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An Adultery
The third novel from acclaimed, award-winning Alexander Theroux is a darkly realistic tale of adultery set in contemporary New England. Christian Ford is a man who is betrayed in an adulterous affair, only to discover that he himself betrayed a woman he loved and abandoned. Throughout the story, Christian attempts to understand the dangerously paradoxical nature of human relations and to show that adultery extends beyond mere physical infidelity.
396 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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About the author
Alexander Theroux
50 books189 followersAlexander Theroux is a novelist, poet, and essayist. The most apt description of the novels of Theroux was given by Anthony Burgess in praise of Theroux's Darconville's Cat: Theroux is 'word drunk', filling his novels with a torrent of words archaic and neologic, always striving for originality, while drawing from the traditions of Rolfe, Rabelais, Sterne, and Nabokov.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
August 29, 2021
An Adultery is a psychologically strange psychological drama… The postmodern attitude of Alexander Theroux gives the love affair a somewhat dark distortion and a piquant mental twist…
In love, one always must not just take but also give…
The novel is a story of an adulterous love – its evolution from the elation and great expectations in the beginning to its final disintegration and the hero’s psychological trauma in the end.
The more pernicious is our passion the dearer it becomes to us…
In love, one always must not just take but also give…
…I myself, if I gave, only gave to get, the simulacrum of generosity faithless lovers use only to appease the self and so make, in a charade of mutual need, what is only a parody of reciprocation. I’m certain I wanted to prove my prowess where another man had bungled. And yet there was something sincerely intended between us. She wanted now to tell me what she really felt, I thought, and I wanted to hear it to believe I was allowed to tell her the same. There were words on our lips that in our loneliness alone wanted utterance, and the need by itself virtually created the feeling.
The novel is a story of an adulterous love – its evolution from the elation and great expectations in the beginning to its final disintegration and the hero’s psychological trauma in the end.
We choose what we shouldn’t. The things we crave aren’t the things we need. We cannot shed our symptoms because we cannot shed ourselves. I was like her myself, often seeing the imaginary world too clearly to play a part in the real, and always selfishly trying to make a virtue of my vice. It’s with ambition as it is with adultery. Her dangers were always mine.
The more pernicious is our passion the dearer it becomes to us…
July 22, 2012
This is a novel about that fourth girlfriend of yours, the one you had before you settled down with the woman you are convinced you love (all evidence points to love, you quarrel only monthly, you are only mildly displeased when it’s her on the phone), who you only learned three months into the relationship was married with two children, a parrot, a canary, and her own independent restaurant chain specialising in coypu dishes. The woman who phoned you at three a.m. to tell you she preferred Worcester sauce to mayo, who only liked making love in the utility closet at your parents’ house, who would burst into tears if she spotted an upturned tack lying on the carpet because it reminded her of childhood tacking carpets with her papa in Wisconsin before the flood swept all her belongings and little brother Timmy away. The woman you still love, despite her having eloped with a kangaroo trapper in the Australian outback, put on twenty pounds, and developed a mescaline addiction to embarrass Syd Barrett. It’s not your fault, we have no say in the matter.
Theroux’s equivalent is named Farol and his novel is a Perecian “attempt to exhaust an adultery,” running at 396 pages of marathon-strength first-person analysis of the narrator’s relationship with his erratic, shambolic disaster of an on/off lover. Comparisons are drawn by the blurbers with Flaubert and James, and the novel is rather like listening in on James’s conversations with his therapist as he drones on with unimpeachable eloquence about every nuance of his present relationship. For me, the book exhausts itself around the three-hundred page mark, where I skipped to the end towards the inevitable, downbeat conclusion. Otherwise the novel was in danger of lapsing into extreme tedium and silliness through excess. Theroux’s attempt to exhaust each and every nuance of this topic, rendered in extremely stylish, lyrical and bilious prose, also serves to put the topic of adultery in American letters to bed, perhaps partly his ambition too. Otherwise, a remarkably accomplished solo performance, perfect for those who agree “character is plot.” [With my sincere apologies to Mr. T for pages 300-386. In another life, maybe].
Theroux’s equivalent is named Farol and his novel is a Perecian “attempt to exhaust an adultery,” running at 396 pages of marathon-strength first-person analysis of the narrator’s relationship with his erratic, shambolic disaster of an on/off lover. Comparisons are drawn by the blurbers with Flaubert and James, and the novel is rather like listening in on James’s conversations with his therapist as he drones on with unimpeachable eloquence about every nuance of his present relationship. For me, the book exhausts itself around the three-hundred page mark, where I skipped to the end towards the inevitable, downbeat conclusion. Otherwise the novel was in danger of lapsing into extreme tedium and silliness through excess. Theroux’s attempt to exhaust each and every nuance of this topic, rendered in extremely stylish, lyrical and bilious prose, also serves to put the topic of adultery in American letters to bed, perhaps partly his ambition too. Otherwise, a remarkably accomplished solo performance, perfect for those who agree “character is plot.” [With my sincere apologies to Mr. T for pages 300-386. In another life, maybe].
July 10, 2018
This is no Darconville’s Cat, not even close. Whereas that novel was thematically rich, infused with a sense of profound, elemental mystery, An Adultery is relentlessly realistic, even mundane. And while Theroux’s language still sings, his subject prevents his words from delivering the same power.
What An Adultery does offer is a deep examination of a flawed relationship; a look at how love can shadow perception, and make fools of us all. In this way the novel’s message is deeply anti-romantic. Unfortunately, the blurb and cover give away the entire arc of the story from the outset, so there remains only a drudging sense of inevitability, and very little surprise in how the relationship eventually develops. There is not much beyond the prose itself to propel the reader through the pages.
Still, the language is brilliant, and the extraordinarily detailed emotional accounts are richly drawn and remarkably insightful. Though I wouldn't discourage you from picking this book up, I would recommend that you reach first for Darconville’s Cat.
What An Adultery does offer is a deep examination of a flawed relationship; a look at how love can shadow perception, and make fools of us all. In this way the novel’s message is deeply anti-romantic. Unfortunately, the blurb and cover give away the entire arc of the story from the outset, so there remains only a drudging sense of inevitability, and very little surprise in how the relationship eventually develops. There is not much beyond the prose itself to propel the reader through the pages.
Still, the language is brilliant, and the extraordinarily detailed emotional accounts are richly drawn and remarkably insightful. Though I wouldn't discourage you from picking this book up, I would recommend that you reach first for Darconville’s Cat.
April 5, 2016
Mortal Female Deduction
"1. All women are mortal.
2. Farol Colorado was a woman.
3. Farol Colorado was mortal."
These are the first sentences of the three parts of the novel.
"1. All women are mortal.
2. Farol Colorado was a woman.
3. Farol Colorado was mortal."
These are the first sentences of the three parts of the novel.
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April 8, 2023Video review: https://youtu.be/R0hV6GFVQ1k
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May 17, 2017Because goodreads ate my clever review, I provide a link to an interview with Mr Theroux conducted by Sir Moore of the RoCF. The interview concerns both An Adultery and Darconville's Cat.
