Good review. I read this book a few months ago and enjoyed it. One aspect not mentioned here is that the story is a retelling of Exodus. Ty, the main character, is Jewish, he has to leave "The Hotel Egypt," which is the Trump Hotel, and the character he meets, Moses, becomes his possible guide. The story itself is fantastical and ironic, and the wordplay and allusions that the author, Stuart Ross, engages in are impressive. I feel like it's worth a second read on my part as there are many layers to the novel.
In my last post I reviewed two books in which marriages between writers featured heavily. Funnily enough the ones where the woman was much more successful than the man (Hannah Arendt/Heinrich Blucher, Joan Didion/John Gregory Dunne being the major examples) tended to last, while the opposite tended to blow up in spectacular fashion.
Nicely done, Chris. My wife and I met at Harvard Law School. It's been over 30 years. Sometimes she made more money, sometimes I did. Hasn't been a problem. But that assumes that one's identity is founded on things other than professional success/acclaim. And I'm the first to concede that a degree of wealth and fame is, well, great. But it's not the only thing. Maybe even, dare I say it, attachment? At any rate, very fine review, keep up the good work.
I liked the movie Fair Play. it had a good intensity. I dislike fantastical switcheroos of any kind in fiction. The book lost me at the "excrement!" But i'm grateful for the review, thorough enough for me to get a sense of the book and to decide I will not be reading it. And the review was interesting and compelling to read.
Another in this genre of the woman exceeding the man is The Squid and the Whale, one of my favorite movies.
"Case in point: American men who bemoan Western feminists while becoming champions for women’s rights in foreign countries (their zeal often directly proportional to how attractive they find these foreign women). It’s peacocking, liberal-male style" Do you really think that love and desire can be absent or play no role whatsoever in the interest that men might have in supporting the emancipation of women anywhere? Or must that love be totally asexual? I think there the reviewer sounds like the online feminists she elsewhere would distance herself from-- perhaps like one of the friends of the very online wife in this book. The critic also seems to imply that men should remain benevolently and politely blind to the differences between the grievances of Judith Butler-feminism in the West and women in Sudan or Egypt. "So boys be silent and buy your Read more Women tote bags and don't you go taking up the cause of the women in Sudan, we know you just find those women attractive or available" How cynical and snide.
My point is that it's very easy to be for women's advancement in situations where you stand to gain from it vs. where you would actually have to make sacrifices. If you're always for the former but never for the latter, then that's just opportunism masquerading as righteousness.
Ok. I agree. But I think the Western sympathy in the Iranian, Afghan, Salvadoran etc. women’s issues does seem motivated by good intentions and is not so calculating, even if it has been used to justify atrocious things like wars or bad documentaries; and the apparent contradiction these men express has a lot to do with the taboo perception that middle class women in Western metropolises clearly enioy a situation that is incomparable with most of history and which cannot concievably or responsibly be called a patriarchy.
Hmmm. Interesting review. As a non-specific non-american it was a confirmation of the unending labels you apply to both sexes. So I wait for a description of a real person and find it lacking. Give me someone with depth, angst and compassion, which is sadly lacking in these characters.
Yes. The more I read of "literary Substack" the more convinced I become that most "lit" being produced by young Americans is more about "online personas" than actual persons.
Or maybe it's just the ultimate expression of "the [online] political is the [online] personal"?
That plus the relentless march of vaguely upper-middle class "concerns" bores the pants off me.
It’s an expression of the inability to turn off the marketable persona, that everything becomes an extension of the public self. The death of true privacy and individualism.
I’m a millennial. We were the first to have to reckon with this and how we are judged by our peers around this same modus operandi.
Good review. I read this book a few months ago and enjoyed it. One aspect not mentioned here is that the story is a retelling of Exodus. Ty, the main character, is Jewish, he has to leave "The Hotel Egypt," which is the Trump Hotel, and the character he meets, Moses, becomes his possible guide. The story itself is fantastical and ironic, and the wordplay and allusions that the author, Stuart Ross, engages in are impressive. I feel like it's worth a second read on my part as there are many layers to the novel.
In my last post I reviewed two books in which marriages between writers featured heavily. Funnily enough the ones where the woman was much more successful than the man (Hannah Arendt/Heinrich Blucher, Joan Didion/John Gregory Dunne being the major examples) tended to last, while the opposite tended to blow up in spectacular fashion.
Nicely done, Chris. My wife and I met at Harvard Law School. It's been over 30 years. Sometimes she made more money, sometimes I did. Hasn't been a problem. But that assumes that one's identity is founded on things other than professional success/acclaim. And I'm the first to concede that a degree of wealth and fame is, well, great. But it's not the only thing. Maybe even, dare I say it, attachment? At any rate, very fine review, keep up the good work.
I liked the movie Fair Play. it had a good intensity. I dislike fantastical switcheroos of any kind in fiction. The book lost me at the "excrement!" But i'm grateful for the review, thorough enough for me to get a sense of the book and to decide I will not be reading it. And the review was interesting and compelling to read.
Another in this genre of the woman exceeding the man is The Squid and the Whale, one of my favorite movies.
Wow. "The modern man doesn’t hate whores so much as he wishes that he could be them. It’s a form of progress." Such an interesting review.
"Case in point: American men who bemoan Western feminists while becoming champions for women’s rights in foreign countries (their zeal often directly proportional to how attractive they find these foreign women). It’s peacocking, liberal-male style" Do you really think that love and desire can be absent or play no role whatsoever in the interest that men might have in supporting the emancipation of women anywhere? Or must that love be totally asexual? I think there the reviewer sounds like the online feminists she elsewhere would distance herself from-- perhaps like one of the friends of the very online wife in this book. The critic also seems to imply that men should remain benevolently and politely blind to the differences between the grievances of Judith Butler-feminism in the West and women in Sudan or Egypt. "So boys be silent and buy your Read more Women tote bags and don't you go taking up the cause of the women in Sudan, we know you just find those women attractive or available" How cynical and snide.
My point is that it's very easy to be for women's advancement in situations where you stand to gain from it vs. where you would actually have to make sacrifices. If you're always for the former but never for the latter, then that's just opportunism masquerading as righteousness.
Yeah I thought that point came through fairly clearly. Opportunism is a tale as old as time.
Ok. I agree. But I think the Western sympathy in the Iranian, Afghan, Salvadoran etc. women’s issues does seem motivated by good intentions and is not so calculating, even if it has been used to justify atrocious things like wars or bad documentaries; and the apparent contradiction these men express has a lot to do with the taboo perception that middle class women in Western metropolises clearly enioy a situation that is incomparable with most of history and which cannot concievably or responsibly be called a patriarchy.
Hmmm. Interesting review. As a non-specific non-american it was a confirmation of the unending labels you apply to both sexes. So I wait for a description of a real person and find it lacking. Give me someone with depth, angst and compassion, which is sadly lacking in these characters.
Yes. The more I read of "literary Substack" the more convinced I become that most "lit" being produced by young Americans is more about "online personas" than actual persons.
Or maybe it's just the ultimate expression of "the [online] political is the [online] personal"?
That plus the relentless march of vaguely upper-middle class "concerns" bores the pants off me.
It’s an expression of the inability to turn off the marketable persona, that everything becomes an extension of the public self. The death of true privacy and individualism.
I’m a millennial. We were the first to have to reckon with this and how we are judged by our peers around this same modus operandi.
It’s devastating, really