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What Members Thought
If Beasts were a movie, it would be rated R, R for raunchy and revealing and reviling and revengeful. The story centers on a young college student who falls in love with her writing professor and his wife. The professor reads poetry from D. H. Lawrence and exhorts his students to go for the jugular, seducing every girl in the class with his voice and his eyes. Gillian, like the others, falls for his charms. When the professor and his wife head off to Europe for Christmas break, Gillian discovers
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This was a birthday present.. never would have picked it up on my own. I read it in one day so I guess that says something. I found myself disgusted and wanting to find out more at the same time.
This feels very slight - I read the whole thing on a train journey. More like a short story than a novel, it focuses on a student in the 1970s who becomes obsessed with her seductive English teacher. I think it creates a convincing feeling of that period and brings back to me just how popular DH Lawrence was at that time. It's powerful stuff, as often with Oates, with some shocking twists, and to me the novella loses credibility a bit towards the end.
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Jul 25, 2009
Juliana Philippa
marked it as to-read
Dec 03, 2012
Kent Winward
added it
Feb 09, 2020
Keeley
marked it as to-read
