Mating by Norman Rush
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
The description of this book in Goodreads says it is a “splendidly expansive novel of high intellect….” The New York Times Book Review quoted on the cover says it is “Exhilarating … vigorous and luminous … evokes(s) so eloquently….” Baloney! This book is so overwritten and pretentious I thought it was a satire when I started reading it. The author never uses a two- or three-syllable word if he can find a four- or five-syllable one. Never an English one if there is a French one twice as long. Consider this passage where the female narrator is describing an older man, “He was still well-built but showing a little gynecomastia, which didn’t really go with his rectilinear, almost columnar midsection… (he) was just over the line into paterfamilias.”
I once had an English professor who liked that kind of writing. I was getting C’s on my essays until she read aloud another student’s she considered an A paper. Once I choked down my vomit reaction I copied that style for my remaining papers and got an A for the class, but I could hardly live with myself. I couldn’t stomach any more of this book and stopped about page 40. If you enjoy this sort of thing, I pity you.