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The liar's wife review
Which won in 1997 and is collected in The Stories of Mary Gordon Thanks to Goodreads and Knopf for review copy 304 Review also found at received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review The expected publication date is August 5 2014 As this is four novella in one I will review each story separatelyThe Liars Wife I had a little bit of a difficult time with the opening story I found it extremely wordy and that it took a while to get to any real kind of point The main character was not really likeable and seemed to have all sorts of emotional issues that stemmed from nothing The story did pick up when we were introduce to her ex husband the liar and became a little interesting We learn about his live life to fullest attitude which is a stark contrast to Joss outlook on life We also learn about his lies and that there is no malicious intention behind them Ultimately this story was about acceptance of what life throws at you and making the most of it While interesting at points it was just an average read for meSimone Weil in New York I was hoping I would enjoy the second story than the first but alas it was not meant to be This one provoked frustration than anything I did not understand Genevieve s hero worship of Simone I get that she was her childhood hero as her teacher but as an adult I would have felt that if she learned anything from her it was free will and thought Instead she went along with everything Simone said like a lost puppy There were no characters to identify with or invest in although Joe was as close as it gets Again this story was too wordy that the actual story gets lost So far it will be tough to see this book through but only two novella s so I will try my best to keep an open mind and enjoy the last two. The liar's wife samantha hayes Thomas Mann in Gary.
The liar's wife review
Indiana This was in my opinion another wordy story about nothing The main character talked like he was enlightened when he was in fact not I found myself getting annoyed as I proceeded through the storyOverall Impression I put this book down before reading the last story I feel it was doing the author an injustice to continue as I clearly did not enjoy this read and since my rule of thumb is if I read it I review it I simply stopped While some people may enjoy this type of read I found it full of eloquently strung together words and lacking any real substance None of the characters were interesting nor believable and the stories were simply boring I hate to give a not so favorable review however this simply was not for me 304 Connections are vital in the four novellas that comprise Mary Gordon s latest work One connection a pathological liar and former husband.
The liar's wife review
The Liar s Wife is a collection of four novellas by the talented Mary Gordon I have been a fan of Ms Gordon s writing for many years so I was enthusiastic about this new offering and I was not disappointed In the first novella The Liar s Wife we are treated to the internal emotional state 72 year old Jocelyn is experiencing when her first love husband Johnny shows up unannounced after 50 years What is always composed Jocelyn supposed to do to think and most mystifyingly to FEEL She recalls their very brief marriage and her life with him a musician in Dublin the 1960s So what does Johnny a smooth talking charming liar what from Jocelyn at this time in their lives Next we have a novella with a real life character interacting in a fictional setting in Simone Weil in New York In this story fictional Genevieve is the protagonist She was once an adoring pupil of Mlle Weil s in France but now nine years later in 1942 they both find themselves in New York City Weil was a fairly famous metaphysical philosopher and by all accounts a strange genius The story gives us a slice of her life as seen through Genevieve s eyes and is a character study of Genevieve as she reconnects with her one time idol. The Liar's wifeo In Thomas Mann in Gary Indiana we have another story containing a real person Seventeen year old Bill Morton has been chosen to meet and introduce Thomas Mann in 1939 as the Nobel Laureate travels the US heartland I thoroughly enjoyed this story of young Bill beset with puberty and battling the demons that torture young men spoiler alert sex Bill discovers in his own town both anti semitism and segregation and faces the ideals of courage for the first time in his life Bill is in his 90s as he is narrating this loss of innocence story thus lending the story the benefit of time and history and an adult perspective A working knowledge of Thomas Mann s oeuvre will be a bonus to enjoying this story but it s definitely not a must. The liar's wife four novellas mary gordon The final novella is Fine Arts in which we are introduced to Theresa Riordan who is in Lucca Italy after having been eloquently dumped by her much older married Art History professor She is there to work on her dissertation on the Italian sculptor Civitali In Lucca she meets Gregory Allard who is a rich octogenarian who owns several Civitali pieces He sweeps Theresa into his world and the novella explores the relationships between art objects and their beholders between art and feelings of happiness