Madly: A Novel

by William Benton

Love, with its fear, exhilaration and transcendence, is perhaps the most enduring subject in the literature of the world.

About 11 o'clock on a late August night in Manhattan, Bill stops by his local video store, and in the nearly vacant shop meets an exotic stranger looking for advice on which movie to rent. In their fragmented and awkward first conversation, they exchange phone numbers and she rides away on her bicycle with a copy of Jules and Jim .

"At two that morning my phone rang. The machine answered; it was Irina saying how much she liked the movie." Not long after, they meet and soon begin a love affair, filled with tension and tenderness, as they navigate through their separate pasts to find a road to travel together, for as long as their fates allow. Madly is a story of accident and inflected passion, of disruption, erotic and doomed. As Bill comes to realize Irina's disturbed, tenuous hold on reality, his own hold on Irina turns relentless and obsessive.

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[GD Dess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Madly is an elegy. An exquisite examination of a doomed love affair between an American poet and a mad Russian woman who writes poetry. Even though the narrator suspects the psychological damage done to this Russian beauty early in her young life is irreparable, the desire to help another poet, and the lure of pleasure, is too strong to resist. But Irina is girl whose grasp on reality is fragile and fleeting. The novel explores the ephemeral nature of love and the impossibility of maintaining happiness as a permanent state in which one can luxuriate for any length of time. Sweet and melancholic by turns Benton explores the ineffable otherness of a lover.
The writing is spare, precise, elegant and expressive, without being overwrought. Everything you would expect from a poet, which William Benton is. Highly recommended.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brief novel about a torrid, difficult affair between an older poet and a young, beautiful (of course), damaged stripper/aspiring poet. It's about sex and poetry, specifically, translating Pasternak from the Russian. Benton writes fearlessly and graphically...and that's just about the poetry. Insightful, heartbreaking, and truthful.

[Mimi Park · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impeccably written. Courageous and beautiful piece of work.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this in the remainders for $1.75. It deserves better than that. Quite a good novel -- more like 4 stars, but let's give the unloved a nudge in the right direction.