Status
Checked out
Genres
Publication
NYRB Classics (2013), Edition: Reprint, 192 pages
Description
"It has been more than thirty-five years since Renata Adler's Speedboat, Winner of the Ernest Hemingway Award for Best First Novel, charged through the literary establishment, blasting genre walls and pointing the way for a newly liberated way of writing. This unclassifiable work is simultaneously novel, memoir, commonplace book, confession, and critique. It is the story of every man and woman cursed with too much consciousness and too little comprehension, and it is the story of Jen Fein, a journalist negotiating the fraught landscape of contemporary urban America. Her voice is searching, cuttingly perceptive, and darkly funny as she breaks narrative convention to send dispatches back from the world as she finds it"--
User reviews
LibraryThing member flydodofly
It is not easy to pack a suitcase of a book full of ideas and thoughts, fragments of life, you need to fold and tuck until you have it just right. Renata Adler turned out to be very good at packing everything in this funny and brave and wonderfully innovative book.
LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe
Observational and uncommitted, the sometimes life of a journalist, Jen, who doesn’t like to ask questions forms the backdrop of this novel of — I was going to say “ideas” but I think “impressions” is closer. We glimpse life in school, life in college, life in grad school, life
Speedboat is a difficult novel to summarize, and a difficult novel to assess. Perhaps that is because it undercuts so much of what typically constitutes a novel in terms of plot, action, character development, or mise en scène. But if you set aside your expectations for these and just go along for the ride, you’ll find that Speedboat gets you there and back again; and wasn’t it the ride that was the important thing in any case? Adler’s writing is smart and twisting and so oblique that a left turn looks like a straight line. But I enjoyed it. And I’d like to read more by her. Which is about as good a compliment, I suspect, as any writer can hope for.
Recommended.
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travelling in Europe, life at parties, life in politics, life especially in New York, but also life in the hinterlands, and yet it’s hard to put your finger on anything that has been said. Wry philosophical pronouncements compete with banal domestic itineraries. Nothing too much is made of anything, yet everything seems suspiciously portentous. And insistently but slyly funny.Speedboat is a difficult novel to summarize, and a difficult novel to assess. Perhaps that is because it undercuts so much of what typically constitutes a novel in terms of plot, action, character development, or mise en scène. But if you set aside your expectations for these and just go along for the ride, you’ll find that Speedboat gets you there and back again; and wasn’t it the ride that was the important thing in any case? Adler’s writing is smart and twisting and so oblique that a left turn looks like a straight line. But I enjoyed it. And I’d like to read more by her. Which is about as good a compliment, I suspect, as any writer can hope for.
Recommended.
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LibraryThing member ffortsa
This book was on the list of 50 short contemporary novels that LitHub posted recently, and I had it on the shelf, so why not? It was hailed as a breakthrough in novelistic technique when new, which was quite a while ago. (1976. Is that still contemporary?) The text is spiky and episodic - sometimes
There is enough topical reference to bring back Watergate and other events from my youth. Ultimately, in the spirit of a sense of the ending, our narrator seems to have gotten through the worst of it with a positive view.
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a piece is no more than a couple of lines - which is a pretty good picture of the early 70s culture. The narrator is a journalist and traveler who seems to hang out with a sort of trendy set - or maybe just a neurotic bunch of freelancers. Hard to tell just how trendy they are, especially as I wasn't the least bit trendy in those days. I did laugh out loud a few times, but most of the snark is more subtle.There is enough topical reference to bring back Watergate and other events from my youth. Ultimately, in the spirit of a sense of the ending, our narrator seems to have gotten through the worst of it with a positive view.
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LibraryThing member mjlivi
This is a fascinating book, flickering by in snippets of life, overheard snatches of conversations and droll observations of the modern condition. It's witty, snarky and intriguing, but the almost complete absence of plot made it tricky for me to really connect with. There are some brilliant
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passages throughout and the overall effect is like flicking through someone's photo album - lots of wonderful moments, but an overarching narrative that you can't quite piece together. Show Less
LibraryThing member ijustgetbored
Adler's Speedboat is peripatetic in multiple senses: the novel moves all over the map, and philosophies are conveyed through the tremendous cast of characters who go in and out of the narrative frame.