Moore: The self that emerges from your writings is, in many ways, an anachronistic one, even a reactionary one: devoutly Catholic, decidedly misogynistic if not misanthropic, elitist if not aristocratic, and highly opinionated. Would you say this is a fair deduction?
Theroux: I would agree with Dr. Crucifer, without embracing anything else, that "no man ever rose to any degree of perfection but through obstinacy and an inveterate resolution against the stream of mankind."
Link.
Moore: The self that emerges from your writings is, in many ways, an anachronistic one, even a reactionary one: devoutly Catholic, decidedly misogynistic if not misanthropic, elitist if not aristocratic, and highly opinionated. Would you say this is a fair deduction?
Theroux: I would agree with Dr. Crucifer, without embracing anything else, that "no man ever rose to any degree of perfection but through obstinacy and an inveterate resolution against the stream of mankind."
Link.
October 6, 2020
"“Hate” is a much ballyhooed word of the zeitgeist:, We lob softballs like “I hate tofu,” “I hate Knausgård,” or, “I hate Bernie Bros.” Theroux didn't write the book on hatred, but he wrote four novels where the emotion coruscates, first through the Baroque sentences in Three Wogs and Darconville’s Cat, and then in the more late- 20th- Century syntactical An Adultery..."
Full review at Full-Stop
Full review at Full-Stop
May 20, 2017
On any page of this book are feats of language and acumen today’s so-called accomplished writers would peddle the dregs of their rancid souls to achieve even once in their insipid oeuvres fermented with pappy, peppy, pulpy bestsellers. It is an abrasive, unsparing, relentless, disturbing, gorgeous, deeply ruminative work that will incite nearly unanimous hate. The standard catechism—“is it good did you like it what was the best part”—wildly misses the mark, yet such blinkered misreading quickly esteems itself competent to judge the work “bad,” as in, delivering less than the contractually agreed upon immediate gratification to which the consumer is entitled because they paid for it. Scorching every trace of cliché, sentiment, platitude, and speakeasy bonhomie, the text is an insult to enthusiastically lowered expectations cheaply satisfied and numbed in the comfortable predictability of finding themselves always mirrored and flattered as they already are in words no more challenging than children’s programming.
Not that this novel is not predictable! In fact, the title itself is a consummate spoiler, giving away the secret that exposition, conflict, and denouement will all be the same; and indeed, the same things happen with compulsive repetition in all three parts of the novel. “An Adultery” is ironic, for it occurs within a context of total adulteration. What remains to impel the novel onward are the innumerable reflections, observations, analyses, and criticisms delivered in an immaculate voice wherein clauses commingle to turn every subject and predicate inside out and back again, the restless transformations in which the truth of thought manifests itself in its movement through the totality. It is an unsteady yet serene approximation of what it would be like to wrest something whole from the debris of experience, an instantaneity of insight that must perforce be stretched into syntax, in this case a supple sensibility working out its reflexive intricacies in scathing, acidulous prose. On an intimate level, it is so variegated a palette of the vibrant and repulsive hues of human desire, thought, and emotion that one will discern a gallery of uncanny portraits sketched between the lines. As belated consolation for those excruciating times some passion has left one blankly dumbstruck, Theroux gives brilliant definition to the shadowy netherworlds of desire, adrift in which one never seems to find the right words or the exact phrase or the undeniable diagnosis for everything sickeningly heartfelt yet—for all that—impossible to grasp, as intangible as the vespers of doomed love. But the language finally found remains to mark like an indelible tombstone the feeling, the time, the exquisite ache.
PS. Four stars only because DC (which I've not read yet) is reputedly better.
Not that this novel is not predictable! In fact, the title itself is a consummate spoiler, giving away the secret that exposition, conflict, and denouement will all be the same; and indeed, the same things happen with compulsive repetition in all three parts of the novel. “An Adultery” is ironic, for it occurs within a context of total adulteration. What remains to impel the novel onward are the innumerable reflections, observations, analyses, and criticisms delivered in an immaculate voice wherein clauses commingle to turn every subject and predicate inside out and back again, the restless transformations in which the truth of thought manifests itself in its movement through the totality. It is an unsteady yet serene approximation of what it would be like to wrest something whole from the debris of experience, an instantaneity of insight that must perforce be stretched into syntax, in this case a supple sensibility working out its reflexive intricacies in scathing, acidulous prose. On an intimate level, it is so variegated a palette of the vibrant and repulsive hues of human desire, thought, and emotion that one will discern a gallery of uncanny portraits sketched between the lines. As belated consolation for those excruciating times some passion has left one blankly dumbstruck, Theroux gives brilliant definition to the shadowy netherworlds of desire, adrift in which one never seems to find the right words or the exact phrase or the undeniable diagnosis for everything sickeningly heartfelt yet—for all that—impossible to grasp, as intangible as the vespers of doomed love. But the language finally found remains to mark like an indelible tombstone the feeling, the time, the exquisite ache.
PS. Four stars only because DC (which I've not read yet) is reputedly better.
April 17, 2024
boy theroux loves writing novels in which a dark haired man of strong faith who is an incontestable master in his artistic field and to whom nothing in life presents any problem falls in love for some reason even he does not know with a woman patently his inferior in every aspect (the man himself declares this) and who then destroys him through patterns of behaviour that are the intrinsic result of her gender and her awareness that she is unworthy of his great love for her, but he triumphs in the end through sheer strength of self will by being able to live without her
*
round 2, i struggled less with the last stretch than last time, perhaps because the whole thing was familiar now where last time i'd felt the strain of repetition. i found it even more odious and coming with the perspective of theroux's much weaker later work i could see here the start of the strains that characterise it: the oily didactisim, the endless unargued truisms, the absolute assertion where the early fiction acknowledged complexity, the iteration of trivia. theroux seemingly never had a thought he didn't attempt to coin into a rouchefoucouldian maxim (and what i think about la roche is indicated by the fact i didn't bother to check his spelling)
*
round 2, i struggled less with the last stretch than last time, perhaps because the whole thing was familiar now where last time i'd felt the strain of repetition. i found it even more odious and coming with the perspective of theroux's much weaker later work i could see here the start of the strains that characterise it: the oily didactisim, the endless unargued truisms, the absolute assertion where the early fiction acknowledged complexity, the iteration of trivia. theroux seemingly never had a thought he didn't attempt to coin into a rouchefoucouldian maxim (and what i think about la roche is indicated by the fact i didn't bother to check his spelling)
December 8, 2021
2nd time around and I still get something out of Mr. Theroux. Just a thrill to read his words. I did get a little bored of these 2 but that’s ok. In his hands the ride is one of a kind.
February 19, 2017
A work that proves itself unsustainable for continued reading. An adulterous disappointment, though written in high style. A bore in degrees at first unimaginable, but unyielding in its weighty persistence.