and between the value of art and commerce 304 Mary Gordon has written four novellas all with the theme of self awareness finding who one s true self is and experiencing angst and turmoil in the process. The liar's wife review The first novella The Liar s Wife is about 72 year old Jocelyn She is spending the weekend at her family home in Connecticut while her husband is in Cape Cod She hears a knock on her door and when she opens it there is Linnet the girlfriend of her first husband Johnny Shaughnessy who she hasn t seen or thought of in fifty years Seeing Johnny causes her to reminisce about his love of life and high spirits However she also is reminded of the many lies he told in order to make things interesting These lies bothered Jocelyn so much that she had to end their marriage It appears that he hasn t stopped lying Despite his lying ways she realizes that she would have been less had she never known him Knowing him taught her who she couldn t be by giving her the glimpse of something offered something she knew she couldn t hold on to. The Liar's wifeo Simone Weil in New York is a novella about an actual historical figure Simone Weil was a real person known for her left wing activism her teaching writing and mystical christianity She died of tuberculosis when she was thirty four years old She is fictionalized in this story Genevieve is a young mother living in New York City during WWII Unexpectedly she sees Ms Weil and they reconnect which leaves Genevieve with conflicting feelings Genevieve has an infant son who she cares for along with caring for her brilliant brother Laurent who has cerebral palsy Ms Weil ingratiates herself into their lives Genevieve struggles with confusion about self She sees herself as a grown woman but in the presence of Ms Weil her former teacher who she once idolized she feels childlike again Ms Weil s ideas confuse and energize Genevieve She comes to the conclusion that she will never understand Ms Weil who both attracts and repulses her at the same time. The liar's wife samantha hayes The third novella is entitled Thomas Mann in Gary Indiana It is 1939 and FDR is president the Nazis have taken over Germany and parts of the United States are cocooned in their naivet and ignorance about the world s events Gary Indiana is a segregated community where blacks and jews live in their own ghettos Bill Morton seventeen years old attends the white high school and is a good boy He is chosen by his school to introduce the great writer Thomas Mann fictionalized for the purposes of this novella who will be visiting them and giving a talk Mann s talk has a huge impact on Bill allowing him to understand that both good and evil exist I hadn t even noticed the evil of living in a restricted town going to a segregated school This story is told by Bill when he is in his nineties and the powerful words that Mann spoke during his high school years still reverberate within him and define who he wants to have been. The liar's wife kiersten modglin Fine Arts is about a graduate student Theresa Riordan who has received a grant to study sculpture in Lucca Italy She had been having an affair with her advisor which he ends once Theresa reaches Lucca Theresa comes from a background that has prevented her from truly experiencing childhood She is both serious and naive The object of her studies is a fairly obscure artist named Civitali Her seriousness prompts her to act in a way that is alien to her prior experience of self. The Liar's wifenloof The four stories make for a wonderful look at who each character is versus who they think they are The reader gets to look into the minds of four very interesting people and share with them their evolving sense of self Gordon appears to be very influenced by Plato s writings especially his story of the cave and the implications of what is considered real 304 I admire Mary Gordon s writing but this book is her greatest achievement so far The four novellas are reminiscent of Henry James in describing interactions between Europeans and Americans in one case a Frenchwoman who has lived in America rather than a person born in the United States The story Simone Weil in New York is extraordinary It shows Weil having gone to New York for her parents sake desperate to get back to Europe to work to oppose Hitler The people she interacts with are Genevieve a Frenchwoman who has married an American Jew who is fighting in Europe and Genevieve s brother a mathematical genius who is severely disabled Genevieve also has a small child Weil s kind of goodness for the sake of the larger public and rudeness to individuals is contrasted with Genevieve s daily struggle to take care of her family The contrast between the different kinds of goodness makes a fascinating story. The Liar's wifeo All four stories deal with the uneasy interactions of people with different kinds of goodness Thomas Mann in Gary Indiana shows European exile teachers cramming a well meaning teenager with knowledge so he can be his school s representative to introduce Mann who has come to tell Americans that they must fight the evil that is Hitler The teachers make it clear that the boy s family and the people in his whole milieu are mediocrities a revelation that makes his life difficult This is one of the best books I