Nightwood
by Djuna Barnes
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Book Summary Information
Author: Djuna BarnesIntroduction: T. S. Eliot
Preface: Jeanette Winterson
Edition: Paperback
Published: 2006-09-26
ISBN: 0811216713
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: New Directions
Book Reviews of Nightwood
Book Review: Homosexuality is not really the focus -- but it's there
Summary: 5 Stars
Barnes' Magnum opus, "Nightwood" (1936), was her second novel and one of those books that probably 'must' be read, the same as "Winesburg, Ohio" (Sherwood Anderson), or "The Great Gatsby", (F. Scott Fitzgerald). Poet Donald J. Greiner once wrote, "[It]...stands out among post-World War I American novels as one of the first notable experiments with a type of comedy that makes the reader want to lean forward and laugh with terror."
What is the book "about"? To grossly oversimplify this complex tale, it's about one woman's mental, emotional, and sexual domination and manipulation, over time, of another young woman. There is also a significant sub-plot about a physician who has his own unique problems, especially concerning alcohol abuse and homosexuality.
This is truly a dark and atmospheric story, partially about homosexuality, which probably accounts for its limited readership in a Puritanistic America when it was first published, and possibly even since. Barnes was an American, home-schooled and raised among incredibly artistic people such as Jack London and Franz Liszt, both of whom visited her father's farm. She lived from 1892 to 1982 and spent 20 years of her life in Paris, passing time in the company of other avant garde personalities such as Mina Loy, Janet Flanner, Dolly Wilde, and Gertrude Stein.
This book was an incredibly tough read for me but people who understand poetry, (and I don't very well), will probably get it just fine. Barnes doesn't use words wastefully and her prose-style of writing takes on a sort of incongruous, syncopated rhythm. A review of the Cliff's Notes prior to reading the book would probably help out a lot.
But I will say outright that this is one of the most compelling novels I've ever read. Having now read Barnes' greatest work, I'm eager to note that she was probably at least a borderline genius.
Don't expect your typical novel here -- you won't come away from this one with a warm, fuzzy feeling. In fact, as you relate to each of the principals, especially "the doctor", you'll likely experience some emotional discomfort. Perhaps that is the genius of the work.
Summary of Nightwood
Nightwood is not only a classic of lesbian literature, but was also acknowledged by no less than T. S. Eliot as one of the great novels of the 20th century. Eliot admired Djuna Barnes' rich, evocative language. Lesbian readers will admire the exquisite craftsmanship and Barnes' penetrating insights into obsessive passion. Barnes told a friend that Nightwood was written with her own blood "while it was still running." That flowing wound was the breakup of an eight-year relationship with the lesbian love of her life.The fiery and enigmatic masterpiece—one of the greatest novels of the Modernist era.
Nightwood, Djuna Barnes' strange and sinuous tour de force, "belongs to that small class of books that somehow reflect a time or an epoch" (TLS). That time is the period between the two World Wars, and Barnes' novel unfolds in the decadent shadows of Europe's great cities, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna—a world in which the boundaries of class, religion, and sexuality are bold but surprisingly porous.
The outsized characters who inhabit this world are some of the most memorable in all of fiction—there is Guido Volkbein, the Wandering Jew and son of a self-proclaimed baron; Robin Vote, the American expatriate who marries him and then engages in a series of affairs, first with Nora Flood and then with Jenny Petherbridge, driving all of her lovers to distraction with her passion for wandering alone in the night; and there is Dr. Matthew-Mighty-Grain-of-Salt-Dante-O'Connor, a transvestite and ostensible gynecologist, whose digressive speeches brim with fury, keen insights, and surprising allusions. Barnes' depiction of these characters and their relationships (Nora says, "A man is another person—a woman is yourself, caught as you turn in panic; on her mouth you kiss your own") has made the novel a landmark of feminist and lesbian literature.
Most striking of all is Barnes' unparalleled stylistic innovation, which led T. S. Eliot to proclaim the book "so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it." Now with a new preface by Jeanette Winterson, Nightwood still crackles with the same electric charge it had on its first publication in 1936.
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