“What I loved” van Siri Hustvedt was een revelatie voor mij. Daarom ben ik vrij snel aan dit bundeltje eerder verspreid verschenen essays begonnen. Hustvedt toont zich daarin als een heel zelfbewuste, fijnzinnige observator van de wereld (cfr het essay over New York, 1 jaar na 9/11), maar vooral van zichzelf. Ik hou vooral van het openingsessay “Yonder”, over dat onbereikbare gebied tussen hier en ginder, dat ze relateert aan haar migratieverleden, maar meteen ook spiegelt aan haar literaire werk. Ook het titelessay “A Plea for Eros” is een weldoordachte waarschuwing aan het puriteinse feminisme om de ambiguïteit van seksuele gevoelens niet te onderschatten of verwaarlozen. In het slotessay vervalt Hustvedt naar mijn smaak iets te veel in navelstaarderij: ze fileert zichzelf daarin ongenadig, op het ongemakkelijke af. ( )

Großartig! Siri Hustvedt hat die Literaturgattung Essay für mich neu belebt. Konsequent subjektiv und/aber glasklar analytisch kreist sie große Themen des Lebens ein: die Liebe, den Abschied von der Mutter, den Körper, die Literatur, um nur einige zu nennen. Ihren Gedanken und Erfahrungen zu diesen Themen folgen zu dürfen, ist ein großer Gewinn für die Leserin! ( )

The essays that I truly enjoyed are worth 5 stars, but Hustvedt's elaborate essays on Dickens and James are more suited for afficionados. The rest of the collection is magnificent, warm, inclusive, wise, and exciting, proving that Siri Hustvedt is not only a brilliant novelist, but a truly decent human being. ( )

This is the second book I've read by Siri Hustvedt. The first was her novel 'What I loved', which I think shared some of the same strenghts and flaws with 'A plea for eros'.

The strenghts, as I see it, have to do with Hustvedt's elegant writing style, richness of thought, and breadth of knowledge. She very obviously is an intellectual, a woman who has been reading books and thinking about books (and art) all through her life; she also has a good understanding of human psychology, of the vicissitudes and peculiarities of sexual relationships, of the complex fabric of parenting and child-adult relations. Essays such as 'Yonder', where she explores her double (American / Norwegian) roots, or others where she explores her relationship to her mother and daughter, are nicely written, insightful, and provide food for thought.

In a way 'A plea for eros' could have been split in two parts, since the essays in it belong to two quite distinct categories- one part is Hustvedt's literature essays, the other is her essays about human relationships, sexuality, family, parenting etc. I think the latter are more appealing but also more problematic- as I said, I think they share the same strenghts and flaws with 'What I loved'.

The problem is an exhibitionism, a kind of self-consciousness which is as if Siri Hustvedt is providing us with a glimpse into her life, a life that I get the feeling we should be admiring (even though this is done in a most subtle way). A good example is her description of her first few days in New York, where she moved as a young woman from a small-town in Minnesota: 'My first few days' she says 'were spent rereading Crime and Punishment in a state that closely resembled fever'. Now is it just me or is this a pretentious phrase, which does not ring true at all? In a nutshell, there is a sense in this book, as in 'What I loved', of frequent name-dropping (mostly intellectual name dropping...which doesn't make it any less so!) and of sharing quite private moments, like her description of meeting and falling in love with her author-husband, Paul Auster. As I said, these characteristics could be considered strenghts, since Hustvedt's books end up being quite personal, direct and often very true. But they are also flaws, since her descriptions of herself and her life often become quite idealized and a bit pretentious. ( )