ve read this year I can t recommend it strongly enough The tension between different kinds of goodness is thought provoking than the traditional struggle between good and evil 304 Just finished don t really know what I think about it at this time I am not a real fan of short stories 304 4. The Liar's wifemistress 5 Four novellas on the ethics of truth lying honesty and dishonesty On personal levels In the civic arena IN THE FIRST novella Liar s Wife the reader is brought into the introspection of a woman who has lived a comfortable life Her children are grown and she is alone at one of the homes she and her husband own two inherited and kept the other a NYC apartment She is highly suspicious of a Frito Lay deliver truck parked across the street something not seen in this neighborhood The doorbell s ringing startled her No one came to this house spontaneously no one who knew anything about anything would ring the bell without a call first The doorbell ringing at seven o clock in the evening could only signal something wrong An emergency Her mind went first to her grandchildren Then to Richard A heart attack A car accident It was too late for Jehovah s Witnesses She walked quickly from the backyard to the front door and with each step the two wods pressed into her brain Something wrong Something wrong Being inside this woman s mind was at times excruciating for me and I needed at times to force myself to focus upon it She s discerning and defensive And when she answers the door a marriage she walked away from fifty years earlier is brought back to her She could not love a man who embellished upon the truth omitted parts of truths created wildly false stories about himself and others. The liar's wife samantha hayes Gordon creates a palpable tension through Genevieve s thoughts and the theme of falsehoods And the story unfolded in a direction I would not have predicted Loved loved loved the ending IN THE SECOND novella Simone Weil in New York the lying theme is that of acting one way but thinking another The story begins with an encounter with Simone Weil in New York City in October 1942 Simone Weil tutored Genevieve and her brother who has cerebral palsy in France approximately eight years earlier Genevieve now in early twenties is married to an absent soldier has a child and cares for her brother Because she is a people pleaser she keeps her true and conflicted thoughts to herself making Weil comfortable enough in Genevieve s company to confide certain things with her allow Genevieve to touch her and visit unannounced I know little of Weil and will not surmise as to how she is presented in this story Again Gordon spends a lot of time in the protagonist s mind Like this Weil says Genevieve you are a very good friend Genevieve thinks She wants to say No I am not I am good not out of friendship but because I fear your disapproval as I did when I was a girl. The liar's wife samantha hayes These are simple quotes but the novella has deeper themes within it Weil an unconventional thinker philosophizes on God human suffering inequality She feels guilty about being in the states and not being active in doing her part in WWII Europe This is the story of two women one who does not fit in because she aloof to the world around her but honest about her thinking The other a woman who manages only too well but keeps her true thoughts to herself Words will not serve But she must do something She must bring something to Mme Weil An offering THOMAS MANN IN GARY INDIANA is also set during the during WWII In this novella a young man s guilt over his budding sexuality and his pursuit of happiness are intensified through encounters with a couple who have fled Nazi Europe and Thomas Mann who is traveling America to speak of truth justice civilization democracy In my purely aesthetically determined youth it would never have occurred to me to deal in such terms. The Liar's wifeo Civilization is in retreat May America stand forth in an abandoned and ethically leaderless world as the strong and unswerving protector of the good and the godly in mankind a country that perseveres in a faith which is sound and utterly necessary to life faith in goodness in freedom and truth in justice and in peace IN THE FOURTH STORY Fine Arts the question of truth is that of discriminating between the real and the fake A wealthy man on in his years worries of being cheated if he purchases an art piece He was unwilling to trust that kind of sentimentality in a dealer But Theresa the young woman whose life story meanders a bit too much through this novella unlike the other protagonists in these novellas speaks what she is thinking I think it s beautiful I think it s wonderful I think you should buy it she instantly regrets what she d said and apologizes for being rude But he replies Believe me my dear I know rudeness when I encounter it You were taken up by an idea aroused by it And what a rare thing that is As a collector I think a lot about rarity And you are a rare person Her rewards for this honesty go a bit over the top in this novella and the ending is sadly a fairy tale and anything based in reality Too bad Until then I was thinking this book of novellas was one to be left with on a deserted island One with which to have endless time to read and reread analyze and