After Claude

This is what happens to Harriet after Claude breaks up with her and wants her out of his apartment:

She decides she isn't going anywhere
Then she gets locked out of the apartment
Harriet calls the locksmith and he breaks down the door and changes the locks
Claude, understandably, is furious when he can't get in and calls the cops
The cops break down the door, dragging Harriet along who tries to save face by telling Claude she's breaking up with him!

Harriet is an "independent" woman of the times. Her personality is very abrasive. She is highly opinionated and unrelenting. She rebuffs off her friends' useless platitudes. She is very aware about almost everything but herself.

So what happens to Harriet after Claude leaves her in the Chelsea show more Hotel circa 1970's New York?

She meets a cult leader.

After Claude was an interesting read. I was laughing throughout the novel but I will admit went through equal parts of liking and hating Harriet. I loved her unflinching opinions of the times of women, religion, and politics but then hated that she was very needy. Harriet needed that validation from others, mostly men, to feel something for herself. She couldn't live on her own as she got panic attacks during her first night there. It wasn't a surprise that she latched on so severely to a very creepy cult leader because he showed her a little love. show less

After Claude is an odd little portrait of a woman going off the rails. At times funny, at times very sad, it's a fascinating character study and an interesting early attempt at creating a female anti-hero. Iris Owens writes like a dream - too bad she wasn't more prolific (I'm not likely to seek out any of the pornographic stuff she wrote under her pseudonym of Harriet Daimler). I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would when I started it. After the first few pages of Harriet's "mad and maddening" narration, I was almost ready to abandon the book. The experience was a little like being trapped in a dark, messy room and being forced to listen to Joan Rivers standup routines for forty-eight hours without let-up. But listening to show more Harriet is also like viewing the proverbial train wreck - it's horrendous, and yet you can't look away.

Even though I never really thought of myself as a feminist, I believe I probably would have liked this book a lot more if I'd read it when it first appeared in the early '70s. Back then I would most likely have seen the work as funny, edgy, and iconoclastic. But it hasn't aged well. Or maybe that's just me who hasn't aged well. show less

This is a very good, very funny book. Harriet, our narrator, gives us a glimpse of her world through a screen of wit dripping with venom. The farther we venture into the book, however, the more this wit can be seen as an extension of her psychosis (this word probably sounds more dramatic that I intend, but I do mean it literally: she is highly delusional and has a tenuous grasp on reality). The humor gets sparser as the book progresses, as well. As an unreliable narrator, the best way to gain glimpses of the "true" Harriet are in her biting insults towards other people. Many of her jabs at her "ex-best friend, Rhoda-Regina," are perfect descriptions of her own self. Many people here seem to be put off by her offensiveness. She spouts show more anti-Semitisms (while denying and very much being a Jew). After going on about race/sex to Rhoda-Regina's black boyfriend, she's sure the reason he avoids her in the future is due to his passion for her. Even the book's title and first sentence, "I left Claude, the French rat." are perfect highlights of the disparity between Harriet's voice and the world around her. The title claims "After" when the largest part of the book is her desperate attempt to cling to and stay with Claude. She doesn't "leave" him until he has her physically removed from his apartment. The writing of this book is very skilled and subtle. The prose is light and it's a quick read, but nothing is spelled out on the surface. In the end, I even started to feel sorry for Harriet, as nasty as she is (though, it must be said, she's always an enjoyable sort of nasty), but when it was all over I started to think: does she end up running into a terrible fate or, sadly, is it the only way she'd be able to function in this world? I'm still not really sure and maybe that's a good thing. show less

So sharp and witty. I am certain that I even missed a lot of the witticisms just because they were constant and delivered so quickly. The last quarter of the book felt a little out of place for me, almost like a different novel, but I still loved this over all. Funny, bitchy, unique, and smart.

Protagonist is a badass crazy bitch who I was rooting for and found pretty funny and sad. Enjoyed the book. I heard it's extremely autobiographical, but I'd like to believe she had all sorts of meaning and anger fueling this fictional character. The tuna. Oh god. Also, it was weirdly insightful about that quiet disdain felt in relationships. The breakup scenes were painfully nuts and accurate.

I filed this one under depression after spending a few hours with the darkly funny, pathetic, fanciful, deluded Harriet in this 1973 novel. After she has been moved to the Chelsea Hotel by the more-decent-than-I-would-have-been Claude, we encounter a setting smacking of primal scream therapy: "trapped groans filled my throat..." as her "guide" Roger chants "Let the demons out." But Harriet's demons are not to be corralled as she collapses yet again in wait for a man, any port in the storm to salve her paralyzed psyche and inertia. I thought of Edie Sedgewick or one of Jean Rhys' sad characters for whom the dark humor would be of no help.
And I am missing something so read this excellent, admiring review show more target="_top">http://theamericanscholar.org/sex-and-the-single-woman/#.UfSQG9LVCh0 show less

I filed this one under depression after spending a few hours with the darkly funny, pathetic, fanciful, deluded Harriet in this 1973 novel. After she has been moved to the Chelsea Hotel by the more-decent-than-I-would-have-been Claude, we encounter a setting smacking of primal scream therapy: "trapped groans filled my throat..." as her "guide" Roger chants "Let the demons out." But Harriet's demons are not to be corralled as she collapses yet again in wait for a man, any port in the storm to salve her paralyzed psyche and inertia. I thought of Edie Sedgewick or one of Jean Rhys' sad characters for whom the dark humor would be of no help.
And I am missing something so read this excellent, admiring review show more target="_top">http://theamericanscholar.org/sex-and-the-single-woman/#.UfSQG9LVCh0 show less