The Beholder: A Novel [Hardcover]

Thomas Farber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2002

A sophisticated, taboo-breaking novel of the sexual obsession of an older man and a young married woman, in the long-awaited return of an acclaimed novelist.

"Once upon a time, her aunt calls . . . Can he meet with the niece?" He is a writer, middle-aged, thoughtful, engaged in a project that involves observing and describing the female form. The niece is young, married, and beautiful, an art historian who wants to write. They have much in common, the aunt suggests.

The light acquaintance soon turns darkly erotic. The writer recounts an increasingly charged series of trysts in which he and the young woman create a heady otherworld, where there are no husbands and no limits, where uninhibited lovers may discard the deepest taboos. No longer merely subjects for conversation, the passions shared by the writer and the young woman -- for art, storytelling, and experience -- fuel a transgressive vision of love that cannot, in the end, compete with the demands of the ordered world.

Written in taut, hypnotic prose, The Beholder plumbs the seductive depths of obsession and the paradoxes of the human heart. In his first novel in fifteen years, Thomas Farber has delivered a rapturous evocation of erotic love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After a long silence, Farber (A Lover's Question; Curves of Pursuit) turns out a new novel, about a middle-aged writer's affair with a beautiful, sexy, married young art history scholar, offering a substantial investigation of illicit pleasures. Having first met informally to discuss a manuscript, the writer and the student fall deeply in lust after several brief, clandestine encounters. The student tells her dull, invisible husband that she is at her aunt's house, and the lovers "all the pleasures prove" with great abandon. They even take Polaroids of each other, in increasingly erotic poses, all elegantly described in the book's pages, a smart metaphor for their awareness of their own violation and the pleasure they take in it. Of course, the relationship moves beyond sex, as the lovers become well versed in each other's pasts. The writer must also come to terms with a heart condition, a sign that his body could age beyond his capacity to love. Farber's dialogue-heavy style, with its brief episodes, works perfectly in concert with the dance of flesh that drives this book like a well-paced film. The story itself is not new, and there are some unbelievable crannies here, such as the writer's project, a verbal study of nude models who come to his apartment to pose for him, or his decision to think of his lover as his daughter, a device reiterated throughout the second half of the book without any kind of substantial reckoning, even though it is the book's most controversial element. Nevertheless, Farber knows the heart, the groin and the conscience equally well, and this novel is an impressive display of his wisdom.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The author of a previous novel and four short story collections (e.g., Who Wrote the Book of Love?), Farber here presents the tale of a middle-aged writer and a young married woman who enter into an affair. The characters then spend the bulk of the novel either looking to get out or finding reasons to continue, with sex being the oft-traveled road to either salvation or destruction. Much less of a taboo-breaking novel than the publisher claims (unless you find photographing one's sexual activity exceedingly kinky), Farber's story is content to languish in literary allusion rather than mine the admittedly difficult (and more earthly) territory of obsession and passion. Thoughtful and educated as they are, the couple (who refer to each other as "Father" and "Baby"), see themselves as tragic or heroic literary figures, connecting through the art they love and admire. These self-obsessed lovers are unfortunately the only two on stage here; it would not have been necessary to bring an outraged husband or some colorful secondary characters into such a story, but it might have provided some relief from all that erudition and self-importance. By the time the Polaroids start popping out, it's more than likely that confused readers will wonder if they're not as knowing as the author or if in fact there isn't less here than meets the eye. Not recommended. Marc Kloszewski, Indiana Free Lib., PA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books; 1st edition (August 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805069720
• ISBN-13: 978-0805069723
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,108,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Scintillating Examination of Love and Art, October 15, 2002

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Beholder: A Novel (Hardcover)

Farber, author of nine previous books and former commentator for NPR's "All Things Considered," brings us the story of two people --- a writer and a young woman, a beautiful and married student of art history. They meet. They discuss their passions for art and literature. They realize that their passions for those subjects is running over into their physical wants for each other. They have an affair. The writer has an artistic endeavor that he wants to partake in with the woman --- observe and study the female body. They photograph their erotic desires and in their heightened sense they discover sex that had not been discovered before. They obsess over the forms and shapes of sex until conflicts begin to emerge.

The book, in parts, is heated and visual, using the sparest of words and the shortest of sentences. At times it's like a poem, sharp and exact, meanings dripping from the words. But the longer that type of writing goes, the less impact it has, and the more exasperating for the reader it can be. Short sentences. Clipped phrases. Quick glimpses. "Merging; impelled by, feeding on, itself. Bewitched. Drifting, dreaming; one flesh. But, oops: hand on, under, around." The book is filled with such phrasing, immediate bursts of words stifled by immediate blockages of periods and semicolons. "Later, when her passion has once again ignited his, he strokes her hair. She draws him to her, wriggling. Baby salmon."

Take away the hindrance of Farber's particular writing style in THE BEHOLDER and it's a scintillating examination of love and art, passions and the human form. Even the cover itself examines these thoughts as it glimpses the female body, a naked torso, the right arm laying across it. Inside the covers gives the reader their own glimpses of the human form and human desires.

--- Reviewed by Jonathan Shipley

2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't be fooled., November 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Beholder: A Novel (Hardcover)

A rambling, dull and uninteresting piece of pseudo-intellectual, pretentious nonsense. Pity the readers and critics who have convinced themselves that, because of its usage of large words, unorthodox sentence structure and repeated references to genuinely talented artists and writers, this book must be of some importance. In truth, it is a bland, contrived and utterly forgettable experience. A dime store romance novel for the world's bitter English professors.