Niamh's review of Letting Go
Letting Go by Philip Roth
I mostly enjoyed this because it was set in Chicago and it was fun to read the descriptions of different parts of town. The novel follows two couples, sort of, and the story of one couple was really compelling, but the story of the other couple was just painful to read.
Reading this made me think about misogyny a bit. The female characters all kind of suck, and they suck in very realistic and general ways. As I was reading, I occasionally found myself thinking, "Man, women really suck sometimes." Several of the male characters also suck, but not all of them, and my reaction was more often, "Wow, that guy really sucks." I'm a generous reader, and I think that this was intentional. Most of the story is told from the point of view of a very likable guy, and I think that the misogyny I notice in the book is the misogyny of this one character, rather than the misogyny of the author. But I'm also a pretty careful reader, and I think it would be easy to read a lot of b...more
Reading this made me think about misogyny a bit. The female characters all kind of suck, and they suck in very realistic and general ways. As I was reading, I occasionally found myself thinking, "Man, women really suck sometimes." Several of the male characters also suck, but not all of them, and my reaction was more often, "Wow, that guy really sucks." I'm a generous reader, and I think that this was intentional. Most of the story is told from the point of view of a very likable guy, and I think that the misogyny I notice in the book is the misogyny of this one character, rather than the misogyny of the author. But I'm also a pretty careful reader, and I think it would be easy to read a lot of b...more
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