In Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff asks us readers to pay attention, maybe more attention than I’m able or willing to give to this book. I’m expected to remember many names, which may come up again, pages later, maybe in scenes from earlier or later times or from someone else’s viewpoint.
Every sentence, complete or incomplete, though, is glorious. Each leads me on and keeps me wanting to find out what follows. But, the sentences, especially the early ones, come so quickly that after the first fifty pages they became too much for me, and I had to put the book away for a while.
A few days later I picked it up again and began skipping and skimming, to the end at first, then here and there, piecing stories together by reading parts for as long as they still seemed interesting, then going back or forward to catch more of this story, leaving flags wherever I left off, not keeping notes, trying to slow-read this fast reading novel, and finally covering it all.
The novel itself skips back and forth, explains events before or after they are told, may tell the same event from at least two perspectives, plays deftly with time and place, so invites the reader to look ahead and back too.
It’s a story of two people in love, in a long marriage, who do and don’t understand each other, who we learn about slowly as the book progresses. In the first half of the book, "Fates", we learn mostly about Lotto, who becomes a playwright and who is pretty much one thing. Then in "Furies" we get to know Mathilde, who is much more complex and interesting.
This book is filled with layers of meaning, versions, explanations, twists. It’s not like Groff’s earlier "Arcadia", not like her later "Matrix" or "The Vaster Wilds". It almost cries out for a re-reading. ( )

What a wild ride! This book tells the unusual and epic love story of Lancelot (aka Lotto) and Mathilde. Two tall people (you know I loved that) with traumatic childhoods who met in college, were married two weeks later, and paid their dues in NYC while Lotto pursues an unsuccessful acting career and then a very successful career as a playwright. They have lots of parties, LOTS of sex, and an outwardly pretty perfect life together until it all comes to a sudden stop. In the first half of the book, Groff gives us Lotto's perspective -- his childhood as the son of a Florida bottled water baron and a former mermaid performer, the loss of his father, his first sexual experience, and his banishment to a New England boarding school. He is a man who was born to be on stage or to be the center of attention at a party, and he and Mathilde host legendary parties in their garden level NYC apartment all through college (a memorable chapter takes us through about a decade of their lives with scenes from each year's New Year's Eve party). Throughout this section, Mathilde is ever-present but mysterious; she is oddly beautiful, supportive but distant, very sexual, and often sad. In the second half of the book, we find out why Mathilde is the way she is, and it is surprising and satisfying. I recently read The Manuscripts of Pauline Archange by Marie-Claire Blais and so much of Mathilde's story and character reminded me of Pauline -- it was almost like this was Pauline fan fiction for a very select audience. Throughout the book, Groff plays with themes of revenge, loneliness, family, good, and evil. A kind of omniscient Greek chorus permeates the book and gives us commentary on the action in [square brackets], and descriptions and sections from Lotto's plays weave in and out of the mythological vibe of the main action. A truly weird and wild ride -- I started out not liking it that much but ultimately liked it quite a bit. Definitely worth the effort. ( )

I was a little surprised at how negatively my book circle members reacted to this novel.

The first section centers on Lotto (Lancelot) Satterwhite, scion of a wealthy but strange Florida family, given all the advantages. But his controlling mother disowns him, disapproving of his fairy-tale marriage, and, struggling as an actor, he is supported emotionally and financially by his wife Mathilde, his aunt, his sister, his friends from school, until his eventual and remarkable success as a playwright. He loves his wife, trusts his friends, and seems the golden boy. I got somewhat tired of it. When his story ends, Mathilde's steps out of his shadow. Who is she really? We have learned so little about her as the novel concentrates on Lotto. And there is a lot to learn. She, of course, is one of the furies, but how much of her story is true? Her early life, her odd family, are completely hidden from her husband, but drive her actions and her own need for control and revenge. The author is not above using spectacular events to punctuate the narrative, both in the forward journey of the plot and the backward look at origins, and I suspect some of the group found the author as controlling as the characters. But I enjoyed the story, in spite of some eyebrow-raising coincidences at the end . ( )

Spoilers Abound.

I found myself talking back to the book after having read & returned it. I liked the first half. The second half was difficult and I didn't really believe it.
Why was the gallery owner a sadist? Why did he expect her to want to stay with him when he mistreated her? Now as I'm writing I wonder -- did she respond sexually to the mistreatment & so he thought it was OK? But she responded so strongly to her husband in sex, and he wasn't a sadist. I am no expert but it seems inconsistent to me.
Was there a reason why the Uncle cut her off? Why did he adopt her if he didn't want to support her? He was rich and it would have been easy for him to pay for college. Why did the Uncle cave when she blackmailed him? He could have moved the painting and denied it all -- so he wanted to pay. Why then & not for college?
Can you really contact the FBI and tell them you have oodles of absolutely incriminating documents about a financial criminal and then tell them Never Mind? Was the private investigator so good that the FBI couldn't duplicate any of her investigation?

And....
The mother was shown thinking about how much she had done for her son. Was it that she rescued his son? I expected to find that the mother had bankrolled and supported the plays but that wasn't the case.
I don't know what I think of the man. He took his wife as he wanted her to be and never saw beyond that. Same with his friends.

I think the writing is skillful and talented but it left such bad feelings.

Immensely enjoyed reading this (on recommendation by a friend). Taken as a whole, the prose style for each part of the book was mesmerizing. Where Fates, and following Lotto was embued with a sense of longing and dream-like composition, Furies and Mathilde had a distinctly purposeful cadence. Hers was full of anger, even a kind of defiance not only against her family members but perhaps even against the readers --- as if to prove something to us all. ( )