Rating: 
Summary: a masterpiece!
Review: The Wife is the best novel I have read in years. Witty, dry, searing, wise, the writing so fresh that a friend I recommended it to called me from the beach in Florida to read me a favorite line. I have read the book twice now, recommended it to countless friends and will be discussing it with my book group next week and can't wait. What I found so refreshing is Wolitzer's unflinching skewering of the literary world, those "men who own the world," the charming, voracious egos that devour women, soft cheese and single malt scotches in equal gulps. Though set mostly in an earlier day (the time in the book ranges from the 1950s to the present), I feel so much of the posturing and puffery is still true now. And the toll the marriage takes on the narrator's children rings painfully true -- never maudlin, just a matter-of-fact acknowledgement of how lies can worm their way through the most innocent hearts. As a fellow writer, reading The Wife felt a bit like a mischievous look at the writhing underbelly of a large and heavy rock -- the male literary tradition. A brave and brilliant book. And, for what it's worth, I was surprised by the ending.
Rating:
Summary: A Score Settled
Review: The WIFE surely contains some of the most delectable prose to be seen in print in recent years; but it is not because of the wonderful writing that this novel demands a second reading. No, it is that the surprise ending of the book needs to spend its awesome power in order to set us free to thoroughly enjoy the subtext and underlying structures of the book; for these can only be seen and felt once we know how the novel ends. A second reading is just as delightful, and perhaps more rewarding, than the first one. The book's layering of thought and emotion is so deftly rendered that on its surface it appears to be another in the genre that deals with the tensions between an older, prestigious, male and the younger pretty female dilettante, who in time becomes an acolyte to the man's talent; but all along we sense that under the surface there is much more than that, as, indeed, there certainly is. The author is an irrepressible humorist of the type that is funny especially when she is trying not to be. It is a book about the sweet and deadly revenge of the weak against an oppressor; it is a sociology about how a human relationship can evolve from symbiosis to parasitic exploitation, from sharing to taking to grabbing; and if Meg Wolitzer borrows some of the techniques of police novels, she rewards the reader by serving up the Holy Grail of detective books: a truly perfect crime. An extraordinary book that is likely to become a minor classic.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is cooked
Review: There is something very dishonest and disingenuous about this book; there is no "devastating message about the price of love and fame." I can't say more without giving away the "surprise" ending, which is as abrupt and arbitrary as a heart attack. Meg Wolitzer is a fine writer, but let's just say that if I knew how pathetic and dysfunctional the main characters, Joe and Joan, were, I would not have read the book.
Rating:
Summary: Wit, wit and more wit
Review: This book is so intelligent and delectable and urbane. I really enjoyed it and think that anyone who loves smart, literary, contemporary fiction will too. A pleasure for serious readers who ar interested in the tensions between men and women.
Rating: 
Summary: Very well written...
Review: This book was pretty good. It had its' moments, but some of it did drag a little. I loved reading about Smith college in the 1950's and how Joan and Joe first came to meet. I wasn't very interested in in anything that happened in Finnland. The ending of this book left me a little irritated though. I finished it thinking..."What the heck?? Why did I read through all that just to end up here?" It seemed like the easy way out. There was no real confrontation, no big fight, no getting it all out. But it was the last line in the book that did it for me. It contradicted the entire book. What she says in the last line is NOT how she feels throughout the whole book. It really felt like a waste. But overall, besides the ending, those last 5-10 pages, it was a decent read. As I said...it has it's moments.
Rating: 
Summary: HEARTLESS
Review: This book was so disappointing eventhough it started well enough. The story is written in the voice of the wife, and a bitter wife she is. She is a miserable, resentful woman who claims to have sacrificed everything for her ambitious writer-husband. In fact, she has done exactly what she wanted to do, and quite frankly, her husband came off sounding much nicer, and more kind-hearted than she. I cannot bear reading of mothers who neglect their kids - it makes me lose all empathy or interest.
Rating:
Summary: The Wife She Became
Review: This is a living breathing novel that recreates the pre-Freidan Fifties and Sixties and the ethos that told us that a good wife was a helpmate. Deliciously written, wise, and understanding, Meg Wolitzer's Joan is a recognizable and particular woman. Watching Joan's life unfold with excruciating, well-meaning but ultimately unsatisfying choices, doesn't distract from her observations of marriage and the literary life. Meg Wolitzer is a terrifc writer!
Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: This is a powerful read. THe heroine of the story is Joan, anolder woman who has been trapped in a marriage that she doesn't really want to escape, but on a plane ride to celebrate her husband's greatest achievement, she decides she must leave him. The reader is taken into a flashback mode of the events of her relationship with Joe, from how they met, and what led them to get together. I found this novel powerful because of the way it explores Joan's feelings about herself, and about her life. True, the author does not give us a blueprint of the hows and whys of Joan's actions (or lack of), but I felt I got a good sense of what Joan is all about. She was a woman who got caught up in worship of a man, who didn't understand her place as a woman in the 50's and 60's. She willingly put up with all the garbage that Joe through at her, never listening to her own intuitions, and she never searched for her own happiness- everything she did was to make Joe love her, and to make Joe happy. I did not feel sympathy for Joan- she was not particularly likeable to me, yet I was compelled to read her story. I've seen many woman that are her age, and I see their bitterness, their distaste for the decisions that they made, the sacrifices, and that's where I think the author hit the nail of the head. She captured the lonliness and disillusion of the 60ish woamn, who stayed with the husband because that is what they thought was right. The prose is simple and straightforward. I thought some of the dialogue a bit pretentious, but it is a novel about authors, so I can understand the elevated language. I thought the chapters were a little long, and I think that certain passages lost their power by being in section that was just too lengthy. I recommend this novel to all woman, of all ages, because I think there is a little regret in everyone, and I think it is wonderfully captured in this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Clever with a "K".
Review: This is a very fine novel. It is certainly not a happy one, but one, that I think is honest. I'm sure many of the readers were touched by the character of the narrator, Joan Castleman. I was not touched, but certainly felt sympathy toward her and her anger. Perhaps because I am a man. Perhaps because I am not yet married. Perhaps because I am not in my golden yers, this book did not resonate fully with me. However, I was involved in the story and fascinated by Wolitzer's fully drawn characters. Her sly jabs at the publishing world were a bonus. Reviewers have discussed the "shocking" ending, but honestly I figured out the twist fairly early on. I didn't want to believe it perhaps, but when it was revealed I was not that surprised. What happens after the reveal was a bit surprising, but it all works. This is a good and honest novel and I'm glad I exposed myself to a different voice. An important one at that.
Rating: 
Summary: A startling look at marriage and it's choices...
Review: This is a very fine novel. It is certainly not a happy one, but one, that I think is honest. I'm sure many of the readers were touched by the character of the narrator, Joan Castleman. I was not touched, but certainly felt sympathy toward her and her anger. Perhaps because I am a man. Perhaps because I am not yet married. Perhaps because I am not in my golden yers, this book did not resonate fully with me. However, I was involved in the story and fascinated by Wolitzer's fully drawn characters. Her sly jabs at the publishing world were a bonus. Reviewers have discussed the "shocking" ending, but honestly I figured out the twist fairly early on. I didn't want to believe it perhaps, but when it was revealed I was not that surprised. What happens after the reveal was a bit surprising, but it all works. This is a good and honest novel and I'm glad I exposed myself to a different voice. An important one at that.
|
