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Torpor
Sylvie wanted to believe that misery could simply be replaced with happiness. Time was a straight line, stretching out before you. If you could create a golden kind of time and lay it right beside the other time, the time of horror, Bad History could just recede into the distance without ever having to be resolved.--from TorporSet at the dawn of the New World Order, Chris Kraus's third novel, Torpor loops back to the beginning of the decade that was the basis of I Love Dick, her pseudo-confessional cult-classic debut. It's summer, 1991, post-MTV, pre-AOL. Jerome Shafir and Sylvie Green, two former New Yorkers who can no longer afford an East Village apartment, set off on a journey across the entire former Soviet Bloc with the specious aim of adopting a Romanian orphan. Nirvana's on the radio everywhere, and wars are erupting across Yugoslavia.Unhappily married to Jerome, a 53-year-old Columbia University professor who loathes academe, Sylvie thinks only of happiness. At 35, she dreams of stuffed bears and wonders why their lives lack the tremulous sincerity that pervades thirtysomething, that season's hot new TV show. There are only two things, Sylvie thinks, that will save them: a child of their own, and the success of The Anthropology of Unhappiness, her husband's long-postponed book on the Holocaust. But as they move forward toward impoverished Romania, Jerome's memories of his father's extermination at Auschwitz and his own childhood survival impede them.Savagely ironic and deeply lyrical, Torpor explores the swirling mix of nationalisms, capital flows and negative entropy that define the present, haunted by the persistence of historical memory. Written in the third person, it is her most personal novel to date.
312 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2006
65 people are currently reading
3163 people want to read
About the author
Chris Kraus
76 books903 followersChris Kraus is a writer and critic. She studied acting and spent almost two decades making performances and experimental films in New York before moving to Los Angeles where she began writing. Her novels include Aliens & Anorexia, I Love Dick, Torpor, and Summer of Hate. She has published three books of cultural criticism—Video Green: Los Angeles Art and the Triumph of Nothingness, Where Art Belongs, and Social Practices. I Love Dick was adapted for television and her literary biography After Kathy Acker was published by Semiotext(e) and Penguin Press. A former Guggenheim Fellow, Kraus held the Mary Routt Chair of Writing at Scripps College in 2019 and was Writer-in-Residence at ArtCenter College between 2020–2024. She has written for various magazines and has been a coeditor of the independent press Semiotext(e) since 1990. Her work has been praised for its damning intelligence, vulnerability, and dazzling speed and has been translated into seventeen languages. She lives in Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews
July 10, 2020
Chris Kraus me parece de las escritoras más originales y geniales que hay dando vueltas. Si no la han leído háganlo. En cada uno de sus libros están varios elementos en común, pero los lleva a lugares geniales. Este libro es parte de una trilogía, que en realidad no lo es, pero tienen en común elementos. Es una maravilla.
February 11, 2015
I read this article on Slate.com the other day. The article explains the plot and all that fairly well, so if that's what you're looking for, please clicky-click the link and check that out.
What I want to say is that this little book is one of those books that can destroy you. It can frustrate you and make you want to shake the characters, and it can make you feel better about yourself because you would never put up with [fill-in-the-blank] in any of your relationships. But you would be lying. You probably have put up with [fill-in-the-blank] in one of your relationships, maybe even the one you're in currently. You probably think "Well, that's not the same...", but it is. Everyone puts up with something. And to outsiders, it always looks really sad. And those people may be frustrated with you and want to shake you. Trust me; it's true.
I could relate simultaneously to Sylvie and Jerome at different times in the story, and I think most readers could (if they're honest with themselves). People tend to do all sorts of crazy things to try to keep their marriages together, or to make their partner happy (sometimes even sacrificing a piece of themselves in the process, or hating themselves just the teensiest bit along the way) - maybe not as crazy as going to Romania in the early 90s to try to adopt a baby, but you get my drift.
On their travels we see a lot about their relationship, from both perspectives, and they are both heartbreaking in their bleakness. The article says "bleak", reviews say "bleak"; I hate to be unoriginal, but "bleak" is exactly how it feels. This isn't a bad read, though. It's just hard at times.
Also hard for me was that Sylvie and Jerome take their 13-year-old lap dog with them on this journey of theirs, a sick animal who has recently had a tumor removed. Destroyed me, you guys. Don't talk to me about sick, sad animal-sorts, especially dogs, because I know ALL TEH FEELINGS. This morning on my bus commute I read a scene towards the end where Jerome kissed one side of the dog's muzzle, and Sylvie kissed the other side, and their hands met around the dog's face...
Okay, so I wasn't sobbing in any way that anyone could tell (because I'm a Viking), but inside I was a wreck. How many furry faces have my boyfriend and I kissed exactly like that? How many sick furry friends have we lost?
Moving on.
