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Praxis
Raised by a mad mother and a half-mad sister, abandoned by her father, Praxis Duveen is a master of the art of survival. Her life, indeed, has been full: two marriages, unsuccessful; a brief but profitable career as a prostitute; a little dabbling in incest; a mercy killing; and an inadvertent reign as both apostle and victim of the women's movement. Buffeted and battered by life, Praxis has survived with energy and humor intact. Her struggles with men and women, with mother and marriages, and most particularly, with herself, become, in Weldon's deft hands, a witty and trenchant commentary on what women want — and what they can actually get.
251 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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About the author
Fay Weldon
159 books398 followersFay Weldon CBE was an English author, essayist and playwright, whose work has been associated with feminism. In her fiction, Weldon typically portrayed contemporary women who find themselves trapped in oppressive situations caused by the patriarchal structure of British society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fay_Weldon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fay_Weldon
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews
January 31, 2016
Praxis is an interesting book to come back to for many reasons, but as I read it in tandem with Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, the two books worked, rather curiously with no small amount of synchronicity–odd really as the books are about entirely different things, for while Life after Life explores alternate lives and brings up the possibly of changing fate, Praxis focuses on a character who rarely exercises her Free Will. It was pure accident that I read these two books simultaneously, and while both books focus on the lives and the choices of two women, time wise, Praxis extends into the late 20th century, whereas Life After Life is rooted in the first half of the 20th century.
Weldon, a feminist writer who’s been the centre of some controversy, concentrates on the lives of women with themes that include: female identity & self-image, transformation & reinvention, gender inequality, female madness and the vicious relationships between women. While Weldon’s work, full of bitingly wicked humour, obviously fits in any feminist canon, her work can also be considered Transgressive fiction for the way her marvelous characters subvert societal norms. Praxis is the story of a 20th century woman who’s transformed (not for the better) by her relationships with men. A female chameleon with little sense of just who she really is, Praxis subsumes herself in her relationships, becoming what her lovers expect/want her to be. Becoming what is expected or desired brings only unhappiness and confusion, and through this character’s transformations, we see Praxis struggling with her identity, her own worst enemy as the years fall away spent on some meaningless daily life that fulfills someone else’s demands and expectations. And then the day comes when Praxis acts spontaneously and as a result goes to prison. Is she a feminist hero or a monster?
The Praxis of the title is the youngest daughter of Lucy Duveen and her common-law husband, Benjamin. The story is told by a now elderly Praxis, a woman who has apparently spent a few years in prison for an unspecified crime. Praxis writes down her story, going back in time to at age 5, “sitting on the beach at Brighton,” with her mother and her older sister Hypatia. Lucy and her two daughters give an idyllic impression to passer-bys including WWI veteran and former bombardier, Henry Whitechapel, who now lurks on the beaches pretending to take photographs for tourists with film (if he actually has any) that he never develops.
Told in both first and third person narration, we follow Praxis through her life, through her university days, her lovers, marriages, divorces, children, step-children, endless cooking and cleaning, and there are several points at which Praxis finds herself in a life she didn’t plan and doesn’t want. With a ‘how-did-I-get-here’ feeling, a stupefied Praxis marvels that lacking a sense of self, she’s been molded into a person she no longer recognizes in order to please whichever man is in her life.
"Staring at herself in the mirror, at her doll’s face, stiff doll’s body, curly blonde doll’s hair, she wondered what experience or wisdom could possibly shine through the casing that Ivor had selected for her. She did not blame Ivor: she knew that she had done it to herself : had preferred to live as a figment of Ivor’s imagination, rather than put up with the confusion of being herself."
But while Praxis tries to hard to please the various men in her life, she fails to befriend women, and since Weldon is big on the betrayals of women towards their own sex, there are several times when Praxis’s peculiar, and very possibly mad, sister, Hypatia (“People fail you, children disappoint you, thieves break in, moths corrupt, but an OBE goes on for ever,“) takes measures to ensure her sister’s unhappiness. It’s no coincidence that the very best things that happen in Praxis’s life occur on those rare occasions when women stick together.
While the style, tone and theme of Praxis were all vastly dissimilar to Kate Atkinson’s Life after Life, there were connections. Life after Life gives us a protagonist who lives many versions of the same life. Choices made in a split second lead Ursula down different paths in an alternative universe sort-of-way. While Weldon’s Praxis is grounded in bitter reality, her life is segmented by divisions and a metaphysical connection with the star Betelgeuse–which signals death of one self and the rebirth of another ‘new’ Praxis. While Ursula has moments of disturbing deja-vu, Praxis feels a strong disconnect with her life–almost as though one day she wakes up and wonders just how she got to this place.
Praxis, who becomes entangled with the swinging sixties, also runs head-long into feminism, and Praxis has mixed feelings about feminists–initially repelled, they begin to make sense to her–although as the years pass, once again, Praxis feels out of touch with "the New Women."
I can’t conclude without mentioning one of my favourite characters in the book, Irma, a friend from Praxis’s university days. Irma is the sort of hard, driven woman who always seems to know what she wants and how to get it. She marries a man she thinks will be successful and she leads a rather terrifying life of social success and mental emptiness. At one point, for example she offers Praxis some practical advice:
“There’s only way to get out of the fix you’re in,” said Irma. “And that’s to sleep your way out of it. Sorry and all that.”
Since this is a Weldon novel, Irma undergoes her own radical transformation, becoming a militant feminist and appearing on television while her ex-husband nastily argues that all “poor Irma” needs is:
“a good lay. But where is she going to find that? Look at the way she dresses.”
