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Le disavventure di Margaret
I numerosi lettori della Lettera d’amore già sanno quale scompiglio possano gettare, anche nell’esistenza più ordinata, poche righe lette per caso. Qui siamo invece chiamati a constatare gli effetti devastanti che la scoperta di uno scandaloso manoscritto libertino può avere sull’equilibrio sentimentale e mondano di una giovane, svampitissima intellettuale newyorchese. Entriamo così nella doppia vita di Margaret, che di giorno traduce per noi le incantevoli avventure della Nipote di Rameau, la sera partecipa con estremo disagio alle cene dell’intelligencija (senza mai ricordare né il nome del suo interlocutore, né il titolo di un solo suo libro, né, peraltro, cosa lei stessa abbia sostenuto nel saggio che l’ha resa quasi famosa), e la notte tenta con irresistibile goffaggine di ripercorrere l’apprendistato amoroso della sua disinvolta eroina settecentesca. E proprio l’incauta sovrapposizione fra una persona alla disperata ricerca di un romanzo e un personaggio romanzesco innesca una vicenda che riesce a essere, insieme, una sottile meditazione sulle idee (e sui loro imprevedibili rapporti con la carne), un aereo esercizio di stile e una farsa in piena regola, con il necessario, forsennato corredo di equivoci, atti mancati e gaffe. In altre parole, la conferma definitiva che con Cathleen Schine è nata una stella della sophisticated comedy contemporanea. Le disavventure di Margaret è apparso per la prima volta nel 1993.
310 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
38 people are currently reading
700 people want to read
About the author
Cathleen Schine
27 books597 followersCathleen Schine is the author of The New Yorkers, The Love Letter, and The Three Weissmanns of Westport among other novels. She has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The New York Times Book Review.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
December 25, 2020
The premise of this book was fascinating. The main character, Margaret, is interpreting an old French philosophy book into English. Only this philosophy book is quite sexy. The sex is implied through quotes of classic philosophers. That was really fun and interesting, although only a small portion of the book.
Margaret’s work begins to spill into her real life and her marriage. That’s when the trouble begins.
In the end, it was an interesting enough book. I really wanted it to end a bit before it did. It was interesting reading this sort of satire about academia, although I’m not a huge fan of satire.
The cover and inside descriptions make this book sound sexy. I wouldn’t really describe it that way.
Margaret’s work begins to spill into her real life and her marriage. That’s when the trouble begins.
In the end, it was an interesting enough book. I really wanted it to end a bit before it did. It was interesting reading this sort of satire about academia, although I’m not a huge fan of satire.
The cover and inside descriptions make this book sound sexy. I wouldn’t really describe it that way.
March 11, 2019
Recently I’ve had the pleasure of reading Schine’s They May Not Mean To, But They Do. Lovely book. Engaging charismatic characters, realistic relatable life situations, terrific elderly female protagonist, serious matters discussed with just enough of a humorous approach to balance out the seriousness. Just a terrifically enjoyable book. So I figured I should read more of the author’s work. But this was beyond disappointing. In fact it was diametrically opposite (literally so if you revisit that sentence) of all the things I loved about They May Not Mean To. Precisely so, like a weird photo negative. Not sure I’ve ever had a reading experience quite like that with the same author. Sure sometimes quality can ebb, but to go from loving one to hating another seems entirely too extreme. And yet…this tedious story of first world idiocy, imaginary marital difficulties and premature ennui was just crap. And notably unfunny despite what the description promises. If you’re expecting a clever satire of academia, you’ll be disappointed. Actually, no matter what your expectations might be, you’ll probably come away disappointed. Sure, this is an earlier book and it’s great that Schine has matured as an author enough to produce genuinely good books, but this was one evolution you don’t really need to discover for yourself. I probably never would’ve read any of the author’s other books had this been the introduction. So do yourself a favor and start at the tail end. This was a complete waste of an evening. Very odd quality disparity.
June 6, 2011
I received this book for free through the Goodreads First Read giveaway.
This book was a chore. Rarely have I encountered characters that I liked less. It's hard to tell if the characters are meant to be a parody of the over-thinky academic or not, but this is the perfect example of why a lot of people don't like academics (and I've read and loved a lot of books about the same). The structure and plot was as much of a deterrent as the characters. It's as though the author was intentionally trying to drive the reader away with the overwrought descriptions of how everyone is too smart to bother with the average and the mundane. Just not worth the time it took to read it, for me.
