The Required Amount at the Prescribed Rate (Handcrafted From the Finest Corinthian Leather)
So Real It Hurts
At first glance, Adelle Waldman's novel The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. seems as if it's going to tread over some very common meta-ground -- a novel about writers and writing -- but it's actually closer to a modern version of Pride and Prejudice . . . told from the male point-of-view, with a dash of the HBO comedy Girls, and I couldn't put it down . . . from the first pages, when Nate runs into a girl he dated briefly, until a prophylactic malfunction led to an awkward decision, where Nate "had done everything that could have been expected of him . . . even though he had less money than she did, he paid for the abortion," right through all the literary references -- including some authors I've heard of but never read . . . Lermontov, Italo Svevo, and Thomas Bernhard" and then Nate's painful narcissism, detachment, and superficiality with other girls; Adelle Waldman nails the male mind, and walks the tightrope between satire and empathy . . . good fun for boys and girls alike.
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A New Sentence Every Day, Hand Crafted from the Finest Corinthian Leather.
2 comments:
zwoman read this and I think she thought it was overly self-indulgent hipsterism. But that could be a different book.
it could definitely be classified as that, too. i think the book is for guys.
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