Weldon, a feminist writer who’s been the centre of some controversy, concentrates on the lives of women with themes that include: female identity & self-image, transformation & reinvention, gender inequality, female madness and the vicious relationships between women. While Weldon’s work, full of bitingly wicked humour, obviously fits in any feminist canon, her work can also be considered Transgressive fiction for the way her marvelous characters subvert societal norms. Praxis is the story of a 20th century woman who’s transformed (not for the better) by her relationships with men. A female chameleon with little sense of just who she really is, Praxis subsumes herself in her relationships, becoming what her lovers expect/want her to be. Becoming what is expected or desired brings only unhappiness and confusion, and through this character’s transformations, we see Praxis struggling with her identity, her own worst enemy as the years fall away spent on some meaningless daily life that fulfills someone else’s demands and expectations. And then the day comes when Praxis acts spontaneously and as a result goes to prison. Is she a feminist hero or a monster?
The Praxis of the title is the youngest daughter of Lucy Duveen and her common-law husband, Benjamin. The story is told by a now elderly Praxis, a woman who has apparently spent a few years in prison for an unspecified crime. Praxis writes down her story, going back in time to at age 5, “sitting on the beach at Brighton,” with her mother and her older sister Hypatia. Lucy and her two daughters give an idyllic impression to passer-bys including WWI veteran and former bombardier, Henry Whitechapel, who now lurks on the beaches pretending to take photographs for tourists with film (if he actually has any) that he never develops.
Told in both first and third person narration, we follow Praxis through her life, through her university days, her lovers, marriages, divorces, children, step-children, endless cooking and cleaning, and there are several points at which Praxis finds herself in a life she didn’t plan and doesn’t want. With a ‘how-did-I-get-here’ feeling, a stupefied Praxis marvels that lacking a sense of self, she’s been molded into a person she no longer recognizes in order to please whichever man is in her life.
"Staring at herself in the mirror, at her doll’s face, stiff doll’s body, curly blonde doll’s hair, she wondered what experience or wisdom could possibly shine through the casing that Ivor had selected for her. She did not blame Ivor: she knew that she had done it to herself : had preferred to live as a figment of Ivor’s imagination, rather than put up with the confusion of being herself."
But while Praxis tries to hard to please the various men in her life, she fails to befriend women, and since Weldon is big on the betrayals of women towards their own sex, there are several times when Praxis’s peculiar, and very possibly mad, sister, Hypatia (“People fail you, children disappoint you, thieves break in, moths corrupt, but an OBE goes on for ever,“) takes measures to ensure her sister’s unhappiness. It’s no coincidence that the very best things that happen in Praxis’s life occur on those rare occasions when women stick together.
While the style, tone and theme of Praxis were all vastly dissimilar to Kate Atkinson’s Life after Life, there were connections. Life after Life gives us a protagonist who lives many versions of the same life. Choices made in a split second lead Ursula down different paths in an alternative universe sort-of-way. While Weldon’s Praxis is grounded in bitter reality, her life is segmented by divisions and a metaphysical connection with the star Betelgeuse–which signals death of one self and the rebirth of another ‘new’ Praxis. While Ursula has moments of disturbing deja-vu, Praxis feels a strong disconnect with her life–almost as though one day she wakes up and wonders just how she got to this place.
Praxis, who becomes entangled with the swinging sixties, also runs head-long into feminism, and Praxis has mixed feelings about feminists–initially repelled, they begin to make sense to her–although as the years pass, once again, Praxis feels out of touch with "the New Women."
I can’t conclude without mentioning one of my favourite characters in the book, Irma, a friend from Praxis’s university days. Irma is the sort of hard, driven woman who always seems to know what she wants and how to get it. She marries a man she thinks will be successful and she leads a rather terrifying life of social success and mental emptiness. At one point, for example she offers Praxis some practical advice:
“There’s only way to get out of the fix you’re in,” said Irma. “And that’s to sleep your way out of it. Sorry and all that.”
Since this is a Weldon novel, Irma undergoes her own radical transformation, becoming a militant feminist and appearing on television while her ex-husband nastily argues that all “poor Irma” needs is:
“a good lay. But where is she going to find that? Look at the way she dresses.”
February 26, 2015
Fay Weldon at her best can be both funny and thought provoking. She is at her best in this one and I enjoyed it.
Praxis is either an opportunist who makes some dubious choices or a powerless, misunderstood woman pushed around by fate, society, men and circumstances, or both.
Praxis is either an opportunist who makes some dubious choices or a powerless, misunderstood woman pushed around by fate, society, men and circumstances, or both.
July 14, 2019
“Titles were absurd, definitions were absurd; she’d always known that: words used to simplify relationships between one person and another: granting one privilege, the other disadvantage. Bastard, Jew, student, wife, mother, prostitute, murderer: all made assumptions that reduced the individual, rather than defined them.” Defining in this sense is central to the first of Weldon's books I’ve read. As is being a woman.
Weldon’s omniscient third-person narration is very intelligent, both sharp and understanding, opening all sorts of doors. Shorter, alternating first-person chapters don’t work as well, but at least for the first two-thirds of the novel, the writing is so good, it doesn’t matter. The novel dips a bit in its last third, as plot and a more narrow feminism become more important, but I’m glad that my instinct on reading bits of her prose led me to read this novel by someone I’d considered a writer of bestsellers.
Weldon’s omniscient third-person narration is very intelligent, both sharp and understanding, opening all sorts of doors. Shorter, alternating first-person chapters don’t work as well, but at least for the first two-thirds of the novel, the writing is so good, it doesn’t matter. The novel dips a bit in its last third, as plot and a more narrow feminism become more important, but I’m glad that my instinct on reading bits of her prose led me to read this novel by someone I’d considered a writer of bestsellers.
February 26, 2019
This feminist tract reads as if written for a department of women’s studies, and my second-hand copy bears underscores on every page in green, red, blue and black ink, with margin remarks such as “bloody hypocrite” “patronising” and “rape.” There’s certainly plenty to go at.
Yet any academic institution would surely question the validity of a diatribe as unbalanced as this.
