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Title: The Man Who Loved Children : A Novel by Christina Stead, Randall Jarrell ISBN: 0-312-28044-0 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 06 July, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.56 (9 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman*
Comment: The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead is a rare literary masterpiece. It tells the tale of the inner life of the Pollit family (Sam and Henny Pollit with 6 children). The novel is representative of Christina Stead's past. And Louie, the protagonist, is of course, a version of young Stead who grew up in Sydney.
The Man Who Loved Children is a novel about power structures within relationships. I really enjoyed Stead's genius with the monologue, Henny Pollit's excessive and abject speeches and Sam Pollit's frightening idealistic speeches that transform the entire world into a homogenous suburb. The novel is full of amazing realistic and violent detail.
Don't reach for this book if you want to relax or looking for an exciting plot. This is a book that resists easy reading. Unfortunately, the novel has never received the popularity it deserved because it was out of print for some years, making a comeback only in the 1960s when it was popularised in the U.S.
*Taken from James Joyce's Modernist masterpiece- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Rating: 5
Summary: Masterpiece, but dark. Don't read the "introduction" first
Comment: The introduction, which is by Randall Jarell (not Doris Lessing) was originally intended as an Afterword, and is so published in previous editions of the book.
That's why it gives away the plot.
I have no idea why the idiot publisher put it first this time.
Anyway, while it takes some patience to get through Sam's babytalk and Henny's rages, there is gold all the way through. The inner life of a house and family is conveyed as in few other books, with vividness and specificity.
Just don't expect to like any of the characters, and you will be rewarded with high drama and deep insight.
Rating: 5
Summary: Dark but enthralling
Comment: The story of a very bad marriage between Sam, who is completely out of touch with reality, and Henny, consumed by bitterness. The story is told from each of their points of view, as well as some of their many children (in particular a child from Sam's first marriage who's just entering adolescence), and, as a rare treat, the occasional outsider. The family struggles with growing poverty, but much more damaging to everyone involved is the stubbornness of the parents and their hatred for each other...I didn't think this book was too long. I found it gripping and absorbing the whole way through--suspenseful, in fact. Ms. Stead manages to do what too few writers can: write characters who are deeply flawed and even unlikeable but who still compel us to take a great interest in them and what happens to them. This book kind of reminds me of some of Faulkner's better novels, but less condescending towards its characters and more insightful...
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Title: The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West, Andrea Barrett ISBN: 1590170342 Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Deafening: A Novel by Frances Itani ISBN: 0871139022 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino, William Weaver ISBN: 0156439611 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: October, 1982 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Bibliophilia: A Novella and Stories by Michael Griffith ISBN: 1559706767 Publisher: Arcade Books Pub. Date: 09 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Riders in the Chariot (New York Review Books Classics) by Patrick White, David Malouf ISBN: 1590170024 Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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