This book was a chore. Rarely have I encountered characters that I liked less. It's hard to tell if the characters are meant to be a parody of the over-thinky academic or not, but this is the perfect example of why a lot of people don't like academics (and I've read and loved a lot of books about the same). The structure and plot was as much of a deterrent as the characters. It's as though the author was intentionally trying to drive the reader away with the overwrought descriptions of how everyone is too smart to bother with the average and the mundane. Just not worth the time it took to read it, for me.
June 5, 2018
Una smemorata Madame Bovary degli anni '90, in chiave sfacciatamente ironica.
August 30, 2024
In sintesi: non ho la più pallida idea di cosa io abbia letto, la protagonista è la più svampita che abbia mai incontrato in una lettura.
È stato tutto così caotico, spesso insensato,non ho capito il senso di questo libro.
Ammetto però di aver apprezzato le citazioni e alcuni temi trattati. Forse proverò a leggere qualche altra opera dell'autrice perché da come ho letto in alcuni commenti, ne vale la pena
È stato tutto così caotico, spesso insensato,non ho capito il senso di questo libro.
Ammetto però di aver apprezzato le citazioni e alcuni temi trattati. Forse proverò a leggere qualche altra opera dell'autrice perché da come ho letto in alcuni commenti, ne vale la pena
March 23, 2017
My favorite of hers!!
July 24, 2016
I loved this! This is the second Cathleen Schine I've read, and I have to say, she is highly underrated. Rameau's Niece is apparently a play on the philosophical edict Rameau's Nephew by Diderot (sidenote, Philosophy 101 is really a prerequisite for this book, but I did ok). Margaret Nathan, married to her professor, finds a copy of a manuscript which plagiarizes large portions of Rameau's Nephew (over my head). The excerpts of the story within a story were unbearable to read: so philosophical and obnoxious. But I loved the main plot of the book: Margaret, echoing the narrator of her manuscript, becomes obsessed with cheating on her insufferable academe husband Edward. She finds a host of adulterous possibilities, and theorizes and solipsizes (is that a word?) upon the very nature of truth, love, meaning, and desire. Her absolute devotion to Edward was gross and fascinating. She didn't really love him, she was just desperate for someone to follow and tell her what to do. Although she was so smart in her own right! She had a funny interior monologue--equal parts anxious and sure of herself. The whole thing was very Woody Allen, if the Woody Allen character had been a young woman who was still a little bit socially inept. (Remember when Dianne Wiest says she wants to roller skate down the Guggenheim? Margaret was a little childish like that.)
I have to say, the ending almost ruined it for me. (Spoiler alert) I couldn't believe she went back to Edward with the same ferocity! I'm hoping we are supposed to read that as a mistake and not a happy ending. Similarly, Woody Allen ran back to Mariel Hemingway! Which I refuse to believe is a happy ending. Anyway, I loved this and Cathleen Schine is great.
I have to say, the ending almost ruined it for me. (Spoiler alert) I couldn't believe she went back to Edward with the same ferocity! I'm hoping we are supposed to read that as a mistake and not a happy ending. Similarly, Woody Allen ran back to Mariel Hemingway! Which I refuse to believe is a happy ending. Anyway, I loved this and Cathleen Schine is great.
September 27, 2012
There's a novel within the novel and a dissertation too, if only the protagonist could remember what she wrote it on! This novel is a lively, contemporary look into intellectual Neapolitan life amongst the literati movers and shakers of NYC.
What brilliant fun it is to be given a peek into the sleek lives of the uppercrust, into the higher echelons of the big city intellectual social set.
A neurotic story of love and friendship and a hilarious look at all the lovers that could have been. The novel follows Margaret who is certain her professor husband is wooing all of his students. She lives in fear of his infidelity and of her unworthiness to stand by his side at cocktail parties. Nevermind she herself has written an acclaimed dissertation, of which she cannot recall any of the important details.
Her somewhat dry life is shaken up when she discovers and lusty novel and as she reads it, she begins to view everyone around her a little differently. Everyone begins to look like a possible lover, for her!