All men are bastards, it assumes, every one of them – husband, father, lover, priest, doctor, business executive – a liar, fraud, thief, hypocrite and/or sexual predator. And although the women seem driven by sexual desire, they do not make love - they are ‘impaled,’ the man ‘marking out some kind of territorial boundary inside her, which he would .. feel entitled to occupy.’
Apart from the more serious and serial acts of male cruelty, hardly a paragraph goes by without Weldon seizing a chance to denigrate men in humbler, everyday ways.
There’s a solitary reference to Praxis’s first boyfriend Willy (what else?) being ‘kind and attentive.’ What is meant by that? ‘He allowed her to clean up the flat.’ Then Praxis moves in with film director Philip. He’s the one who got annoyed because his wife Irma has a caesarean rather than endure days of painful labour, because it means his crew cannot record the event for a documentary.
Now with Praxis, he still beds an actress – one recruited initially at an audition for tits – and with Praxis by his side, this man who must for his job have a certain level of sophistication, improbably remarks of another women: ‘Look at those knockers.’
Only rarely does Weldon leave her chosen field of personal relationships, and for someone like her who held a top job in advertising (she is credited with the slogan “Go to work on an egg”), her assertions about the business world seem far-fetched. Praxis’ future husband Ivor, seller of soup mixes, explains how the quality of the product would be reduced after launch, but would then be sustained by advertising.”
Somehow such unfounded cynicism about business rather undermines the author’s cynicism about half the world’s population.
The book has so little description, that a brief exception shines brightly. Weldon writes of the heroine's housing estate where 'little boxes of dwelling laces covered the hill. Stars, like ornaments devised by the estate agent, sprinkled the sky at night, and that was that. No one on the hill went to heaven or hell .. All dwelled in limbo, and were extinguished on their death.”
It’s a lovely, brief passage. But then she spoils everything with a remark that her travelling husband’s company paid for his calls home, because “research had told them of the value to an executive of a happy domestic life.”
The writer’s indignation against men is almost matched by the contempt she has for women content to put up with subservience and humiliation. But sure enough, Praxis finally finds enlightenment through a group of feminist liberationists. ‘She saw that men’s lives were without importance and that only the lives of women were significant.’
That the novel limps into the 2-star rather than 1-star category is down to the last 15 pages in which the unexpected nature of Praxis’ crime is revealed, and which for the first time introduces moral ambiguity into this simplistic and vituperative tale.
It was shortly before this that the author writes of the book’s setting: “This was in the days when men were prepared to generalise about women.” An unintended irony if ever there was one.
Yet any academic institution would surely question the validity of a diatribe as unbalanced as this.
All men are bastards, it assumes, every one of them – husband, father, lover, priest, doctor, business executive – a liar, fraud, thief, hypocrite and/or sexual predator. And although the women seem driven by sexual desire, they do not make love - they are ‘impaled,’ the man ‘marking out some kind of territorial boundary inside her, which he would .. feel entitled to occupy.’
Apart from the more serious and serial acts of male cruelty, hardly a paragraph goes by without Weldon seizing a chance to denigrate men in humbler, everyday ways.
There’s a solitary reference to Praxis’s first boyfriend Willy (what else?) being ‘kind and attentive.’ What is meant by that? ‘He allowed her to clean up the flat.’ Then Praxis moves in with film director Philip. He’s the one who got annoyed because his wife Irma has a caesarean rather than endure days of painful labour, because it means his crew cannot record the event for a documentary.
Now with Praxis, he still beds an actress – one recruited initially at an audition for tits – and with Praxis by his side, this man who must for his job have a certain level of sophistication, improbably remarks of another women: ‘Look at those knockers.’
Only rarely does Weldon leave her chosen field of personal relationships, and for someone like her who held a top job in advertising (she is credited with the slogan “Go to work on an egg”), her assertions about the business world seem far-fetched. Praxis’ future husband Ivor, seller of soup mixes, explains how the quality of the product would be reduced after launch, but would then be sustained by advertising.”
Somehow such unfounded cynicism about business rather undermines the author’s cynicism about half the world’s population.
The book has so little description, that a brief exception shines brightly. Weldon writes of the heroine's housing estate where 'little boxes of dwelling laces covered the hill. Stars, like ornaments devised by the estate agent, sprinkled the sky at night, and that was that. No one on the hill went to heaven or hell .. All dwelled in limbo, and were extinguished on their death.”
It’s a lovely, brief passage. But then she spoils everything with a remark that her travelling husband’s company paid for his calls home, because “research had told them of the value to an executive of a happy domestic life.”
The writer’s indignation against men is almost matched by the contempt she has for women content to put up with subservience and humiliation. But sure enough, Praxis finally finds enlightenment through a group of feminist liberationists. ‘She saw that men’s lives were without importance and that only the lives of women were significant.’
That the novel limps into the 2-star rather than 1-star category is down to the last 15 pages in which the unexpected nature of Praxis’ crime is revealed, and which for the first time introduces moral ambiguity into this simplistic and vituperative tale.
It was shortly before this that the author writes of the book’s setting: “This was in the days when men were prepared to generalise about women.” An unintended irony if ever there was one.
July 27, 2012
Brilliant book for women I think.
March 11, 2014
Well where to start. The book is basically about the confusion each generation of females goes through as we are defined into roles by the generation before us and the one that emerges after us. But to tell the story you must really go through some ugliness that doesn't feel real to me. If Brighton Beach England was truly like this post WWII and into the sexual revolution than I'm really disturbed. This book is full of a girl feeling unloved, trying to find a sense of belonging through sexuality, using ones body to regain power, and then succumbing to roles again forced on us by society. And the whole time she appears miserable...no joy from her family, her lovers or husbands, or her children. The only thing she feels remotely good about is her work. Women are fuller beings than that. I'm not saying superwoman syndrome, I'm just saying this very narrow perspective of women did not resonate with me.
