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45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Harrowing, Essential Reading, May 19, 2004
This review is from: As Meat Loves Salt (Harvest Original) (Paperback)
When I first finished this novel, I felt a terrible need to get it out of my sight. I couldn't return it to the library since it was about two in the morning, so I hid it under a pile of clothes in my closet. Such was the impact this story had on me - I could barely stand to keep it in my house. Sound terrible? Well, it was, but in the best kind of way. I suffered through everything with Jacob Cullen, Maria McCann's fascinating narrator. Jacob is somewhat schizophrenic and completely obsessed with violence, but like most people he has his own (flawed) reasons for what he does. He doesn't hate himself, so in seeing everything from his perspective it becomes difficult to hate him for his actions. One also becomes aware of every possibility he has to improve himself and his life. Christopher Ferris, Jacob's lover, is the kind of person any man or woman could (and does) fall for, passionately. This makes it all the more horrifying to be trapped in Jacob's mind as he watches everything good in his life come to ruin. The ending, as gut-wrenching as it is, seems inevitable given that it's brought on by Jacob and Ferris both being true to who they are, for better or worse. There's no escape. It's also worth noting that much could have gone wrong in the craft of this book, but didn't - quite the opposite. Not only is there the difficulty of narrating from Jacob's point of view (the mystery that is Jacob is dribbled out in the smallest hints, dreams or passing thoughts, never given too quickly), but also the story stretches from a manor house to London to the common fields, and it's all covered in compelling detail. The language, too, never falters in successfully blending 17th-century and modern. The underlying motif of hellfire/desire could come across as overused, but in the circumstances it's the right metaphor. When I first finished this novel, it was a year ago. I never thought I could go through reading it again. But a few days ago I picked it up and found myself just as compelled as the first time. This book has it all - full characters, mystery, eroticism, tragedy, detailed history and a sweeping insight into human existence. I couldn't recommend it more highly.
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62 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love can't cure schizophrenia, May 19, 2005
This review is from: As Meat Loves Salt (Harvest Original) (Paperback)
I finished this book about 4 hours ago and I feel like I have been on an emotional roller coaster. I actually feel disoriented and dizzy by this wonderful tragic book. I would have to say that this is one of the most intense reading experiences I have ever had. It opened me up and challenged me emotionally like few books or films have ever accomplished. I may read it again some day but not soon. I say this because this book is so realistic and tragic that it is painful.
Maria McCann gives us fair warning when she begins her story with a brutal murder, yet romantic idealist that I am, I kept hope alive in my heart that Jacob Cullen would overcome his dark interior voices and that he and Christopher Ferris would mature into a mutually supportive male-male couple. I hoped this to the final bleak and heartbreaking pages.
We see the world narrated through the eyes of Jacob Cullen, who maintains control of his irrational violent impulses 99% of the time, however, when he is threatened or hurt, he becomes a terror, a Dark Angel. McCann carefully allows us to see deeper and deeper into the disturbed mind of Jacob. He rationlizes much of his hostility and violence and I didn't fully understand until I was 75% of the way through the book as to how dangerous Jacob really is. He suffers so much for his actions that I empathized with him until the final 2 chapters when he facilitated the destruction of Christopher Ferris' world. When a love affair ends, there are those who will go to extremes to re-ignite the flames of passion, and if this does not work, they will seek the total destruction of their past lover. Jacob Cullen is one of these folks.
I hoped that Jacob's paranoid schizophrenic violent nature would be "cured" by his love for Christopher Ferris, his lover. They try to balance their strengths and weaknesses, each needing to submit to the other from time to time to maintain the balance needed in a male to male relationship. However, on many occassions neither partner submits and a struggle for dominance in the relationship clouds their interactions. Christopher Ferris is no push-over. In fact he is psychological healthy and empowered. The middle section of the book where Christopher and Jacob make love every night and plan their great commune adventure almost made me forget Jacob's intense violent reactions when he misinterprets and feels threatened.
