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Un Amore Perfetto (2010)

by Howard Jacobson(Favorite Author)

3.29 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

8860050391 (ISBN13: 9788860050397)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Cargo

review 1: The Act of Love is a very interesting book, beautifully written, but highly desexualized and starved of real feeling considering the nature of the subject it details, in favour of a more rational, academic analysis and explanation of the kind of man who would give up his wife for another. There’s plenty of conflicts in this book, I suppose as there would be for the cuckold depicted. The narrator wanted to justify himself by saying that to some extent all men have thoughts of letting their wives stray, though most would never admit to such a thing. But then he’s describing himself as a "deviant", and glorying in that label.The book shied away from the sexual aspects of what really should be a very sexual subject — a husband letting his wife have regular sex with anoth... moreer man under his own roof. He justified it strangely by stating that he didn’t want to invade his wife’s privacy, and yet he’d already explained that part of this cuckold fetish was the need to show off the wife to other men. It was, really, a very mainstream view of wife-sharing. The writer appeared to be trying to be different and rebellious in tackling such a subject, but he appeared more than slightly distasteful of it. Ultimately the story was as most mainstream fiction is when it attempts to delve into scandalous territory: upholding the mainstream values, by ultimately showing how dreadful all this is, how a man choosing this non-mainstream lifestyle can only ever expect to end up mired in tragedy. I’d recommend the book to those who go for the more literary type of book and want good interesting writing, but for me the whole thing stopped short of being a powerful tragedy with its messy ending, and along with the fairly bleak view of the protagonist running throughout, none of the characters were particularly likable and it all left a somewhat empty feeling behind.
review 2: Jacobsen is a witty, literate writer and this novel dives in to explore where love, lust and passion intersect. Of course it is from a male view, those wanting a fully faceted tale can skip this and save themselves some grunts and groans. I was quite taken with the protaganist, Felix Quinn. A husband I could secretly aspire to be, all due to his literary, musical and artistic knowledge, of course.If you need to be reminded that a sexy life of perpetual longing comes from the mind not the heart, this is a novel for you. less

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