September 22, 2010
Alexander Theroux and in particular his "An Adultery: A Novel" is a casebook study in how to descriptively develop a character to the point, that the fictional personality manifests in the readers' perception as one the reader intimately understands and or knows currently or in an engrained memory from the past. Although some readers may find Theroux' style of character transparency is almost too intrusively invasive on themselves, I find it of the highest literary order.
February 8, 2013
yeah...and so i have this, paperback, an adultery, 1987...same year as this other i'm reading, Texasville...surely a sign. and the 1st from theroux for me...never heard of him...till here. sounds like a heavyweight, a real contender...reading the back cover...awesome linguistic virtuosity...dostoyevskian in power, virtually unmatched.
ooga booga.
i like the title...an adultery...suggestive, nessay pa?
there's not one...but three quotes...one from yeats..."the painter's brush consumes his dream."...one from gertrude stein..."they exchanged pictures..." from the autobiography of alice b tolkas and i'm sure there's all manner of meaning in that one...ooga booga...and a final one...from the man himself...alexander..."one boy's a boy. two boys are half a boy. three boys are no boy at all."
well...i can try.
story begins:
all women are mortal. i wonder if i believed it that autumn day i walked into the art gallery in st. ives, new hampshire--i paint--and saw her for the first time. she was a tall, striking woman about thirty or so who worked with her head down as if she'd have to work that way, framing, until the day she died. she was wearing trousers and a maroon turtleneck jersey under a light quilted vest and had the stamp, i thought, of someone often photographed. and yet she seemed sad. was it perhaps because she was new to the place and had yet made no friends? i didn't know. my only thought was: lovely.
onward & upward.
time place scene settings
*st. ives, new hampshire [the question remains...how many were going to st ives?]...an autumn day
* "...the following week..."
* "...the next few weeks..."
* "...one week in february..."
* "...on vacation in early march to vermont..."
* "...i smelled april in the air..."
* "left for new york 2 days later..."
* "...it was almost june..."
* "...it was almost july..."
* "...that early fall day...the september sun filling my heart."
* "i don't remember the next few days passing at all...as the weeks passed...days crawled by."
* "...the days passed..."
* "the following two weeks."
* "i flung open my door one afternoon in late november."
*thanksgiving
* "christmas was soon upon us."
* "...end-of-term spring break."
* "february passed...we were into march."
* "...and then came that day in late march."
* "1st weekend in april."
*home for little wanderers, the orphanage where christian lived
*single room over uncle ned's loan company, boston, where he worked as a linotypist
*yale, that he attended
*france...petit ecole, that he attended
*country outside village of therouanne...accent over the "e"
*teaching at cambridge, mass
*christmas, the colorados to the adironacks
*squam lake...a few days alone, where he drew etc
*galloupi's, a local grocery store
*drives a 12-yr-old triumph tr4-a
*farol drives a blue honda accord
*big flats...a farm where farol spent time
*vermont...sunlit balcony in battleboro
*the classroom...st ives, where christian teaches
*school gym...squash courts
*a bookstore...new hampshire...rags on n.h....on folk art
*pool...golf...his house on cape cod
*boston...old irish pub in jamaica plain called doyles
* gallery on east 10th st
*the met
*bronz...m.s. care center
*bulgari offices on 5th avenue...farol's father's work
*plum island
*small restaurant in newburyport, grog
*dexter show outlet
*walden pond...movies...white mountains
*the commons...st ives
*wayside inn, old tavern
*a party at rye beach
*a christmas party
*yangtze river rest. lexington, mass
*mildred's chowder house, hyannis
*cf's room in the school bldg
*yawnwinder's party
*al's diner...and this seems to be a change from the hoity-toity places farol preferred...as does the description of her "farol loved to eat"...whereas early in the story to midway, she'd order and eat little.
characters
*the eye-narrator...who the reader learns, first his surname/family name...ford...and then his christian name...christian...christian "kit" ford. he paints. he spent most of his early life in an orphanage and it was years before he realized he had a brother & sister...or...before he realized one of them. perhaps he was aware of one, not the other...and...he has a half-brother, half-sister...he is unmarried, although he has a girlfriend, marina falieri, an 18-yr-old...boston. his mother died in childbirth, father remarried, a polar explorer...there are many prominent writers in his family...was told his father died in a plane crash...but then, at 13 a good doctor told him the old man hanged himself..."nothing really lasted."
he is beginning his 2nd year at st ives where he teaches at the prep school to supplement his income. he is 36 years old. he moved to st. ives several years prior...no ties here to st ives...no reason to stay...he believed he had no needs...then revised that...he says that he can't forget anything...&...other than the two names, surname & christian...not used as a whole...there have been no further uses of the name.
*farol colorado...the married woman...she is unhappy...w/many things, but that is not her defining characteristic. christian ford meets her at the shop where she works framing...she overemphasized her defects in order to feel sorry for herself..."yodel" one of her early nicknames..."her world was eye-level and down." ..."she never used the word marriage, only relationship." her name before marriage was farol sprat...heh! sprat? ...or, she was married to man of that name...and her old man is described as having a lump of fat for a heart.
born nutley, new jersey...2nd of 4, an older bro, 2 sisters...father moved them to new york, parents now in mamaroneck, new york..."much of her life was a quest-in-reverse: an attempt to shed its meaning rather than find it." she informs c.f. she's had two failed marriages...this, after a time...also, multiple sclerosis
*john colorado, her husband, who was married & divorced, once before, is in advanced communications management...travels for job...john/farol met 4 yrs earlier...lived together a yr...got married...john has a younger brother...parents are plymouth-brethren
*a grandfather who was a sea captain in nova scotia...of farol's
*her husband's parents who have a dim view of alcohol
*two other woman working at tables.
*marina falieri, the 18-yr-old girlfriend in boston, who lives w/her parents..."i could put a drop cloth over her." --began work at supermarket, $...the manager! --typing school...no...job at the studio...no, mother...darkroom technician at boston city hospital...&...i'm certain i read that he and marina have been involved for 6 years...yes, p125 it had been for six years as much her home as mine....she is 18;he is 36...heh! she was 12 when they met? could be my math...my reading skills...or interpretation...or, are the two figures in an adultery the two women?...wouldn't that be...par for the course?...an adulteration of the story? of the reading?
*tarquin, a brother...married now, a lawyer
*daisy, a sister, married, mother of three
*doctor...dr. trinity...(from the diploma)
*mr madwed...a teacher who 1st saw his drawings...1st something...encouraged? brought it about? yes, that.
*a half-black dancer in paris that he loved...
*dr varion, psychologist, marriage counselor that farol/john were seeing, initially together, then separately
*the women who were working at the table, described as lear's spaniels...:
*1. ruth gumplowitz
*2. charlotte tweeze
*3. maxine scrulock
*the colorado's...or farol...has a cat: neko
*bart, farol's brother, married, teaches in connecticut
*"la la" and "babycakes"...farol's sisters, lenore & lucy
*1st kiss for farol...fred mockery
*had a crush on leo helmkamp
*marina's doctors
*marina's parents...father worked in shipyards, boston
*neil ringspotz, gallery wit
*christian paints lears' spaniels...the mares of glaucour...qqc to do w/goya's vision burlesca, accent over the "o"
*dr derek schreiner...cf's old friend...advice
*dr. solomon, yet another psychiatrist for farol
*a custodian...at st ives school
*farol's father..."instead of a heart he had a lump of fat."...
