mainlytwelve's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
The most preening, sanitized semi-autobiographical novel of all time... Adler allows nothing in the book that might challenge or damage her conception of herself.
Additionally, a streak of sympathy for those with atrocious politics runs through the whole thing.
Additionally, a streak of sympathy for those with atrocious politics runs through the whole thing.
simonmee's review against another edition
2.0
Renata Adler is the recipient of the PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel in 1977; holder of degrees from Bryn Mawr, Harvard, Yale and the Sorbonne; staff writer-reporter for the New Yorker; and the author of this novel, described as “like nothing readers had ever encountered before,” being in the style of “discontinuous first person”.
I didn’t get her.
On the flip side, this novel went out of print for a time; its style appears (to my admittedly narrow range) not to have been replicated widely; and the author once described another colleague’s book as “jarringly, piece by piece, line by line, and without interruption, worthless.”
So it might be hard to get her.
The book is a series of first-person observations, with no discernible overarching narrative, no discernible passage of time, and no discernible character development. We read about the character’s ride in “that slum of the air, the 747”; field trips to Mycenae; Christmas in Zurich; and something called a Zabaglione. Admittedly the disconnect between a character of means and the reader isn’t exactly new, from Ian Fleming’s Bond to “When Life Gives You Lululemons.” I guess the casual references to wealth rankled me more here. The book is the scrambled notes of events such as “one summer, in Malta,” while I’m ironing my shirts in the dark to avoid blowing a fuse.
The author is witty, very very witty, but 170-odd pages of formless wit became difficult to distinguish from 170-odd pages of formless not-wit. I could quote something quite brilliant from every odd page, then from every even page, but they would still not make me like this book.
Part of me gets why I should get her, and get this book, but I don’t get either, so I suspect I will forget both.
I didn’t get her.
On the flip side, this novel went out of print for a time; its style appears (to my admittedly narrow range) not to have been replicated widely; and the author once described another colleague’s book as “jarringly, piece by piece, line by line, and without interruption, worthless.”
So it might be hard to get her.
The book is a series of first-person observations, with no discernible overarching narrative, no discernible passage of time, and no discernible character development. We read about the character’s ride in “that slum of the air, the 747”; field trips to Mycenae; Christmas in Zurich; and something called a Zabaglione. Admittedly the disconnect between a character of means and the reader isn’t exactly new, from Ian Fleming’s Bond to “When Life Gives You Lululemons.” I guess the casual references to wealth rankled me more here. The book is the scrambled notes of events such as “one summer, in Malta,” while I’m ironing my shirts in the dark to avoid blowing a fuse.
The author is witty, very very witty, but 170-odd pages of formless wit became difficult to distinguish from 170-odd pages of formless not-wit. I could quote something quite brilliant from every odd page, then from every even page, but they would still not make me like this book.
Part of me gets why I should get her, and get this book, but I don’t get either, so I suspect I will forget both.
rosmona's review against another edition
4.0
Non hai novela máis doada de ler para alguén cos problemas de concentración típicos da xeración Facebook. Narrativamente, é perfecta pa min.
Agora ben, que protagonista tan insufrible.
Agora ben, que protagonista tan insufrible.
kcnoun's review against another edition
3.0
i really thought this was going to be a new favorite for a little. adler's prose is never anything short of astonishing and i think the structure is brilliant - there are individual passages here that i am definitely going to return to - but the tone struck me as more reactionary than skeptical or apathetic the way i think it was intended to be in a way that i found really unpleasant. this is still somehow super readable despite being almost entirely formless and i want to check out her other work but this didn't totally connect for me
katdid's review against another edition
3.0
What was mortifying was the limbo dancing.
