Customer Reviews

Defiance

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

 

 

If you miss Fassbinder's mercurial dramaturgy, or Diane Arbus's stunning imagery, you're in luck, because Carole Maso's "Defiance" will put you right in the middle of a mammoth literary garden with fragrance so strong that it will make your head spin. The book deals with issues regarding gender inequality, oppression, familial tragedy, and sexual obsession with impressive emotional depth. Carole Maso does not shy away from presenting the readers with the most provocative angles on humanity; this writer takes risks--it is as if she has determined that her role in life is not to write easy stuff. For that, we salute her!

This is not a book that readily yields its secrets. For some people (myself included), it takes a couple reads to be appreciated. You'll get along much better in this prison inside the protagonist's head if you think for a moment about everything you know about the way fiction is "supposed" to work, about plot, setting, and character, then just wad that up and throw it away. Plot, character, and setting flow into one another and close in on the reader and the protagonist. It is a difficult book to just sit down and read. It lulls in spots and occasionally gets completely incomprehensible. But it starts speeding toward its terminus in the last 25 pages or so, and then it ends, exactly how you think it's going to. But that isn't even important. In this book, it's the winding, horrifying road the narrator takes you down. You're not going to understand everything the moment she gives it to you. But stick with it, read to the end, and you'll be able to say "I get it---I think." Like any really good book, the most important thing about it is not necessarily what you get on the page, but what you think about after you're done reading.

This novel's brilliant exploration of society's mores, is encompassed in a young woman's mind. An intelligent expose into the conditions of class, sexuality, gender, religion and the penal system and those individuals who are at once priviledged and also marginalized on those very unstable conditions. A novel very significant as we enter the end of the century. And, how appropriate that its setting takes place in a prison cell. Maso is indeed one of the most important and seminal writers today.

This novel is not about that "stuff" folks call a piece of fiction. This is an innovative, incredibly powerful inner journey of a woman (a brilliant, articulate professor) who just also happens to be a serial killer. But the murder/the killings/ the sexual deviances inherent in the murders is NOT what makes this book extraordinary - a fabulous and incredible read. It is an absolutely original new "form" of novel. It is about Form and not about Content, and you have to flow with it, with the fabulous language, the incredible use of language to connect not only the thoughts of the narrator (to the reader) but to her entire inner tableaux of living experiences (which IS by the way what we all do as we live our lives, breathing in and out, with our past histories affecting us in deep and mysterious ways). This book is so good I can't even stand that I had to finish it. I am a writer myself, and I wish I had the ability to write it. I wish I could read it NEW again, and enjoy it all over again with that fresh, immediacy that Ms. Maso (who I JUST discovered) brings to fiction. Unbelievable! People who don't like this book are not into literature. I suggest Stephen King, instead. Truly. This is Literature.

One doesn't have to be a Masoist to be able to read and enjoy this book, but one must be able to tolerate an intense degree of repetition. Her other books such as "The American Woman in the Chinese Hat" or "Art Lover" are more accessible, if you consider her writing accessible at all or too accessible. I happen to find her literary style easily approachable.

Defiance is high-strung in content and style. Like gripping a viola too tightly around its neck for 19 hours straight on the edge of a precipice. I imagined it must have been quite a challenge and a feat for Maso to write this book and a challenge for readers to consume.

This is a masterful telling of a young woman's all to brief life. "Defiance" to that life's continuation is the emotional basis of the story and the springboard for revisting her traumatic life. As each layer is peeled away, we begin to see the psychological scars that lie deep within. This is a hauntingly emotional tale. I was propelled along by the extraordinary quality of the writing and the depth of emotions conveyed. Stayed with me for months. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys fine literature.

"Defiance" is written in the format of a journal/stream of conciousness of a mentally unstable genius who has murdered two young men. It follows her thoughts as she sits in prison on death row awaiting her execution. At times this book can be hard to follow as it jumps around from one subject to another... but you truly do feel as if you are reading the ramblings of a psychopath. Its a challenging read but worth the effort in the end.

My book group read "Defiance" as one of our selections. Most people in the group did not enjoy the book and found it hard to follow and very disturbing.

The fluctuation of being within and without this text, a sensation Maso's great manipulation of language induces, is very entertaining and the strength of this book. Interesting to read, with ingenious linguistic and literary devices - sometimes actual mathematic algorithms represented in diagram - that come from within the mind of the protagonist; disclosing her character is the process of this book. The almost interesting plot comes second to the protagonist's interiority. 'Perversely brilliant' are words that come to mind. I like that.

The author is known for putting down other writers and positioning herself as the great genius. Hence a novel about a great woman genius. The idea of a teacher driven to kill her students makes sense but all the book harps on is how brilliant the protagonist/author is.

If you think you would enjoy several hundred pages of repetitious, self-indulgent stream-of-consciousness from a genius psychopath, this is the book for you.