Desperate Characters
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Desperate Characters
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Marriage of a midlife, middle-class, childless couple is in a rut. Sophie has become depressed, frigid and slightly paranoid and Otto is stuck in optimistic denial. Things escalate at their ... Read all Marriage of a midlife, middle-class, childless couple is in a rut. Sophie has become depressed, frigid and slightly paranoid and Otto is stuck in optimistic denial. Things escalate at their summer cottage, but no one dares call it quits. Marriage of a midlife, middle-class, childless couple is in a rut. Sophie has become depressed, frigid and slightly paranoid and Otto is stuck in optimistic denial. Things escalate at their summer cottage, but no one dares call it quits.
Based on a novel by Paula Fox and and sadly never released in Britain, this plays like a grimly comic variant on 'The Pumpkin Eater' or 'Bleak Moments' transposed to New York. Very little actually happens, but it remains engrossing throughout. Shirley MacLaine was never better (or looked better; one of the other characters actually tells her how elegant she looks) as she and co-star Kenneth Mars take a holiday from the eccentrics they're usually cast as by playing an ordinary couple maintaining their cool as The Big Apple (Bergmanesquely rendered by cameraman Urs Furrer) throws such annoyances at them as a ferocious cat and destructive burglars.
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Desperate Characters Paperback – March 30, 2015
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4.1 out of 5 stars
715 ratings
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"[ Desperate Characters ]―tense, quick, prickling with suppressed panic―is very much of its time and has a lot to say to ours, too. If you’ve never read it, or if, like me, it’s been a while since you did, now is an excellent moment to pick it up." ― Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker "Paula Fox’s narrative feels singular, particularly in the way it captures, through effervescently intelligent dialogue, the tenuousness of intimate relationships." ― Rose Courteau, New York Times "A masterwork of economical prose…Remarkable…[O]ne can only wonder who is more fatally deluded―the desperate characters of the Bentwoods' era or the hyperconfident ones of our own." ― Andrew O'Hehir, Salon "The first time I read Desperate Characters …I fell in love with it." ― Jonathan Franzen "Fox dissects a marriage and a social class with the sharpest of knives, cannily undermining not only one couple’s false pieties and deceptive comforts but our own as well." ― Marisa Silver "Absorbing, elegant." ― Charles Winecoff, Entertainment Weekly "Packed with lucid insights." ― Isabella Biedenharn, Entertainment Weekly "A perfect short novel…As in Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich , everything crucial within our souls bared." ― Andrea Barrett "This perfect novel about pain is as clear, and as wholly believable, and as healing, as a fever dream." ― Frederick Busch
Paula Fox (1923―2017) was the author of Desperate Characters , The Widow’s Children , A Servant’s Tale , The God of Nightmares , Poor George , The Western Coast , and Borrowed Finery: A Memoir , among other books.
Publisher
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W. W. Norton & Company; Reissue edition (March 30, 2015) Language
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English Paperback
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192 pages ISBN-10
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0393351106 ISBN-13
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978-0393351101 Item Weight
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6.4 ounces Dimensions
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5.5 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches
4.1 out of 5 stars
715 ratings
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It was a book that I saw recommended in the NYT. It was very interesting and I think worth reading a second time to appreciate the subtle nuances. It's all about a couple's marriage and a cat bite that plays a prominent role in the story.
It’s written lovely and made me laugh - I wondrous if the author lived in the heights.She described the suburb in the city with
I loved the author's writing style and intense descriptions. The story didn't have much substance, in my opinion, but it kept my attention just because of the beauty of the language the author crafted.
