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La vita di prima
Ruggero è un anziano musicista italiano che vive a New York, sposato in seconde nozze con Constance, una trentenne americana. Entrambi bisessuali, con numerose relazioni alle spalle, una sera si accordano per scrivere le proprie memorie, rivelando così le parti più intime e scabrose del loro passato, che avevano deciso di tenere nascoste per un'ostinata diffidenza verso la verità e la trasparenza. Costretti, per un incidente sciistico, a rimanere chiusi nel loro chalet in Svizzera, cominciano quest'opera di disvelamento, leggendosi le proprie pagine a turno. Constance racconta dei suoi primi e sfortunati matrimoni, nonché della sua relazione con una critica d'arte arrivista e mondana, e Ruggero della sua educazione erotica in Sicilia e degli amori romani, prima del matrimonio con un'aristocratica musicista tedesca. Ma il capitolo più importante e delicato riguarda la tormentata relazione tra Ruggero, allora quarantenne, e il celebre scrittore Edmund White, ormai ottantenne. Una storia entusiasmante e complessa che, da una parte è un prologo della futura storia tra Constance e Ruggero, e dall'altra, è soprattutto la cronaca spietata e acuta delle difficoltà di una relazione tra persone di età molto diverse, della toccante illusione che le anima, nonostante, come sottolinea lo stesso Edmund White, siamo “immersi in una cultura che ci ricorda a ogni istante quanto sia assurdo per un vecchio aspettarsi l'amore da un giovane”.
360 pages, Paperback
First published January 25, 2022
102 people are currently reading
6110 people want to read
About the author
Edmund White
139 books908 followersEdmund Valentine White III was an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer, and essayist. He was the recipient of Lambda Literary's Visionary Award, the National Book Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award, and the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. France made him Chevalier (and later Officier) de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1993.
White was known as a groundbreaking writer of gay literature and a major influence on gay American literature and has been called "the first major queer novelist to champion a new generation of writers."
White was known as a groundbreaking writer of gay literature and a major influence on gay American literature and has been called "the first major queer novelist to champion a new generation of writers."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
December 9, 2021
I so wanted to like Edmund White's novel more, but I found its exploration of love, identity, sexual orientation and fluidity, and the ageing process, turned out to be a mixed reading experience for me. Set in the future of 2050, we have the flawed married couple, Sicilian Ruggero is in his seventies, his mixed race American wife, Constance, is considerably younger, an accident has confined the pair in their Swiss chalet. Both of them of them had been reticient about their personal histories in their marriage, present circumstances provide them with the opportunity to open up, to 'confess' their past, from their childhoods to their relationships through the decades. They each write of their lives, and then read of it to each other, of their numerous relationships with men and women. For Ruggero, for it is he who holds centre stage in comparison to Constance who comes across as a minor sideshow, it includes a crucial but doomed relationship with the author and its repercussions, yes, White has inserted himself in the story, where he is now a barely remembered writer. Whilst I found aspects of the narrative interesting, even fun and captivating, other parts failed to connect, and some aspects were distinctly unsettling. Perhaps others will enjoy this novel more. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
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December 18, 2021Y’know, considering I’ve never even met Edmund White, I feel I know way too much about his sex life. The easily admirable aspects of his nature, like his enthusiasm, his self-indulgence, his curiosity and his openness to experience. And the more complex ones, like the masochism, and his far from politically correct obsession with, uh, intergenerational relationships? (I know it was written in the 70s but there’s stuff in there about being with11-year-old boys). But there’s something so inescapably charming about Edmund White, as a person, and as a writer. I mean, he’s extra fuck, always has been, but that’s what you sign up for.
And A Previous Life is no different. Being a playful—and at times poignant—piece of metatext that is, in other ways, so outlandish I’m still not quite sure how to process it. The book opens semi-reasonably enough with a husband (Ruggero) and wife (Constance) temporarily trapped together in a Swiss chalet after he breaks his leg skiing: of particular note are the differences between them, both in age (he’s in his 70s, she her 40s) and cultural background (she’s a mixed-race orphan from small-town America, he’s a wealthy Sicilian aristocrat). Since they’ve never spoken about their past lives to each other, they decide to write their ‘confessions’ and read them aloud to pass the time. Hovering like a spectre over said confessions is the knowledge of Ruggero’s previous love affair with the writer Edmund White, in his eighties at the time they were together. I should also note, the book is set in 2050—with White long dead, his legacy reduced to that of an obscure gay writer, from a future where queer liberation has become as passe as feminism.
Constance—terrified of the inevitable abandonment in loving someone significantly older than she is—ultimately leaves Ruggero for a staid, kind American lover of her own age who can give her the family that Ruggero refuses to. The second half of the novel drifts increasingly from the conceit of the first, as we delve—via emails and second accounts—into the details of Ruggero’s intense but doomed affair with Edmund White. And finally still further into the future where both Constance and Ruggero have found their own happiness, apart from each other.
I mean, there’s no getting away from the fact that this is intensely readable, intensely weird and—on occasion—intensely problematic? Because Constance and Ruggero are both bisexual there’s a lot of examination, from both of them, in the early sections about the differences between men and women, sexually, emotionally, and socially. It was hard to pin down an exact time frame for what felt like quite outdated views of gender and sexuality, and to be fair those views do seem to change across the course of the book. Obviously, they’re both very flawed characters, equally damaged in their different ways, and Ruggero a charismatic narcissist obsessed with his own masculinity, plus the idea that every character can only manifest whatever is currently deemed the appropriate view of their sexuality identity is nonsense. That is not what fiction is for. Even so, as a person … well … I don’t identify as bisexual but gender identity doesn’t play into attraction for me … it felt a bit odd to witness two people describing and articulating their fluid sexual identities in a way that was wholly alienating to me. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever sat there with a lover and made declarative statements, either to them, or in their own head of what men are like compared to women or vice versa. A person is a person is a person, right? (I also don’t buy into the idea that sharing a set of genitals with someone else means you automatically know what to do with said genitals: everyone’s genitals are different and people like them interacted with in different ways).
Plus there’s a bit near the end where Constance mentions, in passing, her child is trans. Which, y’know, cool? But she also seems to be misgendering this child throughout the narrative. The reference to GnRH and vagino plasty makes me feel that Constance has a daughter, yet this is not the term she uses, nor does she use she/her pronouns. It’s messy as all heck (and not the only passing piece of transphobia in the book, although the other example is restricted to a character we are not supposed to like).
