novel covers only a few short years, yet it feels immense. Pat's journey from distraught dumpee to who she becomes at the novel's close is complex and bittersweet. If Pat wasn't already in her twenties when the story starts, you'd likely call this a bildungsroman because a huge part of this book is her growth from a naive and starry-eyed young woman to someone tougher but more jaded.
There is something very sad about Pat's growth in this book. It feels as if, as she gets clued in about the nature of men, women and relationships, her bubble bursts and part of her gives up on her desire for romance, her belief in the love she once believed in. Maybe that's life. Maybe it's true, and that's why the book hurts so much.
This quote from near the end made me feel devastated:
There were crowds of people hurrying about as if they had somewhere important to go. I wished that I had somewhere important to go.
I saved so many quotes I don't know what to do with them. Here's a few.
On youth: I have never been as sure of myself since, as I was then, when I was twenty-four.
On promiscuous men: “Great Lovers—men who’ve ‘known a hundred women,’ and boast of it—they remind me of the man who wanted to be a musician and so took one lesson on each instrument in the orchestra.”
On love: [..]one did not love a man because he was worth loving, or because one felt worthy of his love in return, or for any reason that one’s acquaintances would think was sound.
On motherhood: I was crazy about him; in intervals between feeling that I had neither energy nor interest for anything, and never would anymore.
On the status of women: The choices for women used to be: marriage, the convent, or the street. They’re just the same now. Marriage has the same name. Or you can have a career, letting it absorb all emotional energy (just like the convent). Or you can have an imitation masculine attitude toward sex, and a succession of meaningless affairs, promiscuity, (the street, that is) taking your pay in orchids and dinner-dates instead of money left on the dresser. (This whole speech by Lucia in chapter 6 is quite something)...more
I'd forgotten about the Christian twist at the end of this one, but it sparked an interesting conversation with my kids. We are not religious, yet it I'd forgotten about the Christian twist at the end of this one, but it sparked an interesting conversation with my kids. We are not religious, yet it still touched me. We all enjoyed the message that being selfish and unkind will get you nothing while being generous and loving will be rewarded....more
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