Comedian Eddie Izard once observed that there are no British blockbuster movies because nothing ever happens in British movies. He joked that, unlike American movies full of explosions,murders and noise - British films all consist of people standing still in rooms saying things like “I’m arranging these matches.” Paula Fox’s much-ballyhooed novel felt a lot like that for me -watching two people staring silently at each other in a series of rooms where nothing really happens and no one really does anything except arrange matches. Circling a few days in the lives of two middle-aged dilettantes I kept waiting desperately (get it? “Desperately”) for something (anything!) to actually happen. But nothing does- Sophie gets bitten by a stray cat and worries obsessively she will die from her wound - but won’t go the doctor...and when she finally does she worries obsessively she has rabies. She doesn’t have rabies and nothing happens. The bite gets better. Her husband is dissolving his law practice with a partner who had been a dear friend for years but now these two men can barely stand the sight of each other. Why? Who knows? Nothing really happens there either. His partner behaves badly and yells a bit. And - oh my - the continuous casual racism is hard to stomach. Forty years later, endless references to “Negroes” - their “smell” and their “quaint” ways are tough to read. Ouch. What Fox has an impeccable eye for are the settings these very dull people move through. Her descriptions of the foods people eat, the homes they live in and the clothes they wear are a delight - if only the people in these intricately described spaces ever actually did anything or even interacted with them! Instead it’s like paper dolls - in which static, lifeless figures are just placed in different settings to see how they look. Then they are moved to a different setting to see how they look over here. Everyone at the beginning of this tale is the exact same as they are at the end - no one grows or changes or seems to learn anything at all from their interactions - they just blandly continue moving through landscapes - arranging matches.
This is a well crafted novel with economic and precise descriptions and dialogue. It also evokes a place (New York City) and a time (late 1960s) with well selected details that ring true and give the reader a glimpse into that time in American culture. The scope of the novel is small, so as to better analyze the complexity of human relationships, which is the over-riding quality of the novel. It is a short novel which corresponds well to its concentrated scope in terms of time, place, and situation as well as Fox's ability to select the single word or detail to explain or illustrate larger meaning to the reader. However, I could not give the novel a score of 5, despite its many good qualities. I found the Bentwoods, both Sophie and Otto, to be highly privileged and spoiled. Otto Bentwoods' `know-it-all' responses to almost everything his wife says was irritating. The novel is limited in time, a single weekend, and focuses primarily on the break between Otto and his legal partner, Charlie. These two men appeared to have different styles that complimented each other in both their friendship and legal practice, however I got the impression that after many years, they were somewhat sick of each other. The Bentwoods are highly-educated, wealthy, liberal, and Fox does a good job of showing the intrusion of the real world into their existence. As Fox describes it, the upper class can use their wealth to isolate them from the messiness of poverty but it creeps back in, much like the nasty tom cat that bites Sophie in the first pages of the novel. I once read a quote by Dawn Powell, that youth float on the illusion of luxury. Fox would expand that sensibility to indicate that the upper classes also wish to float on that same illusion but for those over 40 the illusion is about more than luxury, it is about life's consistent and nagging barriers, irritations, complications. The cat bite brings all this messy reality back into Sophie's life. The book is very well written and is admirable in its ability to limit time, place, person, situation for an examination of a situation that generalizes beyond the limitations Fox has created for her art.
It was a short read. I like the emotions it made me feel. At times I was frustrated with the main character, but then at times I sympathized with her
I can’t tell if I’m missing something, or the book is. It reads easy, with a lot of dialogue. It almost reads like a play—I could see it easily being transferred to the theater. The prose, while quality, often feels sketchy. I suppose it is “economical,” per one of the glowing blurbs. It is also a barrier between the reader and the story. Transitions happen very quickly—new rooms, new people, new conversations. It can be hard to get a sense of place, or a feel characters, given everything is so fleeting. The book’s brevity, however, is a plus, in my opinion, as I never considered not finishing. In this sense, I suppose the novel is a success.
I really don't mind the lack of a so called "plot". It is about relationships. Ralationships between people who are for lack of a better word"nut jobs". I didn't find the revealing of their personalities and inner thoughts instructive or entertaining.
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is a rare treat.