I loved the glimpse into the early 90s in Eastern Europe since I was in the sixth grade when the Berlin Wall came down and have a different understanding of all the complex issues that still affect everyone. This book was published in 2006 but that doesn't matter - it still feels like 1991 during most of the reading.
This won't be great for everyone. I enjoyed it, it appealed to so many layers of my inner chaos. It's one of those books that just hits a personal chord. I'm glad I came across it - had I seen this at the library on my own, I likely wouldn't have picked it up because the cover feels funny in my hands (yes, it's true), but look what I would have missed. Thank you, Slate.com. And thank you, Chris Kraus.
What I want to say is that this little book is one of those books that can destroy you. It can frustrate you and make you want to shake the characters, and it can make you feel better about yourself because you would never put up with [fill-in-the-blank] in any of your relationships. But you would be lying. You probably have put up with [fill-in-the-blank] in one of your relationships, maybe even the one you're in currently. You probably think "Well, that's not the same...", but it is. Everyone puts up with something. And to outsiders, it always looks really sad. And those people may be frustrated with you and want to shake you. Trust me; it's true.
I could relate simultaneously to Sylvie and Jerome at different times in the story, and I think most readers could (if they're honest with themselves). People tend to do all sorts of crazy things to try to keep their marriages together, or to make their partner happy (sometimes even sacrificing a piece of themselves in the process, or hating themselves just the teensiest bit along the way) - maybe not as crazy as going to Romania in the early 90s to try to adopt a baby, but you get my drift.
On their travels we see a lot about their relationship, from both perspectives, and they are both heartbreaking in their bleakness. The article says "bleak", reviews say "bleak"; I hate to be unoriginal, but "bleak" is exactly how it feels. This isn't a bad read, though. It's just hard at times.
Also hard for me was that Sylvie and Jerome take their 13-year-old lap dog with them on this journey of theirs, a sick animal who has recently had a tumor removed. Destroyed me, you guys. Don't talk to me about sick, sad animal-sorts, especially dogs, because I know ALL TEH FEELINGS. This morning on my bus commute I read a scene towards the end where Jerome kissed one side of the dog's muzzle, and Sylvie kissed the other side, and their hands met around the dog's face...
Okay, so I wasn't sobbing in any way that anyone could tell (because I'm a Viking), but inside I was a wreck. How many furry faces have my boyfriend and I kissed exactly like that? How many sick furry friends have we lost?
Moving on.
I loved the glimpse into the early 90s in Eastern Europe since I was in the sixth grade when the Berlin Wall came down and have a different understanding of all the complex issues that still affect everyone. This book was published in 2006 but that doesn't matter - it still feels like 1991 during most of the reading.
This won't be great for everyone. I enjoyed it, it appealed to so many layers of my inner chaos. It's one of those books that just hits a personal chord. I'm glad I came across it - had I seen this at the library on my own, I likely wouldn't have picked it up because the cover feels funny in my hands (yes, it's true), but look what I would have missed. Thank you, Slate.com. And thank you, Chris Kraus.
January 10, 2022
dieses buch… hat mich zerteilt dann wieder zusammengesetzt nur um mich wieder zu zerteilen. da es ein persönliches geschenk war, habe ich torpor in der deutschen übersetzung gelesen. ich war am anfang etwas verwirrt, weil man begriffe die übersetzt wurden, die aber im deutschen eine leicht abweichende bedeutung haben, sofort erkennt.
nach einigen seiten, wollte ich dann aber am liebsten zur übersetzerin nachhause fahren und sie umarmen. jedes wort ist präzise, treffend und zerstörrerisch.
viel davon wird an chris kraus liegen, natürlich…..
torpor bedeutet leere, und diese leere in “torpor” ist nicht nur ein gefühl, sondern ein hohler körper in dem die beiden hauptfiguren leben. sie sind “zusammen”, doch sie sind schon lange nicht mehr zusammen. nicht auf diese, voraussehbare “unsere ehe ist kaputt”, sondern auf eine zutiefst erschütternde, traurig machende art, die auch in den abgründisgten momenten trotzdem verständnisvoll bleibt. wir alle waren schon mal sylvie und jerome, genauso wie wir auch niemals die beiden werden.
die verschachtelungen von erzählter zeit und handlungsebene, die sich zwischen vergangenheit, präsens, futur I, futur II und konjunktiv bewegen verstärken die absurde natur der konflinkte in diesem buch.
die beziehungen und das leben der haupt charaktere hinterlässt ein dumpf graues gefühl im magen. doch manchmal ist es genau das was man braucht. eine absurde geschichte, die zeigt, wie absurd und banal zugleich unser leben doch immer ist.
nach einigen seiten, wollte ich dann aber am liebsten zur übersetzerin nachhause fahren und sie umarmen. jedes wort ist präzise, treffend und zerstörrerisch.
viel davon wird an chris kraus liegen, natürlich…..
