Customer Reviews

Darconville's Cat

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having thumbed through this book at a bookstore, I was immediately intrigued: flipping through the chapters, I encountered poems, catalogues, a dialogue in the form of Greek tragedy, essays, rich descriptions, hilarious excerpts from a naughty novel, even a page that was completely black. If this makes the novel sound fractured and confusing, that is far from the case--the perspectives are woven together in a beautiful and engrossing synthesis, and each voice that he speaks in adds a new (and typically extremely enjoyable) facet to his story.

As another reader said, its kernel is a love story, and it is a beautiful and lovingly-crafted tale of the relationship between Darconville and his young love, Isabel. It is a romance, completely, and dwells a great deal on the beautiful winging idealism that lovers share, but at the same time, it is continually and alternately varied through Theroux's unbelievable and skillful array of voices and beautiful, poignant description.

This book is a masterpiece, but it's not everyone's masterpiece. He does get carried away from time to time on his vast lists (most notably the library of misogynistic literature and "The Unholy Litany"). His thoroughness and vocabulary used in description often requires a more rigorous attention. Finally, I encountered many a suspected hapax legomenon whilst reading his book, words that Theroux has coined by drawing from his multi-linguistic mastery: "gynotikolobomassophile?" Well, he could have said something to the extent of "woman's earlobe-lover," but that wouldn't be Theroux, and that wouldn't have made his book better: it is the differences I savor, the unconventionality, and the color and richness with which he can imbue a scene, an emotion, or (especially!) a person.

If you have a little patience and a great love for the English language, or given Theroux, language in general, give this book a read: I envy you, on the brink of discovering a nigh-perfect novel!

If you do a web search on Alexander Theroux, you won't find much of substance (other than Steven Moore's interview), but you will find the quote I used, because, like all quotes trimmed of the excess fat of context, it shimmers - like raised gold lettering - momentarily arresting the consumer's eyes as they scan the brain candyshop window on a day s/he has decided to splurge and "treat themselves" to a piece of edification.

Theroux comes from a family of writer siblings, of which he is the eldest (His brother Peter has translated the Cities of Salt trilogy from the Arabic of Abdelrahman Munif). In true Corvine form (see, and read, Hadrian VII), he is an arch-curmudgeon - seldom leashing his razor-edged tongue which, after flaying his target, typically recoils and takes his nose off (he's lost jobs, the warm and fuzzy ambience typical of family reunions and some - but not I - would argue, any chance of major publication as a result). The Corvo comparison ends there. Though he also shares Rolfe's penchant for intricate phrasing and wild hybrid/archaisms, Theroux is a writer in the a more authentic, Joycean sense. Corvo was more an autodidact and whose "calling" had its source in a monstrous ego that intuited and constantly inveighed against its insubstantiality

Theroux is, I think, a believing Catholic - but more so a faithful individual - singular, in love with literature and a living incarnation of the English language. No one alive (no one since Joyce or Beckett) writes as he does. He spent time in a Trappist monastery. He was a monk of academia: his doctoral thesis is a several hundred paged monster on the language of Samuel Beckett. He is in that line of intellectual-artistic priesthood that began more or less with Augustine and passed on through Dante, ..., Flaubert,... Joyce and otherwise terminated with Beckett. I say priesthood, because to those named writing was not a way to make a living or to sing the same old blues, but a moral obligation, something one is compelled or called upon to do. As I said, no one writes like Alexander Theroux today. And this is why he is unread. In doing it his way, he sins against canned sensibility and entrenched homogeneity. Publishers are aware of, cultivate (because it keeps their bland bread buttered) and share our attenuated attention spans and our immeasurable vanity. We want to feel intelligent, but we want adventure, something shiny, mainly - and certainly no more that 300 pages, tops (thank you Dan Brown!). When something like Darconville's Cat appears - it is as though a person emerged out of the 19th century into our broad-daylight, in full-period garb, and education. While a curious spectacle, books like Darconville's Cat are daunting and not likely to fit in to our fast-paced, "multi-tasking", non-reflective environment. So 6 months after a not exactly heavily marketed publication, this book is a remaindered item, and its author remains uncelebrated genius moldering away in the stingy wastes of Cape Cod.

In my opinion (and Anthony Burgess's), it is one of the greatest novels of the 20th century - it contains multitudes. It is a story of love, obsession and revenge - and it is a story and celebration of the life of the English language - all styles of writing and demotic species are incorporated in its vast body (I speak of the book at its near Proustian bulk, and of the language). And, it is as funny as anything you'll ever read in your life - I swear to God.

And besides, reading should accomplish a moral obligation, a promiscuous (at least in my case - judge for yourselves, whoever the hell you are) fabrication of the soul (no, we're not hatched outfitted with them, like little appendices or supernatural colostomy bags - but with opinions and beliefs and those tailored to our size). The soul is the boutonniere of our nothingness, the fiction we were born to write, we costive scribblers. It is a matter of choosing our words rather than hosting them. Here you may luxuriate in them - and be sure: only dandies get to heaven.

