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The Sorrows of an American

3.46 of 5 stars 3.46 · rating details · 1,778 ratings · 237 reviews

The Sorrows of an American is a soaring feat of storytelling about the immigrant experience and the ghosts that haunt families from one generation to another

When Erik Davidsen and his sister, Inga, find a disturbing note from an unknown woman among their dead father’s papers, they believe he may be implicated in a mysterious death. The Sorrows of an American tells the stor...more

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published April 1st 2008 by Henry Holt and Co. (first published 2007)

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Nov 01, 2008 Ceci rated it 4 of 5 stars

I did enjoy this book and all the myriad stories and mysteries within but as the end neared, I found myself liking it less and less. That was mainly due to the many narrative anticlimaxes. I wonder if they were meant to effect the reader that way... but it would have been lovely if at least a few of them had shaken the earth, caused a flutter of the heart, or at least aroused some interest or delight. Alas, they did not. I actually wish that one of the two great mysteries -- what was in Max's le...more I did enjoy this book and all the myriad stories and mysteries within but as the end neared, I found myself liking it less and less. That was mainly due to the many narrative anticlimaxes. I wonder if they were meant to effect the reader that way... but it would have been lovely if at least a few of them had shaken the earth, caused a flutter of the heart, or at least aroused some interest or delight. Alas, they did not. I actually wish that one of the two great mysteries -- what was in Max's letters, or what happened between Lars and Lisa -- had been left unsolved rather than giving it an answer as flat as the ones provided were.

The story closest to me, among the many that crisscrossed throughout the narrative, was that of Miranda, the narrator's lodger. I loved reading about her past, her Caribbean roots and heritage, her strange dreams, and the fierce paintings she created with she-monsters from those dreams. However, like Eric, we are left behind a closed door, granted only glimpses of Miranda's existence and wonderful mind.

In a sense, that is a key to the main theme of the novel. This book is as much about loneliness, sadness, the sense of loss, privacy, and that which is hidden and locked away in our past, as it is about family ties and connectedness. We are all alone, and we feel the weight of out past and our ancestors upon our shoulders. The dreams are often the most revelatory parts of the story as is apt for the psychoanalyst narrator, Erik.

Another character that I really liked was Eric's sister Inga, the famous author's widow. One of the reasons why I felt so close to her was her migraine tendency. It'd always given her strange visions, angelic lights, odd sensations and voices... these are phenomena I know all too well, suffering from hereditary aural migraines. Extreme emotions also give me a migraine, be they happiness or pain. That too is a mystery of a kind, a strange illness carried on by blood and relation.

The ending of the book was a real letdown. The part that should have made the reader fall in love with the tale, only served to alienate. Hustvedt tied all the narrative threads completely in vain, explained things that could have been left for the reader to interpret, and carried on the story when it should have ended. The book has three or four different (possible endings, and yet the author carries on with the narrative. It's a rare skill to know when to stop, and some writers can't do it, neither can certain filmmakers. I believe she may have grown too attached her characters (which may or may not be based on her family and herself) and was thus unable to let go, but to drag them behind her, through yet one more emotional trap, was unnecessary and uninteresting, too.

I still enjoyed the novel and would have loved it even more with a different ending, one that came quite a few pages earlier. With less explaining, and a lot more magic.

(less)

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Mar 12, 2009 Stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Even literature lovers might be hard-pressed to recognise the name Siri Hustvedt at first glance. But append the title "wife of Paul Auster", and its' likely that lightbulbs will go off.

This is unfortunate for the American writer, whose novels -- New York-based psychological and philosophical dramas -- are often fiercely praised by critics.

The central theme of her latest novel, Sorrows Of An American, is captured in the books opening sentence: "My sister called it the 'year of secrets,' but when...more Even literature lovers might be hard-pressed to recognise the name Siri Hustvedt at first glance. But append the title "wife of Paul Auster", and its' likely that lightbulbs will go off.

This is unfortunate for the American writer, whose novels -- New York-based psychological and philosophical dramas -- are often fiercely praised by critics.

The central theme of her latest novel, Sorrows Of An American, is captured in the books opening sentence: "My sister called it the 'year of secrets,' but when I look back on it now, I've come to undertsand that it was a time not of what was there, but if what wasn't."

Indeed, the unknown and speculations of what it could be is what torments narrated our narrator, a middle-aged, freshly-divorced psychiatrist named Erik Davidsen. He is sorting out the papers of his late father when he comes across a mysterious letter, asking her father to keep an unknown secret for the unknown female writer.