torpor bedeutet leere, und diese leere in “torpor” ist nicht nur ein gefühl, sondern ein hohler körper in dem die beiden hauptfiguren leben. sie sind “zusammen”, doch sie sind schon lange nicht mehr zusammen. nicht auf diese, voraussehbare “unsere ehe ist kaputt”, sondern auf eine zutiefst erschütternde, traurig machende art, die auch in den abgründisgten momenten trotzdem verständnisvoll bleibt. wir alle waren schon mal sylvie und jerome, genauso wie wir auch niemals die beiden werden.
die verschachtelungen von erzählter zeit und handlungsebene, die sich zwischen vergangenheit, präsens, futur I, futur II und konjunktiv bewegen verstärken die absurde natur der konflinkte in diesem buch.
die beziehungen und das leben der haupt charaktere hinterlässt ein dumpf graues gefühl im magen. doch manchmal ist es genau das was man braucht. eine absurde geschichte, die zeigt, wie absurd und banal zugleich unser leben doch immer ist.
June 29, 2016
Well, it's now official: reading this novel pretty much solidifies Chris Kraus as my favorite contemporary novelist. Her writing makes me seriously jealous.
Workshopping the novel that I hope to publish next year last Monday evening, I broke down, whining, "I keep trying to find that balance between the tell-it-like-it-is punk rocker in me and the hopelessly romantic literary craftsperson who's read far too much Maurice Blanchot et al. to stay put in the traditional, and too much in general not to drop names." Where do I find the balance between rant and reference, talking shit and polishing up literary precious metals?
Chris Kraus finds the balance. Often it is in the ironic facing off of a famous post-structuralist philosopher or philosophy with a real-world situation that makes a poignant jab at both "reality" and "intellect." I'll never forget the passage in this novel that presents Felix Guattari's ideas as it chronicles his less-than-idyllic marriage, self-centered womanizing, and pitiful death. For me such work presents the devastating gap between human ideas and the day-to-day struggle with our bodies, its needs, and our consciences' constant denial of others in order to get us through to another day. Perhaps ignorance really is bliss, or perhaps intellectuals are lucky to escape as often as they are able into ideas in order to avoid the knee-deep mess piled up around us before we were born, which will keep almost all of our lives out of our own control as we slog through them, and which we know we will die in without having changed these facts in any noticeable way. Unless it be through those very ideas that look so wispy and transitory against the weighty backdrop of the mundane. Torpor indeed.
I have read attacks on Kraus as a cynic, ironic, or just a plain old bitch--since, at best, her novels are roman a clef exercises in self- and other-exposure, it's not a totally ad hominem argument. These readers--to me at least--miss the possibility that she doesn't bring up the postmodern talking points merely to ridicule them. While they may often wither and sound trite before scenes of real people suffering real indignities, their inclusion in her work, to me, is not to ridicule but rather to test and to weigh them and their usefulness to us all. Although it could be argued that her tell-it-like-it-is punk-rock passages are cruel and insensitive and nasty, it's hard for me to dismiss them as such because there is also a great deal of empathy in her work. Even though Torpor is a roman a clef, it's not Lady Caroline Lamb lambasting (is that where the phrase originated I wonder?) Lord Byron; Kraus had a great deal to say about the interior lives and struggles of the characters who are not self-portraits in the novel.
This novel is an amazing balancing act.
Workshopping the novel that I hope to publish next year last Monday evening, I broke down, whining, "I keep trying to find that balance between the tell-it-like-it-is punk rocker in me and the hopelessly romantic literary craftsperson who's read far too much Maurice Blanchot et al. to stay put in the traditional, and too much in general not to drop names." Where do I find the balance between rant and reference, talking shit and polishing up literary precious metals?
Chris Kraus finds the balance. Often it is in the ironic facing off of a famous post-structuralist philosopher or philosophy with a real-world situation that makes a poignant jab at both "reality" and "intellect." I'll never forget the passage in this novel that presents Felix Guattari's ideas as it chronicles his less-than-idyllic marriage, self-centered womanizing, and pitiful death. For me such work presents the devastating gap between human ideas and the day-to-day struggle with our bodies, its needs, and our consciences' constant denial of others in order to get us through to another day. Perhaps ignorance really is bliss, or perhaps intellectuals are lucky to escape as often as they are able into ideas in order to avoid the knee-deep mess piled up around us before we were born, which will keep almost all of our lives out of our own control as we slog through them, and which we know we will die in without having changed these facts in any noticeable way. Unless it be through those very ideas that look so wispy and transitory against the weighty backdrop of the mundane. Torpor indeed.