*a secretary
*lloyd, farol's first husband...he was an engineer...the marriage lasted less than two years
*a man, ted...w/farol...the plot thickens, a pro-golfer
*students...kitchen workers
*bill/anne
*punch & judies
*several talkative matrons w/dopey eyes
*mr atkins...cobb something
*various guests
*rail-thin creatures w/blue hair
"her perfume smelled like spermicide"...scrulock
*a lawyer w/frizzy cartwheeled hair
*too, theroux has a list of "names"...several locations...yawnwinders, harvey frakes, gary woodville, cory woodpoodle, neil ringsplotz...actually, some of these occur earlier, too...85 & 192...there's the sense that they aren't people...more so like ideas as in pilgrim's progress
*a telephone booth
*cheryl...a woman that john sees at one point in the on-again/off-again coupling of john and farol
some quotes or two three
a love of creation stimulates a wish to create.
we were not combined. we were adulterated.
magic was displaced by method and fantasy by fact.
we prove what's missing by what we want.
secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny.
it was strange: two personalities coming together can create a third, with each being different, yet together making up one they are surprised at separately.
...to obscure in further adulteration her already precarious sense of identity?
she needed me in her life to tell her what she felt about her husband.
i acquitted her of what he couldn't, he what i, and she felt cleansed.
her husband and i virtually formed one incorporeal man, and she reveled in the image.
she was never as much mine as when she was with him.
nothing is more subtly destructive than a closed circle of artists feeding on one another.
update
cf: "marriages fail. don't they?"
fc: "two of them?"
personal breadcrumb
there is a blue-yellow sighting...p70 or so...another, 264-65...cf painting marina
the title
an adultery...& too, christian ford, our hero...our eye-narrator...paints a piece he titles the same...and this painting's inspiration is a dream he had, farol and him on a rope over a crevasse...two tiny figures on a flashlight of rope...or close...but based on a few of the quotes above, an adultery has a multitude of meanings in the telling...of marriage...of self...of the give & take of life: people, places, and things, of language itself. heh! topsyturvification
it is interesting reading how many angles & assorted views christian develops w/this adultery...and i'm only to page 144 o 396...some of the quotes above are a bit of what is happening in this story...
update
part two
farol colorado was a woman.
too...in this other i'm reading, Texasville, where adultery is a way of life and the word adultery isn't used, as both parties accept it as a given, like a sand storm...a female character is provided opportunity to howl like a canine...at a place called howlers...a restaurant where patrons are encouraged to howl...and here, in this one, farol not only makes bird calls...the words in italics...she is also provided opportunity to sound these bizarre ape sounds...what are the odds? surely a sign.
now i understand
i remember we were once joined at dinner by one of her sisters--lenore, i think--a sour rigid-looking wally with whipthin hands and a disapproving stare.
--it's the physiology..sheesh!
update, 13 feb 13
yeah, so i'm back at this one...tried reading two stories at the same time...meh. so i finished the other--that, curiously has some of the same themes going for it, Texasville, as this one...
...back to the back cover...or take what's on the front cover, a psychological masterpiece." anthony burgess...reading along, considering this in light of Neurosis and Human Growth. The Struggle Towards Self-Realization, Karen Horney, whose work Bernard Paris has put to effective use w/his criticism of shakespeare, ibsen, eliot, dostoyevsky, among others.
...seeing if i can "fit" christian or farol into the scheme-of-things horney described...neurosis...and human growth...and...perhaps both christian & farol are operating under what horney describes as the expansive and the...resigned solutions...to life...neither one seems to be self-effacing in any way, although they are that at times...still early though...on page 205 of 396...regardless of what one concludes about horney's work, noted above...what she lays out in layman's terms does assist a reader in defining character...and as i discovered, her work can also be applied to much of the lit that came out of the "third-world"...only this time, applied to gov't....neurotic gov't. here--
"she was always struggling against a personality not hers, or, i don't know, struggling w/2 of them that were. she was a mischling."
you belong to each other in what together you've made of a third identity that almost immediately cancels your own.
so, there's grist for the karen-horney mill..."her confidence was shaken by men who didn't find her attractive." ...and yet she/farol also needs to remain aloof...all those daddy-issues at work..."caused what she disapproved of."
part three
farol colorado was mortal.
searched for my notes/index on horney's work...looked thru the pb...and after i'd posted the above...seemed like things turned up in this text to argue for a self-effacing solution...but no...still seems to be an amalgamation of the expansive/resigned...people like us don't want advice. we want approval... or in a sense the more alienated we were from each other, the more passionate we became... & still seems to include the boof of them...expansive/resigned...i felt a saving peace in being alone...i did want to get out of the world....
and since both have an idealized image, impossible to maintain...while needing to maintain it...when things go awry, as things do...the more she relied upon them the more painful the discrepancy between her romantic projections and what she was..."...."my compliments made me hate her." doing nothing is your expression of power. cf idealized image of himself...i was convinced at the time, i had the power to make her happy....his intellect...although he is capable of insights into fc's condition...fc's necessity of choosing precisely those men whom she determined would fail her even as she tried...
curious to see where it all leads...marina is still in the picture...but cf's expansive solution is evident in his treatment of marina...in making it easy for herself to be deceived she had helped in her own betrayal. it's not his duplicity; it is a failure of marina's character...so it should be curious to see what any of them, ultimately, do.
one last item...cf's resigned tendencies...thinking of marina...whose presence and absence feeds that resignation...marina's "mother, who constantly stood in the way of our ever being together."
over and over again...i keep asking, does he even want to be w/someone? so far...no...
final update, finished, 15 feb 13, friday morning, 11:15 a.m. e.s.t.
whew...
i think this will be only the 9th review for this story...i've more "notes" here but i don't know that i will add them to what is above...ummmm...i'll say again that the many & varied ways that christian looks at what is happening w/him...and mainly farol...is...incredible. so many pages, black columns to the right/left...at times it honestly got to be a bit of a plod...as in, how many variations can theroux write so much of the same thing?...while also making it sound different than the time before?
strange...isn't it...that there aren't more reviews? more readers? or does that only come after a hundred years?
and, truth be told...the telling held a goodly sum of "gripping suspense" as the climax approached...what would happen? where will it all lead? and, at one point in my notes, i...i thought perhaps christian's epiphany was too easy...this, after pages and pages of analyzing the various adulteries the telling is about...but after reading more...i jotted down, ummmm, okay. yes.
i won't attempt to persuade one way or another, any more than i've attempted...in what direction christian's or farol's madness lies...other than to say there is grist for the karen-horney mill here...all that 3rd-force psychology and such...and mayhap i'm on the right track....cf/fc...and for me anyway, it'd only be w/additional readings that an argument could be made to either affirm or deny one or the other.