savor passages passages I was soooo impressed Still it could spark some interesting book discussions on the ethics of truth and lying being real or being a fake What is acceptable and what is not 304 A thought from James Baldwin Sentimentality the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion is the mark of dishonesty the inability to feel the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience his fear of life his arid heart and it is always therefore the signal of secret and violent inhumanity the mask of cruelty The difficult thing about reading Mary Gordon s fiction is not that she writes badly Her prose is always tart and memorable and she can sum up a character with a single telling detail The problem is that she devotes her skills to promoting a sentimentalized and distorted view of human affairs. The liar's wife samantha hayes As the title suggests each of these four novellas explores the problem of lying But where an earlier American author such as Nathaniel Hawthorne might condemn self deception in no uncertain terms might even dramatize the soul destroying horror of a lifetime of self deception crying out be true be true be true at the end of the Scarlet Letter Mary Gordon gives in to lies and advocates self deception with something between a shrug and a sneer Given the nature of modern life in a vulgar and coarse and democratic modern America she seems to be saying or sneering anyone who wishes to be a lady a scholar and a Catholic must be willing to stretch the truth at times While the lies in these stories are presented as heroic they actually appear pathetic than anything else. The Liar's wifeo In these stories we find a so called saint who feasts on filet mignon and pretends it s horsemeat a so called literary giant who pretends to despise the Nazis of his homeland but hates America far a lady scientist who pretends to be at home with sex but is mortified by the very mention of sexy singers like Elvis Presley and a so called art student who pretends to value refinement and beauty but resorts to petty vandalism the moment her narrow minded standards are threatened The story about the art student Fine Arts is particularly revealing Theresa Riordan is a typical Mary Gordon heroine ashamed of her body angry at men unable to own her own womanhood Theresa goes to Italy to study religious sculptures but her worshipful attitude is both comical and grotesque At one point she literally claims to be ashamed to be in the same room with the cool stone statues because her hot dirty body is perspiring in the Italian heat Is that sick or is that Catholic Whatever it is it s not Christian The man who died on the cross wasn t made out of stone In the beginning was the Word and the Word was made flesh So in addition to being a prude a snob and a fraud Theresa is an idol worshiper in the most literal sense And notice how it s hatred of her own flesh that keeps her from any real understanding of or sympathy for the suffering flesh on the Cross This is what happens when you build a cult of self deception and self loathing based around female purity making the untouched flesh of the Virgin Mary important than the sinful flesh of the Man on the Cross Now Theresa seems like a mousy little thing but she erupts in psychotic rage when a fellow artist in Italy paints what she considers to be a dirty picture of the Virgin Mary Now what is really sending her over the edge This is a girl who sleeps around who has a sordid affair with one of her professors and uses that to advance her career She s no Virgin Mary Yet she s very careful not to ever confess her sins in church or even confide in the nuns who raised her though she never shuts up about how much she admires them When it comes to Mary Gordon and nuns imitation is never the sincerest form of flattery Instead hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue Well I think the problem with Theresa is that she s got too much to hide And when that nasty boy paints a picture of a whore dressed up like the Virgin Mary he s not really insulting the Blessed Virgin He s exposing the lie that Theresa s whole life is built on Which when you think about it is exactly what art is supposed to do But Theresa isn t interested in that kind of art and neither is Mary Gordon That s why the story is called Fine Arts Because fine art or genteel art or civilized art is what a corrupt civilization needs to conceal its crimes Shakespeare called it the harlot s plastering art and Jesus called it the whited sepulcher But men are pigs Right Mary Gordon I could go on for another ten pages but what t she point None of these characters are likable but to the point their lies are without consequence The chickens never come home to roost Fantasy and wishful thinking abound not only in the characters but in the author s presentation of them 304 A collection of four novellas Mary Gordon does something very tricky with two of them In these two the French philosopher Simone Weil and German literature great Thomas Mann both come to America around the time of WWII To me this is almost indulgent Not that a little indulgence is wrong but the concept sort of reminds me of the recent Tony Bennett duet recordings It s precarious for all involved It could work really well Diana Krall Amy Winehouse