![]() ![]() ![]() He was born in the eye of a storm, we’re told, to a father who owned a Florida spring and got rich selling bottled water-in other words, he’s a Greek river god, translated to modern America. Lancelot, known as ‘Lotto,’ is a handsome, privileged, happy-go-lucky boy who embodies the ‘Fate’ of the title. It certainly doesn’t lack energy, especially in the first half of the book, which told from the husband’s point of view. The book’s ingenious construction and exuberant style have won it critical praise, bestseller status, and a nomination for the National Book Award. It challenges us to think differently about love as a literary subject, while gently mocking millennials’ smugness about matrimonial success. It’s an ambitious, risk-taking book based on a bold idea: that a novel about a marriage doesn’t have to be subtle and intimate, that domestic life can also be the stuff of high drama. There’s a lot to like about ‘Fates and Furies,’ the third novel by American writer Lauren Groff. Rereading it now I think it sounds kind of obtuse-is writing about boredom inevitably boring? But after many years of reading books for review, I did think I was entitled to a sidebar’s worth of opinion on the subject. ![]() It’s just got slow patches and contrived bits mixed in.” In the end she asked me to put some of my objections into a box about boredom (see below). It’s original and terrifically inventive. My editor said, “If it’s a bad book we shouldn’t run a long piece on it.” I said, “It’s not bad. In my first draft of this review I said ‘Fates and Furies’ was both brilliant and boring. ![]()
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