How’s it going? I haven’t forgotten the book of the month in June, in fact I finished The Death of the Poet* quite quickly, but the novel left me somehow conflicted, which made it hard for me to work on the review. I started writing straight after I finished reading and I couldn’t really find the best words for my review. So I thought I should give it a bit of time and some distance - to clear my mind and to become objective again.
Objective again? Well, yes some parts of the novel are very intense and involved me emotionally. At certain times I was outraged about the bossy female lead or upset about the passiveness of the main character, but this only showed me, how well written The Death of the Poet is.
|Synopsis|
The novel contains of two stories, whereas the first plot line is the more dominant one and functions as a frame story to the second. Major parts of the novel centre on cocky, but talented radio presenter John Knox, who falls madly in love with Rachel, a self-destructive and unpredictable woman. For a decade, Rachel abuses John physically and mentally. Despite their difficult and tense relationship, they start a family. With the years, Rachel grows distanced, causing alienation to John who struggles and suffers from it. Does Rachel have a secret affair? What is she hiding? John tries to rescue this relationship but has to discover it might be too late for that.
|Structure|
In his debut, Woolf intertwines two plot lines. The first one concentrates on the life of John and his unbalanced relationship to the psychopathic Rachel. In posthumous letters, John retells the years of this complicated bond, marked by uncontrolled choleric outbursts of his partner and her actions that physically and mentally torture him.
After 1/3 into the novel, Woolf introduces a second strand that follows the diary of a WWI soldier, called Rutherford. Rutherford survived the war and published a collection of poems by his fellow soldier Lyons who died during the war. The extensive collection becomes the only surviving of that time which gains Rutherford popularity and fame.
The two plot lines merge together on the last 100 pages of Woolf’s novel.
|Extract taken from The Death of the Poet p.210|
You disappeared, that Christmas. I don’t mean permanently; I mean you weren’t home, and instead of hanging out with Josh and me you where someplace else, always. Even Christmas Day, you were around for only half the time – long enough for us to trade presents. You’d bought toys and books for Josh – he looked at me when he unwrapped the toys, and I willed him telepathically not to say that he’d got those ones already.
‘That’s Freud’, you told him, when he opened up the first book. ‘He was the co-inventor of psychoanalysis.’ The book was big enough to seriously injure someone. I thought about challenging whether it was OK to teach our kid to read sexual issues into everything, but I hadn’t disagreed with a word you’d said in seven years, and I wasn’t about to start now. I took the mince pies out of the oven and popped my pills while I was doing it.
‘What on earth is this?’ you asked, when you’d unwrapped the DVD I’d gotten you. ‘Love Actually?’ ‘It’s a Christmas film’, I said. ‘It’s British. I thought you might recognise some of the places in it. I got you the soundtrack, too.’
You cocked your head at me like I was talking Chinese, and put Tom Waits on instead.
|Criticism|
(contains spoiler, so only continue if you have read the book)
Throughout the entire novel I could barely understand the fascination for Rachel. She is depicted very one-dimensional and I didn’t find her appealing at all. She dresses like a hippie and her views are immature. She is annoying, unpredictable, moody and a serious choleric. She takes all the time.
I do understand that she is a difficult person, but Woolf barely explains why. It was hard for me to develop any sense for this character and why John stays with a permanently furious woman who harms and humiliates him in any possibly way. Little is said about Rachel’s condition. It is all very vague. If there would have been at least a paragraph on her background to explain why she is so terribly unbalanced and full of anger, this would have made her a rounder character and offered some identification. I think this would have helped to create a bond between me and the literary character and would have supported me to accept and understand her more.
Moreover, Rachel abuses and diminishes John, which are all clear signs of humiliation that were hard to accept and felt unrealistic that a character can take so much of it. Bearing in mind how clever, confident and quick on his feet John is introduced to the reader, I would have liked to see him standing up for himself. Just once! At no point does the text highlight or focus on any positive moments in their relationship, so it felt hard to understand why John is so attracted to this woman and stays passive, if even he can only memorise the negative moments in their life.
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The second storyline is introduced late and distracted me from the straight forward linear plot. Whenever the italics that indicated Rutherford’s journal came up, I sighed and forced my way through the text. I found it exhausting to read and it added unnecessary weight to the strong initial story. For a very long time, it is unclear what the series of journal entries have to do with Rachel and John, and it needed in my opinion more interlinks to offer a satisfactory explanation.
The two plotlines merged together on the last 100 pages which felt rushed. In fact, the Rutherford strand adds very little suspension or substance to the main story. The final showdown and conclusion are not plausible at all, rather far-fetched. When I finished reading I thought ‘Really? This is it?’ and wondered why it was there in the first place. The story of Rachel and John offered, in my opinion, enough potential and room for creativity for a thrilling and moving novel.
|Some Questions left|
Why did Woolf elaborate so much on the relationship if his main focus turned out to be the story of the war soldier?
Why waste a lot of time building up a tense and thrilling story around characters, when on the last pages they act totally different and become redundant?
What has happened to friend Barney? Why is he introduced and never appears again? He could have been one of the lost and neglected friends that stayed loyal to John and tried to help, even after years of abuse?
I liked the idea of John going to England and to research the last mysterious year of his relationship, but 100 pages were far too rushed. The side story with the professor having an affair with Rachel was vague too, and took more place in Johns fucked-up mind rather than in reality.
Also, why bring in Maxwell and Dylan, when they are hardly in the story? These characters served only for pieces of information: Rachel’s secret first family who then takes care of son Josh. These bits could have been easily told in one paragraph, but Woolf wastes three chapters on it.
|Final Word|
I found The Death of the Poet an interesting and compelling read. It is well written using powerful language with a love for linguistic detail. The story is gripping and events unfold at a reasonable pace. I definitely enjoyed reading this intense novel. I tried to understand its characters, their emotions and motifs. Sometimes, I found it hard to fully understand certain actions as the text remains vague in places and leaves it mostly to the reader to solve emotional conflicts. Some potential has been wasted and I think could have been used more wisely.
However, the novel stayed with me long after I had finished reading so it had its effects on me. In hindsight, I still think there's room for improvement to develop characters neater and make plotlines more plausible. The ending is unsatisfying and had little to do with the very strong initial plotline.
Available on amazon or in my giveaway (see details below).
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Have you read N. Quentin Woolf's novel? If so, please leave me a comment, I'd love to discuss it with you.
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xx CAZ xx
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