Pure Poetry: A Novel [Hardcover]

Binnie Kirshenbaum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 16, 2000

Lila Moscowitz, a fast-talking Jewish-American beauty who writes ribald sonnets, is perplexed by her inability to find true happiness. As she reviews her life with her ex-husband and frets over her lack of feelings for her boyfriend, she comes to realize some startling truths about herself, her capacity for love, and the nature of true freedom.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Lila Moscowitz, the Jewish-American heroine of Binnie Kirshenbaum's novel Pure Poetry, is a witty mess. She lies her head off, bribes little kids with candy, writes smutty poems in highly rigid forms, and advises students in her poetry class not to read books. She overdramatizes everything that happens to her, avoids her true feelings, and whips up a frenzy of neuroses at the drop of a zipper. In other words, she's like most people you know.

As her 35th birthday approaches, Lila begins to miss her ex-husband, a German cartographer whose parents were Nazis (Albert Speer was his uncle). What she misses most about Max is the great sex, which was unpredictable and ferociously exciting--especially rousing because of rassenschande, or the taboo mingling of the races. This makes her new relationship with blue-blooded Henry seem all the more stifling. She's getting tired of Henry's fastidiously protective attitude toward his silverware and soup tureens, not to mention his contention "that he does not have fantasies, that he is perfectly content with average sex, whatever that is." But she tries to stay with him, because at a certain age the bohemian lifestyle turns into something irresponsible, even pathetic, particularly in New York City. Lila herself understands that this is the source of her irony: "I mock feelings," she says blithely. "I make jokes to deflect the sorry truths about myself, and I use snide comments to camouflage hurt, and I'm good at it."

Lila wants to live freely in a world that favors discipline and orderly existence, especially for women approaching the end of their childbearing years. Her quest to balance freedom and form, or freedom within form, plays out metaphorically in Pure Poetry's structure: each chapter is headed by a definition of a poetic term that is somehow related ("fabliau" before a sex scene, "elegy" before a funeral, and so on). Certain readers might appreciate Kirshenbaum's attempt to impose some order on her narrative. The rest of us can race past these epigraphs (they're short) in favor of the narrative itself--wild, silly, and uncompromisingly fun, it's no more grown-up than Lila. --John Ponyicsanyi

From Publishers Weekly

Poet and femme fatale Lila Moscowitz is in top form, and at rock bottom, in Kirshenbaum's relentlessly sassy tale of a beautiful 34-year-old Jewish woman on a quest for love and happiness. Lila is a minor New York celebrity, famous for her bawdy yet formally rigorous sonnets, but her success as a writer can't compensate for the fact that she pines for her ex-husband, German cartographer Max Schirmer, while feigning interest in her current blue-blooded boyfriend, Henry. Having sabotaged her marriage to Max in part because she felt she'd betrayed her Jewish heritage by marrying a German, Lila cracks many tepid, transparent jokes about loving the enemy in an attempt to mask her enduring passion for him. Another truth she hides from is that her passion for and dependence on Max threatened her sense of self. Lila's fear of trusting people is rooted predictably in her unsatisfactory family relationships, which Kirshenbaum describes in heavyhanded fashion. Lila's parents barely acknowledge her existence, though her mother, Bella, is as domineering as she is dismissive of her daughter. When Bella dies, Lila is not even informed of the funeral and, in an unconvincing scene, is kicked out of the house where the family is sitting shiva. Other plot twists, details and supporting characters are equally ineffectual: Lila wants to be 32 again, so she enlists her best friend Carmen to help her turn back time; Lila's apartment is haunted by two ghosts, her therapist is a cross-dresser and Henry keeps his parents' ashes in shoeboxes. The cast of characters make a sketchy backdrop for Lila's ongoing monologue about her search for happiness, but the heroine's path is obstructed by so many self-consciously irreverent jokes and cliched observations that she doesn't generate sympathy until the end of the book. Here, however, some of Lila's quandaries achieve resolution, and her journey seems worth it when her emotional complexity shines through her defensive wisecracking.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Trade edition (March 16, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684864711
• ISBN-13: 978-0684864716
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,411,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Complete Waste of Time, April 11, 2001

By 

Melissa Brill "melissapear" (Lonetree, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pure Poetry: A Novel (Hardcover)

I started this book about 6 months ago and never finished but I started reading it on a recent vacation and unfortunately had nothing else to read so I finished it. Lila, the supposed-heroine of the book is the most annoying and selfish character I have read lately. The rest of the characters were no better and seemed so stereo-typical and boring. I think the whole story was completely illogical, especially how she had never been in love yet but when she gets married she turns into a co-dependent and pathetic excuse for a woman who then is supposed to be this nationally acclaimed poet who seems like nothing but a shallow 30-sometihng who sleeps around. Plus the characterization of her family is completely ridiculous; I know of no one whose own family is that insensitive. The whole story was so trite and so predictable. I wish I would have read all of the reviews before I bought this book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure Poetry Is Pure Pleasure!, March 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Pure Poetry: A Novel (Hardcover)

This book is a treasure just waiting for you to discover it! You'll recognize the poet main character, Lila, right away. She's your sister or your dear friend--the funny, smart one with all the problems. Then again, maybe she's you! Sometimes you identify and sympathize with her; other times you want to grab her quickly before she makes another bad mistake. I especially liked the small particulars of this character's world: the ghosts that inhabit her apartment; her mother's unnatural affection for a stuffed animal; and the New York details, like the jack hammers tearing up the streets that herald the arrival of summer. I've read all of Binnie Kirshenbaum's work, and she just keeps getting better.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this writer, February 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Pure Poetry: A Novel (Hardcover)

Just started reading this, but I've been looking forward to it coming out ever since I heard her read an excerpt at the KGB Bar last year. Binnie Kirshenbaum's voice is sharp and hilarious and dead-on, and yet there is something bittersweet under the surface that adds a depth to her work not present in a lot of writers working in a smilir vein. Do yourself a favor and read this book.