Rupert : a confession

by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer

Hardcover, 2009

Status

Available

Publication

Rochester, NY : Open Letter, 2009.

Description

Rupert has been accused of a terrible crime and his imagined defense begins the night he met the love of his life, Mira. By turns shockingl honest, incredibly funny and clearly unhinged, Rupert's defense includes rants about the properly formed insult and men in sweaters. It also visits the memory sites of Rupert and Mira's short lived affair. With each story Rupert attaches to these places his defense becomes a little more outlandish, while he comes convinced that his innocence is beyond doubt. A brilliant monologue that fully exposes the inner workings of the mind.

User reviews

LibraryThing member bluepiano
Rupert is exactly my cup of tea: The writing is atmospheric, condensed, and lyrical, with wordplay and literary references; it's sometimes funny--a tirade about men who wear comfortable jumpers actually made me laugh aloud; the narrator is unreliable and of great psychological interest; it
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transfixed my attention; and there are questions left unanswered.

Rupert is accused of a crime, and the novel comprises statements he makes to the court in three hearings. Much of his account is of his love for Mira, the ideal woman he has lost, but his meanderings into other matters--the city as a repository of memories, the ideal public square, e.g.--are every bit as interesting and every bit as revealing, if less obviously so, of Rupert's personality and of his drive to be now a spectator, now the cynosure.

The word-play begins with the subtitle, is apparent in Mira's name, and continues. There are phrases, just as there are some characters, that recur in varying circumstances throughout the book. And the literary references are used beautifully: Nabokov, Eliot, Algonquin Round Table habitues, classical writers and more are all worked in in, but with a light and usually comic touch, and their very presence tells us something about Rupert.

I skimmed some online reviews after finishing this, and some of them complained that the book was prurient or that it contained deeply upsetting scenes. It's true that a horrible crime is described, but because it's done so at second hand in poetic language the account of it isn't gruelling.

This is a book I'll read again, for several reasons: No doubt I'll find details and references I missed in this reading; oblique references to trial evidence near the end put a different slant on the previous pages; I want to read it even more closely, as Pfeijffer seems so intelligent a writer that I think he's chosen each character, each episode, and each word with very great care; and simply because it's a page-turner that's also great fun. . . Clever cover design as well.
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Language

Original language

Dutch
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