I have read attacks on Kraus as a cynic, ironic, or just a plain old bitch--since, at best, her novels are roman a clef exercises in self- and other-exposure, it's not a totally ad hominem argument. These readers--to me at least--miss the possibility that she doesn't bring up the postmodern talking points merely to ridicule them. While they may often wither and sound trite before scenes of real people suffering real indignities, their inclusion in her work, to me, is not to ridicule but rather to test and to weigh them and their usefulness to us all. Although it could be argued that her tell-it-like-it-is punk-rock passages are cruel and insensitive and nasty, it's hard for me to dismiss them as such because there is also a great deal of empathy in her work. Even though Torpor is a roman a clef, it's not Lady Caroline Lamb lambasting (is that where the phrase originated I wonder?) Lord Byron; Kraus had a great deal to say about the interior lives and struggles of the characters who are not self-portraits in the novel.
This novel is an amazing balancing act.
October 6, 2007
Coarse, moody, name-dropping bio-fiction. Well pitched, a little pissy.
Read
May 27, 2017I liked this so much more than 'I Love Dick': its form and use of language feels much more nuanced and graceful, and I was able to engage with it much more on the level of sheer reading enjoyment, where I was only able to enjoy the earlier novel in an intellectual way.
Perhaps it says something about where I am in my life but while I recognise the book is meant to contain a dark, farcical humour of the sort where people look ridiculous and struggle to make themselves understood, I was only able to find it deeply upsetting and poignant.
I cried at Sylvie's sense of loss, a loss that's everywhere around her. It's in her past (her deep nostalgia and her sentimental aesthetic preferences; the yearned-for unborn babies she sacrificed to practicality and self-abnegation); her present (her torpid marriage to Jerome, a man mired by choice in the past, who doesn't have any ambitions of his own, and doesn't want what's important to Sylvie); and her future (the dwindling of her fertility and the ageing of her beloved dog Lily, the only thing holding Sylvie and Jerome's marriage together).
I also despaired at the smugness and pointlessness of public artistic/intellectual life, which robs people of dignity and forces them into performative, codependent relationships where real power relations are tastefully concealed by appearances of friendship and conviviality.
In many ways 'Torpor' answers the key question of 'I Love Dick': how does a couple reach a point where collaboratively lusting after a work acquaintance feels like a normal thing to do? There's a deep and aimless unhappiness in this novel that is compared to and contrasted with historical trauma and upheaval; but I related to it best on the level of a person adrift in the world and trying to grasp things that seem meaningful along the way, whether those be everyday rituals, happy memories, tastes and preferences, or creative projects.
Oh my god, the bear, Honey. I was a mess by that point.
Perhaps it says something about where I am in my life but while I recognise the book is meant to contain a dark, farcical humour of the sort where people look ridiculous and struggle to make themselves understood, I was only able to find it deeply upsetting and poignant.
I cried at Sylvie's sense of loss, a loss that's everywhere around her. It's in her past (her deep nostalgia and her sentimental aesthetic preferences; the yearned-for unborn babies she sacrificed to practicality and self-abnegation); her present (her torpid marriage to Jerome, a man mired by choice in the past, who doesn't have any ambitions of his own, and doesn't want what's important to Sylvie); and her future (the dwindling of her fertility and the ageing of her beloved dog Lily, the only thing holding Sylvie and Jerome's marriage together).
I also despaired at the smugness and pointlessness of public artistic/intellectual life, which robs people of dignity and forces them into performative, codependent relationships where real power relations are tastefully concealed by appearances of friendship and conviviality.
In many ways 'Torpor' answers the key question of 'I Love Dick': how does a couple reach a point where collaboratively lusting after a work acquaintance feels like a normal thing to do? There's a deep and aimless unhappiness in this novel that is compared to and contrasted with historical trauma and upheaval; but I related to it best on the level of a person adrift in the world and trying to grasp things that seem meaningful along the way, whether those be everyday rituals, happy memories, tastes and preferences, or creative projects.
Oh my god, the bear, Honey. I was a mess by that point.
October 13, 2009
A joke: What do you get when you cross bleak with brutal? Torpor, by Chris Kraus!
Oh my god. This is the story of an ex-punk video artist and her older lover, a college professor in his fifties who's got hell of connections to a bunch of French theorists, and that's what he's famous for. It is BLEAK. Did I mention bleak? BLEAK. They don't like each other, they never really liked each other, they don't get along, she's gotten pregnant and had abortions with him a bunch of times, so what do they do? Why, take a trip to Romania to adopt a Romanian baby.
If the depictions of Romania in the late eighties and early nineties (and then late nineties) are accurate, then that's a pretty perfect setting for their unromantic nonadventures, because it is BLEAK. Everybody is totally fucked, basically. Y'know? They have a dog, and the dog is kind of their kid, but the dog is also old.
And the writing is some of the least showy writing ever, so it's not even like 'haha! art world! haha! hatred!' although every once in a while something is the hilarious kind of brutal, instead of the depressing kind.
Um... at the center of the structure is the ill-fated trip to Romania, but then their backstory and futurestory kind of swirl around that central narrative, so it ends up being a very fleshed-out story. So you get sucked in. TO THE BLEAKNESS.