Meanwhile, his sister Inga is having some mystery letter problems of her own. The lesser-known widow of a famous author and scriptwriter (whose surreal plots sound suspiciously similiar to Auster's), she has discovered that her beloved husband once had an affair with the Edie Sedgwick-like-actress who starred in one of his films. The actress claims that her child is his, and is keen to sell a series of love letters he had written to her.

Then there are the doctored photographs left on Erik's doorstep by the estranged ex-boyfriend of Miranda, the attractive single mother who rents an apartment in Erik's brownstone. An art project involving defaced and obliterated figures, it is sinister in appearance but obscure in meaning.

Though the novel has political overtones, with several anecdotes involving September 11, the Iraq war, and immigration, its tone and focus is ultimately introspective. The Davidsen sibling's troubles are interspersed with accounts of several of Erik's patients -- known, case study style, as Mr T., Ms L. etc -- whose faceless woes serve to highlight the extent to which people are often divorced from the understanding our own dreams and motives.

Although the eventual resolution of the various mini-mysteries ends up feeling somewhat anti-climatic, the message, it seems, is that people are often not who you imagine, or want, them to be.

The author has a gift for characterisation, as in the case of one of the supporting characters, with whom she treads that fine line between mockery and affection, with often hilarious results.
Her descriptions of him convey the absurdity of his misplaced sense of self-importance, before she redeems him in a final triumphant scene, the full effect of which is only able to be appreciated by reading the relevant passages.

The meditative nature of the novel doesn't end with the story. In the acknowledgements at the back of the book, she reveals that the extracts from the diaries of Erik's dad are, barring name substitions, actual extracts from the diary of her own late father.
Meanwhile, a short, poignant newspaper obituary about an estranged uncle, who froze to death while selling pencils in the street, is a word-for-word reproduction of an article about her own uncle.

Indeed, whether you think of her as Auster's wife or as a writer in her own right, the fact that this is a personal, but not autobiographical, novel raises a final question about our perceptions of people, and their ultimate unknowability.(less)

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May 07, 2011 Blair rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, read-on-holiday

After reading the wonderful What I Loved, I was keen for another fix of Siri Hustvedt's beautiful writing and characterisation. The Sorrows of an American revolves around psychiatrist Erik, who narrates the story, and his sister Inga (who was briefly mentioned in What I Loved - the latter's narrator, Leo, also makes a cameo appearance here). It opens with Erik and Inga finding a mysterious letter amongst their father's papers after his death, and initially seems to be about their search to disco...more After reading the wonderful What I Loved, I was keen for another fix of Siri Hustvedt's beautiful writing and characterisation. The Sorrows of an American revolves around psychiatrist Erik, who narrates the story, and his sister Inga (who was briefly mentioned in What I Loved - the latter's narrator, Leo, also makes a cameo appearance here). It opens with Erik and Inga finding a mysterious letter amongst their father's papers after his death, and initially seems to be about their search to discover what this letter means. But what unfolds is much more complicated than that, a sprawling story with various divergences. As well as the first letter-related mystery, which comes about as Erik reads his father's memoir and remembers/imagines his family's past, there's a second: Inga discovers her late husband Max had an affair, possibly fathering a child, and his former lover now wants to sell a cache of his love letters to an aggressive journalist. Erik, meanwhile, begins to develop feelings for Miranda, who has recently moved into his building with her daughter, Eglantine, irritatingly referred to throughout as Eggy (I almost knocked off a star just for this). This in turn leads him to be drawn into the saga of Miranda's relationship with Eglantine's father, an eccentric and possibly abusive artist. As Erik examines his (and his family's) emotions and memories, he also analyses his experiences with his patients, both their own troubles and the effect these have on his state of mind.

The vivid, evocative descriptions of art of various kinds (Jeff's art and photography; Miranda's drawings of the visions she sees in her nightmares; Max's films, the latter realised in a particularly striking manner) are familiar from What I Loved. Because of Erik's occupation, they're accompanied by the narrator's meandering (I mean that in a good way) interpretations as he strives to make sense of this 'year of secrets'. The qualities of Hustvedt's writing are difficult to explain, as the beauty of it is in the way you're drawn in to the characters' thoughts and feelings. Her characters seem truly human in a way fictitious people rarely do - I'd never thought before about the mental effects a therapist might suffer as a result of their patients' issues, but Erik's vulnerability and doubt are painfully realistic. And despite being seen wholly through the eyes of others (or the filter of Erik's lust) with little opportunity for her own development, Miranda is a wonderful character. You get tantalising glimpses of her history, thoughts and dreams which create the impression that she may have a more fascinating story to tell than anyone else. The same thing happens with so many of the characters - little windows on their depths which make them seem so REAL, for example Inga's trouble with the journalist forcing her to recall memories of childhood bullying. It seems like Hustvedt has thought the characters through to such an extent that there's a book's worth of material behind each of them. Clearly, in the case of Leo, this actually was the case.

