Francine Prose

"...[M]aybe [he] had sensed some maternal feeling burbling up inside her, or the decency that Lula prided herself on maintaining despite her many character flaws and the world's efforts to harden her heart." (p. 15)

The main takeaway point here, I think, is that people are too complicated to slot them into categories (good/bad) based on any external evidence (immigrant/citizen, poor/rich), or even on their own actions. The characters in this book - Lula, Dunia, Zeke, Mister Stanley, Don show more Settebello, Savitra - encourage thought but defy judgment. show less

Francine Prose has a perfect name.

Her Household Saints is both a delight and a heartbreak. (I'm reminded of Our Town by Thornton Wilder.)

I loved vicariously living in this book, in NY's Little Italy as a devout Catholic starting with the years right after WWII. I loved being a young woman who falls in love with her husband on her wedding night, living with a wise but smart aleck and superstitious mother in law, and eating delicious Italian homemade food, especially the sausage (I'm actually show more vegan now).

So different from my real life, but it was so recognizable as how life is and how sometimes we need a household saint sitting on a dresser just to make it through.

I loved the humor. I loved the richness of everyday life and the everyday struggles to find it meaningful. And I really loved the scene with Jesus and the red and white checked shirts. Quirky but heartfelt. Tender but profound. Joyful but serious.

Like life. show less

Well, reading this showed me that I like Francine Prose's...prose...her wit, her insight, and her attitude. So that's good. But the subject matter just made me uncomfortable most of the time. I find I don't want to know about the often icky relationships between artists and their "muses"...usually male artists and female muses who seem more servants than inspiration, at least in this collection. The exceptions, women who struck out on their own (photojournalist Lee Miller is the most notable show more example) or were actual collaborators in the artistic process (ballerina Suzanne Farrell, who worked so closely with George Balanchine that neither could have produced their masterpieces without the other) are truly interesting. In several instances, however, I found knowing what was going on behind the scenes absolutely spoiled my appreciation for some of the resulting creations. Most of these pairings were temporary, based on questionable sexual dynamics and doomed to failure, serving neither artist, muse, nor Art in the long run. I confess to skimming or abandoning at least 3 of the sections, and to finishing a couple more only because the writing is that good.
May 2020 show less

According to Francine Prose, creative writing cannot, in fact, be taught, but would-be writers can learn by studying the masters -- among others, Bruce Wagner, Jonathan Franzen, Alice Munro, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Scott Spencer. Prose is a proponent of New Criticism -- the philosophy that works can be understood only by reading of the work as an entity unto itself, and not by reference to external indicia, like the author's life or political beliefs. In keeping with that philosophy, Prose show more selects passages that she considers to be prime examples of effective writing, encouraging readers to linger over the words and savor them, rather than speed reading, and to read closely, with careful attention to each word and phrase (a technique you might have encountered as "close reading").

Above all, Prose admires the well-wrought sentence, the result of a painstaking, thoughtful use of language, which in turn she likens to painting or composing music. To show readers how to appreciate the writer's craft, Prose highlights passages from various authors, examining closely how their language creates characterization, rhythm, or mood. Though you might be a bit dubious about this approach at the beginning of this book (didn't we learn how to do this close reading stuff a while ago, in school?), Prose manages to excite, not bore, with her explication of how to discern the many minute decisions that authors have to make with every word, and how those decisions shape a work and a reader's reaction to the plot and characters. By the end, I was eager to go and read many of the books on the list of reading she considers essential -- her "Books to Be Read Immediately."

Of course, as with all such lists, people will take issue with inclusion of certain books and exclusion of others. Some people (I'm talking to you, Bookslut) have criticized this book for its undue attention to "dead white men," presumably because Prose is overly taken with the likes of John Cheever, Charles Dickens, and Anton Chekhov. This criticism is, not to put too fine a point on it, really fucking stupid. I'm all for inclusion and diversity, but good writing is good writing. And yes, Prose focuses mainly on white men, but she also pays close and extended attention to Jane Austen, ZZ Packer, Louisa May Alcott, Mavis Galant, Tatyana Tolstaya, Diane Johnson, and James Baldwin.

On the whole, Prose provides an entertaining and wise take on why good writing can move a reader. show less