Ophelia and the Great Idea

by Deborah Levy

This short story collection is the work of a gifted young writer who has yet to find her voice. In "Preparing for Life,'' Levy imitates Latin-American magic realists to tell of Mamita, a dying woman whose sneeze causes her soul, in the form of a white mouse, to pop out of her mouth. The title story and many of the other flat, disconnected tales, are told like dreams. "Flush'' is college humor. There's a little Zen parody, a few interspersed news bulletins. Throughout, the message is grim. Society undervalues art and artists, oppresses women, is intent on destroying the human race, uses money to crush esthetics; yet, underneath irony as thick as armor, there seems to beat a heart which Levy may, in the future, set free. In the meantime, there is a vogue for writing that satirizes contemporary life without engaging or threatening anyone's emotions, and Levy's spare parodies have attracted a cult following in England.

Genres: Short Stories, 20th Century, Fiction

112 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Deborah Levy trained at Dartington College of Arts leaving in 1981 to write a number of plays, highly acclaimed for their "intellectual rigour, poetic fantasy and visual imagination", including PAX, HERESIES for the Royal Shakespeare Company, CLAM, CALL BLUE JANE, SHINY NYLON, HONEY BABY MIDDLE ENGLAND, PUSHING THE PRINCE INTO DENMARK and MACBETH-FALSE MEMORIES, some of which are published in LEVY: PLAYS 1 (Methuen)

Deborah wrote and published her first novel BEAUTIFUL MUTANTS (Vintage), when she was 27 years old. The experience of not having to give her words to a director, actors and designer to interpret, was so exhilarating, she wrote a few more. These include, SWALLOWING GEOGRAPHY, THE UNLOVED (Vintage) and BILLY and GIRL (Bloomsbury). She has always written across a number of art forms (see Bookworks and Collaborations with visual artists) and was Fellow in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1989-1991.

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

After awhile he asks how the plot is developing in the play she is currently writing for a theatre in London.
'I'm not interested in plot.'
'How many characters will there be?'
I'm not interested in characters.'
He is not sure how serious she is. 'Narrative?'
'I'm not interested in narrative.'
He picks at a splinter in his finger. 'Are you cross with me?'
'Heresies' p. 72

So that about sums up this collection of early short stories from Levy. They seem more exercises in finding her authorial voice than some of her later, more accomplished work. Some are more conventional/traditional than her more recent output, some more in line with the avant-garde theatre work she did in the 80's. Still worth reading, but not as much to my taste.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection: metaphysical, cerebral and playful. A book for actual grown-ups. Fancy that.

[Juliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Mitzy was essentially a loveless man and the 1980s a loveless decade. It was the thought of loving and being loved that made her sad.” It’s no surprise that Deborah Levy’s early and out-of-print short story collection Ophelia and the Great Idea focuses on these dichotomies: on the trouble of loving and being loved, and of wanting love while also wanting to be self-sufficient. Most of the stories are concerned with either this basic (feminine?) struggle, or else with ideas of motherhood. In ‘Preparing for Life’ and ‘The Sinful Twins’, Levy distils her ideas through matrilineal generations. The next story is a departure in theme and in style; while it succeeds at capturing voice/theme in a way distinct from Levy’s other writing, it’s not worth the cost — this story is ‘Proletarian Zen’, the site of a recent controversy, which is as flat as it is fated and racially insensitive. The next few stories are also removed from or adjacent to Levy’s usual fare; in the title story a helpless father to two unhappy daughters both named Ophelia ciphers a critique of capitalism and science, modernity and futility. Next up ‘Flush’, ‘Heresies’ and ‘Passion’ are all concerned with ideology + aesthetics, while ‘A Little Treatise on Sex and Politics in the 1980s’ sums up so much of Levy’s work. And ‘Ee: A Case History’ closes the collection with an unusual piece on power, captivatingly set between the kitchen and the bedroom, in the interior of the mind, the endlessly vast exteriors it can conceive of.

[Andre Pawney · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 - A brilliant essay collection by a brilliant writer. In this early essay collection by Deborah Levy (from the 80s), one can already trace the themes which pervade her later works, with themes such as scientific rationalism when compared to raw feeling; the influence of capitalism within a post-war pre-new millennium world; crises of religious and ideological faith and the layered complexities of family relationships - all executed with the usual blend of seriousness, wit, humour and sensibility. Levy does not shy away from portraying the human at its highest and lowest points, illuminating the reader to the precariousness of human nature at the turn of the new millennium; where she strives to find a language which encapsulates this new modernity - a modernity which is captured through the ambivalent shifting between traditional and experimental writing styles.

[Steve · Rating 1 out of 5]

This very slim edition of short stories is too "out there" for me. I think it may be among her earlier works. I enjoy her current writing much better!

[Blank · Rating 1 out of 5]

A 1989 time capsule; should've stayed there.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these I completely loved and others were too experimental for my taste. There's no question that Deborah Levy is an incredible writer.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of short stories.