The weakest aspect of the book is the autobiographical experts from the writings of Erik's father, Lars. In a note at the end of the book, Hustvedt explains these sections are based on her own late father's life, and in fact the extracts from Lars' memoir are taken, almost verbatim, from his. I felt a bit guilty for not liking them after discovering this, but it does at least explain why they never quite seem to fit with the rest of the narrative and at some points feel awkward, as if they've been forced in to a story they don't belong to (I really did think this before I knew about their origins). While I understand how the book's themes are frequently entwined with ideas about family and how our ancestors' histories shape us, the family history element of the novel is sometimes dull and flat compared to the vibrancy of the rest. This leads to a slight lack of cohesion which prevented me from finding this book as inspiring as What I Loved.

That said, I still think any fan of Hustvedt will find it engaging, if only for the labyrinthine characterisation and powerful descriptions. While I wasn't always entirely captivated by the plot, and thought the book would have been stronger without the 'memoir' portions, it's beautifully written. Thought-provoking, too - for example the ambiguous title; does it refer to Erik, his father, or some bigger concept of 'an American' embodied by all of the characters? I will be adding the rest of the author's oeuvre to my ever-expanding to-read list, and I hope I bump into some of the characters from this book again.(less)

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

Critics were impressed by Hustvedt's last novel, What I Loved (2003), and enjoyed The Sorrows of an American for the same reasons. The author creates cerebral, educated characters and allows them to fully express themselves without seeming preachy or stuffy. Her novels explore psychological themes while also keeping the reader's attention with engaging (if complicated) plots. While a few reviewers thought that The Sorrows of an American seems too similar to Hustvedt's last book, that the secrets

...more

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Jan 26, 2009 Barner rated it 3 of 5 stars

Should you read this book, I suggest you read the "Acknowledgements" first. I found them at the back of the book, and they did do some clarification for me. The author is a serious writer, and I appreciated her incopporating bits of a family memoir into the novel.

A good friend and avid reader shared this novel with me. I am sure she waiting my reaction. I do not know. The novel does a great job of indicating our present lives are the accumulation of our past experiences and even the past lives o...more

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Apr 25, 2013 Bjorn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Now the ravens nest in the rotted roof of Chenoweth's old place
And no one's asking Cal about that scar upon his face
'Cause there's nothin' strange about an axe with bloodstains in the barn,
There's always some killin' you got to do around the farm
Murder in the red barn
Murder in the red barn
- Tom Waits

That song keeps playing in my head throughout The Sorrows Of An American - even though it's long unclear whether there's a murder in it at all. Apart from that one September, 2001 mass-murder that tu...more

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Feb 11, 2013 Nanou rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lars Davidsen, dont la famille est d'origine norvégienne vient de mourir. Son fils Erik et sa fille Inga ont découvert dans ses papiers une lettre d'une certaine Lisa, datée de 1937, dont le contenu est pour eux une intrigue :
"Cher Lars, je sais que tu ne diras jamais rien de ce qui s'est passé. Nous l'avons juré sur la BIBLE. Ça ne peut plus avoir d'importance maintenant qu'elle est au ciel, ni pour ceux qui sont ici sur terre. J'ai confiance en ta promesse. Lisa."
Qui est cette femme et de quel...more Lars Davidsen, dont la famille est d'origine norvégienne vient de mourir. Son fils Erik et sa fille Inga ont découvert dans ses papiers une lettre d'une certaine Lisa, datée de 1937, dont le contenu est pour eux une intrigue :
"Cher Lars, je sais que tu ne diras jamais rien de ce qui s'est passé. Nous l'avons juré sur la BIBLE. Ça ne peut plus avoir d'importance maintenant qu'elle est au ciel, ni pour ceux qui sont ici sur terre. J'ai confiance en ta promesse. Lisa."
Qui est cette femme et de quelle morte est-il question ? Quel est ce secret dont personne ne sait rien ? Erik va tenter de le découvrir en lisant les journaux intimes laissés par son père, qu'il a tenus minutieusement tout au long de sa vie. Comme Erik est psychanalyste à New York, cette plongée dans la vie de son père prend un tour à la fois personnel et professionnel. Parallèlement à cette lecture, le cours tranquille de sa vie de divorcé est un peu chahuté par l'installation de deux nouvelles locataires dans sa maison : Miranda, une jeune femme d'une trentaine d'années, est graphiste et vit seule avec sa fille de six ans, Églantine, avec laquelle Erik établit rapidement une relation de confiance. Attiré par Miranda, il découvre qu'elle est harcelée par un mystérieux photographe qui dépose des photos inquiétantes sur le perron de la maison.
Erik tente également d'aider sa soeur Inga et la fille de celle-ci, Sonia, une adolescente traumatisée par les évènements du 11 septembre 2001. Inga a perdu son mari, Max, décédé d'un cancer et éprouve beaucoup de difficultés à surmonter son veuvage, d'autant que la prochaine parution d'une biographie consacrée à Max la soumet à l'attitude inquisitrice d'une journaliste, qu'elle cherche à éviter.