The sections with Edmund White in them are … really hard to parse. Impossible not to admire the sheer bollocks of including yourself in a novel as the protagonist’s great, impossible love. While also showing yourself as old, vulnerable and physically grotesque. Obviously, one shouldn’t read too much into a narrative so deliberately intended blur the lines between what the world may be inclined to view as binary categories—homosexuality and heterosexuality, male and female, love and sex, past and future, fact and fiction (plus there’s My Lives if you want honesty without the veil of fiction)—but sometimes I almost felt White was indulging in a kind of authorial masochism at my expense. Like the whole book is just an impish octogenarian wank fantasy. But, hell, if it is. Fair play. I don’t mind getting Edmund White off. His writing is important to me, even when it goes to places I have no interest in or connection to.
I’m hard pressed to know how to end this review. This may be a difficult book to recommend because of *waves hands* all the things? I honestly did kind of relish it, fascinated in spite of my frequent discomfort, and in spite of not really knowing where it was going or what it was doing the half. Whatever else is going on, Edmund White (the actual writer, not his fictional counterpart) can still a story. Ruggero is a shameless narcissist and shamelessly charming; the book itself knocks him into a cocked hat on both counts. By contrast, poor Constance felt somewhat like an after-thought throughout, her sexuality increasingly feeling like a conduit for male desire than wholly belonging to her. And while she does find happiness in her choice to prioritise stability and tradition, she does also kind of end up doing the Eliza Hamilton thing of cataloguing Ruggero’s affair with Edmund White. Ruggero, by contrast, seem to finally find peace in bisexual polyamory and getting done up the arse. Which is certainly one way of finding a happy ending.
And A Previous Life is no different. Being a playful—and at times poignant—piece of metatext that is, in other ways, so outlandish I’m still not quite sure how to process it. The book opens semi-reasonably enough with a husband (Ruggero) and wife (Constance) temporarily trapped together in a Swiss chalet after he breaks his leg skiing: of particular note are the differences between them, both in age (he’s in his 70s, she her 40s) and cultural background (she’s a mixed-race orphan from small-town America, he’s a wealthy Sicilian aristocrat). Since they’ve never spoken about their past lives to each other, they decide to write their ‘confessions’ and read them aloud to pass the time. Hovering like a spectre over said confessions is the knowledge of Ruggero’s previous love affair with the writer Edmund White, in his eighties at the time they were together. I should also note, the book is set in 2050—with White long dead, his legacy reduced to that of an obscure gay writer, from a future where queer liberation has become as passe as feminism.
Constance—terrified of the inevitable abandonment in loving someone significantly older than she is—ultimately leaves Ruggero for a staid, kind American lover of her own age who can give her the family that Ruggero refuses to. The second half of the novel drifts increasingly from the conceit of the first, as we delve—via emails and second accounts—into the details of Ruggero’s intense but doomed affair with Edmund White. And finally still further into the future where both Constance and Ruggero have found their own happiness, apart from each other.
I mean, there’s no getting away from the fact that this is intensely readable, intensely weird and—on occasion—intensely problematic? Because Constance and Ruggero are both bisexual there’s a lot of examination, from both of them, in the early sections about the differences between men and women, sexually, emotionally, and socially. It was hard to pin down an exact time frame for what felt like quite outdated views of gender and sexuality, and to be fair those views do seem to change across the course of the book. Obviously, they’re both very flawed characters, equally damaged in their different ways, and Ruggero a charismatic narcissist obsessed with his own masculinity, plus the idea that every character can only manifest whatever is currently deemed the appropriate view of their sexuality identity is nonsense. That is not what fiction is for. Even so, as a person … well … I don’t identify as bisexual but gender identity doesn’t play into attraction for me … it felt a bit odd to witness two people describing and articulating their fluid sexual identities in a way that was wholly alienating to me. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever sat there with a lover and made declarative statements, either to them, or in their own head of what men are like compared to women or vice versa. A person is a person is a person, right? (I also don’t buy into the idea that sharing a set of genitals with someone else means you automatically know what to do with said genitals: everyone’s genitals are different and people like them interacted with in different ways).
Plus there’s a bit near the end where Constance mentions, in passing, her child is trans. Which, y’know, cool? But she also seems to be misgendering this child throughout the narrative. The reference to GnRH and vagino plasty makes me feel that Constance has a daughter, yet this is not the term she uses, nor does she use she/her pronouns. It’s messy as all heck (and not the only passing piece of transphobia in the book, although the other example is restricted to a character we are not supposed to like).
The sections with Edmund White in them are … really hard to parse. Impossible not to admire the sheer bollocks of including yourself in a novel as the protagonist’s great, impossible love. While also showing yourself as old, vulnerable and physically grotesque. Obviously, one shouldn’t read too much into a narrative so deliberately intended blur the lines between what the world may be inclined to view as binary categories—homosexuality and heterosexuality, male and female, love and sex, past and future, fact and fiction (plus there’s My Lives if you want honesty without the veil of fiction)—but sometimes I almost felt White was indulging in a kind of authorial masochism at my expense. Like the whole book is just an impish octogenarian wank fantasy. But, hell, if it is. Fair play. I don’t mind getting Edmund White off. His writing is important to me, even when it goes to places I have no interest in or connection to.
I’m hard pressed to know how to end this review. This may be a difficult book to recommend because of *waves hands* all the things? I honestly did kind of relish it, fascinated in spite of my frequent discomfort, and in spite of not really knowing where it was going or what it was doing the half. Whatever else is going on, Edmund White (the actual writer, not his fictional counterpart) can still a story. Ruggero is a shameless narcissist and shamelessly charming; the book itself knocks him into a cocked hat on both counts. By contrast, poor Constance felt somewhat like an after-thought throughout, her sexuality increasingly feeling like a conduit for male desire than wholly belonging to her. And while she does find happiness in her choice to prioritise stability and tradition, she does also kind of end up doing the Eliza Hamilton thing of cataloguing Ruggero’s affair with Edmund White. Ruggero, by contrast, seem to finally find peace in bisexual polyamory and getting done up the arse. Which is certainly one way of finding a happy ending.
January 18, 2022
What he fears most is that he'll be remembered chiefly as the man who ruined Edmund White's life.
An elderly man, and his forty years younger wife decide to break their vow never to discuss their past lives, and write their "confessions" - tell-all missives revealing secrets and lovers - meant to be burned after reading.
As I am a nosy person who's been married for over thirty years, I enjoyed snooping into the private lives of these two, shall we say, more libertine characters, and the large cast of others with whom they interact, and frequently screw. Yes, that includes the author. And, yes, sex is both discussed quite frankly, and occasionally performed - rather pornographically. Know that going in, and you'll have less to complain about later.
If you're in the mood for an honest, warts-and-all evaluation of an (almost) modern-day relationship, this could be the book for you.
An elderly man, and his forty years younger wife decide to break their vow never to discuss their past lives, and write their "confessions" - tell-all missives revealing secrets and lovers - meant to be burned after reading.