November 16, 2010
Story of two sisters, Praxis and Hypatia, in 1960s chauvinistic England with no escape from their dreary suburban subjugated lives. How satisfactorily dreary. Ho hum.
March 31, 2013
My all time favourite Weldon. One to read and re-read every few years.
August 14, 2021
A well written, engaging, interesting, eventful, powerful novel about Praxis Duveen, an illegitimate daughter of Lucy. Lucy spends many years in an asylum. Praxis has a very mixed up adolescence. Praxis is allowed too many freedoms. She has no sexual education. Her relationships with men are detached. Her sister Hilda who is three years older than Praxis, becomes an independent woman who belittles Praxis continuously. Praxis as a mother, is supportive to her children, but her relationships with men cause difficulties. Praxis finds work and becomes the major functioning partner in an on again, off again marriage. We learn early in the novel that in later life, Praxis serves time in a prison.
A very interesting, powerful novel about the place of women in society in the 1950s to 1970s. A very worthwhile reading experience.
This book was shortlisted for the 1979 Booker Prize.
A very interesting, powerful novel about the place of women in society in the 1950s to 1970s. A very worthwhile reading experience.
This book was shortlisted for the 1979 Booker Prize.
March 13, 2018
Blistering. No one examines relationships and the human psyche quite like Fay Weldon.
July 27, 2008
Praxis shares many themes with Marilyn French's The Women's Room, which I also read recently, dealing with the trials of women forced to deny themselves ion favour of maternity and men. It also features female insanity as a central theme. Praxis isn't as impressive, lacking the scope and characterisation, as well as the depth of anger in French's book. It is, however, really very good - written in a lively and readable way, frequently darkly funny, cynical and engaging.
January 12, 2022
love this book. i found it in a free bin outside a second hand vintage bookstore so i had very low expectations for this book, but as soon as i started reading i was obsessed . i’m always a fan of the ‘mad’ woman feminist books and this is such an amazing example. going through her whole life and seeing her be shaped by the men and then women her life was such an interesting journey.
although my one hate is: white feminist 🙄🙄
although my one hate is: white feminist 🙄🙄
September 30, 2007
The only problem with Fay Weldon is her books often have horrible covers. You have to look for the good editions. They're out there somewhere. I was in the middle of reading this book and then school started.... Of course, I could easily have finished it in the time I have spent on bookster in the last two days.
June 8, 2022
I have lost track of how I came upon this book but it certainly happened in a way that made me break the second-hand edition's spine with great expectations. The novel is about Praxis, a girl born, illegitimately, in Brighton. We meet first meet her sitting on the beach in a world post-WWI, at age five.
The book spins the reader around the full spiral of Praxis' miserable yet eventful life – there's prostitution and incest, children (both wished-for and unexpected) and husbands betrayed. The protagonists' name – in Latin, praxis means "practice, exercise, action" – delivers on its promise.
The fact that the main narrative, told in the third person, is interrupted with brief chapters of lifewise commentary of the first-person Praxis, offers both playful anticipation and grim foresight. It is a boldly feminist book, especially considering it was published in 1978. Yet the deus ex machina playing puppet theatre with all the novel's multifarious characters is almost too daring. Often, for this reader, the witticisms sounded too wise, the moments of emancipation too lightminded, the misfortunate events unrealistic in their overwrought irony. In a long while, a book I didn't particularly enjoy.
The book spins the reader around the full spiral of Praxis' miserable yet eventful life – there's prostitution and incest, children (both wished-for and unexpected) and husbands betrayed. The protagonists' name – in Latin, praxis means "practice, exercise, action" – delivers on its promise.
The fact that the main narrative, told in the third person, is interrupted with brief chapters of lifewise commentary of the first-person Praxis, offers both playful anticipation and grim foresight. It is a boldly feminist book, especially considering it was published in 1978. Yet the deus ex machina playing puppet theatre with all the novel's multifarious characters is almost too daring. Often, for this reader, the witticisms sounded too wise, the moments of emancipation too lightminded, the misfortunate events unrealistic in their overwrought irony. In a long while, a book I didn't particularly enjoy.
March 1, 2021
So unsettling and nauseating in the best way. It started off feeling exaggerated and like some sort of parody but then became so painful and pernicious and ACCURATE and hit all the harder because of the apathy of the prose and Praxis' approach to everything. The defeats and competitions playing out among women only to other women's detriment were so well-written and it was just an absolute wild ride.
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August 15, 2025Þvílíkt verk! Ein besta bók sem ég hef lesið í langan tíma
August 21, 2016
Praxis was the first book by Fay Weldon I read, back in the day. I found it very bleak and depressing, but brilliantly written, so I went out and bought every other of her books in existence, and after that, each new Weldon title that was published. I would devour them in (almost) one sitting and then wait impatiently for the next.
After Praxis, somehow all her other books seemed lighter, and just when I thought that I should reread it because maybe I had just needed to get used to her style, The Heart of the Country came out, which was just as bleak and depressing as Praxis had been.
I felt I had come full circle with Fay Weldon. I stopped buying her books, reread the earlier ones and gave away five to a friend, myself keeping the nine books I liked most.
I got rid of Remember Me a few years ago after rereading it for the R.I.P. challenge, and last year, while kondo-ing my books, I put The Heart of the Country and Polaris and Other Stories on the 'can probably go as soon as I've reread/skimmed them' pile.
It wasn't until Sunday last week, when I added a lot of my mass-market paperbacks to my Goodreads shelves, that it dawned on me that I was never going to read that whole row of Fay Weldons again. They had been very important to me once, but now they felt dated, a thing of the past.
I decided to keep Puffball and The Life & Loves of a She Devil, which had always been my favourites, and also Letters to Alice: On First Reading Jane Austen for the time being, because I think I might appreciate it more now than I did then, but to say goodbye to Praxis, The Heart of the Country, Polaris, Down Among the Women and Female Friends. Thanks for the memories, but it’s finally time to let go.
