I honestly could not believe this was on the Times' best books list. The character development was downright poor, and the story is a simpering account of the crisis of a (my) generation that has been given such a vast array of grand opportunities which by the very fact of having been handed to us become devoid of any true meaning. Marina is truly a pathetic figure, but the author's failure to delve into what makes her a pathetic figure leaves her readers with a disappointing sense of superficiality-- like reading about a movie character rather than an actual person. Bootie (the names-- please!) is such a fumbling account of a modern "anti-hero" you'd think the author never actually met anyone with true intellectual drive and instead had to make one up using nothing more than a collection of stale stereotypes. I hoped for much more; Messud doesn't deliver.

1.) There's the grand old man of letters, Murray Thwaite, and the erotic charge in his relationship with his beautiful, adoring daughter Marina, who begins a relationship with and eventually marries Ludovic, an editor and a rising young Turk among the 'chattering classes,' a man Murray despises and who despises Murray in turn. Messud begins to weave a Jamesian tale in which Murray and Ludovic, monsters of egotism, vie for control of the affections of the passive, childlike Marina...but then she drops that storyline entirely.

2.) Then there's Frederick/Bootie, Murray's nephew, a slovenly, awkward, slightly creepy but intelligent and well-read drifting college dropout who shows up in New York and is taken in by Murray, and employed as his secretary. Bootie idolizes Murray. This isn't really believable, because someone of Bootie's reading and standards probably wouldn't mistake Murray--a 'thoughtful columnist,' a mere journalist, barely an intellectual, certainly no sage--for the second coming of Emerson. But whatever. Bootie is soon disillusioned with Murray, and does something really, wonderfully nasty: he happens upon Murray's secret manuscript, a work of philosophy that Murray cherishes as the key to his literary immortality, and writes a damning expose of Murray's pretensions and limitations, with of course generous quotations from the manuscript. He sends the article to Ludovic, who sits on it, but idly considers publishing it in the new magazine he's planning, much to the fury of Murray and the mixed feelings of Marina, who's just then mad at her dad for advising her not publish her first book. This Bootie subplot, though seriously flawed by Messud's inability to make Bootie at all alive, would have nicely dovetailed with the Murray-Ludovic-Marina triangle, but, again, Messud drops the thread completely. It just goes away. Murray fires Bootie and the boy slinks off to Fort Greene.

So yeah, the only storylines Messud choses to develop throughout the novel are 1.) the self-destructive antics of Julius, a promiscuous, sarcastic, coke-snorting gay man straight from Central Casting, and 2.) the affair Marina's best friend, Danielle, starts with Murray, after Marina gets with Ludovic, who Danielle at first thought liked her. This is the least interesting of all the subplots, and the vehicle for a lot of mawkish indirect discourse when we're in Danielle's head. Danielle is flat and boring, the character who is, after Bootie, the least able to carry the book. And soon all hope is lost when 9/11 happens. I groaned when I recalled, 80 pages from the end, that this was a 9/11 novel. Fuck. Clio, Muse of History, appears on stage in all her berobed, personified glory, and all hope for any saving dramatic development is vanquished. How lazy, how jejune. The characters, already stalled, then begin wringing their hands about how the world has changed forever.

I can't really convey how disappointing this book is. (I do feel iffy about giving it just one star and shelving it with 'crap,' because there are some very fine things here...but I'm going to be stern: a novel should be judged as a novel, as a structure, not as a sheaf of incidental beauties.) Messud abandons all of her Jamesian deftness of plotting and Wharton-like lofty irony for some really dull ruminations, clunky coincidences, and automatic and utterly undistinguished prose. And I was completely puzzled by the shift to Bootie at the end. He flees New York--everyone thinks he died when the towers fell, he was temping nearby--and hides out in Miami, and the book ends with his plan to reemerge someday and "take them by surprise." Huh? Huh? Bootie is, as a character, the greatest failure in the book, the most obvious sign of Messud's limitations as a writer (and if you can't construct a believable Brooding Young Male, you might as well get out of the game; even if you can't fully imagine him, the ground is thick with precedents from which to model such a character). Even when he's betraying Murray, he's so vague and lifeless. He's hardly on the page as an incidental figure, let alone a subtly nasty Jamesian villain or brooding Dostoevskian fireband. Why is he the portentous spirit presiding over the finale? Doesn't make sense. Perhaps this is what I get for taking a chance on a bestseller. What dreary shit.

I have less than 100 pages left in this one, but don't foresee the end changing my opinion.