a good read.
ooga booga.
i like the title...an adultery...suggestive, nessay pa?
there's not one...but three quotes...one from yeats..."the painter's brush consumes his dream."...one from gertrude stein..."they exchanged pictures..." from the autobiography of alice b tolkas and i'm sure there's all manner of meaning in that one...ooga booga...and a final one...from the man himself...alexander..."one boy's a boy. two boys are half a boy. three boys are no boy at all."
well...i can try.
story begins:
all women are mortal. i wonder if i believed it that autumn day i walked into the art gallery in st. ives, new hampshire--i paint--and saw her for the first time. she was a tall, striking woman about thirty or so who worked with her head down as if she'd have to work that way, framing, until the day she died. she was wearing trousers and a maroon turtleneck jersey under a light quilted vest and had the stamp, i thought, of someone often photographed. and yet she seemed sad. was it perhaps because she was new to the place and had yet made no friends? i didn't know. my only thought was: lovely.
onward & upward.
time place scene settings
*st. ives, new hampshire [the question remains...how many were going to st ives?]...an autumn day
* "...the following week..."
* "...the next few weeks..."
* "...one week in february..."
* "...on vacation in early march to vermont..."
* "...i smelled april in the air..."
* "left for new york 2 days later..."
* "...it was almost june..."
* "...it was almost july..."
* "...that early fall day...the september sun filling my heart."
* "i don't remember the next few days passing at all...as the weeks passed...days crawled by."
* "...the days passed..."
* "the following two weeks."
* "i flung open my door one afternoon in late november."
*thanksgiving
* "christmas was soon upon us."
* "...end-of-term spring break."
* "february passed...we were into march."
* "...and then came that day in late march."
* "1st weekend in april."
*home for little wanderers, the orphanage where christian lived
*single room over uncle ned's loan company, boston, where he worked as a linotypist
*yale, that he attended
*france...petit ecole, that he attended
*country outside village of therouanne...accent over the "e"
*teaching at cambridge, mass
*christmas, the colorados to the adironacks
*squam lake...a few days alone, where he drew etc
*galloupi's, a local grocery store
*drives a 12-yr-old triumph tr4-a
*farol drives a blue honda accord
*big flats...a farm where farol spent time
*vermont...sunlit balcony in battleboro
*the classroom...st ives, where christian teaches
*school gym...squash courts
*a bookstore...new hampshire...rags on n.h....on folk art
*pool...golf...his house on cape cod
*boston...old irish pub in jamaica plain called doyles
* gallery on east 10th st
*the met
*bronz...m.s. care center
*bulgari offices on 5th avenue...farol's father's work
*plum island
*small restaurant in newburyport, grog
*dexter show outlet
*walden pond...movies...white mountains
*the commons...st ives
*wayside inn, old tavern
*a party at rye beach
*a christmas party
*yangtze river rest. lexington, mass
*mildred's chowder house, hyannis
*cf's room in the school bldg
*yawnwinder's party
*al's diner...and this seems to be a change from the hoity-toity places farol preferred...as does the description of her "farol loved to eat"...whereas early in the story to midway, she'd order and eat little.
characters
*the eye-narrator...who the reader learns, first his surname/family name...ford...and then his christian name...christian...christian "kit" ford. he paints. he spent most of his early life in an orphanage and it was years before he realized he had a brother & sister...or...before he realized one of them. perhaps he was aware of one, not the other...and...he has a half-brother, half-sister...he is unmarried, although he has a girlfriend, marina falieri, an 18-yr-old...boston. his mother died in childbirth, father remarried, a polar explorer...there are many prominent writers in his family...was told his father died in a plane crash...but then, at 13 a good doctor told him the old man hanged himself..."nothing really lasted."
he is beginning his 2nd year at st ives where he teaches at the prep school to supplement his income. he is 36 years old. he moved to st. ives several years prior...no ties here to st ives...no reason to stay...he believed he had no needs...then revised that...he says that he can't forget anything...&...other than the two names, surname & christian...not used as a whole...there have been no further uses of the name.
*farol colorado...the married woman...she is unhappy...w/many things, but that is not her defining characteristic. christian ford meets her at the shop where she works framing...she overemphasized her defects in order to feel sorry for herself..."yodel" one of her early nicknames..."her world was eye-level and down." ..."she never used the word marriage, only relationship." her name before marriage was farol sprat...heh! sprat? ...or, she was married to man of that name...and her old man is described as having a lump of fat for a heart.
born nutley, new jersey...2nd of 4, an older bro, 2 sisters...father moved them to new york, parents now in mamaroneck, new york..."much of her life was a quest-in-reverse: an attempt to shed its meaning rather than find it." she informs c.f. she's had two failed marriages...this, after a time...also, multiple sclerosis
*john colorado, her husband, who was married & divorced, once before, is in advanced communications management...travels for job...john/farol met 4 yrs earlier...lived together a yr...got married...john has a younger brother...parents are plymouth-brethren
*a grandfather who was a sea captain in nova scotia...of farol's
*her husband's parents who have a dim view of alcohol
*two other woman working at tables.
*marina falieri, the 18-yr-old girlfriend in boston, who lives w/her parents..."i could put a drop cloth over her." --began work at supermarket, $...the manager! --typing school...no...job at the studio...no, mother...darkroom technician at boston city hospital...&...i'm certain i read that he and marina have been involved for 6 years...yes, p125 it had been for six years as much her home as mine....she is 18;he is 36...heh! she was 12 when they met? could be my math...my reading skills...or interpretation...or, are the two figures in an adultery the two women?...wouldn't that be...par for the course?...an adulteration of the story? of the reading?
*tarquin, a brother...married now, a lawyer
*daisy, a sister, married, mother of three
*doctor...dr. trinity...(from the diploma)
*mr madwed...a teacher who 1st saw his drawings...1st something...encouraged? brought it about? yes, that.
*a half-black dancer in paris that he loved...
*dr varion, psychologist, marriage counselor that farol/john were seeing, initially together, then separately
*the women who were working at the table, described as lear's spaniels...:
*1. ruth gumplowitz
*2. charlotte tweeze
*3. maxine scrulock
*the colorado's...or farol...has a cat: neko
*bart, farol's brother, married, teaches in connecticut
*"la la" and "babycakes"...farol's sisters, lenore & lucy
*1st kiss for farol...fred mockery
*had a crush on leo helmkamp
*marina's doctors
*marina's parents...father worked in shipyards, boston
*neil ringspotz, gallery wit
*christian paints lears' spaniels...the mares of glaucour...qqc to do w/goya's vision burlesca, accent over the "o"
*dr derek schreiner...cf's old friend...advice
*dr. solomon, yet another psychiatrist for farol
*a custodian...at st ives school
*farol's father..."instead of a heart he had a lump of fat."...