What brilliant fun it is to be given a peek into the sleek lives of the uppercrust, into the higher echelons of the big city intellectual social set.
A neurotic story of love and friendship and a hilarious look at all the lovers that could have been. The novel follows Margaret who is certain her professor husband is wooing all of his students. She lives in fear of his infidelity and of her unworthiness to stand by his side at cocktail parties. Nevermind she herself has written an acclaimed dissertation, of which she cannot recall any of the important details.
Her somewhat dry life is shaken up when she discovers and lusty novel and as she reads it, she begins to view everyone around her a little differently. Everyone begins to look like a possible lover, for her!
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April 18, 2010While it's gratifying to see how much Schine has developed as a novelist between this and The Three Weissmans of Westport, I can't say that's reason enough to read this earlier effort. It sounded promising: neurotic professor in NYC, working on a text of 18th-century erotica posing as a philosophical documents (excerpted within the novel, a la Possession), and she becomes a bit too immersed in her work and it distorts her perceptions. But it's rather too fluffy, the perspective too embedded in one character, the character is annoying, the three men she becomes obsessed with are mildly-to-seriously repellant, and academic scholarship is not quite so ridiculous as here. It could be winsome that the main character is so petty and self-centered, but it's not. My attention flagged when she went to Prague, leaving her incredibly self-centered but somehow delightful husband behind in NYC--and without him the book, like the narrator, lacks ballast.
October 25, 2013
Margaret è una scrittrice che, parallelamente allo studio di un manoscritto libertino, mette in dubbio il proprio felice rapporto con il geniale marito Edward e si lancia in un vortice di fantasie adultere.
La prima parte del romanzo è un infinito racconto di felice vita coniugale e di insicurezze intellettual-borghesi. La seconda parte, invece, prendendo come pretesto un incontro a dir poco banale della protagonista con un misterioso francese, vorrebbe essere un parallelo della sua vita con il manoscritto studiato; non ci riesce, diventando un noioso sunto di ovvietà adultere trite e ritrite.
Il finale scontato mette la ciliegina sulla torta al tutto.
L'ho finito con fatica, annoiandomi di pagina in pagina sempre più.
La prima parte del romanzo è un infinito racconto di felice vita coniugale e di insicurezze intellettual-borghesi. La seconda parte, invece, prendendo come pretesto un incontro a dir poco banale della protagonista con un misterioso francese, vorrebbe essere un parallelo della sua vita con il manoscritto studiato; non ci riesce, diventando un noioso sunto di ovvietà adultere trite e ritrite.
Il finale scontato mette la ciliegina sulla torta al tutto.
L'ho finito con fatica, annoiandomi di pagina in pagina sempre più.
September 16, 2021
Finalmente il tormento è finito. È stato un supplizio finire questo libro..arrivare alla conclusione.
Un libro tosto e pesante, pieno di “libertinaggine” mascherata da filosofia e ricerca di verità..simpatico a tratti ma troppo lungo e ripetitivo. Sconclusionato nella trama che si intreccia alla trama di un altro libro, ai pensieri di una donna che: “non sa dove sta di casa” (cit.)..mi aspettavo un libro più frivolo e divertente, invece un bel mattone da mandare giù.
Un libro tosto e pesante, pieno di “libertinaggine” mascherata da filosofia e ricerca di verità..simpatico a tratti ma troppo lungo e ripetitivo. Sconclusionato nella trama che si intreccia alla trama di un altro libro, ai pensieri di una donna che: “non sa dove sta di casa” (cit.)..mi aspettavo un libro più frivolo e divertente, invece un bel mattone da mandare giù.
June 14, 2011
I don't know how I missed reading Cathleen Schine's earlier novels but they are all brilliant. She has her intellectual tongue in cheek throughout the book and it moves fast and is a great pleasure to read.
September 4, 2007
I thought this book was horrible. I had to force myself to finish reading it. (I am stubborn and never give up reading a book, unfortunately!)
July 25, 2009
A fun romp through some of the more arcane fields of academia. I loved this book.
November 30, 2014
intelligent and fun, quirky - good for lovers of poetry.
Beautifully written.
Beautifully written.