I hated this book. Hated. I must not be smart enough to "get it", since I didn't go to Brown and all. But really, (can you not put entire sentences in parenthesis) within your other run-on, (never ending sentences?? Please??). I mean seriously, get an editor...save us 300 pages. I felt the need to consult a dictionary every other page, but really just didn't care that much to understand what EXACTLY, SPECIFICALLY, GARRULOUSLY (as in excessively and pointlessly talkative, in case you were wondering and feel the need to us big words for everything) Ms. Messud was trying to say.

These characters have a sense of entitlement, there's an inappropriate affair (aren't they ALL??), and then 9/11 happens...there's your story. Ugh! I'll never get these 479 pages of my life back!

I don't know of ANYONE who speaks, thinks, acts or lives like these characters...and I'm in the "Cusp of the Thirties" group. And I have smart friends!!

I didn't like this book, I didn't like the characters, I didn't like the writing. And I definitely don't like the people that named it a best book of the year.

UPDATE - finished over lunch. Yup. Still not a fan.

A last minute, impulsive buy at the airport, en route to France, that I thought I remembered reading really good things about. I read it on the plane, I read it in hotels, I read it on the train. At first, I thought, "she writes well and this is good." I have children younger than those in the book, so was interested in the fates and trajectories of her characters, even though several of them were pretty unlikeable. The more I read, the more I kept waiting for the good parts. By the time it ended, I knew there were no good parts. Who the hell WERE these people and why was I spending time with them? Did the author know who they were? Dear reader, I think not. In spite of the fact that Messud can pen a wicked sentence or two, she apparently can't stick them together to make that complex thing called a book.
Still, reading The Emperor's Children occupied several hours that might have been spent worrying about late arrivals, train strikes, missed planes, key clothing items left at home. That's got to count for something.

I only read about eight pages, a stately procession of blindingly obvious sentences with laser-pointers and strobelights and migraines between every fooking vowel and consonant, but I don't need to read any more. This is exactly the sort of prose that should be excised from these mass NYC-wuss fiction rollouts. For example (skipping forward to page 27):

The insouciance, of course, masked endless and wearisome neuroses, to which Marina and Danielle were privy.

"Of course" -- what kind of sadistic writer throws in an "of course" here? Endless and wearisome? Everyone knows that neuroses don't "end", and they are by definition "wearisome". Both adjectives are useless and throb my temples. "Privy"? Ain't that where I go to take an insouciant bowel movement among the peaceful cricket sounds?

That's one of the more innocuous examples. How about this one (p. 59):

Perhaps the frisson was born of the taboo, amid all that flourescence, the acres of discreet carpet, of the sense that Julius might have to convince David of his own worth in this setup, which cast him as dogsbody rather than an enviable and ethereal man-about-town?

What the foock is that? "Frisson"? "Discreet carpet"? "Dogsbody"? "Ethereal"? I've had vomitus traverse my tongue which made a more efficient point, and also sounded better. (Did I mention Claire Messud apparently teaches creative writing?)

To quote Stephen Fry (or is it the privy?): total ass-mud.

My only hope is that all the gushing critics are weaving transparent threads, 'cause I wouldn't mind at all seeing Claire Messud nude...

This is one of the laziest and most obnoxiously pretentious books I’ve ever read. The characters were flat and uninteresting (and very annoying). I don’t know about you, but I’m a little tired of reading about uppity privileged white people. There’s nothing special about this book. The only character that was of some interest was Julius, but he was painfully overwritten and characterized as the typical “flamboyant gay man in NYC.” I believe he was Asian (I’m not sure Messud even takes the time to describe his origin fully), but his race felt like just a random detail thrown in and not actual representation.

Literally nothing of note happens throughout this whole goddamn 431 page book. The characters just flit from one thing to the next with no real intrigue. I guess you could argue that stuff DOES happen, but what I’m trying to say is that it is BORING. And one of the most annoying things about this book is that in the last 50 pages it suddenly becomes a 9/11 book. I find that insanely lazy and a gross misuse of a tragedy. Not only is 9/11 randomly thrown in, but none of the character plots are finished. Like, 9/11 happens and everyone is like “wow, life” and then it’s over. wtf???

The writing is unbearably verbose. It’s like Messud is trying desperately to prove that her English degree from Brown is so0o0o0o useful. I’m glad I listened to the audiobook because the writing is made up of endless run-on sentences that I think would be pretty hard to physically read. It’s like Messud wants you to feel dumb for not memorizing the dictionary. Here’s an example of a sentence that I found in someone else’s review (thank you, Ewurama):

“She, who had felt she saw so clearly that it hurt, had felt that the truth, crystalline, was, with Murray, granted her (though not through his help, or anything he did: but just by his presence; as though, indeed, he were but a part of her that had been lost, a magnificent Platonic epiphany repeated, and daily repeated: this, surely, was love!), felt, now, that the weight of emotion lay like a veil, a fine mist.”

