Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Synopsis
Mathilde and Lotto elope after only five weeks of dating. The book covers the course of their marriage and the secrets that keep it alive.
Review
This book won many "Book of the Year" awards, plus was President Obama's favorite book of 2015. I like reading books that get a lot of attention like this, since often they're fairly decent books. However, this book was definitely not among my favorites, nor even close.
I felt like this book pretentiously sells itself on the discussion and examination of abstract values and emotions, like "art", "creativity", "love" through flawed and hyper-"realistic" characters, but lacks actual substance.
Lotto is an arrogant playboy who has slept with every girl he can get his hands on, and an aspiring actor who isn't a very good actor at all. But instead of doing something else, he sits around for seven years while Mathilde keeps their world moving, until "he" (actually Mathilde) suddenly "discovers" he's a brilliant playwright and suddenly has ridiculous and unrealistic success. Mathilde has a hugely tragic background that seems to have no impact on her relationship with Lotto other than she's "quiet" a lot. She basically does everything to keep Lotto's career going, but keeps it secret to protect his fragile ego, and in the end he discovers a secret about her that makes him, hypocritically, withdraw from her.
The story has no real plot, though there are random plot "twists" that don't fit in to the narrative at all, and has a very shaky timeline that jumps all over the place. It tells about their marriage over the course of twenty-something years, but flashes back almost every other page without a clean break in the narrative. They'll be talking about something and then, bam! we have a story from ten years ago for 15 pages and then we go forward again to another random point. About halfway through I skimmed ahead to see if it was worth finishing, and I skipped over a couple parts. I don't feel like I missed anything.
The one good thing about this novel, and the only reason I give it two stars instead of one, was the writing. Groff is a good writer and the prose was fabulous and beautiful. I highlighted many lines and paragraphs. But this was all icing on a non-existent cake. Fluff with no substance to back it up. I did also appreciate that you really *know* these characters. You may not like them (I did like Mathilde to an extent), but you definitely understand them and know what makes them tick, and I think that shows talent on the part of the author.
Overall, a beautifully written but incredibly pretentious and overly "artsy" novel about superficial and unlikable characters. Not a book I would recommend.
Rating
I give this book 1.5 stars.
Details
Genre: Fiction
Sex: So. Much. Sex. Unrealistic and ridiculously overdone.
Violence: Mild violence
Language: Lots of swearing.
Synopsis
Mathilde and Lotto elope after only five weeks of dating. The book covers the course of their marriage and the secrets that keep it alive.
Review
This book won many "Book of the Year" awards, plus was President Obama's favorite book of 2015. I like reading books that get a lot of attention like this, since often they're fairly decent books. However, this book was definitely not among my favorites, nor even close.
I felt like this book pretentiously sells itself on the discussion and examination of abstract values and emotions, like "art", "creativity", "love" through flawed and hyper-"realistic" characters, but lacks actual substance.
Lotto is an arrogant playboy who has slept with every girl he can get his hands on, and an aspiring actor who isn't a very good actor at all. But instead of doing something else, he sits around for seven years while Mathilde keeps their world moving, until "he" (actually Mathilde) suddenly "discovers" he's a brilliant playwright and suddenly has ridiculous and unrealistic success. Mathilde has a hugely tragic background that seems to have no impact on her relationship with Lotto other than she's "quiet" a lot. She basically does everything to keep Lotto's career going, but keeps it secret to protect his fragile ego, and in the end he discovers a secret about her that makes him, hypocritically, withdraw from her.
The story has no real plot, though there are random plot "twists" that don't fit in to the narrative at all, and has a very shaky timeline that jumps all over the place. It tells about their marriage over the course of twenty-something years, but flashes back almost every other page without a clean break in the narrative. They'll be talking about something and then, bam! we have a story from ten years ago for 15 pages and then we go forward again to another random point. About halfway through I skimmed ahead to see if it was worth finishing, and I skipped over a couple parts. I don't feel like I missed anything.
The one good thing about this novel, and the only reason I give it two stars instead of one, was the writing. Groff is a good writer and the prose was fabulous and beautiful. I highlighted many lines and paragraphs. But this was all icing on a non-existent cake. Fluff with no substance to back it up. I did also appreciate that you really *know* these characters. You may not like them (I did like Mathilde to an extent), but you definitely understand them and know what makes them tick, and I think that shows talent on the part of the author.
Overall, a beautifully written but incredibly pretentious and overly "artsy" novel about superficial and unlikable characters. Not a book I would recommend.
Rating
I give this book 1.5 stars.
Details
Genre: Fiction
Sex: So. Much. Sex. Unrealistic and ridiculously overdone.
Violence: Mild violence
Language: Lots of swearing.
Comments
Post a Comment