As I am a nosy person who's been married for over thirty years, I enjoyed snooping into the private lives of these two, shall we say, more libertine characters, and the large cast of others with whom they interact, and frequently screw. Yes, that includes the author. And, yes, sex is both discussed quite frankly, and occasionally performed - rather pornographically. Know that going in, and you'll have less to complain about later.
If you're in the mood for an honest, warts-and-all evaluation of an (almost) modern-day relationship, this could be the book for you.
July 12, 2022
It’s 2050 and a married couple in a Swiss ski resort decide to entertain themselves by each recounting their past sexual exploits. Constance is African-American in her 30s and Ruggero is her elderly bisexual Sicilian aristocratic husband. An unlikely pair, perhaps, but apparently devoted to each other and more than happy to explore their pasts. Why 2050? Apparently so that Ruggero can reminisce about his affair 30 years earlier with a writer called – Edmund White. I’m not clear what the point of this book was, unless to indulge in a stream of graphic sexual encounters of all shapes and sizes. Self-referential, self-indulgent, this is simply pornography pretending to be high literature. It isn’t. It’s not funny, not clever and not entertaining. Well, it wasn’t for me, anyway. I found it tedious and gave up quite early on. Nothing about this unconvincing couple encouraged me to learn more about them. So I didn’t.
April 3, 2022
I had never read Edmund White before and did not really know what to expect. ‘Shocked’ is a big word, but it was certainly an unusual and surprising reading experience. Some of it worked very well, some parts where rather tedious and repetitive and I grew tired towards the end.
It all starts interesting enough: a married couple, 70-year old Sicilian aristocrat and narcissist Ruggero and his much younger American wife Constance, decide to write and then read aloud to each other their respective memoirs. Both are very honest and open and of course they are especially interested in their partner’s former lovers: why did they break up, does he/she think the same way about me? Both are bi-sexual which in a way brings in an interesting additional tension. But the biggest element of interest is the age difference, which is the main theme this novel explores. What is also interesting is that the novel is set in 2050, which gives them about 30 years to look back at our current times.
I could not help feeling though that this set-up, which as such is intriguing, served primarily a device for the author to expand on whatever it was he wanted to expand (or perhaps ‘chat’ is a better word) on. In this order his main interests are: (gay) sex, age and age difference, everything Italian (the Italian frequently interspersed in the text is ok but not great) and classical music. I felt the consistency of the characters was less important than giving them an extra hobby or extra lover just so that Edmund White could expand on/show off what he had recently learned.
Boredom set in when Ruggero’s romance with the much older author Edmund White was described at length. The metafictional element had no real function for me, but perhaps it does for Edmund White. He doesn’t spare himself (describing his diaper rashes and the fact he will be forgotten in 30 years), and is very open about his sexual preferences, but I fear I was neither offended nor interested.
So, 4 stars for the first half and 2 stars for the second makes 3.
Thanks a lot to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced reading copy!
It all starts interesting enough: a married couple, 70-year old Sicilian aristocrat and narcissist Ruggero and his much younger American wife Constance, decide to write and then read aloud to each other their respective memoirs. Both are very honest and open and of course they are especially interested in their partner’s former lovers: why did they break up, does he/she think the same way about me? Both are bi-sexual which in a way brings in an interesting additional tension. But the biggest element of interest is the age difference, which is the main theme this novel explores. What is also interesting is that the novel is set in 2050, which gives them about 30 years to look back at our current times.
I could not help feeling though that this set-up, which as such is intriguing, served primarily a device for the author to expand on whatever it was he wanted to expand (or perhaps ‘chat’ is a better word) on. In this order his main interests are: (gay) sex, age and age difference, everything Italian (the Italian frequently interspersed in the text is ok but not great) and classical music. I felt the consistency of the characters was less important than giving them an extra hobby or extra lover just so that Edmund White could expand on/show off what he had recently learned.
Boredom set in when Ruggero’s romance with the much older author Edmund White was described at length. The metafictional element had no real function for me, but perhaps it does for Edmund White. He doesn’t spare himself (describing his diaper rashes and the fact he will be forgotten in 30 years), and is very open about his sexual preferences, but I fear I was neither offended nor interested.
So, 4 stars for the first half and 2 stars for the second makes 3.
Thanks a lot to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced reading copy!
March 1, 2025
This novel is one hell of a compelling argument against the notion that novelists get less adventurous as they age. It's one of the most structurally audacious, sexually frank and courageous books I've read in a long time.
In my view the book is overwritten (if you like to be reminded of characters' penis sizes every few pages, this is the book for you!) but I salute the boldness and found many sequences compelling. It ain't easy to write a good sex scene (and if you don't enjoy reading such things this is NOT the book for you!) but his are largely successes, deftly exploring fresh emotional terrain.
At this point in his career, Edmund White is a man with no F's left to give. I'm grateful to him for writing the book he wanted to, and for lending his considerable talents, craft and erudition to that end.
In my view the book is overwritten (if you like to be reminded of characters' penis sizes every few pages, this is the book for you!) but I salute the boldness and found many sequences compelling. It ain't easy to write a good sex scene (and if you don't enjoy reading such things this is NOT the book for you!) but his are largely successes, deftly exploring fresh emotional terrain.
At this point in his career, Edmund White is a man with no F's left to give. I'm grateful to him for writing the book he wanted to, and for lending his considerable talents, craft and erudition to that end.
August 11, 2022
Edmund White gives zero fucks and I am LIVING for it.
September 5, 2023
Ed, Ed, my dear Ed. I understand why you keep writing. For the life of me, I don’t understand why you keep getting published.
September 26, 2024
2024: I'm trying this thing where I re-read more books than I normally do because the dead authors in my head keep insisting that it's The Thing To Do. I was in Agincourt Library when I saw this book and without thinking much about it, plucked it off the shelf and carried it out in my arms (along with three John Williams books which so far feels like a mistake).
I still loved every minute of it, though this time around I paid closer attention to the music references to find out that I'm not into the sound of the harpsichord. But that might just be cultural propaganda in favour of the piano.
2022: I loved it. Every minute and every word of it.
I can't remember how it was that I found out about Edmund White in the first place; just that I read his book of essays (Arts and Letters) and lost myself in his essay on Nabokov. I really need to make better note of how I find these authors, I swear... But. I do know that Edmund White writes autobiographical fiction—and so it came as no surprise to me that he is a character in his own novel that is about him only in the secondary way (yet is still very much about him). The first half of A Previous Life centers around Constance and Ruggero, a married couple with a vast age difference between them, whereas the latter half of the book mirrors the fallout of Constance and Ruggero's marriage with the exposition of Ruggelo and Edmund's love affair.