The novel is written in paragraphs-- bursts-- of scenarios encountered by Jen Fain, sometime
Part of drawing conclusions based on such abrupt shifts in topic and point of view is never being quite sure you can trust a conclusion presented by any character, narrator included. As Guy Trebay notes in the afterword, Adler's snapshots are never fully developed: they stop at a point when the picture is still hazy and out-of-focus.
In that way, it's a challenging book. Nothing can be taken at face value, and the reader will second-guess morals of stories, outcomes of situations, lessons learned (or not learned). This short, sharp book does not force the reader to take a particular stance in a culture patched together from chaotic bits; rather, you're left with a incomplete tarot deck (an image Adler evokes in one episode). There are pieces of stories and some shaky conclusions, but all are subject to change when re-viewed.
Speedboat is both charming and challenging, an intoxicating evocation of modern life and the modern individual in society. It's extremely wry and makes an art of ambiguity and ambivalence. It's refreshing in that there is no sense the author is playing intellectual games with you; rather, the novel refreshingly forces engagement at every turn.
The novel is written in paragraphs-- bursts-- of scenarios encountered by Jen Fain, sometime
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journalist. It's tempting to think of each anecdote as an individual bon mot, but the novel weaves together a larger story about the unpredictable and chaotic nature of modern life. Part of the genius of this novel is that the response is not panic or existential despair; Adler displays her fragments in an abstract, musing way that leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions. Part of drawing conclusions based on such abrupt shifts in topic and point of view is never being quite sure you can trust a conclusion presented by any character, narrator included. As Guy Trebay notes in the afterword, Adler's snapshots are never fully developed: they stop at a point when the picture is still hazy and out-of-focus.
In that way, it's a challenging book. Nothing can be taken at face value, and the reader will second-guess morals of stories, outcomes of situations, lessons learned (or not learned). This short, sharp book does not force the reader to take a particular stance in a culture patched together from chaotic bits; rather, you're left with a incomplete tarot deck (an image Adler evokes in one episode). There are pieces of stories and some shaky conclusions, but all are subject to change when re-viewed.
Speedboat is both charming and challenging, an intoxicating evocation of modern life and the modern individual in society. It's extremely wry and makes an art of ambiguity and ambivalence. It's refreshing in that there is no sense the author is playing intellectual games with you; rather, the novel refreshingly forces engagement at every turn.
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LibraryThing member Dreesie
First published in 1976, this book is, in many ways, very c1970. There are no computers and cell phones and so many of what we consider vital parts of everyday life.
It is also experimental. The narrator is one Jenn Fain, but there is no story. This is snippets of her memories, most of which go
I really did not get what the point of most of this was. I think in 1976 it would have made much more sense--I was just a kid and all I remember is the Bicentennial. For people who remember the 60s and 70s well, it might make more sense. The only parts I truly liked--and I found them funny--were the sections where she discusses her students. Poorly written college essays with horrible typos and students begging for better grades. Some things do not change.
It is also experimental. The narrator is one Jenn Fain, but there is no story. This is snippets of her memories, most of which go
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exactly nowhere. There is no plot, no storyline, no cast of characters. It reminds of of flash fiction, Pilgrimage by Dorothy Richardson (which has more plot but is also very everyday dull), and Rachel Cusk (which is much more pretentious but similarly goes nowhere in snippets).I really did not get what the point of most of this was. I think in 1976 it would have made much more sense--I was just a kid and all I remember is the Bicentennial. For people who remember the 60s and 70s well, it might make more sense. The only parts I truly liked--and I found them funny--were the sections where she discusses her students. Poorly written college essays with horrible typos and students begging for better grades. Some things do not change.
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LibraryThing member emilymcmc
The chapter WHAT WAR is not as ... correct? ... as the other chapters. I don’t know how to say this or feel about it.
Awards
National Book Critics Circle Award (Finalist — Fiction — 1976)
PEN/Hemingway Award (Winner — 1977)
The Great American Novels (1976)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1976
Physical description
192 p.; 5.08 inches
ISBN
1590176138 / 9781590176139
Local notes
Fiction