Books: November 22, 1995

Romance's Rocky Road
The Protagonist's Fetish is Seducing Obese Women
Books Received

Romance's Rocky Road

Love and suspicion mingle in a novel about a naive, rich widow and her dubious suitor
On the Way to the Venus de Milo
Pearson Marx '86
Simon & Schuster, $21
A widow in possession of a good fortune is easy prey for a money-hunting man. A naive, optimistic, trusting, romance-novel-reading, beautiful, alcoholic widow desperate for love is a sitting duck. Meet Estelle Wolfe.
And enter Dr. Count Francesco von Cockleburg, a poet, critic, scholar, linguist, tympanist, ninja, and dear friend of Estelle's departed husband. Is Cockleburg all he claims to be? Is he an honorable man who will bring Estelle happiness? Or is he a scoundrel, out to break Estelle's considerable bank account and heart?
Find out in Pearson Marx '86's first novel, On the Way to the Venus de Milo. And there's more . . . in the form of Estelle's daughters, Ellen and Lisanne. Marx deftly interweaves the lives and romances, such as they are, of these three women, all of whom have been hurt by love but yearn for it anyway. They're pilgrims on the road to love, but they don't all know it, or admit it. It's a long, hard trail, fraught with peril. Some will finish the journey, happy and whole, while others will become road kill. That's the way love goes.
Marx has fun with her characters' weaknesses and affectations, but she avoids the pitfall of many comic novels-trapping the characters in caricature. She allows her characters (at least, most of them) to be human, which in turn allows the reader to care about their fates.
Marx is also blessed (or afflicted, depending on your perspective) with sesquipedalianism, which makes for interesting reading. Of the 33 words I was sure I had never seen before, my dictionary had only 13. For example, osculate means to kiss. And a paladin is a knight.
My suggestion is to buy yourself a copy of On the Way to the Venus de Milo, and get another for a friend. Fix yourself a matutinal potation, put up your feet, and read. You'll laugh. You'll reach for your dictionary. Your friend will thank you.
-Andrea Gollin '88
Andrea Gollin is a freelance writer living in South Orange, New Jersey.

The Protagonist's Fetish is Seducing Obese Women

Flesh
David Galef '81
The Permanent Press, $24
David galef's first novel, Flesh, is a story about obsessions. Its characters succumb to the allures of beauty, food, scholarly interests, political causes, and, most of all, their friends' personal lives.
The narrator is Don Shapiro, a transplanted literature professor from New York who teaches at Ole Miss. He lives in an apartment on the edge of campus with his Southern wife, Susan, a prissy character whose main function in life seems to be volunteering for various noble charities and nursing her husband's appetite. It's through Don's perspective (or peephole, as it were) that the story unfolds.
The novel begins innocently enough with the arrival of a new neighbor, Max Finster, a history professor who has just come to town. Initially, Don's curiosity about Max seems to be nothing out of the ordinary. This stranger-with his statue of Priapus, his racing bicycle, and his shrouded past-presents an amusing diversion during a slow, lazy summer in a southern college town, and adds some liveliness and interesting conversation to what seems to be a rather dull marriage.
Don's fascination with Max quickly passes beyond the normal boundaries of neighborly interest, however. Max's quest, as it turns out, is to seduce an array of increasingly obese women, and Don becomes intimately involved in this odyssey. He starts to look for potential Max conquests on campus and begins to enjoy his own fascination with matters of the flesh. As Don becomes drawn into Max's sexual dalliances, he slips further and further out of touch with his wife.
Some of the most entertaining parts of the novel depict gatherings of faculty members and friends, whose quirks make them endearing. Galef has a gift for capturing the ironies of university life and poking fun at scholars' inflated self-importance.
Readers will come away from the book appreciating Galef's ability to capture the human weakness for various pleasures. His descriptions of the seductiveness of food-catfish dinners, buttery biscuits, plates piled high with good southern vegetables-are especially lush. Clearly the author understands the nature of obsessions and our yearnings for satisfaction, and he makes us realize their insidious, seductive appeal.
-Lynn Jenkins
Lynn Jenkins is a freelance writer who lives in Northford, Connecticut.

Books Received

Peripheral Visions: Deterrence
Theory and American Foreign Policy
in the Third World, 1965-1990
Ted Hopf '81
University of Michigan Press, $49.50

To End All Wars: Woodrow
Wilson [1879] and the Quest
for a New World Order
Thomas J. Knock *82
Princeton University Press, $18.95 paper

Picture Perfect
Jodi Picoult '87
G. P. Putnam's Sons, $23.95


paw@princeton.edu