The most interesting thing about this novel is how it manages to disrupt one's sense of time. It goes back and forth temporally but above all else, I think what messed me up the most is how the book, A Previous Life, is mentioned in the story itself as if it is a different book altogether. Or at least, that's what I want to think, given how much I'm struggling with the self-referential-ness of it all.
It amazes me how Edmund White (the writer) can talk about Edmund White (the character) in the way that he does in the novel. Self-effacing or self-aggrandizing? Who's to say?
But yes. I love how obscene and pornographic it gets in one page, and insightful and philosophical in another. I want to read everything Edmund White has ever written.
I still loved every minute of it, though this time around I paid closer attention to the music references to find out that I'm not into the sound of the harpsichord. But that might just be cultural propaganda in favour of the piano.
2022: I loved it. Every minute and every word of it.
I can't remember how it was that I found out about Edmund White in the first place; just that I read his book of essays (Arts and Letters) and lost myself in his essay on Nabokov. I really need to make better note of how I find these authors, I swear... But. I do know that Edmund White writes autobiographical fiction—and so it came as no surprise to me that he is a character in his own novel that is about him only in the secondary way (yet is still very much about him). The first half of A Previous Life centers around Constance and Ruggero, a married couple with a vast age difference between them, whereas the latter half of the book mirrors the fallout of Constance and Ruggero's marriage with the exposition of Ruggelo and Edmund's love affair.
The most interesting thing about this novel is how it manages to disrupt one's sense of time. It goes back and forth temporally but above all else, I think what messed me up the most is how the book, A Previous Life, is mentioned in the story itself as if it is a different book altogether. Or at least, that's what I want to think, given how much I'm struggling with the self-referential-ness of it all.
It amazes me how Edmund White (the writer) can talk about Edmund White (the character) in the way that he does in the novel. Self-effacing or self-aggrandizing? Who's to say?
But yes. I love how obscene and pornographic it gets in one page, and insightful and philosophical in another. I want to read everything Edmund White has ever written.
September 14, 2021
What a delight! White pulls off a work that has a story within a story, within a story. The characters are wonderfully vivid. Ruggero, a 70-80 year old, wealthy, aristocratic Sicilian, and his current amor Constance, a 40 something American, are telling each other the story of their lives, commenting to each other on their narratives and even sharing their insight with the reader. As the work takes place in 2050, much of the this past narrative is of the current time period with references to Covid, AIDS, etc. A total joy and very funny is meeting Edmund White, the real novelist/character, who is in his 70s when he meets the 30-40 year old young stud Ruggero. This relationship flourishes, and in the 2050s, Constance investigates the relationship of the long dead White and Ruggero, and its effect on both characters.
My thanks to Edelweiss/Above the Treeline for this free electronic copy in exchange for an unbiased review.
My thanks to Edelweiss/Above the Treeline for this free electronic copy in exchange for an unbiased review.
Read
August 25, 2023Did not finish. Got 10% of the way through and it was just not good. Didn’t grab my attention, dull, male character who is just annoying. Didn’t like the sex stuff either.
April 22, 2023
Despite my general dislike of
A Boy's Own Story
, I've been meaning to read another White novel if only because he's held in high esteem by authors whose opinions I generally respect. So I went into A Previous Life with an open mind, hoping perhaps my feelings towards A Boy's Own Story was a fluke.
And I didn't hate it. But at the same time, I don't know if A Previous Life is a hateable novel, simply because there isn't really anything in here that would illict strong emotion. His prose has this way of sucking the life out of his characters and the situations they find themselves in, rendering them flat and affectless. Constance's rape by her adoptive uncle, for instance, should be a harrowing, awful scene that, even if it does not define her as a character, should at least make the reader feel something. Even the consensual sex felt tedious, and I had to resist the urge to skim.
The thing is, there is a good novel in here somewhere. I wasn't particularly interested in either of the "memoirs" that formed the bulk of the plot in the first half, because the characters were shallow and caricatured, but I've always liked metafiction and author-insert fiction in general and found White's take on it fascinating. It reminded me of novels like Possession , and I wished the entire book had been just the second half, with Colin or Constance as the main character and falling down the rabbit hole of this now-obscure gay writer and his affair with the still-living Ruggero. I'd have liked to read that novel.
However, that is not the novel we got. Instead, White abandoned the interesting commentary about authors and muses and age-gap relationships in favor of commentary on bisexuality and polyamory, conversations in which he added nothing new to the table, and instead uses them to project a sort of sexual utopia of the future. It's definitely all very... octogenarian, and reminds me of articles written about polyamory and its supposed growing popularity amongst young people, written by over-eager gen-xers who mistake small movements for widespread social change.
I think that if Edmund White's novels do persevere after his death (which I'm sure they will considering how many people, if not me, still do read and like A Boy's Own Story), this will be counted among his lesser novels. Which is fair. The fact that he's in his eighties and still writing is admirable enough.
And I didn't hate it. But at the same time, I don't know if A Previous Life is a hateable novel, simply because there isn't really anything in here that would illict strong emotion. His prose has this way of sucking the life out of his characters and the situations they find themselves in, rendering them flat and affectless. Constance's rape by her adoptive uncle, for instance, should be a harrowing, awful scene that, even if it does not define her as a character, should at least make the reader feel something. Even the consensual sex felt tedious, and I had to resist the urge to skim.
The thing is, there is a good novel in here somewhere. I wasn't particularly interested in either of the "memoirs" that formed the bulk of the plot in the first half, because the characters were shallow and caricatured, but I've always liked metafiction and author-insert fiction in general and found White's take on it fascinating. It reminded me of novels like Possession , and I wished the entire book had been just the second half, with Colin or Constance as the main character and falling down the rabbit hole of this now-obscure gay writer and his affair with the still-living Ruggero. I'd have liked to read that novel.
However, that is not the novel we got. Instead, White abandoned the interesting commentary about authors and muses and age-gap relationships in favor of commentary on bisexuality and polyamory, conversations in which he added nothing new to the table, and instead uses them to project a sort of sexual utopia of the future. It's definitely all very... octogenarian, and reminds me of articles written about polyamory and its supposed growing popularity amongst young people, written by over-eager gen-xers who mistake small movements for widespread social change.
I think that if Edmund White's novels do persevere after his death (which I'm sure they will considering how many people, if not me, still do read and like A Boy's Own Story), this will be counted among his lesser novels. Which is fair. The fact that he's in his eighties and still writing is admirable enough.
November 24, 2021
Thank you to NetGalley, for this ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
After reading this, I am still not fully sure what I read. I went into this really wanting to enjoy it based on the book blurb. However, the tangential nature of the writing with no chapters, headings, subheadings, etc made it difficult to follow at times. This was especially evident in the last half where the tale appeared to nosedive into a stream of consciousness, where an additional draft could have aided in flow.
