What is Chandler without his copious, extravagant similes? Much diminished. Or, rather, a merely adequate writer of mystery yarns, & not one of the 20What is Chandler without his copious, extravagant similes? Much diminished. Or, rather, a merely adequate writer of mystery yarns, & not one of the 20th century's great prose stylists. This had its moment, but undeniably second, probably even third tier RC.
There was no other possible way to look at it. There are things that are facts, in a statistical sense, on paper, on a tape recorder, in evidence. And there are things that are facts because they have to be facts, because nothing else makes any sense otherwise....more
The reputation of O's story as an erotic classic is both absolutely correct and deeply deceptive: it's not sexy per se; it's certainly not arousing. RThe reputation of O's story as an erotic classic is both absolutely correct and deeply deceptive: it's not sexy per se; it's certainly not arousing. Rather, it's an unflinching, stylistically aloof, coldly elegant delineation of the erotics of power exchange. That O is not given much (any?) interiority clearly has a disquieting effect on many readers; frankly, I'm not sure how much someone not already familiar with the mental & emotional terrain of S&M dynamics—or at least not willing to inhabit the masochistic mindset as totally & completely as O does—would get out of this. Anyway, I certainly did.
Read #17 of "2021: My Year of (Mostly) Midcentury Women Writers"]...more
For something written to be disposable & "trashy" this sure has a lot of heart, truthful emotions, & more than a bit of stylistic panache. Maybe not gFor something written to be disposable & "trashy" this sure has a lot of heart, truthful emotions, & more than a bit of stylistic panache. Maybe not great Art, but a terrific pop culture text. Its reputation now as a lesbian classic is well earned.
Read #15 of "2021: My Year of (Mostly) Midcentury Women Writers"]...more
Upon reaching the final pages I was less convinced that this is a story about the complicated relationship between a young man and his late father’s fUpon reaching the final pages I was less convinced that this is a story about the complicated relationship between a young man and his late father’s former lovers than a surprisingly moving consideration of the permanence of things—objects, rituals, social mores, even inherited traumas—that long outlast any individual human life. How minor the little melodramatic interpersonal dramas of this novel must appear from the perspective of a 300+ year old tea bowl that has passed through countless hands across dozens of generations. What beauty such perspective can hold. How delicately room is made for such a perspective without any such thing ever being stated. Such mastery to allow the unsaid to convey just as much of the story as anything actually written down on the page.
“Seeing his father and Fumiko’s mother in the bowls, Kikuji felt that they had raised two beautiful ghosts and placed them side by side. The tea bowls were here, present, and the present reality of Kikuji and Fumiko, facing across the bowls, seemed immaculate too.”...more
First reread since being assigned it back in high school. What I had forgotten—and now find so chilling—is that this isn't a society that was being ceFirst reread since being assigned it back in high school. What I had forgotten—and now find so chilling—is that this isn't a society that was being censored, but had elected to give up books themselves....more
With prose so impeccable and a situation so initially tranquil that it is not until much too late that it registers that Jenkins has actually enticed With prose so impeccable and a situation so initially tranquil that it is not until much too late that it registers that Jenkins has actually enticed the reader into a kind of vice, and all the screws have been cheerfully locked into place and the lever is already being cranked. Anybody who has ever underestimated a romantic rival and lost all because of it will find trajectories here outlined with a unnerving precision. And yet there is a certain quiet generosity present too: even the more unlikable characters are never completely villainized, and no one ever emerges as a protagonist; instead all—and that includes us as readers too—are ultimately forced to confront the full weight of all decisions, both made and not made.
"The re-dipping of dishes was a small matter, but the emotional texture of married life is made up of small matters. This one had become invested with a fatal quality."...more
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