I know I am coming late to this party, but this is easily one of the most stunning novels I have ever read. The story is interesting and cohesive, the characters feel recognisable and real, the writing is masterful. So far, so good. Then, in addition, the issues that throw modern life into relief and test all of us are held up and examined before our eyes: a partnership is dissolved, a lovely neighbourhood is positioned flat up against an area of poverty and disorder, a traumatic animal bite repays an act of kindness, a much loved home is invaded and senselessly vandalised. All these things taint "the good life" we work so hard to achieve. Just how fragile is the life we want for ourselves? Everyone should read this book. It is a rare treat.
2.0 out of 5 stars
A very poor print
I haven't read the whole book yet, mostly because of the shoddy print! It might be hard to tell from the photo but there is a speckling to the paper and a fuzziness to the print, almost like a bad photocopy of a copy of a copy...
2.0 out of 5 stars
A very poor print
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 3, 2021
2.0 out of 5 stars
Appalling print quality
Appalling print quality - looks like a cheap photocopy. I'm returning the book to get an earlier version I can actually read.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect condition and arrived ahead of schedule
Love this book. Lost my original moving house so bought this as my replacement. Very happy with it. Perfect condition and arrived in a very timely manner considering what’s going on in the world. Absolute bargain too for a classic! Thanks!!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Proper Writing
Intense, ominous prose. Precise observation. Very fine novel. Like many American novels now it is highly filmic or play-like but that's no criticism; it's a form that concentrates prose and makes every word work. No point me rehashing further the very high praise of the great and the good. I agree with whoever suggested reading the Intro after the novel btw.
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One of the New York Times ' 25 Most Significant New York City Novels From the Last 100 Years "A towering landmark of postwar Realism…A sustained work of prose so lucid and fine it seems less written than carved." ―David Foster Wallace
Otto and Sophie Bentwood live in a changing neighborhood in Brooklyn. Their stainless-steel kitchen is newly installed, and their Mercedes is parked curbside. After Sophie is bitten on the hand while trying to feed a stray, perhaps rabies-infected cat, a series of small and ominous disasters begin to plague the Bentwoods' lives, revealing the fault lines and fractures in a marriage―and a society―wrenching itself apart.
First published in 1970 to wide acclaim, Desperate Characters stands as one of the most dazzling and rigorous examples of the storyteller's craft in postwar American literature ― a novel that, according to Irving Howe, ranks with " Billy Budd, The Great Gatsby, Miss Lonelyhearts , and Seize the Day ."
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the novel. For the film based on it, see Desperate Characters (film) .
This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Desperate Characters" novel – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( January 2021 ) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message )
^ Conway, Martha (1999). "The Hand That Feeds You" . The Iowa Review . 29 (3): 173–175. doi : 10.17077/0021-065X.5220 . ISSN 0021-065X . JSTOR 20154757 .
^ Jump up to: a b Franzen, Jonathan (2013-04-09). "Paula Fox, Fighting Perfection" . The Paris Review . Archived from the original on 2013-04-12 . Retrieved 2021-11-05 .
^ Jump up to: a b Cole, Diane (1980). "Review of Desperate Characters; The Transit of Venus" . The Georgia Review . 34 (4): 917–919. ISSN 0016-8386 . JSTOR 41399804 .
^ Curb, Randall (2001-12-01). "On Paula Fox" . Boston Review . Archived from the original on 2015-04-20 . Retrieved 2021-11-05 .
^ Botton, Sari (2015-07-27). " 'The Truth of Life': Paula Fox on the Re- (Re-) Release of Her 1970 Novel" . Longreads . Archived from the original on 2020-08-12 . Retrieved 2021-11-07 .
^ Rehak, Melanie (2001-03-04). "The Life and Death And Life of Paula Fox" . The New York Times . ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-11-05 .
^ Jump up to: a b Poppy, Nick (2007-09-01). "An Interview with Paula Fox" . Believer Magazine . Archived from the original on 2020-10-25 . Retrieved 2021-11-07 .
^ Barrett, Andrea (1999). "The Ol
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