After reading this, I am still not fully sure what I read. I went into this really wanting to enjoy it based on the book blurb. However, the tangential nature of the writing with no chapters, headings, subheadings, etc made it difficult to follow at times. This was especially evident in the last half where the tale appeared to nosedive into a stream of consciousness, where an additional draft could have aided in flow.
December 6, 2021
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I found A Previous Life scattered, disorganized, and confusing. It begins with a couple, Ruggero and Constance, agreeing to write down and share with each other their romantic/sexual histories. If I understood correctly, it was said thay prior to this agreement they did not share their pasts with each other. But as they were reading their stories to each other, it seemed both of them were already familiar with most of what the other was sharing. It was hard to keep up with which of them was telling a story until the other character would say or think something as a response. I had to reread several parts to keep track of who was telling the story.
Ruggero shows narcissistic tendencies and was a character I instantly disliked, and other characters did bring up his narcissism many times throughout the book to reinforce that. Constance seemed very meek and in Ruggero's shadow during their relationship and I felt frustrated for her. Ruggero, throughout the book, treats others as objects or trophies, and consistently points out anything about them he sees as a flaw. It became exhausting for me to read.
After the main plot where Ruggero and Constance read their stories to each other, the book got almosf impossible for me to make sense of. The author of the book, Edmund White, is featured as a character that Ruggero has a several years affair with...and somewhere down the line Constance is writing a book about Edmund and Ruggero's relationship. There are a lot of graphic sexual details that include body shaming and degradation, which I just found uncomfortable to read.
Throughout the whole book there was misogyny, ageism, and various kinds of stereotyping of groups of people. I think it was possibly included to make the reader dislike the characters saying/thinking these things, but it was over the top for me and just not entertaining or interesting to read. None of the characters felt theee dimensional. Perhaps they were meant to be seen as caricatures. The book just wasn't what I had expected based on the blurb.
I found A Previous Life scattered, disorganized, and confusing. It begins with a couple, Ruggero and Constance, agreeing to write down and share with each other their romantic/sexual histories. If I understood correctly, it was said thay prior to this agreement they did not share their pasts with each other. But as they were reading their stories to each other, it seemed both of them were already familiar with most of what the other was sharing. It was hard to keep up with which of them was telling a story until the other character would say or think something as a response. I had to reread several parts to keep track of who was telling the story.
Ruggero shows narcissistic tendencies and was a character I instantly disliked, and other characters did bring up his narcissism many times throughout the book to reinforce that. Constance seemed very meek and in Ruggero's shadow during their relationship and I felt frustrated for her. Ruggero, throughout the book, treats others as objects or trophies, and consistently points out anything about them he sees as a flaw. It became exhausting for me to read.
After the main plot where Ruggero and Constance read their stories to each other, the book got almosf impossible for me to make sense of. The author of the book, Edmund White, is featured as a character that Ruggero has a several years affair with...and somewhere down the line Constance is writing a book about Edmund and Ruggero's relationship. There are a lot of graphic sexual details that include body shaming and degradation, which I just found uncomfortable to read.
Throughout the whole book there was misogyny, ageism, and various kinds of stereotyping of groups of people. I think it was possibly included to make the reader dislike the characters saying/thinking these things, but it was over the top for me and just not entertaining or interesting to read. None of the characters felt theee dimensional. Perhaps they were meant to be seen as caricatures. The book just wasn't what I had expected based on the blurb.
May 18, 2022
- thanks to @bloomsburypublishing for my #gifted copy
I wanted to read Edmund White for a very long time, so when I heard about his latest novel, I could not miss the chance to finally give this author a try. However, in hindsight, perhaps it was not the best idea to start this journey with A Previous Life.
I do not know if White's previous novels suffered from pretentious and dense writing like this one does, but I certainly hope they do not. It took me weeks -something that is pretty unusual- to finish this book, mainly because I was not too inspired to pick it up. In addition, I struggled severely with the writing style, especially the crammed prose and the unbelievable and forced dialogue.
Although I cannot criticise the characterisation because most characters were well-defined, I still did not appreciate the characters themselves. For example, Ruggero's character was something out of this world, and I could not wait to never hear from him again. His grandiose and flashy personality -to summarise, but I could keep going- was the perfect stereotype of an old White man trying to live life through his younger wife. I do not know what White intended for his novel's protagonist, but I pitied him from beginning to end.
I had a similar experience with Constance: she was a caricature through and through. I believe White's efforts to create nuanced and complex characters only resulted in insurmountable piles of stereotypes and prejudice. I also did not enjoy White's characterisation of himself, as I could not see past the narcissism necessary to become a character in his own novel.
The setting was another issue. Apparently, this story takes place in 2050, but there is no indication whatsoever of what life could be like in 30 years' time, no references to any sort of technology or social practices that could indicate the futuristic timeline; it looks like the author believes life will be pretty dull once he's not around.
Overall, A Previous Life was not my cup of tea. Nevertheless, I am more than intrigued to give White's previous novels a go, especially those he wrote back in the '80s and '90s.
I wanted to read Edmund White for a very long time, so when I heard about his latest novel, I could not miss the chance to finally give this author a try. However, in hindsight, perhaps it was not the best idea to start this journey with A Previous Life.
I do not know if White's previous novels suffered from pretentious and dense writing like this one does, but I certainly hope they do not. It took me weeks -something that is pretty unusual- to finish this book, mainly because I was not too inspired to pick it up. In addition, I struggled severely with the writing style, especially the crammed prose and the unbelievable and forced dialogue.
Although I cannot criticise the characterisation because most characters were well-defined, I still did not appreciate the characters themselves. For example, Ruggero's character was something out of this world, and I could not wait to never hear from him again. His grandiose and flashy personality -to summarise, but I could keep going- was the perfect stereotype of an old White man trying to live life through his younger wife. I do not know what White intended for his novel's protagonist, but I pitied him from beginning to end.
I had a similar experience with Constance: she was a caricature through and through. I believe White's efforts to create nuanced and complex characters only resulted in insurmountable piles of stereotypes and prejudice. I also did not enjoy White's characterisation of himself, as I could not see past the narcissism necessary to become a character in his own novel.
The setting was another issue. Apparently, this story takes place in 2050, but there is no indication whatsoever of what life could be like in 30 years' time, no references to any sort of technology or social practices that could indicate the futuristic timeline; it looks like the author believes life will be pretty dull once he's not around.
Overall, A Previous Life was not my cup of tea. Nevertheless, I am more than intrigued to give White's previous novels a go, especially those he wrote back in the '80s and '90s.
