I’ll start a new topic for Sleepless Nights.  So—I’m going to post on my experience of reading this book—what was yours like?

I liked the writing, I’m glad I read it, but I must admit that much of it went straight over my head.

I don’t think I’ve read another writer as obsessed with describing characters’ teeth.

Hmm. teeth.  I got as far as Billie Holiday.  I am glad that I am not the only one who felt it was going over my head.  I started wondering how I was going to explain the book and knowing that I couldn’t describe what happened.  I also knew there was no way I could read 100 pages of it in one day (something I can do with other books given the right motivation), so I decided to set it aside as I was (hate to admit this) not really enjoying it.  There was some lovely writing, but I was feeling frustrated with it.  I think I might try and just read ten pages here and there until I get through it and see how I feel when I am done.  Well, maybe anyway. 

Has anyone read any of her other work?  I wonder if this is her normal style? 

Danielle

I didn’t notice the teeth!  That’s too funny.  Danielle, there’s no way I could have read 100 pages of it in one day either.  Although I think Imani said she did.  I wonder what she thought.  I enjoyed the writing too, but I rarely am satisfied by fine writing alone.  I feel like I should enjoy the writing more, but in fiction at least, I really want more.

I found it very much like reading poetry. I missed a lot and would like to read it again and will try to do that soon.

Someone, I think it was Pour of Tor, said in their post on the book how the novel at times is rather aphoristic. I found this to be true. There are so many little gems that just shine up from the text every now and then. One of my favorites at the beginning (p 11) is “It is not true that it doesn’t matter where you live, that you are in Hartford or Dallas merely yourself.” Maybe I find this one so striking because I am a transplant to where I live now and feel like I fit in here while the place I grew up in chafes. Anyone else find a gem or two?

Stefanie--I have a really hard time reading poetry.  I probably expect more than is on the page (or am looking for some hidden meanings), and I am not always sure how to decipher what the poet is trying to say.  I know sometimes it is just the beauty of words or images, but I can’t seem to stop myself from looking for more.  I was thinking, too, that some of the passages seemed poetic, which made me wonder if there was a connection between my not being able to get into poetry and my not being able to get on with Hardwick’s prose.  I wonder if I will ever be able to really understand poetry--or maybe I just need to realize it isn’t for me.  Or maybe I am just making it harder than it is?

Danielle

I think the book is very poetic too, and Danielle—I think probably you’re right that part of what made it difficult for you is how close it is to poetry.  I do think that people can come to understand poetry through practice, and also through knowing more about it, but I also don’t think that everybody needs to become a poetry fan.  I like reading poetry, but I have a hard time when poetry begins to invade my fiction.  I suppose I like to keep the genres a bit more separate.

I agree that the book is poetic and aphoristic, although there isn’t an aphorism that stuck in my head.  But I do think it’s made up of beautiful little fragments that are like stanzas, and many of those fragments could be mixed up without changing the coherency of it much.

I honestly think I do better when there are bits of poetic writing in fiction than when I read poetry itself.

I wonder how much being married to Robert Lowell came to influence her writing. (I need to get around to reading Lowell--Skunk Hour is all I can recall reading--now that I’ve read a book by his wife and several years ago, a memoir by his first cousin once removed.) Would she have focused more on plot and storyline if she’d been married to a novelist? She strikes me someone who would have competed with her spouse to some degree.

One line that stuck with me was when she was talking about Louisa moving out after lying to get an office job, and what she expected to happen to her: “Perhaps it will be good--or at least what she likes.”

Gulp.

I can’t believe no one else noticed how often she used teeth in describing a character’s appearance:

benign flash of gray false teeth

Large head, large teeth, large carpet slippers. . .

his long yellow teeth emerged

great teeth throbbing

thick wavy hair, bad teeth, an uningratiating manner

hsi merry, jack-o-lantern face with its broken teeth

Angl-Saxon toothless jaw

heavy laugh, marvelous teeth

large, square teeth

small chip in a front tooth

healthy teeth

brilliant white smile, teeth perhaps a shade too large for sadness

an unyielding need to brush his perfect teeth

Oh I am loving the teeth stuff. I did find some of her observations beautiful, but I have to say I found others a bit.. well, pretentious really. It’s probably me and the mood I was in when reading the book. It is akin to poetry, but even prose poetry comes in shorter chunks. I would have done better, I think, if it had been split into thirty or forty tiny chapters, each one with a distinct focus. Mind you there’s no point in me rewriting the book! I do agree with what Stefanie was saying in her post about how well this represents the processes of memory and what a fine stream of consciousness style she produces. I found it very honest in that respect.

Danielle, don’t give up on understanding poetry. Like Dorothy says, I think it takes practice. And some poetry like some novels, take a lot of work.

With all those tooth references Susan I can’t believe I never noticed! I find your question about how much Hardwick may have been influenced by Lowell interesting. When two writers live together you’d think there’d have to be some cross-pollination of a sort.

I would have liked the chapters to be shorter too Litlove. I found myself rushing through parts to get to the end of the chapter so i could go to bed or because my lunch break was almost over. If the chapters were shorter I think I would have read the book slower and more carefully. It’s interesting how such a thing as chapter breaks can have a big impact on how one reads a book.

I’d love to know more about the Lowell/Hardwick marriage too—I’m sure there are some interesting stories there. 

I like the idea of shorter chapters too—maybe taking it even closer to poetry would have worked better.  I liked it best, though, when she had an extended section on one theme—when she told longer stories.  The section on the housekeeper near the end comes to mind, but there were earlier ones too.

There’s a question I really want to ask people (following on from Dorothy’s point) and it’s this: Hardwick’s book is what I would call anti-narrative. We get mostly fragments of stories, or else mini-stories that don’t make obvious links to any kind of over-arching story. Now, for me that wasn’t pleasurable, but it’s a very clever device. It brings art that much closer to life (which isn’t satisfyingly organised into narrative). I suppose I read stories because they are not life, and that’s what give me pleasure, so I found this book hard work and not always that rewarding. But for the people who did enjoy it, can you say where the pleasure came for you? What was it that kept you reading and made you curious?

I’m not sure I count as one of the people who enjoyed the book, but in the moments I enjoyed it, it was where Hardwick got closest to what traditional novels do—character sketches.  I like plotless novels that have good characters, and so when Hardwick spend some time describing a person was when I felt most engaged.

I liked the dream-like quality. I liked the glimpses into other lives, just enough to be tantalizing but never complete; sort of how it is in real life. I liked the language. I found the book’s fragmentary nature difficult, but challenging in a good way. I wanted to figure it all out. I didn’t, of course, not even close, but I enjoyed the rest of it enough that not figuring it out didn’t bother me much.

Sorry to break into the discussion....just curious about the next read? 

Danielle