I liked it! I am excited to read more of Chris Kraus's fiction; I guess she's basically in charge of Semiotext(e), or something?
Oh my god. This is the story of an ex-punk video artist and her older lover, a college professor in his fifties who's got hell of connections to a bunch of French theorists, and that's what he's famous for. It is BLEAK. Did I mention bleak? BLEAK. They don't like each other, they never really liked each other, they don't get along, she's gotten pregnant and had abortions with him a bunch of times, so what do they do? Why, take a trip to Romania to adopt a Romanian baby.
If the depictions of Romania in the late eighties and early nineties (and then late nineties) are accurate, then that's a pretty perfect setting for their unromantic nonadventures, because it is BLEAK. Everybody is totally fucked, basically. Y'know? They have a dog, and the dog is kind of their kid, but the dog is also old.
And the writing is some of the least showy writing ever, so it's not even like 'haha! art world! haha! hatred!' although every once in a while something is the hilarious kind of brutal, instead of the depressing kind.
Um... at the center of the structure is the ill-fated trip to Romania, but then their backstory and futurestory kind of swirl around that central narrative, so it ends up being a very fleshed-out story. So you get sucked in. TO THE BLEAKNESS.
I liked it! I am excited to read more of Chris Kraus's fiction; I guess she's basically in charge of Semiotext(e), or something?
July 28, 2023
'At 35, Sylvie Green was nurturing a form of snobbery far more exacting than her husband’s. Fiercely independent, Sylvie embraced an anti-cool aesthetic. Florina Elescu seemed to be a perfect specimen, in that respect. Still, it might be difficult for Florina to befriend her. Florina was so womanly and settled, with her profession, husband and three children, whereas Sylvie was an old punk girl.'
Not for me.
September 10, 2008
A wonderful portrait of the preInternet European intellectual circuit, just as the last dictatorships are falling. In retrospect, I'm reminded of an episode of AbFab in which Eddy threatens to adopt a Romanian baby. In this case, Kraus/Sylvie's motives are similarly geared towards keeping her sinking marriage afloat. Unlike Eddy, she doesn't need to ask "but is it art?" because she's armed with a more than adequate set of meta-cuspids to settle the question.
October 26, 2020
i read this during a slump so meh but i did manage to finish it so?
there is something about me and kraus' prose that doesn't mix — i appreciate it, and enjoy it in small doses, but too much just leaves me migraine-y and feverish and dying to do anything else.
I do like how this was a seamless blend of novel and educational. maybe that's why i stuck it out.
Sylvie is a lovely woman and i want the world for her.
there is something about me and kraus' prose that doesn't mix — i appreciate it, and enjoy it in small doses, but too much just leaves me migraine-y and feverish and dying to do anything else.
I do like how this was a seamless blend of novel and educational. maybe that's why i stuck it out.
Sylvie is a lovely woman and i want the world for her.
November 3, 2020
3.5
Två världsfrånvända personer (Chris Kraus själv och hennes make Sylvere Lotringer, kallade Sylvie och Jerome) åker till Rumänien för att adoptera ett av många föräldralösa barn i efterdyningarna av rumänska revolutionen. En akt av djup förtvivlan som beskrivs med ironi, skarpsinne och humor. En 30-something och en 50-something, en med djup barnlängtan och en helt utan, en misslyckad konstnär utan inkomst och en framgångsrik litteraturkritiker. Största bristen är de långa partierna om Sylvere/Jerome som tog fokus från de vassa partier som beskriver deras relation och hennes syn på livet.
Två världsfrånvända personer (Chris Kraus själv och hennes make Sylvere Lotringer, kallade Sylvie och Jerome) åker till Rumänien för att adoptera ett av många föräldralösa barn i efterdyningarna av rumänska revolutionen. En akt av djup förtvivlan som beskrivs med ironi, skarpsinne och humor. En 30-something och en 50-something, en med djup barnlängtan och en helt utan, en misslyckad konstnär utan inkomst och en framgångsrik litteraturkritiker. Största bristen är de långa partierna om Sylvere/Jerome som tog fokus från de vassa partier som beskriver deras relation och hennes syn på livet.
January 22, 2021
Ebreja Džeroma sirdi aizsniedz tikai pagātnes sāpes. Izbijusī panku meitene Silvija vēlas visu slikto vienkārši pārvērst labajā. Abi dodas uz Rumāniju adoptēt bāreni. Grāmatas notikumi norisinās pagājušā gadsimta 90.gadu pašā sākumā, pēc Berlīnes mūra krišanas, pēc diktatora Čaušesku nogalināšanas. Dīvains laiks, un arī abu apjukums to ļoti labi raksturo. Patika valodiskā spēlēšanās, nedaudz dīvaini bija, ka vidū darbība vilkās, bet beigās tika atrisināta pāris lapaspusēs.
