False Match

by Henry Bean

Bean, Henry

Genres: Fiction, Classics, American, Novels

240 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Anaïs Cahueñas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this dark and twisted hidden classic, with an unlikeable protagonist - a man who feels stuck in life while he sees everyone around him move on. He overhears a conversation about a woman he doesn’t know yet, which spurs his spiraling metamorphosis into self-hatred, obsession and the capriciousness of the human heart.

He documents his roiling affair with her, a married woman, in his journal as he experiences heartbreak and confusion. A devious and terrible man finally faces himself as he finds himself in over his head. I couldn’t stop reading this dark “love story”!!

[Annabelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love a good self loathing, self destructive, and sadomasochistic male narrative. Makes me want to go celibate

[Ruthie · Rating 5 out of 5]

is this about my ex-boyfriend? kierkegaard’s seducer in berkeley counterculture—familiar, terrifying, and wildly grotesque.

[rachy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is there really any better feeling than that book you pick up on a whim because you like the sound of it and maybe recognise the author or the cover or the publisher, becoming one of your new favourites? No. No there isn’t. When I picked this book up, I was already sold on the premise itself. Disaffected, horny writer overhears a phone conversation where his friend talks about how sexually interested a woman is in her husband. Taking this as almost a personal slight, he sets out to essentially disprove this by seducing her himself. Perfection already. I was all in right from the start.

There’s few things I love more than a narrator who is a truly terrible person. It’s one of those things about fiction that is so much fun, reaching into the perspective of a person that you would truly hate if you ever met them. Harold Raab is definitely this in spades, a neurotic coward with a mean strike a mile wide, preoccupied with both the power and the dissatisfaction of sex and a slave to his own horniness nonetheless. The perfect encapsulation of the confused arrogance of youth with too much intelligence, but not yet the wisdom or experience to know how not to hurt himself and others. Everything he expressed was repulsive and fascinating and in places, uncomfortably familiar. For Harold is not irredeemable, he is simply drunk on the bravado of youth and confidence. All of this is really just waffle though, and all really just adds up to this: I just had so much fun with this novel, I read most of it with a big fat grin on my face over just how unhinged and unrestrained it allowed itself to be. Such a strong, certain voice, written so convincingly and hilariously.

I guess my only criticism is a personal one, and it’s that I really could have done without the book two entirely. I thought the open endedness of where book one ended was a perfect place to leave this kind of beautiful mess of a novel, with the closing of the situation that had brought the book about but almost everything else left flapping in the breeze, like the end of youth with everything still ahead. I was almost surprised to find there was still more book after it. This isn’t to say that book two was bad, it wasn’t poorly written or even poorly conceived, it just almost gave me too much closure. This was a book I wanted to be left wondering about for long after I’d finished, and it coming to such a hard and complete close axed this entirely. I also personally didn’t like how serious the tone became, since I had been having so much fun with the flippant chaos that had come before. Again, it’s not that these things were bad or wrong, it’s purely personal preference rather than strictly a criticism.

Even with this, it spoiled nothing for me. This book was still a complete romp and I was sad to not only finish it, but to find out this is Henry Bean’s only novel. The fact that this guy has spent his time out here writing the screenplay for Basic Instinct 2 but not writing more novels is a crime, but also maybe keeping with the hilarity of this novel. I guess rereading ‘The Nenoquich’ will be the only way to get my fill (I certainly won’t be watching Basic Instinct 2).

[Isabelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ending peeved me off but huge fan of the prose

Very still, contemplative — light filtered in through day blinds and sunsets casted violently on walls

I adored the romanticized character study and the writer’s inflated self-possession

“What futility. Why are people always trying to save things, time, nature, souls and string? Why not just let it go, let it all go. The river will bring more in a minute.”

[Rachel Kowal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here is a diary written by an asshole, if you're into that kind of thing.

Woof. Bummer town. Don't get gonorrhea, kids. Terrifying hospital stuff toward the end.

[Gracie · Rating 3 out of 5]

men sure do love destroying women out of boredom and loneliness huh !!!

[Amanda cortado · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about a man who becomes obsessed with a girl then once he has stolen this girl away from her husband he can’t stand the thought of her.
This book had really good prose and sometimes really interesting themes but then it would be ruined by this dudes vulgar thoughts.
I liked this book a decent amount as I enjoy unlikable characters but the end feel confused and rushed, this book is predominantly journal entries and I assumed the author struggled with and ending so he added this clunky rushed story to close it up .
Overall an interesting read.

