Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
159th out of 309 books
—
316 voters
The Unpossessed
Tess Slesinger's 1934 novel, The Unpossessed details the ins and outs and ups and downs of left-wing New York intellectual life and features a cast of litterateurs, layabouts, lotharios, academic activists, and fur-clad patrons of protest and the arts. This cutting comedy about hard times, bad jobs, lousy marriages, little magazines, high principles, and the morning after...more
Paperback, New York Review Books Classics, 306 pages
Published
August 31st 2002
by NYRB Classics
(first published 1934)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
231)
Every generation sees itself as the arbiter of change, of revolution. Each views itself as the force behind social upheaval, rallying against the conservatism of their predecessors. This is why The Unpossessed is such a revelation. Written 50 years before The Big Chill hit the screens, it presages that exemplar of supposed thwarted idealism and perceived sellout. Tess Slesinger's life was cut short at 39, but in those few years she packed a lot of wisdom and wit. Before moving to Los Angeles she...more
Wow, what a bitterly funny, dark book. Very funny in parts, but ultimately pretty dark. It dovetails really weirdly with what I'm doing for a living right now -- researching the history of an intellectual anti-Communist left Little Magazine -- and I'm so immersed in this time period right now that it was like listening to someone talk smack about your family when they didn't think you were listening, if that makes sense.
Slesinger nails the whole Zeitgeist, the pompousness and uber-seriousness of...more
Slesinger nails the whole Zeitgeist, the pompousness and uber-seriousness of...more
4 likes · like · see review
view all 4 comments
It's written in a very clever way, really establishing most of the leading characters with their own chapters, and then in the latter part of the book, the author just skips neatly from one characters train of though to another, whilst letting the scene unfold.
Slesinger has written a comedy - which would've made a great film in the hands of Howard Hawkes. Essentially it relies on a rich vain pompous New York socialite, to support a bunch of left wing intellectuals with some money to start a maga...more
Slesinger has written a comedy - which would've made a great film in the hands of Howard Hawkes. Essentially it relies on a rich vain pompous New York socialite, to support a bunch of left wing intellectuals with some money to start a maga...more
Her only novel, published when she was only 29, it is so bright, so playfully and angrily intellectual, so intelligently experimental, so sharp and sensitive, satirical and forgiving and unforgiving. It is a condemnation of the generation older than her, although it seems written by someone much older, and it is certainly not sympathetic to any of the younger. It is dark, and gets darker and darker, especially in terms of intellectuals and the wealthy they depend on, their isolation mentally, ph...more
I can see how Tess Slesinger was brilliant and all that, but the bottom line is that her experimental narrative technique, the fragmentary recreation of raucous, self-absorbed 1930's New Yorkers, is just plain tedious to get through at times. Although I tend toward character-driven, impressionistic, non-linear narrative myself most of the time, when the style becomes so obvious that bogs down the pacing (as opposed to the more polished, masterfully organic way it's done by a Virginia Woolf in To...more
There's one point near the end of Unpossessed that reminded me of the NYT article last week about the wife of a Wall Street Powerhouse who continued to drop big bucks regularly at the likes of Hermes while her husband was being called on the carpet in front of Congress while America slides farther into financial doom partly through his titanic doings. Cultural history repeats itself. Every generation has it's intellectual revolutionaries who find themselves in the awkward position of having to j...more
Several things happened as I read this book.
1) I couldn’t help but seeing it as a movie
2) I couldn’t help comparing it to the Grapes of Wrath.
3) And once again, I am SO GLAD the women’s movement happened!
1) I couldn’t help but seeing it as a movie
2) I couldn’t help comparing it to the Grapes of Wrath.
3) And once again, I am SO GLAD the women’s movement happened!
I just didn't like this book--too bitter and too dated. Neither of those qualities are faults, necessarily, but I still didn't like it.
At times funny, at other times rather depressing, The Unpossessed follows five people, two couples and a single man, through their misadventures in the literary world and in Communism. There are a lot of false starts, lamentable looks back at individual’s pass lives, and sexual—or near sexual—indiscretions. The style of the novel is very cool, reminiscent of movies of the era.
I'm not sure what to say about this book, it was different than anything I've read and it was a very bitter portrait, though sharply funny at times. I'm going to go back and read Elaine Showalter's take on it.
The way this story told is beautiful. I feel like I really got to know the characters and would love to frame a couple of the chapters, just beautiful! I couldn't read this fast enough and now I want more.
Jun 16, 2013
Sean
marked it as to-read
May 26, 2013
Kiana
marked it as to-read
May 16, 2013
Judith
marked it as to-read
May 14, 2013
Michelle
marked it as to-read
May 01, 2013
Buried In Print
marked it as to-read
Apr 20, 2013
Azza A.
marked it as to-read
Apr 18, 2013
Marcele
marked it as to-read
Mar 26, 2013
Portiaslegacy
marked it as to-read
Mar 23, 2013
Giovanna
marked it as to-read
Mar 21, 2013
Dorotea Rossi
marked it as to-read
Mar 20, 2013
Sabina
marked it as to-read
Feb 24, 2013
Donovan
marked it as to-read
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
