Nightwood in On Paths Unknown

Mar 23, 2013 Mala rated it really liked it

Shelves: female-writer, disturbing, dream-fantasy-horror, american-writers, modern-fiction

Night people do not bury their dead, but on the neck of you, their beloved and waking, sling the creature, husked of its gestures. And where you go, it goes, the two of you, your living and her dead, that will not die; to daylight, to life, to grief, until both are carrion.

Nightwood is such a strange book and this isn't so much a ramrod- straight person's reaction to gay-lesbian literature as the feverish, dream-like quality of the text– like you've stumbled into someone's nightmare & can't fin ...more

26 likes · Like · see review

May 25, 2015 BrokenTune rated it it was ok

Shelves: reviewed

1.5* rounded up.

Matthew,' she said, 'have you ever loved someone and it became yourself?'
For a moment he did not answer. Taking up the decanter he held it to the light.
'Robin can go anywhere, do anything,' Nora continued, 'because she forgets, and I nowhere because I remember.' She came toward him. 'Matthew,' she said, 'you think I have always been like this. Once I was remorseless, but this is another love — it goes everywhere; there is no place for it to stop — it rots me away.”

I honestly fee ...more

23 likes · Like · see review

Jan 20, 2018 Xandra rated it liked it

Shelves: american, 1001-books, lgbtq, z-w, gender, 1900-1949, lesbian-bi

This definitely feels like an Important Book. You read it and you think "I’ve haven’t read anything like it before". So part of your enjoyment comes from the element of novelty. And it’s a difficult novel, which automatically makes it exciting. But there are difficult novels that are stimulating and rich in ideas, and difficult novels that weigh the reader down. Instead of lifting you up on a happy cloud of fulfilment, they wear you out. For me, Nightwood falls into the latter category. It has m ...more

14 likes · Like · see review

Aug 22, 2014 Helen rated it liked it

Shelves: 2015, yorw, difficult-books

This book is quite strange, and I found it hard to identify on any level with the protagonist Robin. It kind of shies away from any language of intimacy between the characters. It is very well written, but the strange ending left me feeling cold. It does have some wonderful passages about Nora's anxiety while Robin is off roaming the night: "'Robin can go anywhere, do anything,' Nora continued, 'because she forgets, and I nowhere because I remember."

Despite some of my reservations about the pro ...more

1 like · Like · see review