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Title: Love Invents Us by Amy Bloom ISBN: 0375750223 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: January, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.25
Rating: 4
Summary: Nourishment
Comment: While reading "Love Invents Us" and about Elizabeth, I was reminded of several recent movie characters who find themselves in similar situations: Enid in "Ghost Story" and "J" in "My First Mister." Besides all three characters being about the same age, all three also have affairs of a sort with older men, all are rebels, all dress in a style best described as Goth and all three are devastatingly intelligent and colossally misunderstood ("My Mother usually acted as though I had been raised by a responsible, affectionate governess: guilt and love were as foreign to her as butter and sugar."). More importantly all have a deep capacity for love, untapped as it mostly is.
Elizabeth Taube, though she complains of not being, is well loved: by Max, a high school teacher who falls compulsively and helplessly for her: "So beautiful, Max thought. Am I supposed to be ashamed for being such a dirty old man, another Humbert, disgusting in my obsession?" By Mrs. Hill a nearly blind elderly woman whom she helps out several times a week and who "sees" Max's attraction to Elizabeth: "You put one hand on that child who thinks you love her fine mind...and I'll see you turning in Hell, listen to you pray for death." and by Huddie a young African American who once his father finds out about the affair, sends Huddie away: "(Huddie was)...a hundred times handsomer than the other handsome boys, kinder than the other sports stars. Even girls he slept with only once had nothing bad to say about him."
All of the characters in "Love Invents Us" have to deal with missed chances and miss-connections. Max's wife Greta says: "I did think it would be a happy life. That is what people think. That's why they marry and have children. In anticipation of further joy, of multiplying happiness." To which Max replies: "People like me marry and have children because we are apparently not dead, because we are grateful. Because we wish to become like the others. To experience normal despair and disappointment."
Amy Bloom's writing is voluptuous, fat and juicy as befits a novel about the many faces of Love and what we as humans are willing to do to bite off some of it for ourselves. If Love Invents Us, it also feeds us, nourishes us and substantiates our existence.
Rating: 1
Summary: Will trigger your depression
Comment: I had only read the occasional magazine article by Amy Bloom, and i liked her style. However, this novel is a complete disappointment. For one, there is nothing lovable in Elizabeth as a character. She is a sad and selfish person who does absolutely nothing to redeem herself. In fact, she acknowledges at the end how she is 'dangerous' to her own son. Elizabeth has drifted through life being no good, knowing it, doing nothing about it, and taking advantage of whoever dropped by her side, like a leech. Maybe it all started because her parents were very indifferent to her, maybe because she felt abused by the variety of pedophiles that crossed her path. Why the revelations about her mother's past? Did that explain anything about her behavior? I was repulsed by Max, because he is unwilling to justify his fatal attraction for Elizabeth ('whatever is, is'), and (to Amy Bloom's credit) also because of his gruesome physique. I did not understand how Huddie's uncle would "root" for his nephew and then intercept the love letters he was sending Elizabeth. The relationship between Huddie's parents was never made clear. Also, there were too many people narrating the story. The ending is a sheer cliff. What kind of resolution was achieved? The part i enjoyed the most was when Elizabeth took care of Mrs. Hill, and the relationship between the two. Amy Bloom does a very good job describing physicality and the erotic nuances of melons (make sure you always wash your fruit after purchase. Who knows what your grocer had been licking). Other than that, this novel is a humongous disappointment.
Rating: 5
Summary: Fascinating Characters, Elegant Prose
Comment: Amy Bloom's stunning writing made what might have been a depressing story a terrific read. I found her characters not only believable, but sympathetic and fraught with the complicated baggage that makes real people interesting--and at times intolerable, as these characters were.
Elizabeth Taube's quest for love begins with the strange fur salesman Mr. Klein and continues through a series of longer-lasting relationships, none of which completely satisfies her--although all of them do, as the title says, invent her. From Mrs. Hill, who teaches her how love through service, to Mr. Stone, her obsessed English teacher, to her parents' disconnected affection, Elizabeth learns about love in the complex forms in which it presents itself to us, and Amy Bloom shows us how Elizabeth learns in elegant prose.
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Title: Come to Me: Stories by Amy Bloom ISBN: 0060995149 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: April, 1994 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You : Stories by Amy Bloom ISBN: 0375705570 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 31 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude by Amy Bloom ISBN: 067945652X Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 08 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood by Kate Simon ISBN: 0140263314 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Splinter Factory by Jeffrey McDaniel ISBN: 0916397793 Publisher: Manic D Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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