I have a photograph I took in New York back in May, in McNally Jackson Books. Under a paperback copy of Speedboat is a little placard from Sarah which says, "I've been loving pale imitations of this book my whole life." I can't be bothered uploading the photo. Speedboat reads like a whole bunch of anecdotes and non sequiturs casually strung together, like dinner party conversation; if you're a narrative freak you would positively loathe it. You really would. It put me in mind of a loose - very loose - version of [b:Dept. of Speculation|17402288|Dept. of Speculation|Jenny Offill|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1367929545s/17402288.jpg|24237023]. I was shocked to see it was published in 1976; the tone felt so contemporary. I liked it and respected it although I can't say I loved it or particularly enjoyed reading it - but that feels beside the point. The afterword by Guy Trebay is illuminating, with excerpts from conversations with the author about the book.
rhalpin's review
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This is a fun and quirky read with some delightful observations about life and human nature. Because it’s older there are some out-dated terms and phrases that could be potentially offensive to some readers. Would have rated higher because I loved the writing style but at times it was hard for this book to hold my focus because of the all-over-the-place nature of the vignettes.
nrasidi's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
I had been wanting to dive into this for a while and I'm glad it overlapped with my reading of Elaine Dundy's The Dud Avocado. Both books have a preoccupation with the restlessness of their respective milieus. Dundy responds to disorientation through the protagonist's comically excessive and self-centered pursuit of pleasure, while Speedboat's Jen Fain's interiority is largely absent and the story is told in accumulated scraps, seemingly random but in actuality threaded with intention. Adler's interest lies in a thorough documentation of daily life's rhythms and disruptions, observing the synonymization of the stories we tell each other and ourselves. The novel's fragmentary style was, personally, a challenge, but a good one. I got great enjoyment out of it on a sentential level.
"I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray."
"I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray."
frankie_s's review against another edition
3.0
I didn’t mind the plotlessness, and it was charming at first. There were some funny lines but it lacked heart; too New Yorker-ish / private school clique-ish. “Good call!” We’re cynical about the world because nothing touches us, et cetera.
gvenezia's review against another edition
3.0
Adler is a master of fragmented prose. As I've noted in my review of her second novel Pitch Dark (1983), Adler's fragments—ranging from one line to a few pages—are case studies for how to quickly setup tension and release, how to create mini-plots, how to distill the essence of a moment. However, it is their contributions to narrative and thematic whole which makes for a transcendent read. Speedboat's lack of such organization therefore limits its impact.
In Pitch Dark, many fragments serve important narrative and thematic functions (in many cases the reader doesn't realize their function until later, creating an element of discovery and reanalysis which mimics the main character's reanalysis of her situation). Adler uses not only fragments but more traditional short essay and more experimental meta-commentary in order to get at the themes from multiple angles. These varied techniques and a binding, emotionally resonant narrative lead to a fulfilling and interpretatively rich novel.
For these reasons I had high hopes for Renata Adler's first novel Speedboat (1976)—not to mention the fact that it's held in higher critical regard than Pitch Dark. But I was disappointed. Dare I—a lover of the postmodern conceit—say that Speedboat's problem is too many fragments with too few thematic connections? (whispers: or simply not enough plot?) Perhaps I would've liked the experimental prose of Speedboat more if there was a mix of styles, a unifying theme, or a narrative direction. But the fragments alone come to feel interminable. It's like riding a high-speed train through the mountains where you only catch a few seconds of scenery between tunnels and overgrowth. No doubt the glimpses indicate a vast and beautiful landscape. Indeed, other memories of the scenery bear out this belief (i.e. Adler's Pitch Dark). But none of Speedboat's fragments last long enough to grasp an overarching picture. After a while, the trip loses its charm and one loses hope for a payoff.
Guy Trebay's urges a different framing in an afterword dutifully echoing the many reviews of high praise: the very allure of Speedboat is its ability to capture this relentlessly fragmented feeling of the modern world, a fragmentation which has only grown stronger since Adler's time (173). But even Trebay admits that this insight won't be as exciting or new now that we live in the internet age and have had lots of experimental fiction attempt to depict our fragmented, hyper-speed, attention-deprived experiences (174-175). I agree. And that observation—along with my previous experience of Adler's fragments in Pitch Dark—is the cause of my underwhelming reading of Speedboat.