Ce n'est pas un livre facile, avec ses multiples personnages, dont nous suivons des fragments de vie au fil des pages : les parents et grand-parents d'Erik et Inga, à travers les journaux du père et les souvenirs qui remontent à la mémoire d'Erik au fur et à mesure, la famille éloignée qu'ils vont solliciter afin de comprendre le mystère de la lettre, les patients d'Erik qui enrichissent cette histoire avec leurs problèmes et leurs difficultés, Miranda et Églantine, les deux voisines aux prises avec le photographe, ainsi que les amis d'Inga qui gravitent autour d'elle, sans qu'elle sache qui d'elle ou de son défunt mari les intéresse réellement.

J'ai aimé ce livre de Siri Hustvedt, comme j'avais aimé ses autres romans lus auparavant. L'auteur sait à merveille créer un univers, une ambiance et j'ai vraiment été intéressée par la vision qu'elle propose de l'exercice de la psychanalyse, la façon dont les consultations d'Erik interfèrent avec sa propre vie et ses questionnements, les doutes qui surgissent et la fragilité de l'homme qui apparaît derrière l'enveloppe du professionnel. Elle rend perceptible la façon dont l'agressivité de certains patients s'exerce contre le médecin et combien il est difficile de s'en protéger. La redécouverte du père, au fil de ses écrits et lorsque le mystère de la lettre se lève, est très émouvante et constitue une source d'apaisement pour Erik et Inga, les rendant plus forts et plus aptes à profiter de la vie.
Encore une fois, un très beau moment de lecture...(less)

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Dec 07, 2012 ilike merey rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

This is a tall, white, intelligent, pleasant, and faintly dull novel.

Erik D. is a tall, white, intelligent, pleasant and faintly dull therapist. He's middle-aged, divorced, and wondering if he'll always stay lonely when life starts taking some bizarre turns.
He's getting lightly stalked by a photographer once involved with a lady who now lives in his building. His sister Inga is embroiled with her deceased novelist husband's ex-lover/muse who is threatening to sell their old love letters. And bot...more

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May 16, 2012 Carl Brush rated it 2 of 5 stars

At one point in Siki Hustveldt’s The Sorrows Of American, the narrator dives into his father’s grave. The family has gathered to inter his father’s ashes and not prepared any device to lower the urn, so he grasps the container holding the ashes and inserts himself head first, others holding his heels for safety, into the earth, past the roots until he is able to at last drop the box the last inch or so to its final resting place. It’s a moving and sensuous scene, a moment lived in the moment wi...more At one point in Siki Hustveldt’s The Sorrows Of American, the narrator dives into his father’s grave. The family has gathered to inter his father’s ashes and not prepared any device to lower the urn, so he grasps the container holding the ashes and inserts himself head first, others holding his heels for safety, into the earth, past the roots until he is able to at last drop the box the last inch or so to its final resting place. It’s a moving and sensuous scene, a moment lived in the moment with every sense stimulated.

More scenes of that sort, and I would be writing a very different review of this book. More scenes like that and fewer--many fewer--of the endless meanderings through the brain of a psychoanalyst with stunted emotional growth. More scenes like that and fewer of the arcane, pointless conversations about philosophy and dream theory and memory research. More scenes like that and fewer wasted plot lines that begin with some hope of tension or drama and end with anti-climax or no climax at all.