*a secretary
*lloyd, farol's first husband...he was an engineer...the marriage lasted less than two years
*a man, ted...w/farol...the plot thickens, a pro-golfer
*students...kitchen workers
*bill/anne
*punch & judies
*several talkative matrons w/dopey eyes
*mr atkins...cobb something
*various guests
*rail-thin creatures w/blue hair
"her perfume smelled like spermicide"...scrulock
*a lawyer w/frizzy cartwheeled hair
*too, theroux has a list of "names"...several locations...yawnwinders, harvey frakes, gary woodville, cory woodpoodle, neil ringsplotz...actually, some of these occur earlier, too...85 & 192...there's the sense that they aren't people...more so like ideas as in pilgrim's progress
*a telephone booth
*cheryl...a woman that john sees at one point in the on-again/off-again coupling of john and farol
some quotes or two three
a love of creation stimulates a wish to create.
we were not combined. we were adulterated.
magic was displaced by method and fantasy by fact.
we prove what's missing by what we want.
secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny.
it was strange: two personalities coming together can create a third, with each being different, yet together making up one they are surprised at separately.
...to obscure in further adulteration her already precarious sense of identity?
she needed me in her life to tell her what she felt about her husband.
i acquitted her of what he couldn't, he what i, and she felt cleansed.
her husband and i virtually formed one incorporeal man, and she reveled in the image.
she was never as much mine as when she was with him.
nothing is more subtly destructive than a closed circle of artists feeding on one another.
update
cf: "marriages fail. don't they?"
fc: "two of them?"
personal breadcrumb
there is a blue-yellow sighting...p70 or so...another, 264-65...cf painting marina
the title
an adultery...& too, christian ford, our hero...our eye-narrator...paints a piece he titles the same...and this painting's inspiration is a dream he had, farol and him on a rope over a crevasse...two tiny figures on a flashlight of rope...or close...but based on a few of the quotes above, an adultery has a multitude of meanings in the telling...of marriage...of self...of the give & take of life: people, places, and things, of language itself. heh! topsyturvification
it is interesting reading how many angles & assorted views christian develops w/this adultery...and i'm only to page 144 o 396...some of the quotes above are a bit of what is happening in this story...
update
part two
farol colorado was a woman.
too...in this other i'm reading, Texasville, where adultery is a way of life and the word adultery isn't used, as both parties accept it as a given, like a sand storm...a female character is provided opportunity to howl like a canine...at a place called howlers...a restaurant where patrons are encouraged to howl...and here, in this one, farol not only makes bird calls...the words in italics...she is also provided opportunity to sound these bizarre ape sounds...what are the odds? surely a sign.
now i understand
i remember we were once joined at dinner by one of her sisters--lenore, i think--a sour rigid-looking wally with whipthin hands and a disapproving stare.
--it's the physiology..sheesh!
update, 13 feb 13
yeah, so i'm back at this one...tried reading two stories at the same time...meh. so i finished the other--that, curiously has some of the same themes going for it, Texasville, as this one...
...back to the back cover...or take what's on the front cover, a psychological masterpiece." anthony burgess...reading along, considering this in light of Neurosis and Human Growth. The Struggle Towards Self-Realization, Karen Horney, whose work Bernard Paris has put to effective use w/his criticism of shakespeare, ibsen, eliot, dostoyevsky, among others.
...seeing if i can "fit" christian or farol into the scheme-of-things horney described...neurosis...and human growth...and...perhaps both christian & farol are operating under what horney describes as the expansive and the...resigned solutions...to life...neither one seems to be self-effacing in any way, although they are that at times...still early though...on page 205 of 396...regardless of what one concludes about horney's work, noted above...what she lays out in layman's terms does assist a reader in defining character...and as i discovered, her work can also be applied to much of the lit that came out of the "third-world"...only this time, applied to gov't....neurotic gov't. here--
"she was always struggling against a personality not hers, or, i don't know, struggling w/2 of them that were. she was a mischling."
you belong to each other in what together you've made of a third identity that almost immediately cancels your own.
so, there's grist for the karen-horney mill..."her confidence was shaken by men who didn't find her attractive." ...and yet she/farol also needs to remain aloof...all those daddy-issues at work..."caused what she disapproved of."
part three
farol colorado was mortal.
searched for my notes/index on horney's work...looked thru the pb...and after i'd posted the above...seemed like things turned up in this text to argue for a self-effacing solution...but no...still seems to be an amalgamation of the expansive/resigned...people like us don't want advice. we want approval... or in a sense the more alienated we were from each other, the more passionate we became... & still seems to include the boof of them...expansive/resigned...i felt a saving peace in being alone...i did want to get out of the world....
and since both have an idealized image, impossible to maintain...while needing to maintain it...when things go awry, as things do...the more she relied upon them the more painful the discrepancy between her romantic projections and what she was..."...."my compliments made me hate her." doing nothing is your expression of power. cf idealized image of himself...i was convinced at the time, i had the power to make her happy....his intellect...although he is capable of insights into fc's condition...fc's necessity of choosing precisely those men whom she determined would fail her even as she tried...
curious to see where it all leads...marina is still in the picture...but cf's expansive solution is evident in his treatment of marina...in making it easy for herself to be deceived she had helped in her own betrayal. it's not his duplicity; it is a failure of marina's character...so it should be curious to see what any of them, ultimately, do.
one last item...cf's resigned tendencies...thinking of marina...whose presence and absence feeds that resignation...marina's "mother, who constantly stood in the way of our ever being together."
over and over again...i keep asking, does he even want to be w/someone? so far...no...
final update, finished, 15 feb 13, friday morning, 11:15 a.m. e.s.t.
whew...
i think this will be only the 9th review for this story...i've more "notes" here but i don't know that i will add them to what is above...ummmm...i'll say again that the many & varied ways that christian looks at what is happening w/him...and mainly farol...is...incredible. so many pages, black columns to the right/left...at times it honestly got to be a bit of a plod...as in, how many variations can theroux write so much of the same thing?...while also making it sound different than the time before?
strange...isn't it...that there aren't more reviews? more readers? or does that only come after a hundred years?
and, truth be told...the telling held a goodly sum of "gripping suspense" as the climax approached...what would happen? where will it all lead? and, at one point in my notes, i...i thought perhaps christian's epiphany was too easy...this, after pages and pages of analyzing the various adulteries the telling is about...but after reading more...i jotted down, ummmm, okay. yes.
i won't attempt to persuade one way or another, any more than i've attempted...in what direction christian's or farol's madness lies...other than to say there is grist for the karen-horney mill here...all that 3rd-force psychology and such...and mayhap i'm on the right track....cf/fc...and for me anyway, it'd only be w/additional readings that an argument could be made to either affirm or deny one or the other.
a good read.
