Fates and Furies

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Average customer rating 3.4 (7 comments)

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Rotten fiction smells even worse than rotten fish. When I finished Lauren Groff’s immature, confused, pretentious tome, I thought I had failed to empty last week’s trash. I had a sour taste in my mouth and an urge to strip off my clothes, take a hot shower and change into freshly laundered everything. Groff’s presumptuous claim to be an experienced commentator ends abruptly in this juvenile portrayal of a marriage. The characters are cardboard cutouts with improbable names; Gawain, Launcelot, etc. suggest a “roman à clef” composed with a modicum of intelligence but the dialogue soon turns smutty and slutty; and it is clear that Groff’s familiarity with medieval literature reaches no further than Cliff Notes. Death comes quickly in her tale and she exploits both youth and age. No one is invulnerable or immortal. So many lost opportunities to write deeply and meaningfully about experiences are suppressed or glossed over. but that’s the “fate” of a furiously mediocre writer. Many trees could have been saved if she had taken Hemingway’s advice and cut every other undisciplined phrase, every trite, over-written description, every titillating endless seduction. Lotto’s fictitious “Antigonad” may be Groff’s feminist “anti gonad” joke, or perhaps just a Freudian slip. She might have entitled her novel, The Gonadicon; The Priapucon; or The Dickathon Monologues but this is no Greek tragedy! Frankly my dear, I can’t give a D**n about the fates OR furies of ANY of these people.

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Excellent character development told in a contemporary, daring manner. The shifted POV mid-novel, the scattered Greek chorus comments, and many (theatrical) sentence fragments work because Lauren Groff is such a talented writer. Her novel 'Arcadia' is highly recommended for those who prefer a more traditional prose style. Nobody is better at creating fascinating personalities within fictional families. Fates and Furies has much to offer in the contemplation of marriage, our internal vs. external lives, maternal complexities, and the fierce natures of both revenge and of love.

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Prepare yourself to read a novel that will be more than good enough to draw you in right from the beginning, but will cleverly become more and more intriguing the closer you come the final pages. The story you think you are reading will gain added dimensions in the last half of the book and will become nearly astonishing as the story ends. Even though I may have fancied myself a fairly astute reader, I was not prepared for the surprising twists the narrative assumed by story's end. What an impressive piece of writing by a gifted author.

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Fitfully interesting, rather overhyped and overwrought story of a marriage that is told from each partner's point of view. Could've used more fury.

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The first time I heard of this book, it was prefaced with "the best book of 2015!" I decided that, for a change, I'd try to beat the hype on this one. I can't say that I was entirely successful with that as I continued to hear and read the merits of this book as I began to read. And, honestly, I was perplexed. You see, this book was just painful to read. I'm not talking about the subject matter--while I quickly tired of Lotto and Mathilde's rather narcissistic life, I didn't find anything they did that objectionable (or, frankly, interesting). The language of the book, at least in the first section, is overly stylized in a way that makes it overly laborious to slog through. I found the constant asides that Groff includes--they litter the first section and are used occasionally in the second--disruptive to the flow of the narrative. The second part of the book is better than the first. The first, "Fates" is told from Lotto's point of view and the second, "Furies" from Mathilde's. Both sections tell roughly the same story, but from the two different viewpoints. Mathilde's story is far more interesting than Lotto's and the language in her section is more organized and easier to read. I'm perplexed as to why Groff spent so much time on Lotto's narrative and not as much on Mathilde's as more actually happens in the latter (the book is 60% Lott and 40% Mathilde). As I was reading this, I had posted in a couple of different places that I was having trouble with this book and the response I would receive would be to hang in there, the 2nd half makes it all worth it. I'm not arguing that the second half (or last 40%) is much better than what comes before it, but does it make up for the "Fates"? A number of readers believe so, but I am not one of them. Groff lost me with this book and, by the time Mathilde got to tell her story, I was too far gone. I applaud Groff for what she was trying to do here--I do appreciate when writers "color outside the lines." However, in this case, it just did not work at all for me and I don't think I would recommend this book to anyone, despite all the buzz it is getting.

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I devoured this book. Groff has created a smart, tender, flawed epic that is also a brilliant illumination of the disequality in male-female relationships. Mathilde in particular is a riveting and complex character, cast in the mould of Greek and Shakespearian (anti)heroines; she is virgin, whore, wife, and crone in one fell swoop. I enjoyed the prismatic effect of the two-part narrative: Lotto's half of the story seems so straightforward until Mathilde's perspective comes along and shatters it -- a delightful dismantling of some of our deeply-held assumptions about gender and narrative.

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Honestly, I didn't expect this book to be that good. The marketing seemed to classify it as chick lit or beach reading, but it's far from that. The complicated plot, the revelations, the secrets, the stolen stories, the struggle to create art and be an artist, the influence of family and friends on one's choices, and the fates we endure because of the furies that follow us all contribute to one fascinating, enthralling story. Lotto and Mathilde are tortured souls who's love for each other both creates and destroys them. Highly recommended.