August 28, 2024
Eh it was fine. I like the idea of books that don’t really go anywhere but maybe I actually get quite bored. I think I would have enjoyed this if I was an artist in my 30s in New York and maybe in 1990 but I’m simply not.
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February 22, 2025He was never good at making plans. I mean—he never talked about himself as if there was a future, the way most people do. There was this funny tense he used, as if the future had already happened. He always said, I would have been.
April 10, 2025
Me encanta que esta mujer esté todavía más desquiciada que yo.
Read
April 28, 2025this was so great. sorrowful and carefully structured. i remain the last person from Wellington New Zealand to have not read I Love Dick but i think i get it now
Read
August 12, 2025very very good. people are so strange/funny (not haha…) and desperate and life is so weird and bleak. my fav quote from this (to no one’s surprise, prolly!) was: “More than a steady boyfriend, she wants to eat and fuck the dead. She wants to be extremely intimate with history.”
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December 27, 2023writing this sitting in my blue chair which i never sit in. laptop is precarious on my lap so read this with a feeling of precarity. i really enjoyed this book and i thought it was funny that her name is sylvie in the book when in reality her husband is named sylvere. i thought it was funny and i continually wondered why. i also liked the little allusion at the end to i love dick. kraus does a really interesting sort of perversion of the collage format here, interweaving her torpor with the history of romania (its own kind of torpor according to her) but in a much more narrative way than kathy acker's jagged cut ups. there is definitely this strange shifting juxtaposition that never fully resolves itself; i was inspired by her resistance (or what i saw as her resistance) to clear metaphorization despite clear juxtaposition thru collaging. it all just fit together because it had to because of their road trip of because of sylvie/kraus' interests. although thinking back on it i feel like i was lulled into a belief that the book is narrative when in fact it jumps through time constantly and plays with tense. THE WOULD HAVE BEEN THING. after that came up at the end i immediately wanted to reread the whole thing to see how often she uses that to invoke a feeling or torpor, of repetition, of distance, of omniscience. i think there is more genius here in this book that i have not mined but i had fun just sitting in her thoughts, i like chris kraus a lot she's easy to get along with
September 9, 2020
Ella es increíble escribiendo, ese tipo de libros que te entretienen y conmueven y a la vez te enseñan un montón. La temática sobre la guerra y todo ese bagaje que trae Jerome y las personas que sufrieron lo mismo, el feminismo y el personaje de Sylvie la antiheroina, un matrimonio muy particular, hasta Lily su mascota. Es todo interesante y complejo. Me encantó.
April 17, 2021
a lot of this just felt like Kraus working through her divorce with Lotringer, and goddamn there’s some scathing bits. but there’s only so much (sincerely) disaffected yuppie shit i can put up with at once
November 6, 2025
Approaches poignancy and deftly pulls back so it’s not sentimental. The novel’s “voice” passes no judgement on Jerome even as the protagonist, Sylvie, rants on about him. Chris Kraus’s use of different tenses is remarkable, how she moves between them but not invisibly, and she actually remarks on them in the text itself:…’Marielle recalls, “there was a strange way Henri used to talk. He was never good at making plans. I mean – he never talked about himself as if there was a future, the way most people do. There was this funny tense he used, as if the future had already happened. He always said, ‘I would have been’” (285). This is the same tense that contributes to the story being so thought-provoking for me. And earlier on p. 163: “Tenses situate events relative to their closeness or their distance from the speaker. Rules of grammar give the empty space of human speech some shape. The simple past: We left. In more complex tenses, “have” and “had,”the helping verbs, help to separate the speaker from the immediacy of events. ‘We had left.’ Had forms a little step between what happened and the moment when you’re telling it.”
“There is a sense of longing and regret, in which every step you take becomes delayed, revised, held back a little bit. The past and future are hypothesized, an ideal world existing in the shadow of an if. ‘It would have been.’”
It’s as if Kraus taps you on the shoulder to say, yes! You’ve got it! Or, look! If you didn’t, here’s something for you to think about. A nod to the nature of discourse. An explanation is communicated without an interruption in the narrative. It gives the story an almost ephemeral quality and at the same time it stays solidly grounded in a reality that survives the passage of time. She’s so smart and her writing is so good, gorgeous prose/sentence structure, deeply funny, ironic, juxtaposed against the darkest of humanity, every sentence intentional. Even with the many references to real people (many of whom I had never heard of), the novel is still accessible. I feel she really does want you to get it, to understand her art. Unpretentious. And I feel it is (strangely?) hopeful. Is it that tense again? Even after all the dark content in the story. Amazing.
“There is a sense of longing and regret, in which every step you take becomes delayed, revised, held back a little bit. The past and future are hypothesized, an ideal world existing in the shadow of an if. ‘It would have been.’”
