Customer Reviews

The Act of Love

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

An erotic, exotic and esoteric novel that deals with one man's fetish ad nauseaum. And it's not even a very prurient fetish. Lots of dialogue and litle action add up to a surfeit of tedium, although there is one brief account of a swingers'/fetishist club that piqued my curiosity.

Actually this novel reminded me of Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth, but it's not nearly as entertaining, clever, or absorbing as Roth's masterpiece. Like Portnoy's Complaint The Act of Love is the compulsive first person narrative of a sex obsessed man. It is all about sex of a mildly "perverted" sort. Felix Quinn, after observing his wife's breasts being examined by a doctor, becomes obsessed with being cuckolded (his word) by her. He arranges by various subterfuges for Marisa, his wife, to have an affair with Marius, a rather unsavory character Felix has met at a funeral. Felix cogitates endlessly about his masochism, the sexual thrill of knowing his wife is with another man, how only with intense jealousy can one feel the intensity of love, and so on and on and on in this vein. Alas, I don't share Felix's, shall we say, "oddity," so a lot of this was lost on me.

But is Marisa really with another man? Felix's story or narrative has the feeling of fantasy. It seems to be a surreal twisting of Felix's imagination rather than the retelling of actual facts. The reader cannot tell what is the invention of Felix's overactive sexual cogitations or has genuine reality within the story world. The reader is absorbed by Felix's self-absorption, his quaint and orthogonal mental world. Well, I should say "not quite absorbed" in that I found it all a bit tiresome after awhile, and found myself reading faster and faster and savoring less and less. I guess I finished this novel despite my disinterest because I didn't have another book ready to hand. And one must have something to read mustn't one?

Unlike Portnoy, who is a nerd from Newark, New Jersey, Felix and Marisa are sophisticated and rich Londoners who live in Marylebone. I guess another reason I stuck with it is that I like novels about contemporary London. This one almost comes up to the bar in that sense.

Jacobson is a word master. Too bad his talent is wasted on Felix Quinn.

there are moments in this book, sentences, and passages, that ring true. This, and the fact that the language of the book is well crafted, makes the book enjoyable. However, masochism is gratingly one-sided (i felt the same reading sacher-masoch decades ago). A better, less standard masochistic novel would have given voice to the other side, the other sides. another flaw is that there is no sex to speak of; the author holds back on sex but i think if it's gonna be about sex it's gotta have sex in the book.

I'm generally a fan of Jacobson, who is sort of the English Philip Roth. Act of Love is Jacobson's worst. Admittedly, the language is elegant. The characters, the plot, the premise: drek. I had to stop half-way through, because it just wasn't worth finishing.
I turned to the latest Steve Stern novel instead.

The writing was so incredibly beautiful and I loved the intrigue of the story. I wanted to be each of the three main subjects at different times throughout the book. I read the book on a flight from San Francisco to Cartegena and then passed it on to a the husband of the friends we were traveling with. He was very disturbed by the book. He then passed it on to my partner, I am gay so he is male, who found the premise disturbing as well. Both agree that the writing is excellent and were motivated on with the book because of the writing, not the subject. I was motivated on because of both...I wanted the input of my other travel companion, my friends wife but she hasn't read the book yet so I don't have a complete opinion but I am going to back track and read the earlier books. I loved it...

David, San Francisco

I have never read anything quite like it. It is hard to describe other than to say that I hung on every word. The writing is amazing, the story is amazing, the thinking is amazing. I will likely read it again very soon. This book will have a large audience. I believe everyone will or should be reading it.