December 31, 2021
This book is at turns both hilarious and deeply sad, charting the relationships between many characters, not least Edmund White himself, who appears as a character, and, at one point, so does this novel.
The self-referential nature of it all seems bizarre when you begin the book, but for me, it soon transformed into something quite profound, almost as if Edmund White is playing out his deepest fears, insecurities and fantasies in these pages.
Fantasy appears heavily throughout, and the book is absolutely unapologetic and unflinching in its discussions of sex and sexuality, often getting incredibly graphic (about 5 pages in there is a detailed discussion of girth that is hilariously written). But again there is something deeper going on beneath its surface- the fantasies borne out in the book at the beginning start to be viewed through new eyes the further through the book you get, with sexuality feeling both liberating and also constraining, particularly when it comes to ageing and trying to assess one's own worth when your looks might place you outside of easy categorisation as 'attractive' or 'sexy'.
As White and his lover, friend and confidant Ruggero reveal more, told through Ruggero and Constance (and occasionally other characters) telling their stories, we piece together what White thinks of it all, told through the eyes of people writing about him after his death.
I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The self-referential nature of it all seems bizarre when you begin the book, but for me, it soon transformed into something quite profound, almost as if Edmund White is playing out his deepest fears, insecurities and fantasies in these pages.
Fantasy appears heavily throughout, and the book is absolutely unapologetic and unflinching in its discussions of sex and sexuality, often getting incredibly graphic (about 5 pages in there is a detailed discussion of girth that is hilariously written). But again there is something deeper going on beneath its surface- the fantasies borne out in the book at the beginning start to be viewed through new eyes the further through the book you get, with sexuality feeling both liberating and also constraining, particularly when it comes to ageing and trying to assess one's own worth when your looks might place you outside of easy categorisation as 'attractive' or 'sexy'.
As White and his lover, friend and confidant Ruggero reveal more, told through Ruggero and Constance (and occasionally other characters) telling their stories, we piece together what White thinks of it all, told through the eyes of people writing about him after his death.
I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
January 15, 2022
So when I read this particular section on page 1:
'With each flattering supposition, he relaxed. He sat back down. He looked at her as if verifying her degree of sophistication. At last he smiled.'
...I knew then that I was already in trouble. I respect Edmund White and his long and important career, but I simply could not engage with this book at all. Wordy, verbose - call it what you will, but the two central characters and their sexual self-obsession just left me cold. I admired White's attempt to write himself into the narrative as a character, but somehow it felt just that, a literary device for the sake of it. Nope. Better people than I seem to have liked this, so I will just move on to something else that I will enjoy. Sorry, but only 2 stars from me.
'With each flattering supposition, he relaxed. He sat back down. He looked at her as if verifying her degree of sophistication. At last he smiled.'
...I knew then that I was already in trouble. I respect Edmund White and his long and important career, but I simply could not engage with this book at all. Wordy, verbose - call it what you will, but the two central characters and their sexual self-obsession just left me cold. I admired White's attempt to write himself into the narrative as a character, but somehow it felt just that, a literary device for the sake of it. Nope. Better people than I seem to have liked this, so I will just move on to something else that I will enjoy. Sorry, but only 2 stars from me.
April 17, 2024
If I could give this book 0 stars, I would.
August 9, 2021
This is a very curious novel in that it is difficult to classify..Yes it will be compartmentalised in to the LGBTQ+ category or contemporary fiction but to fully describe it is a challenge. The initial premise is the story of two lives Ruggero ( a Sicilian Prince/ musician ) and his wife Constance who decide to write their own personal and highly intimate autobiographies for the other to read. These stories take the reader back to the childhoods and sexual awakening of the two protagonists and then lead forward into their lives. At times explicit in content and humorous in the characterisation of individuals who enters their lives and the subsequent relationships;but it is when Ruggero begins a relationship with the actual author of the novel Edmund White that the story takes on a surreal quality as the prevailing love becomes highly damaging . At times the narcissism of Ruggero becomes too much especially within the privilege world he resides and to some extent he becomes repulsive and my empathy towards him diminished as he desires continual personal gratification .To place yourself ( as the author )in the role of the lover who is tormented by Ruggero is strangely disconcerting for the reader ( fact or fiction blurred) .The book is certainly an exploration of relationships - continually evolving from monogamous to polyamorous and the ever evolving roles within straight and gay sexuality. The book started in 2050 and went back to the 1980s -the period of COVID was recognised - it was frustrating that Ruggero’s life from this point up (2020)to his 80s was so briefly covered. I can imagine that this book will be one that I’ll still be thinking of in the future as to what the author really wanted the reader to take away and what I actually did
This is the first Edmund White book I have read and will look back into his library.
Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advance copy .
This is the first Edmund White book I have read and will look back into his library.
Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advance copy .
February 22, 2024
From the blurb I really thought I would love this book, unfortunately it did not deliver.
The pacing of this book was all over the show, there are parts that ramble on for pages and pages and then when there’s a bit of plot like Constance leaving her husband it’s covered in maybe two pages and the speed at which she falls in love with this new man is unconvincing. The final chapters of the book quite frankly are nonsense, I felt a lot of it was repeated from earlier chapters and I didn’t understand why Constance would be writing about Ruggero and Edmond’s affair.
My main problem was that Ruggero’s appearance was described in the same way at least a hundred times and if I ever read the phrase ‘big uncut Sicilian dick’ one more time it will be too soon.
The pacing of this book was all over the show, there are parts that ramble on for pages and pages and then when there’s a bit of plot like Constance leaving her husband it’s covered in maybe two pages and the speed at which she falls in love with this new man is unconvincing. The final chapters of the book quite frankly are nonsense, I felt a lot of it was repeated from earlier chapters and I didn’t understand why Constance would be writing about Ruggero and Edmond’s affair.
My main problem was that Ruggero’s appearance was described in the same way at least a hundred times and if I ever read the phrase ‘big uncut Sicilian dick’ one more time it will be too soon.
May 8, 2022
Finished reading. 3.5 Stars.
July 18, 2025
I didn't finish this book - halfway through I decided it was not for me.
September 25, 2022
This was just...fine? I wasn't ever remotely invested in the characters, and as this is such a character-driven book, it's kind of hard to really get into it when there just wasn't much to these people. It felt as if just in general, this book, these characters and their sex lives and the meta-ness of it all, everything about this wasn't as interesting, clever, entertaining, or wild as it was trying so hard to make itself out to be. To be honest, A Previous Life was just insufferable, and I just can't recommend it.
December 7, 2021
A married couple, Ruggero and Constance, confess their lives and loves before they knew each other. On themes of sexuality and aging.
A Previous Life is explicit and humorous, but off-balance. Ruggero’s narcissistic voice is stronger than that of Constance, whose character comes across as a quick sketch by a disinterested author.