April 3, 2021
Un libro particolare ma molto divertente e in alcune parti penso che sia normale pensare che la protagonista non sia tanto normale, ma anzi una svampita a tratti geniale.
October 22, 2024
The pull quotes from glowing reviews plastered over the entire package--all of which described this as a fizzy, fun cocktail of lighthearted academic satire and Manhattan sex romp--made me reach for this at the library book sale. I was in the mood for something light but still sufficiently brainy. You know, a frivolity that knows what it is.
I have to admit, however, that I was mostly disappointed with this book. For 2/3 it was a fine enough read; nothing too mind-blowing and doomed to be forgotten upon completion, but not unenjoyable. The book centers on Margaret Nathan, an academic married to a big-deal literary professor roughly a decade older and who has his own powerful gravity. Margaret is mostly content to be madly in love with her husband, Edward, until she writes an accidental bestseller of pop history. While researching her follow-up--a study of a satirical work of pornographic philosophy from the 1700s--Margaret experiences one of those crises that can arise in a long-term monogamous relationship. She begins to wonder if maybe she was wrong to settle for this life of devotion to Edward and finds herself thinking instead about all of the experiences she might be missing out on while living in Edward's orbit. So Margaret goes a little batty...and works through a number of attachments (including an awkward moment where she talks herself into maybe being bi; ahh the 90s). After treating her husband like shit--and cheating on him with her dentist--she returns to the fold in a moment of sweaty reconciliation.
I'm not sure quite why I soured on this one, but it just tired me out. Margaret is insufferable and, while that may be the point, that doesn't mean it's a ball to spend so much time in her mental space. There's also a lot of screwball antics worthy of a sitcom (I wasn't cheating--I was taking a shower at her house because I went for a run with her!) that are cringeworthy and obnoxious. IDK, maybe it was highly praised by NY types because of that set's tendency toward narcissistic self-obsession. While there is a core here that's interesting--wanderlust in a long-term relationship from the POV of a wife turning thirty--I'd skip it.
I have to admit, however, that I was mostly disappointed with this book. For 2/3 it was a fine enough read; nothing too mind-blowing and doomed to be forgotten upon completion, but not unenjoyable. The book centers on Margaret Nathan, an academic married to a big-deal literary professor roughly a decade older and who has his own powerful gravity. Margaret is mostly content to be madly in love with her husband, Edward, until she writes an accidental bestseller of pop history. While researching her follow-up--a study of a satirical work of pornographic philosophy from the 1700s--Margaret experiences one of those crises that can arise in a long-term monogamous relationship. She begins to wonder if maybe she was wrong to settle for this life of devotion to Edward and finds herself thinking instead about all of the experiences she might be missing out on while living in Edward's orbit. So Margaret goes a little batty...and works through a number of attachments (including an awkward moment where she talks herself into maybe being bi; ahh the 90s). After treating her husband like shit--and cheating on him with her dentist--she returns to the fold in a moment of sweaty reconciliation.