After Praxis, somehow all her other books seemed lighter, and just when I thought that I should reread it because maybe I had just needed to get used to her style, The Heart of the Country came out, which was just as bleak and depressing as Praxis had been.
I felt I had come full circle with Fay Weldon. I stopped buying her books, reread the earlier ones and gave away five to a friend, myself keeping the nine books I liked most.
I got rid of Remember Me a few years ago after rereading it for the R.I.P. challenge, and last year, while kondo-ing my books, I put The Heart of the Country and Polaris and Other Stories on the 'can probably go as soon as I've reread/skimmed them' pile.
It wasn't until Sunday last week, when I added a lot of my mass-market paperbacks to my Goodreads shelves, that it dawned on me that I was never going to read that whole row of Fay Weldons again. They had been very important to me once, but now they felt dated, a thing of the past.
I decided to keep Puffball and The Life & Loves of a She Devil, which had always been my favourites, and also Letters to Alice: On First Reading Jane Austen for the time being, because I think I might appreciate it more now than I did then, but to say goodbye to Praxis, The Heart of the Country, Polaris, Down Among the Women and Female Friends. Thanks for the memories, but it’s finally time to let go.
February 5, 2011
This will always be one of my favorite novels. Personally, I think Weldon's playful words are so magnetic it draws me to Praxis' world whenever she speaks about things that express feminism. I am not really a bookworm (I've read less than 15 novels thus far)but this novel kept my interest all throughout. Not a single bored bone in my body while I was reading it.
Objectively speaking on the other hand, the story has very realistic characters. The flow wasn't dragging and the characters were well developed.
Objectively speaking on the other hand, the story has very realistic characters. The flow wasn't dragging and the characters were well developed.
March 20, 2014
I think that Praxis might be a more interesting book for women of a different generation than I. I recognize the expertise of the writing, and was compelled to finish the book. That all being said, Praxis lived a life propelled by madness, sex, and narcissism, and the hollowness of all the characters was unmistakable and left me not caring about any of them.
February 17, 2008
Depressing Weldon. In this one, very few come out ahead.
October 16, 2009
I've read a lot of Fay Weldon, but I'm adding this first because of the bit about how Praxis got her name. Her mother didn't know what it meant! Life. In a nutshell.
Want to read
July 29, 201179 shortlisted for booker prize
May 8, 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed this book!
May 6, 2013
4.5 stars! Wow, I certainly did not have this cover!
August 5, 2009
"Praxis"
December 9, 2020
Liked it at first (she's a good writer, she has a terrific voice and writes vivid and interesting characters). But plotwise, this was dreary as all get out. There were sections that were so slow and pokey, and then she'd whip across several years in a paragraph, and I didn't enjoy the pacing. The viewpoint character was sort of awful, but I don't think the writer thought she was awful (I'm fine with awful characters, so long as the author realises--it's why I can't read Patricia Cornwell).
It very much put me in mind of two things.
1. There was a mini-resurgance in the late 60s, 70s, early 80s, of books about roguish anti-heroes who often wander through life in a picaresque way, experiencing the world and either reacing or being curiously unmoved by it. I wish I could throw out some perfect examples, but they've slipping out of my brain. Maybe--something like The Sot-Weed Factor or The World According to Garp (which I loved, and is better than most) or Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and they're often associated with free love and hippie ideals, etc., and you kind of get whacked on the head with a message that there are other (better) ways to live. Which was great and necessary at the time--now we can cohabit without marriage, have children, be gay, love someone of a different race, etc., and (at least in my community!) you don't get shunned for any of that. But it's a bit old-fashioned now, we get it. It's not her fault, she wrote in 1978. But I'm not feeling it now as I might have then.
2. It's essentially Moll Flanders rewritten (herself an roguish antihero), and I like Moll Flanders, but I don't need a new one.
What I loved about the books of hers that I did love was that the plots were rather high concept and rivetingly interesting. A woman who systematically sets out to destroy the life of the woman who stole her husband? Gripping! A waif, separated from her family, wanders (in a picaresque way, though life) until eventually reunited in the most surprising manner? Moving! But Praxis just drifts around, never doing anything worth writing a novel about, and finally at 80%, having determined (Internet) what the hinted eventually murder was, I don't need to read anymore. I'm out, and over to Station Eleven which begins promisingly too. Fingers crossed.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!
It very much put me in mind of two things.
1. There was a mini-resurgance in the late 60s, 70s, early 80s, of books about roguish anti-heroes who often wander through life in a picaresque way, experiencing the world and either reacing or being curiously unmoved by it. I wish I could throw out some perfect examples, but they've slipping out of my brain. Maybe--something like The Sot-Weed Factor or The World According to Garp (which I loved, and is better than most) or Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and they're often associated with free love and hippie ideals, etc., and you kind of get whacked on the head with a message that there are other (better) ways to live. Which was great and necessary at the time--now we can cohabit without marriage, have children, be gay, love someone of a different race, etc., and (at least in my community!) you don't get shunned for any of that. But it's a bit old-fashioned now, we get it. It's not her fault, she wrote in 1978. But I'm not feeling it now as I might have then.
2. It's essentially Moll Flanders rewritten (herself an roguish antihero), and I like Moll Flanders, but I don't need a new one.
What I loved about the books of hers that I did love was that the plots were rather high concept and rivetingly interesting. A woman who systematically sets out to destroy the life of the woman who stole her husband? Gripping! A waif, separated from her family, wanders (in a picaresque way, though life) until eventually reunited in the most surprising manner? Moving! But Praxis just drifts around, never doing anything worth writing a novel about, and finally at 80%, having determined (Internet) what the hinted eventually murder was, I don't need to read anymore. I'm out, and over to Station Eleven which begins promisingly too. Fingers crossed.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!