Unlike Trebay and other critics, I fail to see how "[these miniatures] are in truth organized in subtle and inevitable patterns" (173). Trebay doesn't say anything more exact about the organization and I can't stomach a full reread to look for them, so either I've reached my tolerance for interpretative work or there aren't really any "inevitable patterns" (whatever that means—Inevitable to whom? According to what expectations and criteria? Is it a point about the inescapability of patterns in human cognition? It's too ambiguous, just like the fragments it's meant to describe!). There are certainly patterns, and I started to pick up some interesting ones about revealing half-truths to a romantic partner in the last "chapter." But then the book ends. My hunch is that readers are finding "subtle and inevitable patterns" by bringing their personal experiences and ideas to the book and then piecing together the resonant fragments with their own personal threads.
Indeed, after reading many reviews, it's clearer to me that experiences of Speedboat vary because Adler's prose leaves so much room for interpretation:
It's also worth noting that on Goodreads 4x as many people have read Speedboat than Pitch Dark, and likely even fewer have read Pitch Dark first, meaning very few will be evaluating Speedboat with a context similar to mine. This also means that I probably would have liked Speedboat more had I read it first.
But even when considering the standalone fragments outside the context of the novels, I find Pitch Dark to be more insightful and polished. And the subject matter is more to my personal interests in Pitch Dark: psychological, emotional, and philosophical as opposed to Speedboat's cool, detached, slice-of-life reportage. For example, take one of my favorite quotes of all time (which occurs early on in Pitch Dark):
Nothing so personal and emotionally resonant occurs in Speedboat. And thus nothing so personal or emotionally resonant occurs in me while reading Speedboat.
While this review is highly personal, I'm more comfortable expressing myself this way since Adler herself has expressed similar differences between the two books and likewise prefers Pitch Dark to Speedboat.
In sum, the book isn't bad, I'm just disappointed. I imagine most people reading Speedboat as their first Adler will enjoy the ride more than I. But I'm not convinced they'll want to stay on such a peculiar train ride for long, especially if they know that these fragments can coalesce into a larger, transcendent journey as in Pitch Dark.
In Pitch Dark, many fragments serve important narrative and thematic functions (in many cases the reader doesn't realize their function until later, creating an element of discovery and reanalysis which mimics the main character's reanalysis of her situation). Adler uses not only fragments but more traditional short essay and more experimental meta-commentary in order to get at the themes from multiple angles. These varied techniques and a binding, emotionally resonant narrative lead to a fulfilling and interpretatively rich novel.
For these reasons I had high hopes for Renata Adler's first novel Speedboat (1976)—not to mention the fact that it's held in higher critical regard than Pitch Dark. But I was disappointed. Dare I—a lover of the postmodern conceit—say that Speedboat's problem is too many fragments with too few thematic connections? (whispers: or simply not enough plot?) Perhaps I would've liked the experimental prose of Speedboat more if there was a mix of styles, a unifying theme, or a narrative direction. But the fragments alone come to feel interminable. It's like riding a high-speed train through the mountains where you only catch a few seconds of scenery between tunnels and overgrowth. No doubt the glimpses indicate a vast and beautiful landscape. Indeed, other memories of the scenery bear out this belief (i.e. Adler's Pitch Dark). But none of Speedboat's fragments last long enough to grasp an overarching picture. After a while, the trip loses its charm and one loses hope for a payoff.
Guy Trebay's urges a different framing in an afterword dutifully echoing the many reviews of high praise: the very allure of Speedboat is its ability to capture this relentlessly fragmented feeling of the modern world, a fragmentation which has only grown stronger since Adler's time (173). But even Trebay admits that this insight won't be as exciting or new now that we live in the internet age and have had lots of experimental fiction attempt to depict our fragmented, hyper-speed, attention-deprived experiences (174-175). I agree. And that observation—along with my previous experience of Adler's fragments in Pitch Dark—is the cause of my underwhelming reading of Speedboat.