[thirdbaseintherye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading each page of this book is like taking a swig of battery acid. It actively ruined my mood every time I opened it, but I came back again and again as the places it dragged my broken spirits off to were undeniably unique. Each observation on life in this book is so well written, like sharp little insights taken from the shattered window of existence, things that can only be understood due to their broken state. Harold is so detestable and I wanted to scream at him to be kinder to poor Charlotte, his father, and his friends, but I found him fascinating, darkly funny, and ultimately sympathetic.

Without over doing it this book clearly takes place in the realm of the vanished idealism of the 60’s and is a good look at the muddled up mess of social conventions, belief systems, and relationships that exist in this period. Harold is the perfect figure to wander this wasteland and guide the reader through it, or at least make us as lost as he.

I had many issues with this book, such as plenty of little things I found weren’t explained enough, but the set up, sense of cynicism, and brilliant writing style were so intoxicating. Reading this book felt as if it enhanced my own sense of empathy and tenderness, forcing me to kindle them in myself to make up for all that Harold tried to extinguish in himself. Sipping from this poisoned but beautiful cup of a book was painful but well worth it.

[Zaina · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Perhaps there comes a time when we have to look life square in the eyes and make hard decisions.”

“It is an afternoon in the fall of 1953. A boy of eight is walking home from school. Above the athletic fields to his right, the sky is dark with an approaching storm front. The boy is sad, but not unhappy. He does not distinguish between the bank of clouds and the swell of emotion in his heart. He feels himself possessed of an enormous power. Of all the events of his life, these are among the few he never considers telling to anyone.
Later he will try to name them, and in the very effort lose his sure sense of what they are.”

[Ceren F · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reminded me of living with my ex. And the ending was so depressing, not in a good way. The fact that it’s suppose to be a take on the seducer has added an extra point only because of the same reference in batuman’s either/or but even that can’t save this.

It’s one thing to be an unlikable woman narrator but a man? Please no.

[kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gentle reminder to wrap it before you tap it

[Kevin Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

[danna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man. I don’t even know what to say. I am floored. Harold Raab is a deeply disgusting, manipulative, and fearful man. And in spite of this (or because of it) I feel a deep affinity to and for him. He is so deeply attuned to the human condition of those around him. He is so attuned to this life, its futility, its nonsensical, incredible, meaningless, and devastating minutiae— and he can see how it’s all so beautiful. Almost too beautiful. He doesn’t know what to do with all this time and all this horror all this possibility, all this beauty and the fact that it will someday, far away, someday, coming soon but not yet, someday, like any other day, like now— will not cease to exist, but we will. And therefore we will cease to exist the horror and the beauty. To experience it. This is an incredible story about the truths of our lives, and our conditional human experience. An absolute knockout. I’ve never read anything like it, both vulgar and graceful, I feel so deeply truly lucky to have chanced upon this tour de force of a novel. Thank you Henry Bean. Thank you McNally Editions.

[Sarina Uriza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harold Raab is bored, is learning that life is moving forward and he is standing still, or rather sitting still staring out the window in his bedroom or down at the empty pages of his notebook. By chance he catches a phone conversation, and a comment about a woman he doesn’t know yet. This minor moment sets in motion his chase, his obsession, his hatred, his metamorphosis (of sorts) and descent into meeting himself head on. I thought this book was going to be solely about obsession and the flightiness of human emotion and heart. However, deeper themes such as the passing of time, fidelity, loyalty, and death (to name a few) emerge.

A page turner from the start. A must read for those that love a dark “love” story.

[Sofia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was interesting in the ways in which it dives into identity, feeling lost, and whatever weird sexual thing he’s got going on. However, I found it more interesting as a semi-historical account and description of the social conventions of the sixties, because at times the plot was mind numbingly boring. There’s interesting commentary interspersed throughout the novel but Harold was so insufferable it was overall hard to sympathize.

[Perrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

McNally Editions has been on a roll

[Lucas França · Rating 5 out of 5]

made me wish i, too, lived in a cute little house with my friends. i’m not sure the house was described as cute or little but i’m using my reader’s license okay

[Ellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Page ~1-80/general: I LOVED the writing style of this, and unlike similar writing styles of tortured men that I have loved previously (bukowski etc.), I felt the women in the novel were as developed as the men. I can picture exactly what it would be like to have a conversation with and what my personal opinions would be of Lucy, and of Donna etc. Being able to picture this for every character in a book creates the rich world that you seek through reading. This may be an incredibly low bar, but surprising how many bestsellers etc. don’t prioritise this. And how many older writers only think about this for their male characters.

Middle section: I found the way he writes about sex pretty grotesque, and although I’m sure that’s the whole point, it definitely made reading the book less enjoyable, but, more importantly, distracted from the way the rest of it was so poetically written, so that inevitably took a few points off for me. This part of the book was so bleak (much bleaker than the end, somehow) that even though I still wanted to read it, I didn’t feel good reading it all. I know books shouldn’t always make you feel good, but it was the kind of dark feeling without fascination, just darkness, that I also wouldn’t recommend to others to feel - so there are some minus points here too.

End section: I found this part much more interesting, maybe because the wholly unnecessary torture inflicted by human beings was over, and this was a more natural kind of torturous experience being witnessed. I especially liked the final pages; I think the description of her working her way towards death was unlike anything else I’d ever read on the subject.

Probably would have given 5* if not for that extra level of sinister that I wasn’t quite prepared for - although this in itself was pretty impressive.

[Henry Begler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really, really good novel, perfectly controlled, funny, grotesque, hits at incredibly uncomfortable emotional truths about sex, love, using and being used. Oddly reminded me of the Golden Notebook, a male Golden Notebook I guess. Both novels I think have this penetrating glare into human anxieties around sex and how men and women use the other as an instrument for some kind of emotional getting off without seeing them as fully human. And the novelists’ gaze is so fearsome and intelligent and so real that you can’t really deny a lot of the truth of what they say (I had to stop TGN halfway through bc I was recently out of a relationship and too emotionally raw). But I think they both foreclose a little easily on the possibility of love as a whole. To Bean and Lessing it’s either a desperate delusion or a lie or something that is so difficult to get to without all kinds of hangups getting in the way that it might as well be in another galaxy. You kinda wonder if they have ever walked out in the morning with a coffee and looked at the light hitting the leaves. I guess another way to say that is that The Nenoquich is in this tradition of outsider screeds that all flows from Dostoevsky and Notes From Underground. And Dostoevsky even at his darkest will always give you that one moment of grace, if the protagonist doesn’t accept it it is at least shown to be a possibility. Not because he’s schmaltzy or a Christian moralist, but because it’s like the yin yang symbol, there’s always a little grace in the most wretched moments and vice versa, that’s life. But I go on, this was really worth my time and I’m glad McNally Editions is out there doing what they do.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harold Raab is a complete sociopath. Wanting to be a writer, he comes up with a plan to seduce a married woman as fodder for his writing. Ugh. The concept is despicable in its conception, and worse in its execution. He seems to be completely without affect. He tells us repeatedly that he doesn't love Charlotte. It's all about the sex for him. And lacking any real connection with her, even the sex fails sometimes. He toys with her emotionally, going hot and cold. It takes so much to rouse him that he only really feels for her when he gets her angry.

He's the same emotionless cold fish with his family. He's unable to care about his dying grandmother, unable to visit her in her final months, either for her sake, for his father's sake or even out of some sort of abstract sense of duty.

He does seem to have a real human connection to his roommates and has glimmers of connection to his other friends. But when everything falls apart, he abandons them too.

In the end he finds a form of redemption, but it is a sociopathic redemption.

And yet, for all of this, I still liked him. He is smart and charming. When he is on with his friends and with Charlotte, he is a good guy to hang out with. And I believed to the end that he could be a good writer and even that his bad qualities might make him a better writer. He is aware of his weaknesses and failings, though he only gets half a point for that one since a self-aware douche bag is still a douche bag. Then how is it that Henry Bean was able to make me keep liking him? That's part of the talent that some horrid sociopaths have, but I mostly put it down to good writing by Mr. Bean.

[Jk105 · Rating 2 out of 5]

A “nenoquich” is a “worthless” person. Be warned about its meaning before opening this book.

