What I Loved Siri Hustvedt

Warning - tear-jerker. That's a warning for anyone other than Nicole reading this, unlikely, as she clearly already has. 

What's interesting to me though is that in both of these books (this one, and the one you just blogged about) the woman has to leave the relationship and the home to grow & change. What do you reckon that's about? I mean, completely different circumstances by the sounds of it, but it's like that archetypal storyline in children's fiction where the parents are somehow 'not there', either the kids go to boarding school, or it's Summer holidays, or whatever, but this lets things happen, creates the space for a-typical events to take place. 

This story interested me from the point of view of the young man, actually. Kind of a ridiculous thing to say, since I guess the whole book is about how your point of view frames everything - truth, love, art - without you being able to really do a single thing about it, even in the unlikely event you're aware of its influence. Anyway, yes - Mark. Fascinating. What to take from this? That having 3 parents will really mess with your juju? That everyone who wore fluro was a monster? I don't know, but there was a lot, I felt at the end, that was unresolved with that character. 

This was my first Hustveldt, so I guess I'm going to be looking to you, Lovelock, for where to go next, ploise.

The Summer without men by Siri Hustvedt

Another one of my favourite writers; she of What I Loved (which was creepy and awesome and confusing) and The Sorrows of an American (unnerving and suspensful) but this sadly, was not my favourite book. I find her writing in this to be a little overwrought, or maybe over-thought, like she was trying to prove how smart and erudite sh

e is. Making a massive assumption on someone whom I’ve never met, I’d put money on her being fiercely intelligent, likes to fight with her husband after a glass of red too many and slightly high-strung. I like these women but she seems high maintenance (is this being sexist? I’m sure I could say the same of male writers – Franzen would be slightly off kilter for sure. Eggers, definitely). Can you make this judgement based on their writing? I point to cases of some other favourite female writers and say yes: I’m looking at you Joan Didion and Lily Brett. Anyway, back to the book. Man cheats on wife of many years with a young Frenchie, woman rents a house out of town and teaches a writing class for teenage girls, makes friends with the young neighbour and her family, gets visits by daughter, sees shrink, husband asks for wifey back at the end. No-one gets blown up, there is not much action, just the slow breakdowns and build-ups of human relationships. The whole thing is a little bit plodding, a little bit “let’s spend time in psychoanalysis land”, but there are rays of sunshine. Like when she as the teacher spends time with the bratty teenagers as they turn on each other (bought back many memories) and her friendship with her mum’s subversive nursing home buddy Abigail, who reminded me of my Gran. The rest is….mas o menos.