Posts Tagged ‘Virginia Feito’

7 Dec

The Top 12 List of the Favorite Fiction I’ve Read in 2021

Posted by Anokatony in Book Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

 

This year I was again tempted to expand my favorites list beyond 12 to 15 or 20 but finally had the good sense to keep it at 12.

Click on either the bold-faced title or the book cover image to see my original review for each work.

 

‘The Land at the End of the World’ by Antonio Lobo Antunes (1979) – Nothing of the many, many works of fiction I have read before has prepared me for the brilliant and devastating expressiveness of Portuguese writer Antonio Lobo Antunes.

 

 

‘The Promise’ by Damon Galgut (2021) – There is something special in the way Damon Galgut continuously and quickly shifts the focus from person to person here, each with their own vivid, frequently shocking, insights into what is happening.

 

 

 

‘Matrix’ by Lauren Groff (2021) – I did not expect a novel about an abbey of nuns in 12th century England to be this high on the list, but it totally fascinated me. Here we have an eloquent and persuasive depiction of a successful society composed entirely of women.

 

 

‘‘Cosmicomics’ by Italo Calvino (1965) – Italo Calvino’s playful conceit is that there were people, a family, around to witness the creation of the Universe, the Sun, the moon, the stars, and the planets. There’s Grandma, Grandpa, and Mother and Father, as well as the boy Qfwfq and his sister as well as some of their neighbors, and especially there is always a lady or girl friend to help Qfwfq on his way through the Universe.

 

‘The Bottle Factory Outing’ by Beryl Bainbridge (1974) – This is a deadpan comedy like nothing you have ever read before. Somehow Beryl Bainbridge manages to keep a straight face while telling us this outrageous story.

 

 

 

‘Agua Viva’ by Clarice Lispector (1973) – If ‘Agua Viva’ made complete sense to someone, I would worry about that person. But the fragments are deeper and make more visceral sense than most writers’ complete thoughts.

 

 

 

‘The Passenger’ by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz (1938) – A novel which vividly captures the terrors of Kristallnacht in Germany, the Night of Broken Glass.

 

 

 

 

‘The Inquisitors’ Manual’ by Antonio Lobo Antunes (2004) – This year will be remembered as the year I discovered Antonio Lobo Antunes. What impresses is the striking use of words and images throughout.

 

 

 

‘Sorrow and Bliss’ by Meg Mason (2021) – Meg Mason maintains a wry deadpan tone throughout this emotional roller coaster of a novel.

 

 

 

 

‘Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies’ Delight)’ by Emile Zola (1883) – Here is Zola on Octave Moiret who runs the department store in Paris: “He made an absolute rule that no corner of Au Bonheur des Dames should remain empty; everywhere, he demanded noise, people, life…because life, he said, attracts life, breeds and multiplies.”

 

‘A Calling for Charlie Barnes’ by Joshua Ferris (2021) – There are many, many novels where the main characters are just too good to be true. However ‘A Calling for Charlie Barnes’ is not one of them, and that’s quite a high bar to attain in novel writing, especially when you are writing about your parents.

 

‘Mrs. March’ by Virginia Feito (2021) – The Mrs. March in this novel is quite repellent. It takes real talent for a writer to pull this off, and this is Virginia Feito’s first novel.

 

 

 

 

Happy Reading!

 

 

 

25 Oct

‘Mrs. March’ by Virginia Feito – An Appalling Mrs.

Posted by Anokatony in Book Reviews. Tagged: .

 

‘Mrs. March’ by Virginia Feito      (2021) – 288 pages

 

Too many novelists seem to figure that if you like their main characters, you will like their novel. However I’m prone to think that writing novels is more than creating ingratiating characters.

I was ready for a fiction where the main character is unpleasant and unlikable. Writers such as Patricia Highsmith and Daphne du Maurier were rather successful writing this kind of novel where the main character is not at all someone the reader would want to know. The Mrs. March in this novel is that kind of woman, quite repellent. It takes real talent for a writer to pull this off, and this is Virginia Feito’s first novel.

Here is just one example of the evocative writing style in ‘Mrs. March’ that I really like:

“Mrs March strolled through the cereal aisle as if she were sightseeing along the Champs–Élysées. It had always seemed to her the most curious of aisles, with all the garish colors on the otherwise uniform boxes, the cartoons threatening to leap out at you, screaming for you to choose them.”

George and Mrs Marsh would seem to be living the good life in an upper class neighborhood in New York City. George is a best-selling author. Mrs. Marsh has a maid Martha to do most of the work around the house. They have one eight year old boy Jonathan. They throw lavish catered parties for their friends and neighbors.

However nothing here is as it seems.

The trouble starts when the woman in the pastry shop asks Mrs. March if she were proud that the main character Joanna in George’s new novel was based on her. This stuns Mrs. Marsh since Joanna in the novel is a pathetic prostitute whose clients only paid her out of pity and who is ugly and stupid. Mrs March flies into a rage and vows never to shop at this place again.

If someone behaves toward her in the least way that reflects badly on her, Mrs, March will exact her revenge.

Everyone and everything in the novel is seen through her judgmental sophisticated upper-class eyes. She is continually hoping that terrible things have happened to the people she comes in contact with. Here is Mrs. March when her sister Lisa and her husband come to visit for New Year’s Eve dinner:

“As she welcomed the couple inside, greeting them warmly, Mrs. March was thrilled to see that Lisa’s hips, tight under a hideous woolly skirt, had broadened. It always brought her joy, the sign of any physical deterioration in her sister, no matter how slight.”

The character Mrs. March is a nasty piece of work. And if the slightest thing goes wrong, Mrs. March gets hysterical.

Her mind is loaded with horrific obsessions. She spots a large cockroach on the bathroom floor and smashes it with her slipper leaving a black jelly-like stain on the tile. “Out damn spot” she shouts out loud. The reference to Lady Macbeth is surely intentional.

She also has vivid terrible suspicions concerning the people closest to her.

After seeing a newspaper clip while rummaging among her husband’s things, she becomes suspicious that he raped and murdered a young woman while on a hunting trip to Maine.

Novels this eccentric and peculiar are rare and special.

 

Grade:    A