I'm not sure quite why I soured on this one, but it just tired me out. Margaret is insufferable and, while that may be the point, that doesn't mean it's a ball to spend so much time in her mental space. There's also a lot of screwball antics worthy of a sitcom (I wasn't cheating--I was taking a shower at her house because I went for a run with her!) that are cringeworthy and obnoxious. IDK, maybe it was highly praised by NY types because of that set's tendency toward narcissistic self-obsession. While there is a core here that's interesting--wanderlust in a long-term relationship from the POV of a wife turning thirty--I'd skip it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 15, 2025
Comedy sofisticata e filosofeggiante, una sorta di Bridget Jones tra gli intellettuali della grande mela. Margaret è una storica delle idee dedita alla letteratura libertina francese del settecento e sta curando la pubblicazione di un inedito – La nipote di Rameau; adora e considera il faro della sua vita il marito Edward, il non plus ultra dei professori piacioni che insegna Walt Whitman a studenti che pendono dalle sue labbra, un abile conversatore dalla citazione sempre pronta in ogni occasione, tanto da dubitare che abbia idee proprie. La prima parte del romanzo l’ho trovata lenta e quasi irritante, un susseguirsi di chiacchiere fini a se stesse, party e cene eleganti tra scrittori, intellettuali e modaioli, dove Margaret è impacciata e afflitta da una smemoratezza cronica, tanto da ricordare poco o nulla di chi gli sta intorno come di uno spettacolo appena uscito e da compromettere la sua capacità di giudizio. La narrazione è inframmezzata da stralci dell’inedito dove il protagonista maestro di conoscenza vuole trasmetterla a una allieva promettente e dalla condivisione dei principi dell’universo si passa presto ad altri assunti meno filosofici e più carnali… Un viaggio a Praga senza Edward riaccende in Margaret il desiderio di nuove esperienze e dà un po' di ritmo alla storia. Comincia così un nuovo e goffo apprendistato amoroso che la porta a infatuarsi del proprio dentista, di un turista belga conosciuto in aereo, del suo agente letterario e della sua ex compagna di studi in una girandola di equivoci e figuracce (una vera esperta) e dimenticanze memorabili; il percorso di emancipazione e di rivalsa sfocia in una serie di esilaranti situazioni paradossali che non travolgono l’indomita Margaret…Confesso che avevo aspettative diverse immaginando un romanzo arguto e divertente: invece ho avuto più di una difficoltà nella prima parte tra sbadigli e una certa irritazione, poi fortunatamente la trama diventa più frizzante e capace di catturare l’attenzione. Un libro scritto e costruito in maniera intelligente, con un certo gusto per la battuta e condito di citazioni filosofiche e letterarie ma certo non indimenticabile o irrinunciabile. Tre stelle.
May 3, 2020
This book is so horny. A satire, yes, and a clever one, but also just horny.
Manhattan literary intelligensia is pretentious and boring (and well captured), but Margaret’s internal turmoil and initial denying insistence that she is satisfied in her marriage is funny and understandable. She is not sympathetic and I like her more for it.
I liked very much all of her research on “philosophical novels” (especially how the public reacts to her first book by not reading it) and the contrast of her career with the Czech revolution self-aware and provocative. But best of all is the gender inversion of Margaret as protagonist vs the narrator of the soft-core novel she’s translating. You feel her relating to the narrator even though in her own marriage she is the nubile student, not the teacher. Smart, and more interesting.
I especially enjoyed all the passages of her horny gaze at her friend Lily, since I know that 6 years after this was published, the author left her husband for a woman. Death of the author and all, but I like thinking this book was part of her coming out process.
Manhattan literary intelligensia is pretentious and boring (and well captured), but Margaret’s internal turmoil and initial denying insistence that she is satisfied in her marriage is funny and understandable. She is not sympathetic and I like her more for it.
I liked very much all of her research on “philosophical novels” (especially how the public reacts to her first book by not reading it) and the contrast of her career with the Czech revolution self-aware and provocative. But best of all is the gender inversion of Margaret as protagonist vs the narrator of the soft-core novel she’s translating. You feel her relating to the narrator even though in her own marriage she is the nubile student, not the teacher. Smart, and more interesting.
I especially enjoyed all the passages of her horny gaze at her friend Lily, since I know that 6 years after this was published, the author left her husband for a woman. Death of the author and all, but I like thinking this book was part of her coming out process.
June 23, 2019
Myreview is not comparable to NYT Book review. I think they were too kind. i found it boring. I was not enamored with a spoiled brat. A loving husband, a good job, lots of money, \anyway here is the review
In this delightful novel from an author who "has been favored in so many ways by the muse of comedy,"* we meet Margaret Nathan, the brilliant but forgetful author of an unlikely bestseller. Happily married to a benevolently egotistical, slightly dull but sexy professor, Margaret seems blessed-until she finds herself seduced by an eighteenthcentury novel she discovers in the library. Rameau's Niece is wise, affecting, and thoroughly entertaining. Wrapped in its lascivious world, Margaret begins to imitate its protagonist, embarking on a hilarious jaunt around Manhattan in search of renewed passion. Will she find fulfillment through her escapades or settle for her husband? Part romantic comedy, part intellectual parody, Rameau's Niece is wise, affecting, and thoroughly entertaining. * New York Review of Books
In this delightful novel from an author who "has been favored in so many ways by the muse of comedy,"* we meet Margaret Nathan, the brilliant but forgetful author of an unlikely bestseller. Happily married to a benevolently egotistical, slightly dull but sexy professor, Margaret seems blessed-until she finds herself seduced by an eighteenthcentury novel she discovers in the library. Rameau's Niece is wise, affecting, and thoroughly entertaining. Wrapped in its lascivious world, Margaret begins to imitate its protagonist, embarking on a hilarious jaunt around Manhattan in search of renewed passion. Will she find fulfillment through her escapades or settle for her husband? Part romantic comedy, part intellectual parody, Rameau's Niece is wise, affecting, and thoroughly entertaining. * New York Review of Books
February 14, 2022
NOIA...questa è la parola che utilizzerei per descrivere questo libro. Sono davvero amareggiata da quanto fossero altre le mie aspettative. Mi aspettavo un romanzo ironico, divertente, brillante e frivolo...invece non succede assolutamente nulla!
