Point About Books Fierce Attachments: A Memoir
| Title | : | Fierce Attachments: A Memoir |
| Author | : | Vivian Gornick |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 224 pages |
| Published | : | September 14th 2005 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published April 1st 1987) |
| Categories | : | Autobiography. Memoir. Nonfiction. Biography. Biography Memoir. Womens. New York |
Vivian Gornick
Paperback | Pages: 224 pages Rating: 3.97 | 4325 Users | 545 Reviews
Commentary In Pursuance Of Books Fierce Attachments: A Memoir
In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence. There have been numerous books about mother and daughter, but none has dealt with this closest of filial relations as directly or as ruthlessly. Gornick's groundbreaking book confronts what Edna O'Brien has called "the prinicpal crux of female despair": the unacknowledged Oedipal nature of the mother-daughter bond.Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of "urban peasants," Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother's romantic depression over the early death of her husband. Next door lives Nettie, an attractive widow whose calculating sensuality appeals greatly to Vivian. These women with their opposing models of femininity continue, well into adulthood, to affect Gornick's struggle to find herself in love and in work.
As Gornick walks with her aged mother through the streets of New York, arguing and remembering the past, each wins the reader's admiration: the caustic and clear-thinking daughter, for her courage and tenacity in really talking to her mother about the most basic issues of their lives, and the still powerful and intuitively-wise old woman, who again and again proves herself her daughter's mother.
Unsparing, deeply courageous, Fierce Attachments is one of the most remarkable documents of family feeling that has been written, a classic that helped start the memoir boom and remains one of the most moving examples of the genre.
Declare Books Toward Fierce Attachments: A Memoir
| Original Title: | Fierce Attachments |
| ISBN: | 0374529965 (ISBN13: 9780374529963) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Rating About Books Fierce Attachments: A Memoir
Ratings: 3.97 From 4325 Users | 545 ReviewsCriticism About Books Fierce Attachments: A Memoir
Scathingly honest.What a reading experience! Wow! Wow! Wow!Fierce Attachments by Vivian GornickBefore reading Vivian Gornicks Fierce Attachments, I felt frustrated by frozen memories. Why cant I remember conversations, let alone themes, from my childhood and teen years? Why can I not paint a picture of anyone, myself included? Why does no one appear whole? After reading Gornicks memoir, I sense a thawing. Memories arent exactly gushing yet, but theyre trickling.Gornick weaves anecdotes to show primarily influences of her mother and a neighbor, Nettie.
If only I could ever bring myself to develop half as many insights on my life as the author's, I would consider myself blessed. Vivian Gornick proves that ideas hold a writing together and that every other skill is secondary to a good work. Each of her descriptions of places, habits, relationships, people could not have been more complete and beautiful. I could see her childhood and all characters in it unfold themselves in front of me and I am aghast that the memories of a girl born in Bronx in
I dont usually read memoirs, but decided to read this one after enjoying Gornicks The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir (which is more than a memoir). In one way, this book is a precursor to the latter book, as it also takes us on walks and talks Gornick has with her mother. In another way, this is not like the later book (which I read first) at all in that it is much more (appropriately) claustrophobic, dealing with Gornicks struggles to differentiate herself from her mother; to find the part
I have nothing to say about the quality of writing in this book, but I found the story very unpleasant, for some reason--probably the chilliness of Vivian Gornick's "marriage." I had to read it in a creative writing course as an example of a memoir, and I disliked it so intensely that after the semester, I disposed of it. Until then, I didn't realize how hard laminated covers made it for trade paperbacks to burn. From the overall tone of the book, Gornick comes off as the coldest Marxist since
Powerful, violent and extreme......the narrative presented here is really very strong, it enters you and attaches itself to you, it is then difficult to get it out of your thoughts. Gornicks writing is bewitching and seductive, but at the same time, pages by pages, everything became poisonous...This period was perhaps not suitable for me in front of books like these, where it is not really understood if everything is a reality of life, lived by the author or fiction passed off as reality...The
I thought that I would like this book more than I did. Perhaps that's because I loved The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir and expected it to be more of the same, which is unfair. The Odd Woman is a book about a lot of people and one place, New York City. In The Odd Woman Gornick is very thoughtful about herself, her relationship to her mother and about many other people and topics. Her thoughts are wide-ranging. On the other hand, Fierce Attachments is a rather claustrophobic book and not a
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