What I Loved
Posted by the editors on Monday, 11 April 2011
What I Loved, by Siri Hustvedt, cover
What I Loved (novel) (2003) by Siri Hustvedt. The New York art scene, love, personality disorders and murder. The book jacket calls it “a beautifully written and insightful novel about the way we live now” (Kirkus UK), and Geraldine Bedell, in The Observer section of The Guardian, says it is”…an intellectual page-turner…a ferociously clever book”. Nevertheless, and though I thoroughly enjoyed Hustvedt’s “The Sorrows of An American“, I tend to agree with kirkusreviews.com, which stated: “A mannered, somewhat formulaic account of a critic’s long and complicated friendship with an artist, presented by Hustvedt (Yonder, 1998, etc.) with just a touch of melodrama amid the melancholy…told in a gossipy, insider’s tone likely to put off anyone not in (or interested in) the New York art world.” I may even be tempted to go a bit further in saying that the writing made me wonder, at times, how well Hustvedt really masters the English language. Interesting in parts, but really rather tiresome in the long haul. (PR)
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top image: waterstones.com