March 20, 2021
SUMMARY - An atmospheric book about lost time. Rape, murder, abandonment and madness are but the backdrop to a story about seizing the day, whatever life throws at us.
Most times when I pick up a book, I won't know much if anything about it beyond the flyleaf. Looking at Weldon's cover for Praxis, what might I expect? The title suggested an aridly intellectual mind; the picture perhaps an allusion to art criticism or maybe feminism?
If you'd given me a plot summary I would probably have been even further from the truth. You could say that this is a novel about abandonment, lesbianism and sexual exploration, sex work, incest, madness, women's lib, and perhaps define it as a murder mystery, although this is left portenteous but unrevealed until the very end. These themes are all very much present and get explored, but writing them down gives a false sense of sensationalism. It was the humdrum moments that spoke most powerfully in my reading. For instance, I remember Praxis cleaning under a cooker in passages when her husband usurps the right to education, and think back to her first uncleaned and unwarmed house that spoke to dysfunctional family life and self-abasement. These are not pivotal moments, but speak volumes about the circumstances and feelings of Praxis, who turns out to be a complex and ever-evolving person.
We get suburban interwar upstairs-downstairs life where class and gender split the family; wartime sexual opportunism and trajedy (with shades of Elizabeth Bowen), post-war Mad Men-cum-Truman Show domestic hell, complete with advertising campaigns, spouse-swapping, and the tedium of suburban existence. It felt like Weldon had soaked up the atmosphere of these times, and it was this backdrop as much as the often acidically-delivered incident that I loved. It's full of tragedy, but I didn't feel it radiated the pessimism that some other reviewers have perceived. There are moments of hedonistic joy and deeper-seated love, albeit transient. This is a book about time. Yes there is loss, but there is always hope. Read this and you will want to seize the day.
Most times when I pick up a book, I won't know much if anything about it beyond the flyleaf. Looking at Weldon's cover for Praxis, what might I expect? The title suggested an aridly intellectual mind; the picture perhaps an allusion to art criticism or maybe feminism?
If you'd given me a plot summary I would probably have been even further from the truth. You could say that this is a novel about abandonment, lesbianism and sexual exploration, sex work, incest, madness, women's lib, and perhaps define it as a murder mystery, although this is left portenteous but unrevealed until the very end. These themes are all very much present and get explored, but writing them down gives a false sense of sensationalism. It was the humdrum moments that spoke most powerfully in my reading. For instance, I remember Praxis cleaning under a cooker in passages when her husband usurps the right to education, and think back to her first uncleaned and unwarmed house that spoke to dysfunctional family life and self-abasement. These are not pivotal moments, but speak volumes about the circumstances and feelings of Praxis, who turns out to be a complex and ever-evolving person.
We get suburban interwar upstairs-downstairs life where class and gender split the family; wartime sexual opportunism and trajedy (with shades of Elizabeth Bowen), post-war Mad Men-cum-Truman Show domestic hell, complete with advertising campaigns, spouse-swapping, and the tedium of suburban existence. It felt like Weldon had soaked up the atmosphere of these times, and it was this backdrop as much as the often acidically-delivered incident that I loved. It's full of tragedy, but I didn't feel it radiated the pessimism that some other reviewers have perceived. There are moments of hedonistic joy and deeper-seated love, albeit transient. This is a book about time. Yes there is loss, but there is always hope. Read this and you will want to seize the day.
October 10, 2014
This novel is a difficult one to review. It is the story of Praxis Duveen, who is abandoned by an abusive father only to have her mother committed for insanity, and is left in her house with only her sister who is also clearly touched by the insanity of their childhood. It is a feminist novel, arguing forcefully against the restrictions placed on women in mid-twentieth century British culture. You would think you would feel a kinship with Praxis, or at least pity her and her lot. Unfortunately, she also becomes disaffected, works as a prostitute, commits incest, commits murder, and is left with damaged friendships and relationships.
The novel starts very promisingly. Weldon in an early passage establishes the pitiable start to Praxis’s life:
“If that young one were mine, thought Henry Whitechapel, I’d belt her one. Later he was to have the opportunity of doing so. He had never married and had no children of his own; his lungs and his concentration were not what they had been before the war; nor certainly at that time was his sexual capacity. But a romantic interest in the opposite sex remained, and Lucy Duveen, sitting on the pebbly beach with her hamper, her parasol and her two little girls, made for him a romantic image.
He took the opportunity of passing 109 Holden Road one evening in September, when only a trickle of holiday makers remained to pose before his by-now filmless camera, and he knew he would soon have to go back to London and take his chances there. He found, much as he had expected, a stout Edwardian house, sheltered by laurel bushes, with a circular drive, well-kept flower gardens and a motorcar outside the front door. All the lights in the house blazed, in apparent defiance of the electricity bill: and he heard what he took to be the noise of revelry within, but what was in fact the sound of Ben Duveen drunk, laughing and beating his wife, while the two children wailed. Benjamin Duveen had other children in other places, who wailed for the absence of their father, as these two wailed for his presence.” (10) Henry and Ben – not the greatest of potential father figures. And both damaged her mother beyond repair.