Hustveldt has contrived a multitude of themes and situations--there are at least two voyeurs, probably more. Myriad father-son/daughter parallels. The perils of family secrets. Most of them amount to little or nothing when they’re followed to the end. Even the purloined letters of a literary/film celebrity, supposedly explosive missives which threaten to destroy his family, fizzle like damp gunpowder.

The narrator quotes large section of his father’s diary. So nearly identical were the voices of the narrator and that of the diarist that most of the way through the book, I accused Hustveldt in my mind of channeling the narrator into the diary. Then in the afterword, I learned that the diary entries were more or less direct quotes from the author’s own father’s journal. So I guess she was channeling her father as she wrote the narrator. It’s also possible that the title is a play on Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, which is about lovesick adolescence. That would fit, sort of. Otherwise, I can’t explain the title at all.

Either way, the result is mostly dull and flatline. Hustveldt has published five novels, has won some awards, and has a web picture with Paul Auster, a writer I like a lot. So I guess I must be missing something that might make me like her better. But unless some circumstances intervene, I’ll be missing the rest of her books and will never find out because this one is such a dud.(less)

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Apr 12, 2012 Katie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, bicultural

Having been home sick for a bit and having more time for reading, I finally got around to this book an American friend in Germany awhile back, I fugured there was a reason. There were two: the theme of immigration and being between two cultures, and then the narrator's profession of psychotherapist. I do find it interesting to encounter therapists in both film (where they're often highly distorted) and in literature; I really liked this portrayal, the (male) character's thoughtfulness and depth....more

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Oct 30, 2010 Jules rated it 4 of 5 stars

The writer reviews that flood the inner cover of this book paint it as a literary work of art and to some extent this book is. It took me a while to get into the flow, storytelling and timing of this book and within due course I did have an empathy with the characters. This is the first book of Hustvedt’s that I have read and by the end of it I feel in no doubt that she can write well. I do feel, however, that her style is a little bit too crafted and contrived like she tries to strive for a ver...more

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May 18, 2010 Djlown rated it 3 of 5 stars

“My sister called it “the year of secrets”, but when I look back on it now, I’ve come to understand that it was a time not of what was there, but of what wasn’t”. The lyrical first sentence perfectly sets the tone of Siri Hustvedt’s book. The death of a father and an unexplained letter found in his papers provide the background for a sustained exploration of identity and the search for an answer to that perennial question, how much do we ever really know someone. To what extent does information...more

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May 10, 2010 Margaret rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What really jumped out at me is how darn good a writer Ms. Hustvedt is - wow! Her writing style and word-smithing are many things at once: Elegant, surprising, revealing, clever, poetic, gutsy, delicate, nuanced, crass. The main character, Erik Davidson, a New York psychoanalyst, is the common denominator of various plots, which share the commonality of angst and unease; the general tangle of human lives. I don't know if these various sorrows are necessarily "American" in nature, so I don't quit...more

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Dec 13, 2009 Vivek Tejuja rated it 5 of 5 stars

There is a lot of chat in Hustvedt’s new novel. Erik is a psychotherapist with some difficult clients, he’s just divorced, and is falling for the young single mum, Miranda, in the flat below.

His sister, Inga, was married to a famous writer, Max, who has recently died, and they chat about what it’s like to be in love with a writer and how you kind of fall in love with them through their writing.

And then there is Miranda’s ex, who is stalking her but using the surreptitious photos he takes in an a...more

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Sep 19, 2009 Lars Guthrie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

'I think we all have ghosts inside us, and it’s better when they speak than when they don’t.' The words of Hustvedt's analyst narrator keep echoing in my brain after reading this powerful and unusual novel.

Perhaps novels are ghosts of a kind: words unattached to flesh that speak to us as vividly as life. Today, reading about the upcoming publication of Carl Jung's 'Red Book,' I thought of another observation made by Erik Davidsen: '…[T:]he distance needed for humor is always missing from dreams...more

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Jul 20, 2009 Lanew-yorkaise rated it 5 of 5 stars

From http://lanew-yorkaise.com/

“Dream economies are frugal. The smoking sky on September eleventh, the television images from Iraq, the bombs that burst on the beach where my father had dug himself a trench in February 1945 burned in unison on the familiar ground of rural Minnesota. Three detonations. Three men of three generations together in a house that was going to pieces, a house I had inherited, a house that shuddered and shook like my sobbing niece and my own besieged body, inner catacly...more

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Jul 08, 2009 Amy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I picked up this book because it was written by a fellow St. Olaf grad who seems to have received critical recognition for her novels. The premise sounded intriguing: Upon their father's death, a brother and sister return to their hometown in rural Minnesota. There they discover his diary/memoir, and are puzzled by an event alluded to, but not divulged, in it. Meanwhile, they are dealing with trauma and discord in their own personal lives back in New York City.