Non vedevo l'ora di finire questa lettura e dedicarmi ad altro.
Ammetto che qualche dialogo l'ho trovato simpatico...ma sono stata sul punto di mollare troppe volte...così ho iniziato a sfogliare e saltare pagine senza perdermi nulla di particolare dato che , a dimostrazione che non stava succedendo proprio niente, avrei potuto saltare capitoli interi e comunque non perdere il filo della trama.
Per me un grandissimo NO.
Non vedevo l'ora di finire questa lettura e dedicarmi ad altro.
Ammetto che qualche dialogo l'ho trovato simpatico...ma sono stata sul punto di mollare troppe volte...così ho iniziato a sfogliare e saltare pagine senza perdermi nulla di particolare dato che , a dimostrazione che non stava succedendo proprio niente, avrei potuto saltare capitoli interi e comunque non perdere il filo della trama.
Per me un grandissimo NO.
February 14, 2018
I love Cathleen Schine and this is one of her earlier books, and while parts of this were hilarious and Margaret is a great, flawed neurotic character that I actually cared about, this book was kind of all over the place. The whole Rameau's Niece classic literature reference bit was totally lost on me. Maybe I'm not smart enough or .... maybe I shouldn't have read this as my "bathroom" book as it took me a good 3 months. Mwhahahah.
July 21, 2020
Vaya tostón de libro, no me ha gustado nada. Desde el principio veía que no me iba a gustar. No me ha atrapado en ningún momento. No creo he haya disfrutado de ninguna página.
No lo he dejado porque no me gusta dejar libros a medias por si más adelante puede mejorar. Pero no , no mejoraba. En fin, lo dicho nomlo recomiendo, no me ha gustado. 21/07/2020.
No lo he dejado porque no me gusta dejar libros a medias por si más adelante puede mejorar. Pero no , no mejoraba. En fin, lo dicho nomlo recomiendo, no me ha gustado. 21/07/2020.
November 11, 2022
La prima metà circa del libro l'ho trovata di una noia inenarrabile.
Dal momento in cui però Margaret "si sveglia", la storia prende tutto un altro ritmo ed è gradevole.
Apprezzabili i collegamenti con la filosofia.
Dal momento in cui però Margaret "si sveglia", la storia prende tutto un altro ritmo ed è gradevole.
Apprezzabili i collegamenti con la filosofia.
December 19, 2020
Non ho amato particolarmente la sua scrittura
December 30, 2023
One word: boring!!
August 10, 2025
A rather silly bit of literary fiction: Academic hits gold accidentally with a book, and then suffers marital fears leading to silliness. It is perfectly believable, just not terribly interesting.
October 23, 2025
I am too old for this book
December 27, 2022
I picked this up from a library 1-Euro-sale, because the cover intrigued me, and I loved how the characters were introduced on the first few pages. Unfortunately, the rest of the book was pointless, unrealistic, stupid etc etc... the language was amusing, sometimes, but that's about it.
May 14, 2011
What if a female scholar, neurotic (but not so talkative) as a Woody Allen character, resented her husband for succumbing to a mid-life crisis (before he actually succumbed to one), and lapsed into her own? What if her reading of eighteenth-century philosophy and pornography penetrated her psyche in the same way that a method actor’s research oftentimes worries or warps the amorphous boundaries of his own actual identity?