While set in 2050, the novel tracks back over several decades. Its overall flavour is very retro.
White’s writing is engaging and, at times, ingenious.
My thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the ARC.
A Previous Life is explicit and humorous, but off-balance. Ruggero’s narcissistic voice is stronger than that of Constance, whose character comes across as a quick sketch by a disinterested author.
While set in 2050, the novel tracks back over several decades. Its overall flavour is very retro.
White’s writing is engaging and, at times, ingenious.
My thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the ARC.
January 20, 2022
A Previous Life
by Edmund White
Review by Leo Racicot
Publisher: Bloomsbury Press
Language: English
Hardcover, 288 pages
A Previous Life is unlike anything Edmund White
has written. In fact, for the first thirty pages or so,
I was sure the work couldn't be White's. But then
the hallmarks of his style emerged: the easy juggling
of plotline intricacies, the multi-character interactions,
the trademark allusions to world art, classical composers,
opera -- White could handily dethrone Any Schneider on
Jeopardy so vast is his knowledge of culture, politics,
history.
At the center of his story -- a married couple, Ruggero and
Constance, two people very much in love who nevertheless
want and need to explore other desires.This opens the door
to multiple characters, each a composite drawn from those
people White has known, or now knows. As a writer, White
is possessed of sprezzatura, that magic act of inhabiting
so fully his characters, their milieus, the reader is easily,
instantly drawn to them. For example, with an economy of
brush strokes, White paints an indelible portrait of Ruggero's
grandfather. I will rememebr this fellow for years to come.
There are unafraid depictions of the first stirrings of male-male
adolescent lust, a lust never to be recaptured, the way a kid's
first Christmas morning or the first springtimes of our lives
can never be recaptured no matter how hard we try. Yet White
recaptures them in sentences so exquisitely executed, they
shimmer like the first rush of blood from a fresh wound.
White is a magician at encapsulating complex emotions in a
brief sentence or two: "We were as formal as strangers at a
funeral, mourners who've heard of one another but never
met, our grief all that we shared..."
In White's examinations of the various forms love can take,
gender is fluid, sexuality, more fluid. In fact, gender goes
the way of the wind as characters dive in and out of their
desires: hurting, forgiving, hurting, forgiving, learning,
understanding, not understanding, in an endless roundelay
of sexual exploration. White has never been shy about
tossing a paragraph or more of pornography into his
literature; he knows sex can get messy. For what does most
love become but a happy ascension into utter degeneracy?
White even incorporates himself as a character in his book.
In lesser hands than his, this could have been a crashing
conceit. In this master writer's hands, it is playful, mischievous,
epiphanal. Bravo!
With A Previous Life, the author has bottled the genie of that
most elusive of literary forms, the dual memoir, a splendid,
refreshing, freewheeling elixir. This treatise on love and lust,
on the limitations society imposes on the aged, the limitations
we, the aged, impose on ourselves, celebrates aging's refusal
to let go of the rope of love though the rope is beginning to
tatter. The book is racily articulate, intimately sophisticated
and knowing, fully actualized, its architecture sound, superb
even, its themes timeless. It goes down easy; I stayed drunk
on its many pleasures for days.
by Edmund White
Review by Leo Racicot
Publisher: Bloomsbury Press
Language: English
Hardcover, 288 pages
A Previous Life is unlike anything Edmund White
has written. In fact, for the first thirty pages or so,
I was sure the work couldn't be White's. But then
the hallmarks of his style emerged: the easy juggling
of plotline intricacies, the multi-character interactions,
the trademark allusions to world art, classical composers,
opera -- White could handily dethrone Any Schneider on
Jeopardy so vast is his knowledge of culture, politics,
history.
At the center of his story -- a married couple, Ruggero and
Constance, two people very much in love who nevertheless
want and need to explore other desires.This opens the door
to multiple characters, each a composite drawn from those
people White has known, or now knows. As a writer, White
is possessed of sprezzatura, that magic act of inhabiting
so fully his characters, their milieus, the reader is easily,
instantly drawn to them. For example, with an economy of
brush strokes, White paints an indelible portrait of Ruggero's
grandfather. I will rememebr this fellow for years to come.
There are unafraid depictions of the first stirrings of male-male
adolescent lust, a lust never to be recaptured, the way a kid's
first Christmas morning or the first springtimes of our lives
can never be recaptured no matter how hard we try. Yet White
recaptures them in sentences so exquisitely executed, they
shimmer like the first rush of blood from a fresh wound.
White is a magician at encapsulating complex emotions in a
brief sentence or two: "We were as formal as strangers at a
funeral, mourners who've heard of one another but never
met, our grief all that we shared..."
In White's examinations of the various forms love can take,
gender is fluid, sexuality, more fluid. In fact, gender goes
the way of the wind as characters dive in and out of their
desires: hurting, forgiving, hurting, forgiving, learning,
understanding, not understanding, in an endless roundelay
of sexual exploration. White has never been shy about
tossing a paragraph or more of pornography into his
literature; he knows sex can get messy. For what does most
love become but a happy ascension into utter degeneracy?
White even incorporates himself as a character in his book.
In lesser hands than his, this could have been a crashing
conceit. In this master writer's hands, it is playful, mischievous,
epiphanal. Bravo!
With A Previous Life, the author has bottled the genie of that
most elusive of literary forms, the dual memoir, a splendid,
refreshing, freewheeling elixir. This treatise on love and lust,
on the limitations society imposes on the aged, the limitations
we, the aged, impose on ourselves, celebrates aging's refusal
to let go of the rope of love though the rope is beginning to
tatter. The book is racily articulate, intimately sophisticated
and knowing, fully actualized, its architecture sound, superb
even, its themes timeless. It goes down easy; I stayed drunk
on its many pleasures for days.
August 25, 2021
A Previous Life is a sprawling tale of love, sex, and beauty, as two bisexual lovers finally tell each other about their pasts. Sicilian musician Ruggero and his younger wife Constance have mostly kept their various pasts a secret, but after Ruggero is confined to bed, they decided to write out their memoirs and read them aloud to each other, sharing past loves and great affairs, until it is time to think about Ruggero's affair with the famous writer Edmund White.
I was intrigued by the idea of the book, having read White's famous A Boy's Own Story. The concept of the novel, ignoring the metafictional element of having Edmund White as a character, is straightforwardly intriguing, a chance to read about how two people unfold their romantic and sexual histories, defying boundaries and telling their own stories in particular ways. Though reading it gets a bit confusing at times (the pair narrate what they've written, but it is interjected with the others' thoughts and occasional conversation), it has a classic feel, like 20th century novels about relationships, which is probably the intended tone given Ruggero at least is meant to be aging.
