Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff has a very interesting structure, with two sides of the same marriage, and they could not have been more of a contrast. We find Lotto (could that possibly not mean something?), a sad boy banished by his rich and eccentric mother to boarding school which is inevitably followed by being the college big man on campus.
He meets and quickly marries the mystery woman on campus, now called Matilde, who is of course tall, thin, beautiful and aloof. She also becomes the perfect wife to Lotto, and it does seem they have a strong, loving marriage. Except that, after reading Matilde's side of the story, he never knew her at all and she wanted it that way.
It was a bit too much (for me and others) of a stereotype that Lotto had a blessed life, with lots of lucky breaks, a wife who rewrote his plays at night so they would work, just the right looks, charisma, etc. The "perfect" wife, by contrast had a tragedy at an early age that caused her to be cast out of her family, growing up in poverty with the "bad" grandmother, sent to America with a cold relative and then resorted to some kind of prostitution to make ends meet until she snagged Lotto and cut him off from his mother. Not that she ever told him any of that. And then there is the horrible best friend that gets off the hook in the end.
Yikes.
It was (mostly) well-written, with an imaginative structure and most of us didn't like it at all. It add to the list of modern novels with no hero, no clear protagonist to support. The reviews were all pretty positive for this book, maybe because of the interesting structure, and maybe I am missing something. Still, on to the next one.
That you Gabrielle for hosting, we had a wonderful time at your gorgeous home! And the food was fab, thanks to everyone for contributing.
We are reading The Wager by David Grann, the author of Killers of the Flower Moon for our next meeting, which will be at my house on Oct. 14.
See you all then!