Praxis comes to be raised by Miss Leonard, who is pleased with her independence, and is proud at her statements supporting abortion and against war and violence. Ultimately she gave birth to a child, who Praxis raises after Miss Leonard is killed, and is the product of an unknown man and his son who mistook her for a prostitute. It is Miss Leonard that seems to guide Praxis in her thought process. Praxis later attaches herself to a student named Willie, who is inferior to her intellect. She is expected to do worse than he does, and in the interest of keeping him as a steady boyfriend, she gets C’s intentionally. When ultimately she leaves him years later because he invites another woman into her house (as retribution among other things for her becoming a prostitute), she thinks to herself, “I was too nearly Willie’s equal. He did his best: stopping my education, forbidding me to earn, reducing me to whoredom: yes, he certainly did his best. Except, alas, that to blame Willie for these things is ridiculous. He didn’t do them. He pointed a finger, and I ran, willingly, in the direction he pointed.” (144) It is this self-reflection that begins to be compelling. Rather than blaming her mother, she comes to term with her:
“Poor mother. Of course she should have struggled. My father’s people in Germany should have struggled too. But she did not, as they did not. We see the world as we are taught to see it, not as it is. Our vision since has widened. And of course she should have kept her misery to herself, not handed it on to her children. For a time I hated her for her weakness, until I saw what I did to my children through strength. Then I forgave her.” (36)
Ultimately, this reflection serves as the critique of the society that has developed:
“I am accustomed to pain. And pain in the elbow, the fingers and, since my abortive journey to the hospital, pain in my stamped-upon toe, is nothing compared to that pain in the heart, the soul and the mind—those three majestic seats of female sorrow—which seems to be our daily lot.
I do not understand the threefold pain: but I will try. Perhaps it serves a useful purpose, if only as an indication that some natural process is being abused. I cannot believe it is a punishment: to have a certain nature is not a sin, and in any case who is there to punish us? Unless—as many do—we predicate some natural law of male dominance and female subservience, and call that God. Then what we feel is the pain of the female Lucifer, tumbling down from heaven, having dared to defy the male deity, cast out forever, but likewise never able to forget, tormented always by the memory of what she threw away. Or else, and on this supposition my mind rests most contentedly, we are in the grip of some evolutionary force which hurts as it works and which I fear has already found its fruition in that new race of young women which I encountered in the bus on the way to the hospital this morning, dewy fresh from their lovers’ arms and determined to please no one but themselves. One of the New Women trod me underfoot and with her three-inch soles pulped my big toe in its plastic throw-away shoe (only I, unlike her, cannot afford to throw anything away, and am doomed to wear it forever), causing me such fresh pain that when the bus broke down and we were all to be decanted into another, I lost heart altogether, abandoned the journey and limped home.
The New Women! I could barely recognize them as being of the same sex as myself, their buttocks arrogant in tight jeans, openly inviting, breasts falling free and shameless, feeling no apparent obligation to smile, look pleasant or keep their voices low. And how they live! Just look at them to know how! If a man doesn’t bring them to orgasm, they look for another who does. If by mistake they fall pregnant, they abort by vacuum aspiration. If they don’t like the food, the push the plate away. If the job doesn’t suit them, they hand in their notice. They are satiated by everything, hungry for nothing. They are what I wanted to be; they are what I worked for them to be: and now I see them, I hate them. They have found their own solution to the threefold pain—one I never thought of. They do not try, as we did, to understand it and get the better of it. They simply wipe out the pain by doing away with its three centres—the heart, the soul and the mind. Brilliant! Heartless, soulless, mindless--free!” (16)
Weldon writes with a wicked sense of humor, and the actions of Praxis and the other characters is sure to shock the reader. Ultimately, however, I struggled to personally relate to the events because the societal norms being challenged are not my own, and outside of my own experience.
The novel starts very promisingly. Weldon in an early passage establishes the pitiable start to Praxis’s life:
“If that young one were mine, thought Henry Whitechapel, I’d belt her one. Later he was to have the opportunity of doing so. He had never married and had no children of his own; his lungs and his concentration were not what they had been before the war; nor certainly at that time was his sexual capacity. But a romantic interest in the opposite sex remained, and Lucy Duveen, sitting on the pebbly beach with her hamper, her parasol and her two little girls, made for him a romantic image.
He took the opportunity of passing 109 Holden Road one evening in September, when only a trickle of holiday makers remained to pose before his by-now filmless camera, and he knew he would soon have to go back to London and take his chances there. He found, much as he had expected, a stout Edwardian house, sheltered by laurel bushes, with a circular drive, well-kept flower gardens and a motorcar outside the front door. All the lights in the house blazed, in apparent defiance of the electricity bill: and he heard what he took to be the noise of revelry within, but what was in fact the sound of Ben Duveen drunk, laughing and beating his wife, while the two children wailed. Benjamin Duveen had other children in other places, who wailed for the absence of their father, as these two wailed for his presence.” (10) Henry and Ben – not the greatest of potential father figures. And both damaged her mother beyond repair.
Praxis comes to be raised by Miss Leonard, who is pleased with her independence, and is proud at her statements supporting abortion and against war and violence. Ultimately she gave birth to a child, who Praxis raises after Miss Leonard is killed, and is the product of an unknown man and his son who mistook her for a prostitute. It is Miss Leonard that seems to guide Praxis in her thought process. Praxis later attaches herself to a student named Willie, who is inferior to her intellect. She is expected to do worse than he does, and in the interest of keeping him as a steady boyfriend, she gets C’s intentionally. When ultimately she leaves him years later because he invites another woman into her house (as retribution among other things for her becoming a prostitute), she thinks to herself, “I was too nearly Willie’s equal. He did his best: stopping my education, forbidding me to earn, reducing me to whoredom: yes, he certainly did his best. Except, alas, that to blame Willie for these things is ridiculous. He didn’t do them. He pointed a finger, and I ran, willingly, in the direction he pointed.” (144) It is this self-reflection that begins to be compelling. Rather than blaming her mother, she comes to term with her:
“Poor mother. Of course she should have struggled. My father’s people in Germany should have struggled too. But she did not, as they did not. We see the world as we are taught to see it, not as it is. Our vision since has widened. And of course she should have kept her misery to herself, not handed it on to her children. For a time I hated her for her weakness, until I saw what I did to my children through strength. Then I forgave her.” (36)
Ultimately, this reflection serves as the critique of the society that has developed:
“I am accustomed to pain. And pain in the elbow, the fingers and, since my abortive journey to the hospital, pain in my stamped-upon toe, is nothing compared to that pain in the heart, the soul and the mind—those three majestic seats of female sorrow—which seems to be our daily lot.