Like, what the actual fuck are you trying to say???? I’m just wondering where the editor was when this book was getting published.

This book was also pretty fat phobic. There’s a character named Bootie (this name alone enrages me; it is SO DUMB) who is described as overweight. Every chance Messud gets, she brings this up. The other characters insult Bootie for being fat, as if being fat is the worst thing that a person could be. Messud is pretty clear about how she feels about being fat by how constantly she brings up descriptions of Bootie being sweaty and large. She doesn’t just leave it at him being fat either, she also hits us over the head with the fact that he is also awkward and has a creepy crush on his cousin (!?!?). He’s described as being sloppy and dirty and someone who no one likes. The treatment of this character irks me to no end.

There was also a few times that I was uncomfortable with how Messud treated characters that were minorities. There’s one black character that she describes in a very weird and troublesome way. I wish I had a copy of the book so I can find the quote exactly, but it was something along the lines of describing his skin as being “midnight” and “not American black, but a black from deep in Africa.” Like, I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but it made me feel weird. She also repeatedly uses the word “f*ggot” (I don’t mean to repeat it, which is why I’ve attempted to censor it). It’s almost always used by Julius, who is gay, but it still felt like she was appropriating a word that was not hers to use. The book is not told in first person so there are a few times that it’s in the narrative, which just felt wrong.

So, overall, don’t read this book. It’s not good.

Someone liked my review of The Woman Upstairs a few weeks ago and so I looked up my own review to remind myself of the book. Afterwards, I went looking for more stuff by Messud and this did not disappoint.

Set in NYC with a renowned journalist as the "emperor" and his daughter, her two closest friends, and his nephew as the "children", Messud drafts about the complexity of human relationships. She explores the dissatisfaction and unhappiness of the priveldged as well as their inability to see themselves as such. Everyone in this novel is self absorbed and makes traditionally bad choices (even Danielle, who is the most like-able in my opinion), some of which work out well and some of which work out terribly. This reader was not rooting for any of them per say, I was simply enjoying the tapestry and recognizing the way that we all can frame what we really want as "best for others".

Strongly recommended for those who like Woody Allen-esque films (70s and 80s ones, not so much new ones)...rambling intellectual dialogue and NY self absorbtion. My favorite quotes by topics are below.

The book is all about perception: "Danielle's repressive mechanisms were Yale-tight: if Annabel had no dobuts, and if, for Annabel, their relationship remained unchanged, then surely it remained, for all intents and purposes, precisely that? It was, yet again, a matter of fact and perception, and the question of which constituted reality."
"And yet: maybe it didn't matter which vision was true because he wouldn't--surely that was the point: he wouldn't--pick up his cell phone. So the desire, whether a fact or a figment--and yet, its reality, its unknowable fact-ness, was of consuming importance to her--was not ultimately even relevant."

Power within relationships: "if he took the liberty supposedly his, Julius could not imagine David's reaction. By which one so adept, indeed, often too adept, at imagining, knew he ought to refrain."
"It's narcissism, to love a wall and resent it for not loving you back. It's perversity. Love is mutual, it flourishes in reciprocity. You can't have real love without a return of affection--otherwise, it's just obsession, and projection. It's childish."
"It fleetingly occurred to Julius that he was not, fo now at least, permitted to indulge his own unhappiness. It was, suddenly time to buck up, be brave."
"He wasn't, in some regard, a liar. An actor, yes: and a good one. Guilty, upon innumerable occasions, of sins of omission, a great believer that what you didn't know couldn't hurt you...a smoother of waters whose techniques had been known to include a gentle reshaping of facts."

Parenthood: "And wasn't shedding as important as embracing, in the formation of an adult self? And then he thought of Marina, raised as he'd wished to have been raised, and stymied, now, by the very lack of smallness, by the absence of any limitations against which to rebel."
"You have a child and you stop questioning the futility, true. For one thing, you're too fucking busy. For another, the question is answered, the futility is confirmed. You've passed it on to the next generation. They're essential, you no longer are."

and Happiness: "He wasn't sure at this point, what happiness might entail. Perhaps all these years he had been happy without knowing. It seemed perfectly possible."