Michael Buble or it could just get weird Lady Gaga In the Simone Weil novella which I found the better of the two Weil accompanies her Jewish parents to the U. The Liar's wifem S to escape the Nazi occupation of France But Weil being the Mother Theresa like philosopher she is wants to be back on the front lines helping her countrymen She refuses to eat any foods other than what she thinks a typical soldier would eat Gordon creates a fictional character Genevieve a former student of Weil and also an escapee of occupied France Genevieve discovers Weil is also in NYC and arranges to meet Though Genevieve was greatly influenced by Weil and idolized her as a young girl she has since matured married had a baby and nearly completely assimilated to American culture Anyone familiar with Weil s philosophy can imagine the kind of tension that arises from this reunion At first Genevieve is as enad and overwhelmed as she was as a young student But eventually Genevieve is disturbed by the intrusion of Weil s philosophy into her every day reality This story was kind of ho humming along until Genevieve s perfectly normal and good hud friends Joe and Lily arrive for a visit at the same time as Weil Lily is Joe s much younger mistress What could be American than a brazen mistress Weil to the surprise of Genevieve engages Joe in the philosophical You see Joe says Mlle Weil one of my shames is that many kinds of food disgust me I have been very held back from being the kind of person I want to be because I seem to be susceptible to both fatigue and disgust At this point it seems all patience and reverence for Weil escapes Genevieve She s done with the musings and done being held hostage by the guilt of taking pleasure in life or having a nice cup of tea Weil s worldview just becomes too much for her. The liar's wife four novellas mary gordon It s in this encounter that I think Gordon succeeds with this story It reminded me of something Truman Capote might ve written or even said in real life And Dorothy Parker would ve done worse Genevieve wants to rush across the room and put her hand over Mlle Weil s mouth Don t talk like this she wants to say Nobody talks like this Not someone they ve just met You are impossible Of the four novellas The Liar s Wife was my favorite It seemed personal and was truly satisfying to read I think fans of Alice McDermott or Anne Tyler might really enjoy this collection I have a goal to read each of the O Henry Prize Juror Favorites so I m really looking forward to reading City Life the famous eccentric French philosopher Simone Weil the German novelist Thomas Mann or a millionaire patron of the arts enables the somewhat ordinary protagonist to gain insight and self knowledge. The liar's wife review In the eponymous The Liar s Wife the opening story Jocelyn is a wealthy sheltered and anxious dowager the child who wept when the swings were taken down for the winter Into her carefully ordered life suddenly enters her first husband Johnny an Irish neer do well a self created man with an oversized love of life Through her interaction with the down and out Johnny she realizes If love casts out fears does it follow that fear casts out love And she finally realizes that without Johnny she wouldn t have known really who she was Because he had taught her who she was not The two sandwiched stories Simone Weil in New York and Thomas Mann in Gary Indiana are similar in that both are focused on ordinary students who interact with these renowned yet very flawed individuals And each deals in its own way with the early years of World War II and America s blindness about the impending horrors In the first Genevieve a student of Ms Weil recognizes that The times demand of those who live through them certain acts gestures and understandings that they would not have come to in ordinary times Similarly Bill who feels indelibly and permanently marked by Dr Mann recalls The waking was a shock a laceration but it was one we needed His words lanced the infection of our refused to understand who we were The last novella Fine Arts weaves these themes together along with themes that those who are familiar with Mary Gordon s past works particularly Spending will recognize the arts the joys and pitfalls of faith the search for self Theresa Riordan an attractive young scholarship student nurtured by Milwaukee nuns is ill prepared for the larger world her married lover and eventually her affluent much older mentor who collects Matteo Civitali sculptures Gradually her life leads her to understand that sometimes one doesn t need to know what to do but does know what not to do Ms Gordon s characters are all self reflective and contemplative with the trappings of a good life and yet with happiness as elusive Two of the questions posed in a couple of these stories are what is happiness and is it important These are fine novellas 304 One of the telltale signs of powerful psychological fiction is the inability of many of its reviewers to come down on the same page Whether they liked it or not a quick scan of commentary on The Liar s Wife will show that the majority of people who ve read this book walked away with markedly different impressions of what these stories were about What this means is that Mary Gordon has managed to pluck some pretty strong psychic