There was a time in the ‘70s when young denizens in the Bay Area eschewed careers and worked jobs that basically paid the rent. It is wild to imagine that not that long ago, at least in my lifetime, people in San Francisco could afford rents while employed at low paying workplaces. Times have changed, but it’s important to keep in mind that Henry Bean is writing about a time when people preferred to kick back and live rather than toil away at a desk from nine to five.

This world no longer exists, and it could make for an interesting novel. My friends at the time used the freedom away from exhausting careers to explore personal interests, meet interesting people; it was their version of traveling a year in Europe after graduation…then settling down with a job and adult responsibilities. The problem with “The Nenoquich” is that Bean’s characters are dull deadbeats, amoral slugs that would be repellant in real life, and not made interesting in this book. I enjoy problematic characters in fiction, however, the author needs to make them compelling to read. Otherwise finishing the book is a challenge.

Thankfully “Nenoquich” is a short novel and Bean creates strong sentences that I intellectually appreciated. Too bad the starry writing couldn’t make “worthless” people worth the effort to read about.

[Thomas Singer · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What is a liar? It is someone with a secret he keeps even from himself, and he invents delicious surrogate secrets to help disguise the original. He pretends to hidden alcoholism, homosexuality, madness; he imagines himself a sadist, an idiot, loveless and unloved, a child. But deep in his heart, no, deeper than that, he knows that these, too, are lies and disguises concealing something else.
Test him. Discover his false secret (he will blurt it out at the first opportunity), then take it away from him. Say 'Don't be silly, you have those feelings like anyone else, but that doesn't make you ____.' This is most reasonable reassurance, eminently correct, yet he will resist it with the farthest fetched arguments and cling to his 'horrible secret' like a thing beloved. It is his briar patch, the fear he knows, and not willingly will he be driven to others he has not yet learned to love. "

[Amanda Coscarelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think what I love most about this book is that it describes being in your twenties in a way that transcends the boundaries of decades and generations. It also explained parts of myself that I couldn’t explain before reading the words on the pages. Harold Raab is a shitty person but there are parts of him that I’m able to love as well. What’s even greater is that the other characters are just as layered.

The writing style is my second favorite thing about this book. It’s written in journal entries that often float into stream of consciousness descriptions of life or of scenes that don’t really make sense, but if you think about them long enough, or maybe don’t think about them too much, they do. Unfortunately the reason I may have understood Harold so much and was so intrigued by his imagination is because this is probably the type of guy I’d go for. This protagonist’s story might be a self-inflicted train-wreck but I’m absolutely here for his recap.

[Mike]

Maybe in part because Bean is a writer/director, I thought often of the Mike Nichols movie Carnal Knowledge while reading this, another story about men treating women they’re romantically involved with poorly. Dare I say this book is funnier and also ultimately darker (somehow) and the movie is *dark*. The ending sorta makes the book — you won’t forget it — even if a lot of the affair and the narrator’s mid-20s wallowing feels familiar (by now, probably, the book was originally published in 1982). A reminder that great sex at the expense of everything else is a nuclear bomb waiting to go off.

[Ken · Rating 3 out of 5]

A severely depressed man goes from bad to worse, hating himself, and fueling his depression by using and hurting his lover.

His lover, likewise, has her own severe issues of self confidence and acceptance of abuse.

It’s a sad tale, not uplifting. There is a redundancy to the story. The author does an okay job of conveying what he wanted to convey.

I’m just disappointed in myself for investing my time in this downer.

[Gary Homewood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts off promising, a half-hearted writer and his housemates at the tail end of the hippy era, sexual politics, etc. He pursues and has an affair with a married woman. I'm generally ok with unlikeable protagonists, but this one is privileged and self obsessed to the point of parody, wallowing in self pity, has no redeeming qualities, is cruel to everyone he knows.

Ends in tradegy. Very depressing. No idea what point the author was trying to make.

[Yasmin · Rating 1 out of 5]

disclaimer: I did not finish the book. To say it was difficult to continue reading is an understatement. This book simply did not click for me. I tried so hard to continue reading it but it was an impossible task. Who knows? Someone else might love it so maybe give it a go anyways.

[Breeanna Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harold is a freaking leech. As soon as he has no source of blood he becomes weak. Then as soon as he leeches on to someone again, it’s like he continually grows stronger as they suffer.
Not too sure about the plot, but the prose was very nice.