Despite its relatively slow pace,...more

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Mar 27, 2010 Siggy rated it 5 of 5 stars

February's reading treasure was a book called Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt. She is such an interesting writer. I had read her book What I Loved a year or two ago and it was soul wrenching. So deeply, terribly sad. Sorrows also charted this territory of sadness but in a gentler way. Erik the main character is living out a year of mourning after his fathers death. His life has many of the challenges of mid life - adjusting to life as a single person post his marriage breakdown and accep...more

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Mar 20, 2009 Oscar rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 5-estrellas, drama, mainstream, míos, romance, misterio-suspense, favorites

El nombre de Siri Hustvedt siempre va acompañado de la coletilla "mujer de Paul Auster", algo que me molesta y de lo que desconfiaba. Tras leer 'Elegía para un americano', lo primero que leo de esta escritora, he descubierto que Siri es una autora con personalidad propia y tiene derecho a ser reconocida por quien es y por lo que escribe, y no por con quien está casada.

Este libro habla de la memoria y de los recuerdos, de los secretos del pasado y de la melancolía del presente. Dos hermanos, Inga...more

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Mar 17, 2012 Monica rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found out Siri Hustvedt is married to Paul Auster when I was already about halfway into the book, and was excited, but also a little surprised, because her writing is different from his. Auster's books are more abstract, and I always feel like I am floating when I read his books.

The Sorrows of an American was more solidly grounded, had a less intricate plot, and had more understandable characters. The book follows the psychiatrist Erik Davidsen in the year after his father dies. Seeking to so...more

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Jan 01, 2009 Jennifer added it

The Scandinavian family melancholy beckoned me but ultimately didn't carry the day. The ideas this author is working with are strong, and compelling: memory, trauma, the inheritance of sorrow, grief, talking/language and not talking/silence. But the narrative often glosses over action, telling the reader what happened in a conversation or a scene without fully dramatizing it, and too much of this sets the story at a distance and makes the characters less flesh and blood and more ciphers for the...more

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Dec 11, 2011 Readingjay rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary, 2011, american

During the reading of this book it was like being in a dream. This title was one that I rescued from the Borders closing down sale, having heard only that Siri Hustvedt was a talented writer who happened to be married to Paul Auster. It's been sitting on my shelf for a while but a recent impetus to pick up an unknown book by a woman writer had me reaching for it.

There is no structure, just fragments, which adds to the dreamlike effect and which makes it quite easy to read at a leisurely pace. I...more

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Mar 28, 2010 Nina rated it 2 of 5 stars

I thought this book was beautifully written, but I didn’t really like it that much. The big mystery about the letter they found in their father’s memoirs after his death just didn’t work – it got very convoluted and I lost interest by the end of it. The other story interweaved with this one about the psychiatrist’s relationship with the mother and daughter living in the apartment in his house was very good – I wish the novel was stripped down to just this subplot. But overall, between the father...more

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May 28, 2009 Kathryn rated it 2 of 5 stars

Loved the first 150 pages of this, maybe because it's half in Minnesota (during our grandparent's/great-grandparent's time). The Brooklyn half gets too bogged down with names, obsessions, plot lines that aren't interesting. Then, at the very end she goes for a Virginia Woolf meshed (literal string-like-web) thing that frankly, has been done better many, many times and I don't buy.

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Mar 17, 2013 Isabelle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

While I loved many of the ideas Hustved incorporated into her novel, sometimes I felt she was trying to do too much in too little space. The whole issue of psychology is dealt with very thorroughly and the bits and pieces of Eriks talks with his patients are really interesting to read. However, the build up that happens considering his father does not match the resolution and it left me a bit unsatisfied.
Also, for my taste, the influence that our parents and their pasts have on our own life and...more

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Aug 09, 2009 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

In this engaging novel, Hustvedt runs two stories alongside one another: the present story of a male shrink who lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn (he has a tenant he has a crush on, as well as some depression issues), and the past story of his Norwegian father's early life in America. Included are excerpts from the father's journal/memoir, which Hustvedt claims were pretty much directly from her father's journals, with his permission of course. Though the book was fun to read and always something I...more