chords with her material strong enough to elicit reactions that are far revealing of a reader s character than anything the author has created or written out The work is full of triggers then and siren calls to projection. The liar's wife samantha hayes And so you know here I goGordon has produced four novellas that from my perspective interconnect as an examination of the harsh human habit of self imprisonment Each story introduces an individual caught in a labyrinth of fear. The Liar's wifeo Seventy two year old Jocelyn Pemberton is afraid of lies and has built her entire existence around Truth under the mistaken impression it will protect her from danger You can see in which ways she might be correct much harder to discern how fully this restricts her Young mother Genevieve Levy lives in constant fear of losing respect for her mentor a teacher whose presence on this pedestal keeps her world in order and her boundaries intact Bill Morton reflecting back on his high school years and an encounter with the intellectual giant Thomas Mann finds the shame of his innocence still fresh and crushing to his spirit Graduate student Theresa Riordan a latchkey child who d been primarily parented by nuns shudders with the vision of herself as inept and utterly inconsequential without even a heart to break or a language to speak as she travels for a month s study abroad. The Liar's wifeo The material is deep and deft and daring Seldom do I find internal explorations of this magnitude in modern fiction And while Gordon s hand appears on occasion a little too firm a little too forceful she never allows herself to offer up than an alternate perspective How the reader chooses to interpret her invention remains entirely at his or her discretion. The Liar's wifeo She and her husband Arthur Cash live in New York City and Hope Valley Rhode Island They have two adult children Anna and David Gordon is the McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College Cash is retired. The Liar's wifem In 1981 she wrote the foreword to the Harvest edition of Virginia Woolfs A Room of Ones Own In 1984 she was one of 97 theologians and religious persons who signed A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion calling for religious pluralism and discussion within the Catholic Church regarding the Churchs position on abortion. The liar's wife mary gordon She and her husband Arthur Cash live in New York City and Hope Valley Rhode Island They have two adult children Anna and David Gordon is the McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College Cash is retired. The Liar's wifeman In 1981 she wrote the foreword to the Harvest edition of Virginia Woolf s A Room of One s Own In 1984 she was one of 97 theologians and religious persons who signed A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion calling for religious pluralism and discussion within the Catholic Church regarding the Church s position on abortion. The liar's wife mary gordon Novelist Galaxy Craze has said of Gordon She loves to read she would read us passages in class and start crying she s so moved by really good writing And she was the only good writing teacher at Barnard so I just kept taking her class over and over She taught me so much site_link The award winning author at her storytelling best four compelling novellas of Americans in Europe and Europeans in America In these absorbing and exquisitely made novellas of relationships at home and abroad both historical and contemporary we meet the ferocious Simone Weil during her final days as a transplant to New York City a vulnerable American grad student who escapes to Italy after her first compromising love affair the charming Irish liar of the title story who gets out of life than most of us and Thomas Mann opening the heart of a high school kid in the Midwest These narratives dazzle on the surface with beautifully rendered settings and vistas and dig deep psychologically At every turn Mary Gordon reveals in her characters interactions those crucial flashes of understanding that change lives forever So richly developed it s hard to believe they fit into novella size packages these tales carry us away both as individual stories and as a larger experience of Gordon s literary mastery and human sympathy The liar s wife Simone Weil in New York Thomas Mann in Gary Indiana Fine art The Liar s Wife Four Novellas.
. The liar's wife kiersten modglin Or this thought How wrong you are Joe she wants to say but of course does not because she will not betray her brother. The liar's wife kiersten modglin This is superior work that slips with silence and a fair degree of stealth well beneath the skin 304| The Liar's Wife: Four Novellas By Mary Gordon |
| 0307377431 |
| 9780307377432 |
| English |
| 304 |
| Hardcover |
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Mary Catherine Gordon M. The Liar's wifeo Barnard College 1971 is the McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College and is known for her novels memoirs and literary criticism. The liar's wife review Barnard College 1971 is the McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College and is known for her novels memoirs and literary criticism.A. Syracuse University 1973 A.B.N Mary Catherine Gordon M.A. Syracuse University 1973 A.B