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Benim için oldukça farklı bir okuma deneyimiydi. Bir yandan kitabı okurken bir yandan da Paul Auster ile Siri Hustvedt çiftinin hayatındaki olayların peşine düştüm. La segunda parte se inicia con un trágico hecho, y es muy de agradecer la inteligencia y delicadeza que la autora muestra al tratarlo, tan fácil de empujar al escritor menos hábil o respetuoso con el lector por el precipicio de un sentimentalismo de lagrimita fácil. También es digno de admiración su talento para construir el crescendo de tensión y suspense que es la parte final de la novela, un inquietante thriller que te agarra y no te suelta hasta casi el final. The story takes place in the art and university worlds of New York City, but it is not necessary,in my opinion, to be a part of them to become engaged in Leo's life and story. His story of finding a work of art he likes, the artist who becomes his true friend; two families whose lives intermingle over decades. Like her husband Paul Auster, Hustvedt employs a use of repetitive themes or symbols throughout her work. Most notably the use of certain types of voyeurism, often linking objects of the dead to characters who are relative strangers to the deceased characters (most notable in various facits in her novels The Blindfold and The Enchantment of Lily Dahl) and the exploration of identity. She has also written essays on art history and theory (see "Essay collections") and painting and painters often appear in her fiction, most notably, perhaps, in her novel, What I Loved. Unfortunately, she chooses to probe her characters as if they were sliced up and put beneath a telescope. There’s little warmth in her characterization; she seems so intent on capturing her characters’ neuroses in fine detail that she forgets to make them compelling or likeable. The artwork that the protagonist directly engages with might be memorable and affecting, but the long descriptions of artwork that only tangentially relate to the plot become boring and repetitive. Reading a description of paintings you can’t see is a bit like hearing someone describe their favourite song – an ultimately empty experience.
Hustvedt has mainly made her name as a novelist, but she has also produced a book of poetry, and has had short stories and essays on various subjects published in (among others) The Art of the Essay, 1999, The Best American Short Stories 1990 and 1991, The Paris Review, Yale Review, and Modern Painters. Don’t get me wrong, the quality of Hustvedt’s prose is astonishing. What I Loved is filled with wholly-believable details. The sections of the novel that revolve around artwork and artists are clearly well-researched, and Hustvedt extracts beautiful and affecting symbols from the art that surrounds her characters. Hustvedt comes across as someone highly interested in the human condition. Wonderfully intriguing characters. Hustvedt's description of Bill's artwork is so wonderful that it seems as magical as the real thing. I wish they existed. I wish I too could see and touch them. And the character analysis is marvelous. Here is a direct quote of a conversation occurring between father(Leo) and his young son(Matt): There is so much in this book - add adolescence, a superb description that reflects what we have all been through. There is so much to think about. One has to stop reading to "digest" it. One minute I am in total support and then it flips and I say, no, no way do I agree with this or perhaps do I? Through it all your thoughts run non-stop. Two books - both having 5 stars - can be so very different. Isn't that what makes literature so marvelous?!
This is a book were the accretion of improbabilities also annoyed me, something else that probably should have stopped me reading. Really, I’m less annoyed with the book and the author, and more annoyed with myself for finished it, because I had no excuse for reading on.
What I loved. Take note of the past tense. It evokes painful memories of the past. Things that we used to cherish and treasure that are no longer there. It evokes the feeling of losing something or someone either physically like a dead father or emotionally like an ex-lover. Come to think of it, there seems to me a big blur between physical and emotional losses. A dead father may not be physically present but emotionally, he still resides in our hearts. An ex-lover may still be there physically but is regretfully absent even in the small recesses of our hearts. Bendrai visa Trace Moroney knygelių serija ("Kai jaučiuosi piktas", "Kai jaučiuosi geras", "Kai jaučiu pavydą" ir t.t.) yra puiki ir labai gerai tinkanti mažų vaikų susipažinimui su emocijomis.
Games
Two obvious strengths this novel by Hustvedt are: first, its ability to engage its reader by those series of revelations. It is like riding a rollercoaster inside a darkroom. You don’t know where she is taking you. For example, I thought that either one of the three pairs: two husbands, two wives, two sons, would have a homosexual relationship. Hustvedt made some hints (or maybe it was just me who thought that those were hints) towards this direction but she did not. I also thought that there would be a big revelation that would cap this psychological thriller just like any other thrillers ala-Agatha Christie but Hustvedt opted in ending her emotionally turbulent novel swiftly and quietly that reminded me of Philip Roth’s The Human Stain. Tragedy strikes in chapter 2 and this chapter becomes a very moving portrayal of grief. Each character has to come to terms with the impact of tragedy with some of them clearly more affected than others. All of them have to work out how to live in a world that is changed by a single event. Now I have finished it. Excellent! Superb! Who should read it? Well, you sort of have to like cerebral books. Absolutely never dull, never boring. Always something that gets you thinking. Kirkus say that Hustvedt "writes spectacular sentences that embody the American experience in brilliantly specific physical imagery." I cannot expresss this better than they do.
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