I do not understand the threefold pain: but I will try. Perhaps it serves a useful purpose, if only as an indication that some natural process is being abused. I cannot believe it is a punishment: to have a certain nature is not a sin, and in any case who is there to punish us? Unless—as many do—we predicate some natural law of male dominance and female subservience, and call that God. Then what we feel is the pain of the female Lucifer, tumbling down from heaven, having dared to defy the male deity, cast out forever, but likewise never able to forget, tormented always by the memory of what she threw away. Or else, and on this supposition my mind rests most contentedly, we are in the grip of some evolutionary force which hurts as it works and which I fear has already found its fruition in that new race of young women which I encountered in the bus on the way to the hospital this morning, dewy fresh from their lovers’ arms and determined to please no one but themselves. One of the New Women trod me underfoot and with her three-inch soles pulped my big toe in its plastic throw-away shoe (only I, unlike her, cannot afford to throw anything away, and am doomed to wear it forever), causing me such fresh pain that when the bus broke down and we were all to be decanted into another, I lost heart altogether, abandoned the journey and limped home.
The New Women! I could barely recognize them as being of the same sex as myself, their buttocks arrogant in tight jeans, openly inviting, breasts falling free and shameless, feeling no apparent obligation to smile, look pleasant or keep their voices low. And how they live! Just look at them to know how! If a man doesn’t bring them to orgasm, they look for another who does. If by mistake they fall pregnant, they abort by vacuum aspiration. If they don’t like the food, the push the plate away. If the job doesn’t suit them, they hand in their notice. They are satiated by everything, hungry for nothing. They are what I wanted to be; they are what I worked for them to be: and now I see them, I hate them. They have found their own solution to the threefold pain—one I never thought of. They do not try, as we did, to understand it and get the better of it. They simply wipe out the pain by doing away with its three centres—the heart, the soul and the mind. Brilliant! Heartless, soulless, mindless--free!” (16)
Weldon writes with a wicked sense of humor, and the actions of Praxis and the other characters is sure to shock the reader. Ultimately, however, I struggled to personally relate to the events because the societal norms being challenged are not my own, and outside of my own experience.
May 22, 2024
Maybe it’s me, but I particularly like a book with a strong clearly voiced protagonist. Praxis, or Patricia, as she is known in the book, has such a voice.
She’s a clever, confused, generally well-meaning and thoughtful character, lost in, or more correctly, outside, the story of her life. She gets lost in a complex web of social, family, marital, and pretty well, any other relationship going
The complexity of this web of interacting acquaintances is somewhat overwhelming, possibly seeming somewhat implausible to some readers. But to me that’s the whole point, the character is overwhelmed as we all tend to be at times. She is overwhelmed by impractical expectations, by conflicting demands, by societal norms that are just plain impossible. The book spins these conflicting positions into a dense web where the character loses her individuality. The intention is not plausibility, but more a case of hyperbole to illustrate the problems that mostly women face, and most problems that can happen to women are in this book.
Patricia swings between all views, rather than just the typical feminist one, and in so doing, makes the arguments all the stronger. She is often maddeningly sympathetic, perhaps overly so, towards the male plight. I believe the points held within this book are as relevant today, as at any time. The UK may have moved on somewhat but much of the world remains in a state that is pre-1970s, often closer to mediaeval Europe for a large part of the female global population.
I loved her voice, the wit, the insight, the vulnerability. For me it is an important book, held together by a wonderful protagonist. It’s funny, sharp, profound, surprising, and shocking, and just as importantly, beautifully paced and written.
She’s a clever, confused, generally well-meaning and thoughtful character, lost in, or more correctly, outside, the story of her life. She gets lost in a complex web of social, family, marital, and pretty well, any other relationship going
The complexity of this web of interacting acquaintances is somewhat overwhelming, possibly seeming somewhat implausible to some readers. But to me that’s the whole point, the character is overwhelmed as we all tend to be at times. She is overwhelmed by impractical expectations, by conflicting demands, by societal norms that are just plain impossible. The book spins these conflicting positions into a dense web where the character loses her individuality. The intention is not plausibility, but more a case of hyperbole to illustrate the problems that mostly women face, and most problems that can happen to women are in this book.
Patricia swings between all views, rather than just the typical feminist one, and in so doing, makes the arguments all the stronger. She is often maddeningly sympathetic, perhaps overly so, towards the male plight. I believe the points held within this book are as relevant today, as at any time. The UK may have moved on somewhat but much of the world remains in a state that is pre-1970s, often closer to mediaeval Europe for a large part of the female global population.
I loved her voice, the wit, the insight, the vulnerability. For me it is an important book, held together by a wonderful protagonist. It’s funny, sharp, profound, surprising, and shocking, and just as importantly, beautifully paced and written.
August 16, 2022
I’d forgotten how much I enjoy Fay Weldon. She makes very sharp, cynical observations about the ways that humans delude themselves. Reading this book, however, I felt mournful for feminism. It goes through forty plus years of history, starting with WWII and ending in the 1980s (I think). At the beginning we see all of the limited choices women had with men, careers, their bodies and their intellects. Then we see how various characters, women with potential saddled with mediocre men, navigate the social changes and upheavals of the 1960s/70s and settle for an odd mix of self-aggrandizement, compromised principles, and very few radical acts. In the 1980s society starts hemming people in again, characters start expressing views that point to the feminist crackdown/backlash that currently has the United States Supreme Court ruling that women do not actually have the right to choose what they do with their bodies. I wish that I had read this book earlier so that I could have enjoyed it as satire rather than prescient. This would make a great 3 or 6 hour drama on the BBC, as it has a great sense of time and place with a large cast of characters that keep circling back into Praxis’ life, changed by their journey every time (which reminds me of a very twisted Dickens). I would recommend this to anyone with a sense of humor who is pissed off that not as much changed in the late 20th century as we’d wanted to believe.
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