October 7, 2023
This book is linguistically lush and psychologically intricate, a case study of some complicated relationships. Plot is secondary: "She didn't love her husband, she wasn't satisfied with me, and she couldn't bear being alone." Through the beginnings of the three parts of this novel there's also a light layer of philosophy added. So all in all this a rewarding book for sophisticated readers, in spite of a few things that had a bit of detrimental effect on me:
1. With the time being the author's prose had a lulling effect on me. I couldn't guarantee that there's anything redundant in this book, but if it's not redundancy, then at least it is nuanced variation, and I am not sure, if that's really all needed. To my taste the book could have been 100 pages shorter. (OK, I admit, on the level of plot those ramblings are at least not unrealistic: "Real life" isn't straight to the point, either. But then again: Does a book at this level of intellectual sophistication have to be realistic at such a base level?
2. At moments when the narrator expands the picture away from the intimate love relationships of the people involved and gives a view of a larger surrounding society, the mode of the book is switched from detailed introspection to derogative satire. In itself this satire is quite funny, and - as humour often has to be - is totally over the top. While enjoyable in itself, it felt like a contaminant to me, when trying to fit this into the book as a whole.
1. With the time being the author's prose had a lulling effect on me. I couldn't guarantee that there's anything redundant in this book, but if it's not redundancy, then at least it is nuanced variation, and I am not sure, if that's really all needed. To my taste the book could have been 100 pages shorter. (OK, I admit, on the level of plot those ramblings are at least not unrealistic: "Real life" isn't straight to the point, either. But then again: Does a book at this level of intellectual sophistication have to be realistic at such a base level?
2. At moments when the narrator expands the picture away from the intimate love relationships of the people involved and gives a view of a larger surrounding society, the mode of the book is switched from detailed introspection to derogative satire. In itself this satire is quite funny, and - as humour often has to be - is totally over the top. While enjoyable in itself, it felt like a contaminant to me, when trying to fit this into the book as a whole.
February 3, 2025
Chapter 11 is especially heavy.
July 21, 2015
So far, my least favourite Theroux-novel, most likely because its so atypical. His voice and style is as strong as usual, but An Adultery is probably Theroux's closest novel to realism - which is a shame for an author who is so disinclined to reality and always in favour of the grotesque:
This is nonetheless a very good read - a different author would probably get four stars - but for Theroux's oeuvre it is a serious letdown.
I'll tackle Laura Warholic sometimes later this summer.
1. All women are mortal.
2. Farol Colorado was a woman.
3. Farol Colorado was mortal.
"We all end up living secret lives. We create what we are willing to admire and admiring what we shouldn't confess to the secret of our own sin, our own insufficiency, our own sadness. We all end up taking our secrets into the world and handing them over to strangers, only to realize it's often too late to claim them back. The very nature of time passing is sad beyond words. Memories mean that they're gone." (496)
The "realistic" novel and the way one reports to it is to me a locus molesti. The threats of the realistic novel, for which I believe I have a constitutional disinclination, force me into an anti-world with a fantasy and bedevilment all its own which refuses (ready?) to "hold a mirror up to nature." Make nature grovel! Transubstantiate it! Shake your multi-colored dreams out of your black disappointing sleep! Will you shrink from diversion, whimsy, entertainment, wit? (Theroux Metaphrastes: An Essay on Literature 27)
This is nonetheless a very good read - a different author would probably get four stars - but for Theroux's oeuvre it is a serious letdown.
I'll tackle Laura Warholic sometimes later this summer.
1. All women are mortal.
2. Farol Colorado was a woman.
3. Farol Colorado was mortal.
"We all end up living secret lives. We create what we are willing to admire and admiring what we shouldn't confess to the secret of our own sin, our own insufficiency, our own sadness. We all end up taking our secrets into the world and handing them over to strangers, only to realize it's often too late to claim them back. The very nature of time passing is sad beyond words. Memories mean that they're gone." (496)
September 12, 2018
Darconville's Cat without the sense of linguistic play.
Laura Warholic without an endless amount of cultural minutiae.
What's left?
A microscopic and razer sharp portrait of an adultery, but also, I would argue, any relationship.
Laura Warholic without an endless amount of cultural minutiae.
What's left?
A microscopic and razer sharp portrait of an adultery, but also, I would argue, any relationship.
February 7, 2012
One of the best books I have ever read.
The ideas and attitudes that are explored affect me to this day.
The writing - and wit - is excellent.
Theroux is a master.
The ideas and attitudes that are explored affect me to this day.
The writing - and wit - is excellent.
Theroux is a master.
September 11, 2022
Genuinely mean spirited
Read
January 5, 2025DNF —
So boring.
So boring.
March 30, 2023
Gentle on his tall, dark, artistic stand-ins — Eugene, Alaric, Christian – Theroux is unremittingly, acerbically vicious towards any and all female characters who lack blonde hair, slim thighs, gentle manners, sexual purity, and an unquestioningly loving disposition.
Theroux’s heroes decry vanity and then court it. Their obsession with beautiful women like Farol who nevertheless fail at "beauty," who develop frown lines or hide large thighs under their skirts or remove their makeup at night, fills them with self-loathing. Falling out of love with our handsome narrator assures the development of warts, chin hairs, and skinny shinbones. Men — or at the very least, our hero and his cultured friends— never seem to change at all.
Like Flannery O’Connor, Theroux deals in satire; like O’Connor, Theroux also strikes me as deeply (and confusingly) religious, exploring his concepts of beauty, truth, moral goodness, etc. through what my conservative Christian professor called the sacramental imagination, the Catholic, anti-gnostic embodiment of spirit in matter. Moral ugliness equals homeliness; despicable women possess the fattest legs and the plainest faces.
I realize this analysis is half-baked, and I might be reaching; I love satire and genuinely enjoy the virulent descriptions that fill Theroux’s novels. But this one has me feeling slightly peeved.
Theroux’s heroes decry vanity and then court it. Their obsession with beautiful women like Farol who nevertheless fail at "beauty," who develop frown lines or hide large thighs under their skirts or remove their makeup at night, fills them with self-loathing. Falling out of love with our handsome narrator assures the development of warts, chin hairs, and skinny shinbones. Men — or at the very least, our hero and his cultured friends— never seem to change at all.
Like Flannery O’Connor, Theroux deals in satire; like O’Connor, Theroux also strikes me as deeply (and confusingly) religious, exploring his concepts of beauty, truth, moral goodness, etc. through what my conservative Christian professor called the sacramental imagination, the Catholic, anti-gnostic embodiment of spirit in matter. Moral ugliness equals homeliness; despicable women possess the fattest legs and the plainest faces.
I realize this analysis is half-baked, and I might be reaching; I love satire and genuinely enjoy the virulent descriptions that fill Theroux’s novels. But this one has me feeling slightly peeved.
October 23, 2021
Wonderful writing, can't remember the last time I underlined so much in a print novel. But horribly dated in a way I couldn't get past. Both of his partners are not very interesting as people, so this is from the Salter era of women being expected to be inferior to the man in a relationship. He is similarly dismissive of NH, where I grew up (maybe that's not unfair...I hated it too, but his job as a writer is to dig deeper and w an open heart). Also scornful of the private school--having attended the institution it was based on, I can say he missed a lot of the points there too. I'm fairly sure he never taught there, though, so it's all projection. So, this fails as a novel, but is still worth reading for the sentences and for certain observations. Like Salter.