Now where the devil is Laura Warholic?

Alexander Theroux is America's greatest living author, but you would never know it by listening to him speak of his own work. It is not that he is particularly modest, although he maintains a comport you come to expect from PhDs in English. It is, rather, the unshakable, low-Boston accent that gives his speech a "Tweety Bird" sort of twang, and may tend to throw you off the fact that the man is a veritable OED of literary and etymological integrity.

It could well be argued that the reason he is not currently lauded as being our greatest treasure is the fact that he does open his mouth, and some of what he has to say strikes the ear strangely. And some of those whose ears are so stricken have the power to keep the man's deserved reputation from full-dazzling. Time, however, will give him a thousand tongues. And it will be this work, at least to date, that will be most remembered.
Of all his works, Darconville's Cat is the one where his imagination is allowed its most full expression, and the results are Joycean in their sheer intensity, breadth and color. His mastery of language is most apparent in this, his best work.
If you get this book, hang on to it. It has a way of finding its way into other's hands. . . and never making its way back. That is because it is so much like candy. You want to relish it. Coddle it. Bring it into a salad with a good dictionary and revel in this most entertaining way to expand one's vocabulary while expanding one's philosophy.

If you enjoy words and well-constructed sentences, paragraphs and chapters -- you will find much to keep you satisfied in this great work which deserves a place on your top shelf, along with Joyce, Shakespeare, Sterne, Rabelais, Erasmus, Voltaire and Dante. Some of the wide-ranging stylistic devices may stretch one's concentration, but even this is not necessarily a blemish. As you read and re-read this engaging tour de force, you will find these difficult areas becoming your favorite little watering holes. Dring deep!

I strongly suspect that Professor Theroux somewhere along the way made a Faustian trade with Mephistopheles and was willing to part with the love of his life in exchange for writing the perfect great American novel right at the get-go. Of the latter I can certainly vouche. The former could not have been accomplished without some deep seated experience. After all, this is a novel about love and hate. But it also concerns poles of every variety. As Nietzsche pointed out in "The Birth of Tragedy," the interplay of Appollo and Dionysius give birth to tragedy and fortunately for us in this case also to comedy. "The Trojan Horse has foaled." For in this Proustian synthesis of Theroux, genius clearly resides. Saul Bellow once wrote that fewer than 20,000 people had the intellectual wherewithal to really understand his novels. I suspect that in the case of Theroux the number is roughly half. Hence, booksellers consider this work an "overlooked masterpiece." The vocabulary is fairly daunting --the longest word in the world can be found within this magnum opus. But the pure wit and the rare sagacity and the beauty of the language is absolute paradise: this is one of only a half-dozen novels that I envy to the point that I wish I had written it. This is a novelist's novel. "You will either build a bridge or build a wall." In some cases the rich syntax rivals Proust in length and in other cases it's simply pithy wit. Theroux captures the dialect of the South deftly in his Blue Ridge Faux Eden and then revels in his own element East of Eden in the Hahvid Yahd. There are many places where I just laughed my head off. His primary cast -- Darconville, Isabel and Crucifer -- are memorable and the vitriolic diatribes of the wicked Crucifer must have been good fun to write. Crucifer out-Mephistos Mephistopheles as a worthy arch-demon as purely Satanic as any demon of Milton, Faust or Dante. This Crucifer is Biblical and leads Darconville on a tragi-comic chase through the labyrinth of his soul with an ending that is both original and intriguing in its wisdom. Thus Theroux prophesized his own manuscript going into a tin box to be confiscated by a Philistine doctor to offset his fees. This book takes a while to read properly -- I would advise you not to rush it. The writing is exquisite -- really it's as good as it gets in our day and age -- so just be sure to savour it. I also recommend that you buy this book as an investment: someday soon this genius will be "discovered" as an overnight success a mere 30 years in the making and his first editions will be worth great fortunes. "Darconville's Cat" is a pure joy to read -- it is, honestly, simply perfect.

Reading Alexander Theroux's wonderful big novel * Darconville's Cat * is like entering a teeming, utterly original word-world unlike any you have ever experienced. I'm not exaggerating when I say that every paragraph of this incredible book - nay, every sentence! - is packed with unique and often poetic observations, eccentric humor, and wide ranging knowledge branching breathlessly in so many directions that it is hard to keep pace with Theroux's fantastic imagination. Much has been made of his love affair with words - one envious reviewer even described this book as a "mountain" he had to climb. All litanies, doggerel, long lists and mathematical hypotheses aside, the central themes of the book are simple and age old - love found, lost, and the associated suffering and eventual redemption of the protagonist. Young, idealistic, black clothed Alaric Darconville, a professor at a Southern women's college, falls in love with a student, becomes engaged to her, and then is betrayed by her. The narrative moves along quite nicely, all 700 pages of it propelled by the force of its linguistic pyrotechnics. Like Steven Moore (of Dalkey Archive Press) I laughed out loud many times, constantly amused by the descriptions and witty dialogue of this novel's parade of Southern wackos - hilariously ignorant Southern Belles, malevolent rednecks, unhinged academics with names like "Dr. Dodypol" and "Dr.Glibbery". There's also unabashed romanticism/sentimentality here, and real pathos, as well as blistering diatribes against the female sex delivered by the strange and horrifying Dr. Crucifer, the titles of whose library fill 7 pages of the chapter "The Misogynist's Library" READ THIS BOOK!! And all else you can by this important author