Fantastic. Utterly engrossing, too, in the way of those big novels of years ago that intended to kind of sweep you along. Appropriately biting, at times, in its approach to the litterati populating its pages, but the book never presents these characters as anything less than flawed, interesting people. Wonderfully structured and plotted, too --- you know what it's building to, but the last 100 pages still hit like a bag of bricks. And it's funny! It's a funny book!

The last of my batch from the 2006 Booker longlist, and probably the least impressive.

Not that it is bad - it is quite well written, but I had very little sympathy for any of the characters , and although 9/11 features in the plot, it comes too late in the book to redeem the tedium of what came before, and also allows the author a few rather too neat plot resolutions. I have also read far too many books about young New Yorkers.

It is also far too long for a book with so little of note to say.

ثاني تجربة لي مع كلير مسعود بعد روايتها المراة في الطابق السفلي..فهل كانت موفقة؟
بالطبع لا والف لا
لا اعلم ما السبب بالضبط..هل الترجمة لم تكن بالمستوى المطلوب..ام ان النص الاصلي كان هكذا سيئًا مع ان الفكرة العامة للرواية كانت ممتازة ويمكن ان يُعمل عليها بشكل مختلف تمامًا وتخرج بمستوى افضل
سرد متشظي..جمل بموضوع ما..تليها جمل بموضوع مختلف تمامًا..حوار عبثي ولا يعرف رأسه من رجليه!

يكفي ان تقرا الملخص المكتوب على غلاف الكتاب وحسب.

(4.5) My impression of Claire Messud is that she’s admired by critics but unpopular with ordinary readers (e.g. this has a catastrophically low average rating here on Goodreads, probably because of that “unlikable characters” chestnut). I fit into both categories, so was curious to see where I would fall on the appreciation spectrum.

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you that this is a 9/11 novel. It opens in March 2001 and covers the next eight months, with “the towers” first getting a mention at the halfway point. There’s heavy irony in one character commenting to another in the first week of September, “Whatever else they may be, our times are almost criminally uninteresting. The dullest times ever.” As in a couple of novels I read last year (not naming them in case that is a spoiler), the terrorist attacks wake the main characters up from a stupor of entitlement and apathy.

The trio of protagonists, all would-be journalists aged 30, have never really had to grow up. Marina still lives with her parents, social worker Annabel and respected cultural pundit Murray Thwaite. She got an advance to write a book on children’s fashions, but the project has languished for years. Her best friend Danielle is a documentary maker mired in an affair with an older man. Their other close pal is half-Vietnamese Julius, whose new boyfriend keeps him in the luxurious lifestyle to which he’s become accustomed.

The arrival of two young men sets the plot in motion. Through Danielle, Marina meets Ludovic Seeley, who has moved from Australia to New York City to launch a magazine, The Monitor, for which he is soliciting cutting-edge cultural exposés. Meanwhile, Murray’s nephew, college dropout Frederick Tubb, who has the unfortunate nickname of “Bootie,” has moved to the City to seek his fortune. Murray offers him a job as his amanuensis, but what Bootie learns leads him to wish he could expose his idolized uncle as an intellectual fraud.

For these characters, leaving an extended childhood behind means getting out from under the shadow of a previous generation and reassessing what is admirable and who is expendable. As Marina’s book title (The Emperor’s Children Have No Clothes) indicates, appearance and substance do not always match. I won’t give away what 9/11 means for this fictional world, though I’d be interested in discussing it in the comments with anyone who’s read the book. Bootie was my favorite, and what happens with him is particularly interesting.

This was thoroughly engrossing: richly textured and intellectually satisfying in a way that might call to mind George Eliot and Edith Wharton – or, more recently, Jennifer Egan and Zadie Smith. Great American Novel territory, for sure. I’ll be keen to read more by Messud.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

I was forewarned about this book, yet it was something we were reading for my book group, so I found my way through it... I am sorry I did.

Seldom has a novel been so annoying and offensive to me. The author created completely unlikeable characters that she seemed to hold in distain as well. She had to tell the reader why they were flawed, too, instead of letting us figure it out on our own. She had unkind things to say about the part of NY I hail from, making the most vexing characters come from there as well.

And the idea that attending a well-known Ivy League college was the only way to be successful and important in NYC... like Manhattan is the center of the universe. Obviously, it was for these characters... if they were real people, I would feel sorry for them.

The first 411 pages seemed like backstory for 9/11. I kept waiting for this pivotal moment, thinking the whiny folks I had come to detest might redeem themselves in some way. But no.

I would put this book right into my "To Sell" pile... instead, I may just abandon it on the side of the road somewhere.