It’s as if Kraus taps you on the shoulder to say, yes! You’ve got it! Or, look! If you didn’t, here’s something for you to think about. A nod to the nature of discourse. An explanation is communicated without an interruption in the narrative. It gives the story an almost ephemeral quality and at the same time it stays solidly grounded in a reality that survives the passage of time. She’s so smart and her writing is so good, gorgeous prose/sentence structure, deeply funny, ironic, juxtaposed against the darkest of humanity, every sentence intentional. Even with the many references to real people (many of whom I had never heard of), the novel is still accessible. I feel she really does want you to get it, to understand her art. Unpretentious. And I feel it is (strangely?) hopeful. Is it that tense again? Even after all the dark content in the story. Amazing.
January 5, 2022
Is about a childless couple with a fraught relationship: Jerome is the Jewish academic, haunted by the Holocaust, obsessed with death and scavenging buffet food in hotel napkins. Sylvie is his much younger partner, a sometimes artist whose lost her edge and longing to make a home sweet home with her unsentimental husband.
In this thinly veiled memoir, Kraus has taken the name Sylvie, a derivation of the name of her own partner - Sylvère Lotringer. She calls Lotringer Jerome.
It’s great how the establishment of character doesn’t predictably take pause after a few pages to be usurped by plot.
The couple bumble their way to Romania to adopt a baby, hilariously/tragically disorganised.
The narrative cuts back and forth between earlier years in NYC and the Romania trip.
An extended vignette on the live televising of the Romanian revolution in Felix Guatarri’s loft with a slumber party of academics over several days. The listless author understanding none of the conversation in French and Spanish.
Jerome replies, “It could be worse,” when his peers describe various trials and tribulations; Jerome’s ‘could be worse’ is no glib platitude but a direct and secret reference to Auschwitz.
Better than I Love Dick. Or is it a case of expecting A LOT from I Love Dick, being disappointed, and then going into Torpor expecting a whole lot less.
Kraus exercises a masterful ability to cut back and forth between the minutia of personal narrative and historical grand narrative. Kraus folds in a feminist personal political that makes Jerome’s/Lotringer’s privileging of famous men seem hopelessly chauvinistic.
In this thinly veiled memoir, Kraus has taken the name Sylvie, a derivation of the name of her own partner - Sylvère Lotringer. She calls Lotringer Jerome.
It’s great how the establishment of character doesn’t predictably take pause after a few pages to be usurped by plot.
The couple bumble their way to Romania to adopt a baby, hilariously/tragically disorganised.
The narrative cuts back and forth between earlier years in NYC and the Romania trip.
An extended vignette on the live televising of the Romanian revolution in Felix Guatarri’s loft with a slumber party of academics over several days. The listless author understanding none of the conversation in French and Spanish.
Jerome replies, “It could be worse,” when his peers describe various trials and tribulations; Jerome’s ‘could be worse’ is no glib platitude but a direct and secret reference to Auschwitz.
Better than I Love Dick. Or is it a case of expecting A LOT from I Love Dick, being disappointed, and then going into Torpor expecting a whole lot less.
Kraus exercises a masterful ability to cut back and forth between the minutia of personal narrative and historical grand narrative. Kraus folds in a feminist personal political that makes Jerome’s/Lotringer’s privileging of famous men seem hopelessly chauvinistic.
July 21, 2023
mind-splitting contrast between self-involved wallowing and over expansive perspective seeking. like jumping in a black hole and getting spaghettified or whatever it’s called.
nobody does it better, baby.
nobody does it better, baby.
May 15, 2025
Unsurprisingly this was a 5 star read for me. I loved the circularity of the chronology, I loved the use of the future anterior (esque) tense, I loved the post-Soviet and state of NYC dual setting. Chris Kraus you are a genius and I can’t wait to continue reading more of your work!
April 25, 2023
Dismal and frustrating but beautiful and intelligent. I learned a lot about European history as well, which is great. Part memoir, social satire, researched thesis, it has a way of casting doubt on your own relationships, career, creativity. I didn’t enjoy reading this but I couldn’t stop.
December 26, 2020
I enjoy the story. And Kraus’s feminist commentary — sometimes fittingly overt, sometimes more discreetly veiled — is spot-fucking-on (as it applies to the context of the relationships therein), and there are singular paragraphs and even individual sentences worthy of their own deep investigation; I’d be thrilled to be tasked with writing essays on any of many moments in this book, almost all of which could/should/would be approached from a feminist standpoint or, in some cases, equally easily a historical one. In particular, I appreciate the present-but-not-excessive snarkiness with which Kraus delivers some of this feminist commentary.
That said, I wish I’d read Torpor at 23 rather than 33.
