The Blindfold : A Novel

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Summary: The identity of Iris
Review: Hustvedt does such a compelling job of drawing the reader into a world that is dark, yet intriguing. The main character, Iris (Siri spelled backwards) is complex, yet easy to identify with. The examination of the objects is one of the most brilliant ideas I have come across in contemporary literature. This book will leave the reader with the impression that identity has much more to do with what we do than who we think we are at any given moment.

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Summary: A French reader from Ireland
Review: I had never heard of Hustvedt existence before studying Auster for my Master's degree. I did not know at the time whether i would like her or not but it was enthralling so just give it a go and you will discover that she deserves a bigger audience.

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Summary: Exploration of the self and identity
Review: Iris Vagan wanders New York in search of self. Iris first is hired as a writer to react to objects which belonged to a murdered woman. Do we have meaning and identify through our possessions? An identity so strong that it can be perceived even after death. Interesting question. She has a photograph taken and then circulated without her knowledge. She becomes the woman in the photograph. The woman in the photograph has an identity of her own separate from Iris. How many times do we remember someone through a photograph? She translates a book from German to English for a professor. She reenacts the character of the book through dressing in drag and walking the streets of New York. Towards the end of the book she has a wonderful section on perception and reality. Where does the self come from? How do we gain identity in this world of images? What is fact and what is fiction? I found her writing so enchanting that I bought her second book, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl and am working through it. (Iris is Siri spelled backwards for what that is worth)

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Summary: wonderful, like nothing i've ever read before
Review: The Blindflod was a very beautifully descriptive and passionate account of what it is like to be a young woman, a poor grad student, a newcomer to New York, and a migrane sufferer. If these are themes that interest you the book will be a pleasure to read. I read it straight through in one day, I was so entranced. Hustvedt has a knack for making the mundane appear incredibly bizarre, and the oddities of life appear normal in some way. The only thing I found a little disorienting is the order of the different chapters. Why are the readers left struggling with chronolgy? It is like a novel that begins in the middle of the story, or perhaps more like short stories woven together in the hope to form the full breadth of the novel form. One of the most memorable aspects of the novel is the exploration of an important, and all-too-overlooked, psychological theme of the secret human love of committing small evil acts.

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Summary: A passionate exploration of pain and youth.
Review: The Blindflod was a very beautifully descriptive and passionate account of what it is like to be a young woman, a poor grad student, a newcomer to New York, and a migrane sufferer. If these are themes that interest you the book will be a pleasure to read. I read it straight through in one day, I was so entranced. Hustvedt has a knack for making the mundane appear incredibly bizarre, and the oddities of life appear normal in some way. The only thing I found a little disorienting is the order of the different chapters. Why are the readers left struggling with chronolgy? It is like a novel that begins in the middle of the story, or perhaps more like short stories woven together in the hope to form the full breadth of the novel form. One of the most memorable aspects of the novel is the exploration of an important, and all-too-overlooked, psychological theme of the secret human love of committing small evil acts.

Rating:
Summary: appealing
Review: The Blindfold is a novel, yet it reads more like series of interconnected short stories - all concerning the same character: Iris Vegan - skipping back and forth through time. The premise of each chapter/story lures you in: she works for a collector of a dead girls objects and is asked to examine each one and whisper about it in detail on a tape recorder; she has a strange affair with a man named Stephen, never knowing where things stand... he has a friend who takes her photograph, and the picture circulates like some kind of urban legend - everyone knows who she is, although her face is never shown; she ends up in a hospital due to severe migraines and has a strange encounter with the old woman next to her; she translates a disturbing german novella and then takes the main character's identity -roaming the streets of NYC at night dressed as a man; in the final section she has an affair with a married man that ultimately ends badly - then there's a strange ending that I won't give away, but it left me with a feeling of "that's it? this is the place you were leading us to?"
The book, rich with oddity and intensity, ends on a bland, the author got bored, note.

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Summary: Unique and complicated, yet brilliantly written.
Review: The Blindfold is really an interesting book. It is interesting that the reader is often unaware of the intentions and situations of Iris Vegan, the main character, who throughout the novel, struggles to find her identity. Iris originally from Webster Minnesota, is a graduate student of literature at Columbia University, she is exposed to a variety of different people, at both Columbia and New York city in general. In the beginning of the novel she finds a job posted on a bulletin board in Philosophy Hall. "Wanted. Research assistant for project already under way. Student of literature preferred. Herbert B. Morning." Herbert B. Morning is a strange man, he wants Iris to orally describe objects that have once belonged to a woman, who is now deceased, into a tape recorder. Iris Vegan lies about her name and becomes Iris Davidsen. "It was a defensive act, a way of protecting myself from some amorphous danger, but later that false name haunted me; it seemed to move me elsewhere, shiftng me off course and strangely altering my whole world for a time. When I think back on it now, I imagine that lie as the beginning of the story, as a kind fo door to my uneasiness" (Page 11) It was that lie that began the identity troubles for Iris. Much later in the novel Iris identifies with and in a strane way becomes Klaus, a character in Der Brutale Junge, a German novella written by Johann Krueger in 1936. It is about a troubled boy, who is overcome by evil intentions. It is very confusing, yet fascinating when Iris becomes Klaus; she does things she does not understand. She even tells a bartender that her name is Klaus. She goes out at night in men's clothes because it makes her feel safer and more secure. The reader must make many assumptions in this novel; much of the novel is left unexplained. However, the reader is greatly enriched by the mood of the novel.

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Summary: Unique and complicated, yet brilliantly written.
Review: The third chapter of this book is one of the best short stories I have ever read. (It is in the 1991 Best American Short Stories - titled "Houdini"). I laughed out loud at almost every line. Siri Hustvedt has a way of reporting preposterous events with in a matter of fact tone, that is funny, but it also provides an undercurrent of alienation/disconnection that gives the story gravity. Her characterizations are simultaneously absurd and real.

Rating:
Summary: appealing
Review: This is an enjoyable read. But to really get the most of the first chapter read Auster's Moon Palace first; it is a delightful hommage, as Hustvedt reworks themes in Auster's novel.

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Summary: Please write more...
Review: Would this book have been published at all, had Siri Hustvedt not been married to Paul Auster, another completely overrated author?

It's completely forgettable. Go read that great 80s author Brett Easton Ellis instead.