Unlike Trebay and other critics, I fail to see how "[these miniatures] are in truth organized in subtle and inevitable patterns" (173). Trebay doesn't say anything more exact about the organization and I can't stomach a full reread to look for them, so either I've reached my tolerance for interpretative work or there aren't really any "inevitable patterns" (whatever that means—Inevitable to whom? According to what expectations and criteria? Is it a point about the inescapability of patterns in human cognition? It's too ambiguous, just like the fragments it's meant to describe!). There are certainly patterns, and I started to pick up some interesting ones about revealing half-truths to a romantic partner in the last "chapter." But then the book ends. My hunch is that readers are finding "subtle and inevitable patterns" by bringing their personal experiences and ideas to the book and then piecing together the resonant fragments with their own personal threads.
Indeed, after reading many reviews, it's clearer to me that experiences of Speedboat vary because Adler's prose leaves so much room for interpretation:
The picture extracted from the catalog of oddities Adler gives us can be interpreted as profound in a vertigo-inducing sense, but can also just as easily and validly be seen as boring or pointless, a “dinner that is all condiments,” as Anatole Broyard wrote. (Kesley Osgood, The American Reader)
It's also worth noting that on Goodreads 4x as many people have read Speedboat than Pitch Dark, and likely even fewer have read Pitch Dark first, meaning very few will be evaluating Speedboat with a context similar to mine. This also means that I probably would have liked Speedboat more had I read it first.
But even when considering the standalone fragments outside the context of the novels, I find Pitch Dark to be more insightful and polished. And the subject matter is more to my personal interests in Pitch Dark: psychological, emotional, and philosophical as opposed to Speedboat's cool, detached, slice-of-life reportage. For example, take one of my favorite quotes of all time (which occurs early on in Pitch Dark):
You can rely too much, my love, on the unspoken things. And the wry smile. I have that smile myself, and I've learned the silence too, over the years. Along with your expressions, like No notion and Of necessity. What happens, though, when it is all unsaid, is that you wake up one morning, no, it's more like late one afternoon, and it's not just unsaid, it's gone. That's all. Just gone. I remember this word, that look, that small inflection, after all this. I used to hold them, trust them, read them like a rune. Like a sign that there was a house, a billet, a civilization where we were. I look back and I think I was just there all alone. Collecting wisps and signs.
Nothing so personal and emotionally resonant occurs in Speedboat. And thus nothing so personal or emotionally resonant occurs in me while reading Speedboat.
While this review is highly personal, I'm more comfortable expressing myself this way since Adler herself has expressed similar differences between the two books and likewise prefers Pitch Dark to Speedboat.
In sum, the book isn't bad, I'm just disappointed. I imagine most people reading Speedboat as their first Adler will enjoy the ride more than I. But I'm not convinced they'll want to stay on such a peculiar train ride for long, especially if they know that these fragments can coalesce into a larger, transcendent journey as in Pitch Dark.
casparb's review against another edition
The afterword describes Speedboat as episodic and that's kind of right. It feels like a collection of openings. Some are very good, though one has to deal with the whiplash of the book restarting twice a page without continuity and so on. 3.5.
Without wishing to throw Renata into categories there's a sense of Pynchon's Oedipa Maas here and at her best moments, the tabasco-dash of Didion. Two minds here because Speedboat doesn't stay. But it might be brilliant. Outside my wheelhouse (do I have a wheelhouse these days? Where am I?) but one to consider.
Without wishing to throw Renata into categories there's a sense of Pynchon's Oedipa Maas here and at her best moments, the tabasco-dash of Didion. Two minds here because Speedboat doesn't stay. But it might be brilliant. Outside my wheelhouse (do I have a wheelhouse these days? Where am I?) but one to consider.