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Jan 10, 2012 Suzy rated it 2 of 5 stars

I'd almost give this book 3 stars. I had a lot of trouble wanting to read it though, until I had read too much to quit. When I pushed myself to read through it at two long stretches, I enjoyed it much more, so discontinuity of my reading may have had more to do with the number of stars than the book itself. I think that there were too many threads woven into the plot--not so that it was hard to keep up, but it was distracting from what I was really interested in. I do think Hustvedt writes well;...more

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Jan 24, 2013 Jeruen Dery rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Sorrows of an American is a multi-generational snapshot of the sorrows of four generations of Norwegian-Americans. The narrator is a phyciatrist, Erik Davidsen, who, together with his sister, Inga, a philosopher, buries their father, Lars, who recently died. The siblings live in New York City, yet the family ancestral home is in Minnesota. There are several sub-plots, which are too intricate to correctly narrate here, but basically it tells of the sorrows of four generations: Erik's; one bel...more The Sorrows of an American is a multi-generational snapshot of the sorrows of four generations of Norwegian-Americans. The narrator is a phyciatrist, Erik Davidsen, who, together with his sister, Inga, a philosopher, buries their father, Lars, who recently died. The siblings live in New York City, yet the family ancestral home is in Minnesota. There are several sub-plots, which are too intricate to correctly narrate here, but basically it tells of the sorrows of four generations: Erik's; one below his (Inga's daughter, Sonia); one above him (his father's); and his grandfather's. In order to tell a story that operates on four different time lines, the narration is one superb feat.

Erik is a divorced man, his wife, Genie, left him. Now he is living in a Brooklyn brownstone, and rented out half of it to a single mom from Jamaica, Miranda. She has a daughter, Eglantine. The father is an artist, Jeffrey Lane, who has the habit of stalking people and taking their photos.

Inga is Erik's sister. She was married to a famous writer, Max Blaustein, who recently died. As he is famous, several people want a piece of him, including a reporter who wants to dig up dirt, as well as a biographer. Inga learns that Max was unfaithful to her, and fathered a son named Joel with a movie actress who acted in a movie where Max wrote the screenplay for.

Inga and Erik deal with their father's papers after he died. As Erik was reading his father's diary, he stumbles upon a secret, referring to a girl named Lisa, but nobody knew what the secret was. So Inga and Erik try to track down a Lisa in Minnesota, in order to find the secret.

I could go on and on, but I won't. The fact is, if I do, I wouldn't be doing justice to the book. After all, it takes a brilliant writer to be able to spin a tale as complicated as this. And somehow, I like that. As much as the novel was a page turner for me, it also was deeply engaging, and I didn't feel like I was reading an airport novel. Instead, I felt like I was reading a work of art, with countless hours of painstaking research needed in order to accomplish the world described in these pages.

I also like the fact that there is no very obvious climax. So pages have been turned, secrets have been revealed, but does it really bring catharsis? Not really. Perhaps it is a good mirror of how life is. Life isn't always a walk in the park. There are plenty of stressors that come to us left and right. But somehow we are able to fend them off. Somehow most of us still get out okay. But life is hard. And this book correctly illustrates that. Every character in this book is messed up. No one can be said to be fortunate, because every one has a defect, every one has a demon in their head, whether it is post-traumatic stress disorder, whether it is a stalker, whether it is unrequited love, every one has an emotional scar, and somehow that depicts how the world is, isn't it?

This is not chick-literature. It will not leave you feeling refreshed and smiling at the end. However, it is realism at its finest. The stories in this book are about real people, with real-world problems. Totally recommended. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

See my other book reviews here.(less)

