Blood Oranges

Beauty becomes denial in this aesthetically rendered tale of a life brought to ruin by a galloping sexuality. The narrator's gorgeous account creates an irreality that both disturbs and compells. The books dissonances are reminiscent of Nabokov's Lolita and Gide's The Egoist. If you like stylistic fiction, this book is for you.

This is a complicated and mysterious book by a writer with an amazing command of his prose. The tragic story is doled out in tiny slivers along with a vivid description of the imagined Mediteraenan location where the events unfold. The narrator is a self-proclaimed "love singer" who is desperately proud of his marriage and of the many, many women he has loved during his marriage. It's hard at least for this reader to be sure how ironically we are to view the protagonists advocacy of totally free love. The narrator clearly blames the stories tragic outcome on the small-mindedness of his rival in love--I at least am left wondering whether the author means us to blame the victim or the protagonist. The story can be oppressive at times with its pervasive melancholy--but it certainly makes you think. Hawkes is a terrific writer and this is a challenging, difficult and definitely uncomfortable work of genius.

John Hawkes has created some of the most beautiful prose ever penned; the word surface in this book is as memorable and enjoyable as any I've read, at turns surprising, sensual, poetic, and often all of this and more. As an extended flight of the imagination 'The Blood Oranges' explores regions of desire, fidelity, and repression that many have gestured towards or illuminated in passing, but that few have mapped extensively. For me, it stands as tremendously courageous writing, and writing elevated by a pervasive and exciting humour. It's very funny, in the way that Beckett's or Kafka's prose can be - and Hawkes' deserves to be considered as a writer of their stature. I only wish I'd been exposed to his writing sooner. He's a genius.

Hawkes' sensuality at its most accessible, a work whose difficultly may be off-putting to some readers, but whose rewards run deep. Sex and death repose in contented embrace from beginning to end; from fetid canals to crab-strewn plates.

I found this book lyrical and somewhat surreal. It evoked memories of John Barth's End of the Road. The book was original, uninhibited, and rather melancholy. It presented an image of the idle rich who are hedonistic yet emotional. Jealousy plays a half-veiled and sinister role. I highly recommend this book to lovers of poetic prose (a la Barth or Toni Morrison).