What if identity depended on memory, but this intellectual, female protagonist distrusted her own ability to retain connections, including those that lend names of persons and places relevance? What if chronic forgetfulness led to a paranoiac mistrust of her own judgment—so that she repeatedly ceded judgment to masculine teacher-lovers, i.e. those who inspired her with a form of “didactic lust”? (156). What if this character came to resent those she imbued with such trust? What if she began to find it “demeaning to have become so dependent on another person,” including a husband who was so ���wonderful” that “his wonder weighed heavily”?(98).
Such fretting can exhaust even as it entertains. Really, why do we retain brilliant, but difficult friends in real life, and why can’t we escape them in the pages of books?
In other words, I’m not sure that one can like Margaret Nathan, the protagonist of Cathleen Schine’s Rameau’s Niece. Margaret probably wouldn’t like you for long if she liked you at all. And why should you like her when she really doesn’t much care for herself, discovering during a trip abroad that she has become “a sexually hysterical, xenophobic, middle-aged Midwesterner from the 1930s,” set adrift in modern day Prague? (136).
For Margaret, every friendship proves a challenge for the “path toward socialization seem[s]…strewn with insurmountable obstacles. If she wished to have friends, she would have to be a friend, or at the very least approximate however it is that friends behave” (74). And, yet, this painfully introverted individual becomes obsessed with the idea of adultery. She fancies herself in love with at least three different persons—in addition to her husband, but these fancies wind up being formulated as “logical” propositions, her thought patterns afflicted and conflicted by the sense and sensibilities of her eighteenth century research.
Although I can certainly see why the New York Times described Schine’s novel as a “comedy of modern manners,” I’m not seeing so much Jane Austen, or even Anthony Trollope, whom Margaret admires as a second rate novelist. Instead, as I read Rameau’s Niece, I decided that its protagonist really ought to be locked in a room with a Woody Allen character, or possibly Kenneth Branagh channeling Woody Allen in Celebrity. A “No Exit” sign must be posted above the doorway. Indeed, although I must say I was highly bemused by Margaret Nathan, I’m deeply gratified that I don’t have to be her husband, or even her friend.
What if identity depended on memory, but this intellectual, female protagonist distrusted her own ability to retain connections, including those that lend names of persons and places relevance? What if chronic forgetfulness led to a paranoiac mistrust of her own judgment—so that she repeatedly ceded judgment to masculine teacher-lovers, i.e. those who inspired her with a form of “didactic lust”? (156). What if this character came to resent those she imbued with such trust? What if she began to find it “demeaning to have become so dependent on another person,” including a husband who was so ���wonderful” that “his wonder weighed heavily”?(98).
Such fretting can exhaust even as it entertains. Really, why do we retain brilliant, but difficult friends in real life, and why can’t we escape them in the pages of books?
In other words, I’m not sure that one can like Margaret Nathan, the protagonist of Cathleen Schine’s Rameau’s Niece. Margaret probably wouldn’t like you for long if she liked you at all. And why should you like her when she really doesn’t much care for herself, discovering during a trip abroad that she has become “a sexually hysterical, xenophobic, middle-aged Midwesterner from the 1930s,” set adrift in modern day Prague? (136).
For Margaret, every friendship proves a challenge for the “path toward socialization seem[s]…strewn with insurmountable obstacles. If she wished to have friends, she would have to be a friend, or at the very least approximate however it is that friends behave” (74). And, yet, this painfully introverted individual becomes obsessed with the idea of adultery. She fancies herself in love with at least three different persons—in addition to her husband, but these fancies wind up being formulated as “logical” propositions, her thought patterns afflicted and conflicted by the sense and sensibilities of her eighteenth century research.
Although I can certainly see why the New York Times described Schine’s novel as a “comedy of modern manners,” I’m not seeing so much Jane Austen, or even Anthony Trollope, whom Margaret admires as a second rate novelist. Instead, as I read Rameau’s Niece, I decided that its protagonist really ought to be locked in a room with a Woody Allen character, or possibly Kenneth Branagh channeling Woody Allen in Celebrity. A “No Exit” sign must be posted above the doorway. Indeed, although I must say I was highly bemused by Margaret Nathan, I’m deeply gratified that I don’t have to be her husband, or even her friend.
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