ggttrrxx's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
waltercoleslaw's review against another edition
2.0
Maybe it was trying to be a satire of southern gothic literature or pulpy homoerotic fiction, but in either case it wasn't very compelling and felt like third-rate Tennessee Williams, sucked of all lyricism.
sunnybopeep's review against another edition
4.25
Narrow Rooms uses a lot of dialogue intermixed with the third-person narration to tell a complex, character-driven story that is deeply psychological and emotionally charged. However, James Purdy has such a unique voice that mixes eloquence with raw, gritty American soil. His writing evokes feelings of manual labor and a hard life. The characters have a regional accent, and there is a small town West Virginia vibe. Narrow Rooms might be the quintessential example of transgressive fiction, and it really embodies the rebellious spirit of American literature.
I feel like it’s normal for writers to hide behind their characters. But James Purdy gives me the sense that he is baring his naked heart to the world through his books. The characters in Narrow Rooms are all extensions of his own blood and guts. Within the confines of this relatively short novel, the reader can feel how sensitive, savage, and passionate they are.
I guess what I’m trying to say that the plot of Narrow Rooms is wild, but there’s a lot more under the surface of this book to be savored.
rpmirabella's review against another edition
5.0
DEAR GOD!!! How to even talk about this novel!? It might be my favorite James Purdy. Just when you think it couldn't get crazier, it tops what came before. I'll talk about it later. I need a glass of water.
2nd reading:
Even MORE transgressive than I remember, and EVEN MORE SO NOW, somehow. Purdy was not concerned with respectability, was not interested in being a good queer, writing positive gay representation. He was interested in mining the depths of the obsessive souls of desperate people, caught up in their little desires and petty grievances, that in his world are EVERYTHING.
2nd reading:
Even MORE transgressive than I remember, and EVEN MORE SO NOW, somehow. Purdy was not concerned with respectability, was not interested in being a good queer, writing positive gay representation. He was interested in mining the depths of the obsessive souls of desperate people, caught up in their little desires and petty grievances, that in his world are EVERYTHING.
kingkong's review against another edition
4.0
Its just a combination of his two other books. But its still good
tcweeks24's review against another edition
4.0
Well-written, evocative prose, but plagued by lack of plot. I am still not sure what all happened.
djrmelvin's review against another edition
5.0
- Definitely the darkest, most depressing work of Purdy's I've read (and that's saying something!). It's a love quadrangle between four men, all of them willing to use the needs of the others to get what they want.
gerhard's review
5.0
The most forceful impression of Narrow Rooms is how politically incorrect a novel it is. In a modern age where all LGBT people are supposed to be happy, well-adjusted poster children for homo-normativity, Purdy’s novel is like a runny dog turd smeared on a hot pavement.
A gothic tour de force of lust, perversion, obsession and violence, all often on the same page, Narrow Rooms ostensibly centres on a lovers’ triangle gone wrong. To give away any more of the lurid plot, especially the ending, would be to deprive Purdy’s novel of much of its impact. This is a book to experience; beware that it will probably hit you like a sledgehammer in the nuts.
What struck me immediately about Narrow Rooms is how pared down the writing is. Gone is the often ornamental writing and baroque plot contrivances of earlier novels like Cabot Wright Begins and Eustace Chisholm and the Works.
Here Purdy strips his writing bare, just as he lays bare the tortured souls of this wretched trilogy of characters. As a result, the book reads like a parable, while also having the impact of a Biblical story. This is also quite a brief novel, barely 200 pages, that moves inexorably from Sidney arriving home from jail to the domestic apocalypse unleashed at the end.
What is one to make of Purdy’s contention that true love is as much a destructive force as it is a creative one? That desire or even lust thwarted is liable to fester in a person, leading him to lash out with all the pain and rejection that he himself feels he has been dealt?
I constantly use the male pronoun, although I would hesitate to label this a ‘gay’ novel, despite the proliferation of gay sex, which runs the gamut from enthusiastic tonguing to eyebrow-raising S&M (and this all in a 1978 novel).
Despite the violence and anguish, can one ultimately see this as a novel of hope rather than despair? I would like to think so. After this late novel Purdy himself had about 20 years left to live, holed up in the Brooklyn, NY apartment where he stayed for 45 years until his death in 2009, largely ignored by the literary establishment that had so fêted him at the start of his career.
And yet I do not think this is a bitter novel. Instead it is a remarkable distillation of the uncompromising vision that Purdy had been honing throughout his career. As Paul Binding writes in the 1985 Introduction to the reprint: “If love is what frequently brings people into damned-seeing states of being, it – and it alone – is what brings about redemption.”
A gothic tour de force of lust, perversion, obsession and violence, all often on the same page, Narrow Rooms ostensibly centres on a lovers’ triangle gone wrong. To give away any more of the lurid plot, especially the ending, would be to deprive Purdy’s novel of much of its impact. This is a book to experience; beware that it will probably hit you like a sledgehammer in the nuts.
What struck me immediately about Narrow Rooms is how pared down the writing is. Gone is the often ornamental writing and baroque plot contrivances of earlier novels like Cabot Wright Begins and Eustace Chisholm and the Works.
Here Purdy strips his writing bare, just as he lays bare the tortured souls of this wretched trilogy of characters. As a result, the book reads like a parable, while also having the impact of a Biblical story. This is also quite a brief novel, barely 200 pages, that moves inexorably from Sidney arriving home from jail to the domestic apocalypse unleashed at the end.
What is one to make of Purdy’s contention that true love is as much a destructive force as it is a creative one? That desire or even lust thwarted is liable to fester in a person, leading him to lash out with all the pain and rejection that he himself feels he has been dealt?
I constantly use the male pronoun, although I would hesitate to label this a ‘gay’ novel, despite the proliferation of gay sex, which runs the gamut from enthusiastic tonguing to eyebrow-raising S&M (and this all in a 1978 novel).
Despite the violence and anguish, can one ultimately see this as a novel of hope rather than despair? I would like to think so. After this late novel Purdy himself had about 20 years left to live, holed up in the Brooklyn, NY apartment where he stayed for 45 years until his death in 2009, largely ignored by the literary establishment that had so fêted him at the start of his career.
And yet I do not think this is a bitter novel. Instead it is a remarkable distillation of the uncompromising vision that Purdy had been honing throughout his career. As Paul Binding writes in the 1985 Introduction to the reprint: “If love is what frequently brings people into damned-seeing states of being, it – and it alone – is what brings about redemption.”