Alexander Theroux's Darconville's Cat is, thus far, his magnum opus. This novel is one of the finest pieces of literature in existence.....it should be at the top of every required reading list. The love story is riveting, Theroux's vocabulary is awe-inspiring, and his attention to the details, complexities, and subtle nuances of heartbreak is endearing. It was difficult to come to terms with the fact that there was going to be a last page. One wishes that Theroux could just go on and on, as he is a master storyteller.....clever, sensual, thoughtful, inventive, mischievous, and a touch macabre. Please read this novel.....it will end up being the standard by which one will judge all others.

The first two-thirds of Alexander Theroux' Darconville's Cat constitute one of the most powerful love stories I know of, on an equal plane with Sons and Lovers and Wuthering Heights. It is also a very penetrating, witty, yet passionate portrayal of an insanely aristocratic, self-preoccupied Virginia academic community. Unfortunately, the last third of the book, set in Harvard, is mostly an anticlimactic, sesquipedalian sort of verbal showing-off, much out of keeping with what precedes it. The ending, however, regains some of the power of the earlier parts of the narrative.

A synthesis of the finest of art , prose, poetry, logic and sarcasim. A love story that isn't. The book is unintentionally self referntial when Theroux' character states something is like a Bosch painting--the meaning is in a small dot. Cunningly argumentative, pure literati. The ride turn's into the greatest turn since Alice goes to Wonderland. I read this book when I wa 16. I let my most intellectual freinds read it and it became their favorite book. You will never forget Dr. Crucifrer who will cause frissons as you read--the best character created in literature. A sesquipedalian's fix--beware, have your Oxford unabridged dictionary. Ride this moster literary wave.

Buy it read it and be swpt into a rainbow of experiences.

BUY THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

This is one of those works of genius one constantly reads reviews about lauding it as the best thing since Joyce, only to buy it, spend hours poring over it and meditating upon it, only to find that reports of its merit are greatly exaggerated---EXCEPT that, in this case, they are NOT. I read a good deal of this sort of thing, and I can unequivocally state that this is indeed a work of genius. The only thing in American letters since WWII that comes close to it in thematic magnificence and masterful vocabulary is Cormac McCarthy's Suttree.

I have to demur with some reviewers who posit that this is basically a love story. It's not that this statement is false, but it gives one the wrong idea. It could be equally said that Proust's magnum opus is basically a love story - But both works are so much more.

Do grab your unabridged OEDs as well as your unabridged Liddell & Scott Ancient Greek and Latin lexicons. You shall most certainly need them to fully appreciate all the terms employed herein. The only other work I've read where I had to use all three of these sources in spots was Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy. But please don't infer that this is a dull, word-logged wasteland. It is, rather, vibrant and teeming with delight in language. It's also uproariously funny. I haven't chortled aloud so many times over a book in years. ---Really, of course, you don't have to employ any reference work to enjoy this novel, but it helps...immensely.

Other reviewers have covered the plot, so I shan't rehash, but I will give prospective readers a sampling of why this is so much more than basically a love story:

"Darconville drew it all out to this paradox, that on the one hand there are temporary beings whom we love but who are ever changing, and beyond them is the eternal object of love itself which is incorruptible, permanent, and ideal. And yet it is not only through the former that we can take cognizance of the latter, we would, without the former, actually have no IDEA of the latter, the imperfect relative giving us our only idea of the perfect absolute, and we advance by the dangers of delay, shipwrecked by a boat to know the sea...." P.317

I truly envy those who are just discovering this work, but I fully concur with another reviewer who exhorts the potential reader to purchase the volume now and hold fast to it. The first time I ordered it, it never arrived, and I had to wait for a refund to reorder it. Yes, the price is steep for a used book, but you will never regret the purchase.

I liked the rich, 19th century writing style and the fact that it made me reach for my unabridged dictionary every few minutes. Though the fact that 1/3 of the words weren't even in the dictionary and I had to end up researching them online got a bit tedious.

Overall it was a fine book, but I didn't really connect to the story, at least as far as Darconville was concerned. He seemed over the top and predisposed to emotional extremes. I would urge people to read this book if they are interested in exploring what happens to a man who lets basic emotions rule his life.