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ReadySteadyBlog

The Bookaholics' Guide to Book Blogs: "Mark Thwaite ... has a maverick, independent mind"

Friday 27 June 2008

The Story of a Marriage review

My review of Andrew Sean Greer's highly-praised, certainly proficient, but in fact mawkish tapestry of cliché, The Story of a Marriage, can be read in the Independent newspaper today.


My review begins:


"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs." So begins Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, set in 1953 at the height of McCarthyite anti-communism. This is also the year in which cracks begin to appear in the marriage at the centre of Andrew Sean Greer's accomplished and humane domestic drama. An old pal of Pearlie Cook's husband unexpectedly turns up, announcing: "'Hello, ma'am, I hope you can help me.' With those ordinary words, everything would change" (more).

Posted by Mark Thwaite
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Reader Comments

Friday 27 June 2008

John Self says...

Ooh, didn't know you were in print, Mark! Very interesting to read this actually, as a couple of people I know have highly praised it and I've been keen to get hold of a copy as a result.

Of course the paperback will proudly trumpet:

"Accomplished and humane ... beautiful writing" - Mark Thwaite, Independent

Friday 27 June 2008

Mark says...

Hiya John,

Didn't the govt. just pass a law one effect of which is that publishers can't take quotes out of context!? If not, for sure, they'll do what you said!

This is a kind of test cast ELF novel for me: it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quack likes a duck (if duck = literature; go with me on this!), but it absolutely is not a duck! It is a tissue of cliches and clunky metaphors: it looks beautiful and accomplished (and it is exquisitely paced and sometimes wonderfully written) but is set up merely to "push your buttons". In that sense what some have praised as being sensitive is in fact sentimental and, indeed, hard-hearted.

Sunday 29 June 2008

ted says...

Mark - You continue to make me curious about this book for the same reason as John - other's have gushed about it. (I didn't take it on vacation with me, but now that I'm back I can risk reading something I won't like as it doesn't take up space in my luggage).
Your 'walks like a duck, quacks like a duck' metaphor is great - precisely how I felt about Michael Frayn's latest play at the National, Afterlife, which I saw Friday night. By all exterior details you would say it is a play, but it was really a string of empty cliches one after another striding about in lovely 20s and 30s costumes.

Friday 04 July 2008

John Self says...

I am reading The Story of a Marriage now and am seeing exactly what you mean, and what you meant on dovegreyreader's blog when you spoke of "artless artifice". Further thoughts in due course.

Sunday 06 July 2008

Anna says...

Yes, I bought this book because all the reviews were gushing. The book is empty garbage--full of some kind of gay mishmash-- no
surprise except that I wasted $23.95 on this text and just gave money to some overrated writer who must have "close" connections in the
review world. Definite pass -- not great story telling.

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Serendipoetry

The Quarrel

The word I spoke in anger
weighs less than a parsley seed,
but a road runs through it
that leads to my grave,
that bought-and-paid-for lot
on a salt-sprayed hill in Truro
where the scrub pines
overlook the bay.
Half-way I'm dead enough,
strayed from my own nature
and my fierce hold on life.
If I could cry, I'd cry,
but I'm too old to be
anybody's child.
Liebchen,
with whom should I quarrel
except in the hiss of love,
that harsh, irregular flame?

-- Stanley Kunitz
The Collected Poems (W.W.Norton)

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