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Aug 16, 2009 Guy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Een klassieker opvolgen, het is geen benijdenswaardige taak. Was What I Loved een succes over de hele lijn, dan legt The Sorrows Of An American meteen enkele gebreken bloot. Dat die ook wel te maken kunnen hebben met m’n eigen persoonlijkheid en voorkeuren geef ik grif toe. Hustvedt schrijft graag over mensen als zichzelf: intellectuele bourgeoisie, academici, mensen met vette diploma’s en kunstenaars die een aardig boompje kunnen opzetten over praktijk en theorie. Mensen die ’s ochtends bij het...more Een klassieker opvolgen, het is geen benijdenswaardige taak. Was What I Loved een succes over de hele lijn, dan legt The Sorrows Of An American meteen enkele gebreken bloot. Dat die ook wel te maken kunnen hebben met m’n eigen persoonlijkheid en voorkeuren geef ik grif toe. Hustvedt schrijft graag over mensen als zichzelf: intellectuele bourgeoisie, academici, mensen met vette diploma’s en kunstenaars die een aardig boompje kunnen opzetten over praktijk en theorie. Mensen die ’s ochtends bij het ontbijt luisteren naar Haydn, in een leeg moment een strofe van Rilke bestuderen (in originele Duitse versie, welteverstaan), bij de middagmaaltijd discussiëren over Caravaggio, ’sex-positive feminism’ en de mogelijkheden tot spontaneïteit en directe expressie in hedendaagse kunst, in de namiddag wat palaveren over nouvelle vague-films en Woody Allens studentenfilms en ’s avonds over hun gedichten en hoe zelfanalyse hen gedwongen heeft om van repressieve instincten poëzie te maken. Ik weet het niet, bourgeoisie met veel te veel vrije tijd, woonruimte en aandacht voor zichzelf. Dat soort gezwets kan uitermate boeiend zijn (de halve Joods-Amerikaanse literaire traditie die me dierbaar is bestaat uit niets anders), maar kan, zoals hier, ook neigen naar het neurotische, zelfgeabsorbeerde, humorloze, half-hysterische rond-de-pot-gelul waar Foucault vast een en ander over te melden zou hebben. Je waant je soms op een Bloomsbury Group-meeting. Maar dan zonder de losbandige seks. Komt daar nog bij dat enkele personages betrokken zijn bij wetenschappelijk onderzoek naar neuropsychologie kwesties en de eeuwige strijd tussen de humane vs. de exacte wetenschappen en bijgevolg is het soms niet duidelijk of het hoofdpersonage dan wel Hustvedt eigenlijk de bedoeling heeft om een gefundeerd essay de roman in te smokkelen. En kijk, ik ben een eenvoudige jongen, met eenvoudige behoeften (punk, patatten, pinten, meer heb ik soms niet nodig) en een vrij eenvoudige geest, en als ik te veel af te rekenen krijg met dergelijke toestanden, dan krijgt de autodidact in mij een knauw en komt dat onnodige minderwaardigheidscomplex dat eigen is aan Limburgse boertjes uit de arbeidersklasse naar boven en voel ik me in het kruis getast, opzijgeschoven met zo’n bemoederend schouderklopje en te dom en als het dat niet is, dan kan er iemand vast wel een andere reden verzinnen. Gelukkig, gelukkig, kan Hustvedt ook een goed verhaal ophoesten, in dit geval de zoektocht naar een ontbrekend puzzelstuk uit het leven van een zopas overleden vader. Enerzijds krijg je ook het gevoel dat er wat veel verhaallijnen zijn die ze probeert uit te werken (de zoektocht, de relatie tussen het hoofdpersonage en zijn huurder, zijn zus en nicht, zijn patiënten, de jagers op de literaire nalatenschap van zijn overleden schoonbroer, etc), maar anderzijds houdt ze de boel onder controle zoals het een ervaren poppenspeler betaamt. De moeite dus, maar soms ook wat enerverend en zonder de intensiteit, emotionaliteit en, vooral, de viscerale kracht van What I Loved. (***)(less)

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Dec 27, 2008 Carolee Wheeler rated it 4 of 5 stars

I wrote a very thoughtful review, but it disappeared. So there.

"'Our own father used to talk about city slickers,' I said, smiling at my sister. 'But every perceived difference, no matter how slight, can become an argument for Otherness--money, education, skin color, religion, political party, hairstyle, anything. Enemies are enlivening. Evil-doers, jihadists, barbarians. Hatred is exciting and contagious and conveniently eliminates all ambiguity. You just spew your own garbage on to someone els...more

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About Siri Hustvedt

Hustvedt was born in Northfield, Minnesota. Her father Lloyd Hustvedt was a professor of Scandinavian literature, and her mother Ester Vegan emigrated from Norway at the age of thirty. She holds a B.A. in history from St. Olaf College and a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University; her thesis on Charles Dickens was entitled Figures of Dust: A Reading of Our Mutual Friend.

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The Shaking Woman, or A History of My Nerves

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“I've always thought of wholeness and integration as necessary myths. We're gragmented beings who cement ourselves together, but there are always cracks. Living with the cracks is part of being, well, reasonably healthy.” — 13 people liked it

“That is the strangeness of language: it crosses the boundaries of the body, is at once inside and outside, and it sometimes happens that we don't notice the threshold has been crossed.” — 10 people liked it

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