December 11, 2009
I read Laura Warholic first, and just finished An Adultery. I have many thoughts on both, but am wondering almost if LW isn't a rewriting of An Adultery--as Laura is Farol if Farol were ugly. I could take that argument further, if anyone has any thoughts on this I'd be happy to discuss it. Though I surmise it's unlikely that many people have read both :)
March 23, 2024
When compared to the romantic drunkpunch wordstorm of Darconville's Cat and the black comic excoriating excess of Laura Warholic, on the face of it An Adultery cannot help but come across as something of a minor work for Theroux, as a lean, stylistically sober middle entry bookended by such virtuosic displays of mammoth verbal gushing, but let it be known this restrained second novel is standalone purely on the basis of its more than in-depth psychological acuity. By virtue of stripping away a large degree of his penchant for pyrotechnics and madcap cartoonish characterization, Theroux cleared the space for a more realistic and trenchant depiction of human behavior and its many elusive shiftings and contradictions. I think this is Theroux's most intelligent novel. Many of the observations were so densely complex and slippery in their implications they required me to slow down my reading, to pay closer attention if I wanted to more fully embody the characters of Christian and Farol and the interwoven vicissitudes of their relationship. I know I'll need a second reading in order to gain a fuller sense of these characters' many textures and the unconscious, inner workings behind their motivations, but given how much I enjoyed An Adultery, and all of Theroux's work might I add, when the day comes to re-enter this world I'll surely be more than willing to take up that endeavor.
July 23, 2025
drags at the end
December 21, 2025
I really did enjoy this book but it did go way too long. It's not a book I would say was my cup of tea, but it didn't bore me. It's enough to want to check out his more known and loved books.
February 21, 2021
6/10
A different Theroux this time, and this one was definitely a very intriguing - albeit exhausting - read.
The way Theroux really throws you in, no-holds-barred, to the swirling vortex of behind-the-back scheming and abusing, broken hearts and all-around mess of a relationship that never should have happened in the first place definitely makes you feel like the consoling friend watching on (and offering the occasional comforting word) as the disaster unfolds.
With that being said, the absolutely incessant armchair-psychologist theorising by the protagonist really begins to take its toll after a while. I can appreciate what Theroux is doing with it (in theory, I really like the idea of situations being picked apart from every possible angle by an obsessive character), but I think it hinders the story from gathering consistent momentum.
Don’t get me wrong, the novel certainly has its page-turning parts. Of note was the entire falling in love sequence toward the tail end of the book, and particularly that gut-wrenching, but at the same time totally inevitable, ending. But all these great moments seemed to be couched around Kit’s narcissistic psychological ramblings, which made the ramblings themselves feel like the focal point of the novel than the story itself.
Another thing I was a little bothered by was just the sheer volume of the main characters misogyny - which, after a while, became a bit difficult to separate from the author himself (the protagonist characterised in much the same circumstances as Theroux at the time of writing). I’m personally someone who usually really easily ‘separates the art from the artist’, and I would typically have no problem with this. However, there was really just something in the spirit of this one that made me think twice. Could just be me though.
A different Theroux this time, and this one was definitely a very intriguing - albeit exhausting - read.
The way Theroux really throws you in, no-holds-barred, to the swirling vortex of behind-the-back scheming and abusing, broken hearts and all-around mess of a relationship that never should have happened in the first place definitely makes you feel like the consoling friend watching on (and offering the occasional comforting word) as the disaster unfolds.
With that being said, the absolutely incessant armchair-psychologist theorising by the protagonist really begins to take its toll after a while. I can appreciate what Theroux is doing with it (in theory, I really like the idea of situations being picked apart from every possible angle by an obsessive character), but I think it hinders the story from gathering consistent momentum.
Don’t get me wrong, the novel certainly has its page-turning parts. Of note was the entire falling in love sequence toward the tail end of the book, and particularly that gut-wrenching, but at the same time totally inevitable, ending. But all these great moments seemed to be couched around Kit’s narcissistic psychological ramblings, which made the ramblings themselves feel like the focal point of the novel than the story itself.
Another thing I was a little bothered by was just the sheer volume of the main characters misogyny - which, after a while, became a bit difficult to separate from the author himself (the protagonist characterised in much the same circumstances as Theroux at the time of writing). I’m personally someone who usually really easily ‘separates the art from the artist’, and I would typically have no problem with this. However, there was really just something in the spirit of this one that made me think twice. Could just be me though.
March 10, 2007
From Library Journal
Christian Ford, a moderately successful painter wasting away in New Hampshire, begins dating a sad young woman named Farol Colorado. She tells him that she is about to divorce her husband, is in group therapy, and is slowly dying of multiple sclerosis. Ford falls hopelessly in love, but as his obsession grows, so too does his annoyance with Farol's superficiality, hypochondria, vindictiveness, and inability to break with her husband. Manic devotion to an undeserving woman is a favorite theme in works of writers from Benjamin Constant to Nabokov. Theroux, best known for the logorrheic extravaganza Darconville's Cat ( LJ 6/1/81), gives us a disturbing, misogynistic novel that invites comparison with such classics. For all fiction collections. Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Christian Ford, a moderately successful painter wasting away in New Hampshire, begins dating a sad young woman named Farol Colorado. She tells him that she is about to divorce her husband, is in group therapy, and is slowly dying of multiple sclerosis. Ford falls hopelessly in love, but as his obsession grows, so too does his annoyance with Farol's superficiality, hypochondria, vindictiveness, and inability to break with her husband. Manic devotion to an undeserving woman is a favorite theme in works of writers from Benjamin Constant to Nabokov. Theroux, best known for the logorrheic extravaganza Darconville's Cat ( LJ 6/1/81), gives us a disturbing, misogynistic novel that invites comparison with such classics. For all fiction collections. Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
December 3, 2012
I got through 100 pages of this and just had to stop. Party it was because the protagonist stays with a woman who's obviously wrong for him. I just couldn't take his waffling and indecision anymore, even though he obviously loved her.
Is that wrong of me?
The language was beautiful and very intricate. I wanted to read this to get out of my usual type of books (Sci-fi, contemporary lit, noir), but the sheer amount of commas was off-putting.
Call me lazy or impatient, call me Sergeant Shriver (if you do I won't respond), this lovely book wasn't for me.
Is that wrong of me?
The language was beautiful and very intricate. I wanted to read this to get out of my usual type of books (Sci-fi, contemporary lit, noir), but the sheer amount of commas was off-putting.
Call me lazy or impatient, call me Sergeant Shriver (if you do I won't respond), this lovely book wasn't for me.
October 24, 2013
I loved DARCONVILLE'S CAT and was really surprised that the same person wrote this book. It read to me like someone's journal of a recent love affair gone wrong: bitter, undigested, lacking any real point of view. Almost like self-betrayal on the part of the author.
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