I am very conflicted as to whether their sexual relationship postpones Jacob's fall into violent insanity or whether it aggravated it. Their struggles for dominance (Jacob gained a violent sexual dominance while Christopher gained the dominance of vision, direction and becoming Jacob's entire reason for existence)further aggravated Jacob's disturbed paranoid mind. You will understand the attraction between these men as you read the book. Christopher wishes to create a new socially just world yet he is attracted to the massive masculine force of Jacob. Jacob is aware of his faults and sees in Christopher the antithesis of his personality, a man of social grace, insight, and creativity. Christopher Ferris is not an angel however. He is manipulative and charming. He knows how to get his way which is one of the sore spots in Christopher and Jacob's relationship. During the bloody civil war, Christopher has become sick of all the gore and violence. He convinces Jacob to desert the army of Cromwell with him. Why does he chose Jacob over Nathan? Nathan is bright, articulate and would be a willing partner. He selects Jacob out of pure animal attraction, never a wise way to select a mate. Christopher is physically and emotionally hurt so often that he can no longer forgive Jacob's violent nature and actions. He continues to love but can no longer forgive. His disillusionment with Jacob mirrors the reader's growing disillusionment but as in all failing relationships there are sexual bonds that pull folks back into destructive patterns.
I hoped that Christopher Ferris, a truly good man with exceptional visionary leadership and interpersonal skills, would achieve his mission of building the New Jerusalem commune, a social justice experiment in a violent time of little justice. I believed this would happen even as Jacob becomes more of a disruptive and dark force in the life of the commune.
I hoped that the relationship between Christopher Ferris and Jacob Cullen would grow since it was absolutely full of creative energy and sexual electricity. I think both men loved each other but Christopher was obsessed with his vision of social justice whereas Jacob was obsessed with Christopher. This might have worked if Jacob had not been a violent paranoid schizophrenic with frightful devilish voices sounding in his scull.
The Civil War in England was a time of great social upheaval and McCann captures all the filth, inhumanity, smells, and diseases. The loss of social order would certainly be fertile ground for violence and inhumanity but also a fertile ground for a male-male relationship as well as utopian social movements.
The battle scenes, between the Catholic Cavallier forces of Charles I and the Parlimentary Protestant forces of Cromwell are terrible in their violence and cruelty and serve as a perfect background for Jacob's growing obsession with his fellow soldier, Christopher Ferris. Ferris fights the good fight while hating the blood and gore of warfare. In this gore and constant danger, Christopher Ferris finds the wild man, Jacob, and nutures him while their growing obsession with each other grows.
McCann's charaterization was superb. Every character, of which there are many, in this historic and personal tragedy comes to life. Her attention to detail and social interactions make even minor characters jump alive in your imagination.
I highly recommend this book but I warn you that it is an upsetting reading experience that will leave you with amazement at McCann's literary power.
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35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A welcome assault . . ., May 22, 2003
This review is from: As Meat Loves Salt (Harvest Original) (Paperback)
Wow! I just finished reading this book and am still reeling from it. I do not remember the last time I read a novel that made me feel so much so deeply. Moments from the story keep replaying in my mind, as if I had lived them . . . It is sad to read reviewers casually dismissing this book's narrator as unlikable. Jacob Cullen is twisted, but I find him darkly alluring. During the novel, he alternately reveals his intelligence, his resourcefulness, his idealism, his selfishness, his willingness to please, his paranoia, his shame, his sexual magnetism, and his capacity for cruelty. Still, he does not easily reduce to any of these. If he has one distinguishing characteristic, it is his brooding, passionate nature. Someone flippantly asked why anyone would want to read a novel about such an unpleasant man. The answer is that this sullen protagonist leads a richly textured emotional life, which McCann communicates with alarming power and precision. This book challenges the reader to feel the sprawling beauty and ugliness of Jacob and his world. As such, McCann's talent is a welcome tonic to our current era's numb complacency and tidy compartmentalization of affect. This novel unsettles because life is unsettling. Love, desire, vulnerability and obsession fold in and out of each other, with violence limning the contours. McCann's novel somehow manages to capture this great big mess in all of its sadness and glory. Reading this novel made me feel my own life anew. I can think of no better praise.
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