I suppose the me of today can recognize the value of Kraus’ feminism more intricately than the me of a decade ago could have, but the writing style resonates more with the self-indulgent, cynical person I was in my earlier years, someone who felt the world owed me something, perhaps . . . something along those lines. When I used to spend evenings sitting in bars reading alone while drinking myself into oblivion, I believe this book would really have done it for me. Reading it at 6am on my couch, however, in my present-day relationship with the world, it’s not that it turned me off, necessarily, but just that I felt so distinctly certain that I wasn’t really the target audience, while at one time I would have been. It’s tough to articulate why that is. It’s something about the writing style itself much more than the content. I do recommend the read, I suppose. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d wanted to. I did find it worthwhile, and it certainly did make me respect Kraus as unapologetically assertive.
I’m sorry about my weird ambivalence. I wish I could figure out how to be more clear about this book, but this is simply where it left me: liking and disliking. Valuing but not thoroughly enjoying. I guess my ultimate conclusion is that if someone offers it to you, you spot it in the library, it’s in a Little Free Library on the street, it’s on the clearance rack, then sure: there’s no reason not to read it. But I myself would not pay market rate for this book; there’s so much more I could buy with that money that would fulfill me and resonate with me much more deeply. (I did, in fact, receive it as a hand-me-down from a friend, and upon completion forwarded it to another friend in the same manner. Maybe that very copy will reach you some day.) I feel a bit guilty about this review, because Chris Kraus is not someone I want to insult or disrespect. Torpor just didn’t quite hit the spot for me.
That said, I wish I’d read Torpor at 23 rather than 33.
I suppose the me of today can recognize the value of Kraus’ feminism more intricately than the me of a decade ago could have, but the writing style resonates more with the self-indulgent, cynical person I was in my earlier years, someone who felt the world owed me something, perhaps . . . something along those lines. When I used to spend evenings sitting in bars reading alone while drinking myself into oblivion, I believe this book would really have done it for me. Reading it at 6am on my couch, however, in my present-day relationship with the world, it’s not that it turned me off, necessarily, but just that I felt so distinctly certain that I wasn’t really the target audience, while at one time I would have been. It’s tough to articulate why that is. It’s something about the writing style itself much more than the content. I do recommend the read, I suppose. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d wanted to. I did find it worthwhile, and it certainly did make me respect Kraus as unapologetically assertive.
I’m sorry about my weird ambivalence. I wish I could figure out how to be more clear about this book, but this is simply where it left me: liking and disliking. Valuing but not thoroughly enjoying. I guess my ultimate conclusion is that if someone offers it to you, you spot it in the library, it’s in a Little Free Library on the street, it’s on the clearance rack, then sure: there’s no reason not to read it. But I myself would not pay market rate for this book; there’s so much more I could buy with that money that would fulfill me and resonate with me much more deeply. (I did, in fact, receive it as a hand-me-down from a friend, and upon completion forwarded it to another friend in the same manner. Maybe that very copy will reach you some day.) I feel a bit guilty about this review, because Chris Kraus is not someone I want to insult or disrespect. Torpor just didn’t quite hit the spot for me.
June 28, 2016
An easier book to assimilate than I Love Dick, with an ending justifying the complete reading of this novel thus lessoning the pain of my manifesting time lost, never to be regained. Why a person would wish to end his life this way is beyond my understanding. Nonetheless I continue to practice this disagreeable discipline. Suffice to say there is nothing remarkable to report regarding this novel. Names could be dropped, but Kraus already has this operation down in spades. A little pillow talk might be fun, but my too brief and untidy accounting would be a shame to suffer through, just as hers was.
January 23, 2018
As another review says: fuuuuck.
F. this book is good. I could talk forever about how good.
But f. the date inaccuracies drive me nuts. And it bugs me that these things annoy me. Does it matter that the Czech Republic didn't come in to existence until 1993? Or that no-one in Prague was starting online magazines in 1991? Torpor describes exactly my experience in Prague in 1998. Why do I need it to be specifically accurate about the date? I mean, is Nan Goldin out there somewhere bitching that there is no way she wore a chintz dress in Berlin that year?
Torpor is so true to the general time and place and milieu I should be able to ignore the minor errors. If I could I would have given it a 5. The stupid pedant in me rated it a 4.
F. this book is good. I could talk forever about how good.
But f. the date inaccuracies drive me nuts. And it bugs me that these things annoy me. Does it matter that the Czech Republic didn't come in to existence until 1993? Or that no-one in Prague was starting online magazines in 1991? Torpor describes exactly my experience in Prague in 1998. Why do I need it to be specifically accurate about the date? I mean, is Nan Goldin out there somewhere bitching that there is no way she wore a chintz dress in Berlin that year?
Torpor is so true to the general time and place and milieu I should be able to ignore the minor errors. If I could I would have given it a 5. The stupid pedant in me rated it a 4.
September 21, 2015
I can't recommend this enough for anyone with an interest in prose and a taste for the melancholic and profound. With innovative, layered writing, Kraus brings the modern into brute relief, crafting a sweeping story with precision and an effortless mapping onto the symbolic. These 300 pages are brimming.
June 26, 2007
Thoroughly engaging and honest.
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