The Edmund White elements, though hinted earlier on, come out more in the later part of the novel, which changes format slightly, and felt quite different at times to the earlier part. As the 'present' of the novel is in the future, this is the part of the past that gets up to COVID, making it an even more surreal experience, and as I found the earlier part started to drag, I perhaps was less engaged by this part, and wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to make of the metafictional parts given that they discuss White's death in the 'future' and mainly showed Ruggero's narcissism.
A Previous Life is a hard book to define, but one that has a timeless feel to the writing style even as it projects into the future. It has some interesting explorations of sexuality and polyamory, concluding in a way that really brings these to the forefront and generally thinking about how people love and age and define things, though there were a few odd moments (right at the end there's a trans child referenced, seemingly for their parent to use as a reflection on if it was 'revenge' for their own polyamory/sexuality). Personally, I found the book started to drag, especially as it is almost two books in one, and possibly that's the danger with trying to tell the stories of two different characters who have a lot going on throughout their lives. It's a hard one to know what my lingering thoughts of it will be.
I was intrigued by the idea of the book, having read White's famous A Boy's Own Story. The concept of the novel, ignoring the metafictional element of having Edmund White as a character, is straightforwardly intriguing, a chance to read about how two people unfold their romantic and sexual histories, defying boundaries and telling their own stories in particular ways. Though reading it gets a bit confusing at times (the pair narrate what they've written, but it is interjected with the others' thoughts and occasional conversation), it has a classic feel, like 20th century novels about relationships, which is probably the intended tone given Ruggero at least is meant to be aging.
The Edmund White elements, though hinted earlier on, come out more in the later part of the novel, which changes format slightly, and felt quite different at times to the earlier part. As the 'present' of the novel is in the future, this is the part of the past that gets up to COVID, making it an even more surreal experience, and as I found the earlier part started to drag, I perhaps was less engaged by this part, and wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to make of the metafictional parts given that they discuss White's death in the 'future' and mainly showed Ruggero's narcissism.
A Previous Life is a hard book to define, but one that has a timeless feel to the writing style even as it projects into the future. It has some interesting explorations of sexuality and polyamory, concluding in a way that really brings these to the forefront and generally thinking about how people love and age and define things, though there were a few odd moments (right at the end there's a trans child referenced, seemingly for their parent to use as a reflection on if it was 'revenge' for their own polyamory/sexuality). Personally, I found the book started to drag, especially as it is almost two books in one, and possibly that's the danger with trying to tell the stories of two different characters who have a lot going on throughout their lives. It's a hard one to know what my lingering thoughts of it will be.
November 1, 2021
I would like to thank NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for the opportunity to read this ARC in return for a fair and honest review. I had never read one of Edmund White's books before. I was intrigued by the blurb, and decided to request this book, A Previous Life. The description said that it was the story of a married couple, who decided, after years together, to share details of their past sexual lives. This sounded like a take on a Scenes from A Marriage kind of story, so I started to read it, The blurb also said it explored themes of polyamory, homosexuality and bisexuality. The story takes place in 2050. I should hasted to add that the date was given as a way to discuss the covid pandemic as a historical event, there is no attempt to fortell the future, or predict how things will be different in 2050. It is just a date, as a way to give a time frame. I appreciated that. The main section of the book was the story of Ruggero and Constance- a married couple who decide to write out their sexual histories to share with each other. I found this concept fascinating, they had not shared things because they feared the stories would lead to problems in their relationship.Both had homosexual, and polyamorous relationships. The story moves from one person reading , to the other commenting, both aloud and to themselves. I found this section excellent. Then the story took a strange turn. It went from telling a story about the past, to the introduction of a new character, into the present. It also went into great detail about Ruggero's relationship with Edmond White, the writer( and yes the author).some30 years prior. This ,along with references to White's book( A Previous Life)-was way too meta for me. I also felt that it went too far from the original premise, which I enjoyed, and into a different path all together. The sex scenes, which were mostly homosexual in nature, were very graphic. I was not offended, but more bored after a while. It was an interesting premise, one that just did not pan out for me.
July 12, 2023
Boring 🍆
February 14, 2022
This book is a complete failure. I regret to say this because I've been following E. White since the '90s and I've read at least ten of his novels.
It's not just that the structure is weak and cahotic (but not in a creative way - the metafictional aspect is poorly conceived and even worse executed) or that the characters are sketchy and stereotypical to the point of being embarrassing for the reader, or that the prose is stale and the plot almost illogical.
The worst thing is that this book is totally irrelevant. As much as E. White had something to say in the 1980s and 1990s, his most recent three novels (at least, and this latest one in particular) show that he has totally exhausted his relevance as a writer and that he looks like the ghost of himself. This is the biggest problem of this book.
Of course White has been writing for some 60 years so he knows how to write a sentence (though not necessarily a whole novel) but that's not enough, especially when writing about genders and sexuality not just now but even in the future (2050?)
White's ideas of bisexuality or gender-fluidity are confused and sketchy and even the inter-generational sex aspect is surprisingly not convincing at all (it becomes just the doomed story an ailing old man being obsessed with a much younger, fitter, well-endowed guy - guess the end...)
In my opinion this book has nothing to say to anyone who's young(ish) today but it's even more disappointing for those who like me are a bit older and have read a lot of E. White and have to witness such a literary decline.
It's not just that the structure is weak and cahotic (but not in a creative way - the metafictional aspect is poorly conceived and even worse executed) or that the characters are sketchy and stereotypical to the point of being embarrassing for the reader, or that the prose is stale and the plot almost illogical.
The worst thing is that this book is totally irrelevant. As much as E. White had something to say in the 1980s and 1990s, his most recent three novels (at least, and this latest one in particular) show that he has totally exhausted his relevance as a writer and that he looks like the ghost of himself. This is the biggest problem of this book.
Of course White has been writing for some 60 years so he knows how to write a sentence (though not necessarily a whole novel) but that's not enough, especially when writing about genders and sexuality not just now but even in the future (2050?)
White's ideas of bisexuality or gender-fluidity are confused and sketchy and even the inter-generational sex aspect is surprisingly not convincing at all (it becomes just the doomed story an ailing old man being obsessed with a much younger, fitter, well-endowed guy - guess the end...)
In my opinion this book has nothing to say to anyone who's young(ish) today but it's even more disappointing for those who like me are a bit older and have read a lot of E. White and have to witness such a literary decline.
May 28, 2022
Hard to decide if this is a deeply satirical work of genius by a novelist who is without doubt one of the literary greats, or a chaotic and narcissistic vanity piece. Alternately funny, smart, frustrating, self indulgent. I enjoyed the richly drawn characters, the 2050 setting and some of the historical observations from that (assumed) perspective.
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