The Man Who Loved Children (Christina Stead)

i'm about a hundred pages into this, and i'm finding it to be kind of -- for lack of a better word -- unlikable? as amusing as the dialogue sometimes is, the dad's ravings are a chore to slog through, and i find louie kind of maddeningly unsympathetic. i realize this is probably a shallow response to a probably-great novel, but i don't know if i can bear to spend much more time with these characters. stead is a much better writer than franzen, but it somehow doesn't surprise me that he lists this among his favorite books.

It's a straaaaange novel. Stick with it, despite its longeurs.

I'm reading I'll Die Laughing.

Haven't made it past 150 pages in this, been sitting on it half a year

i went through a major stead phase ten or so years ago which came to an abrupt end with her 600 page novel about international banking, yikes.

other than cotters' england, i found the earlier the stead the better: salzburg tales, beauties and furies, the ocean of story collection (which was very mansfieldish). still haven't read a bunch of her america period novels i have sitting around, so...

Checked Miss Herbert (The Suburban Wife) outta the library cuz why not

"i went through a major stead phase ten or so years ago which came to an abrupt end with her 600 page novel about international banking, yikes."

Sounds intriguing to me.

^that would be house of all nations; comes at the world of international finance from a marxist perspective (presumably informed by her marxist/banker husband's work?) which i can sympathise with... was not so fond of its more melodramatic moments.

since that post i've read all her fiction with the exception of the posthumous novel. only real disappointments were the above novel & for love alone.