I Love Dick

Just great. Required reading for everyone everywhere. Except my partner who found it truly disgusting on pretty much every level. UPDATE 2/22/16: Movie in the works!

I found this irritatingly clever-little-me, feminist 'fiction' difficult to wade through, but at the same time there were certain descriptions that struck a chord somewhere deep within. I wish i'd read the afterword first: it made me aware of stuff I'd rather have known before reading the book. so I tempered my conclusion, but you could be forgiven for heeding my initial impression.

"Koja and Leo" the Hippie, with these two characters, this story begins in a hospital room, where Koja will start telling his life story. Despite having nearly 1000 pages, I found the reading very enjoyable. Based on true events, it tells the story of a German family with two sons and a stepsister of Jewish parents, who are the protagonists of this story from 1905 to 1974. (Translated from Spanish)

It is a book that grabs you from the beginning, although I must say that it is a very tough and emotionally difficult read, as it is set in Germany from before World War II until 1975. I recommend it to compulsive readers like me. (Translated from Spanish)

It started off very well, but it has become too tedious for me. (Translated from Spanish)

What begins as obsessive and self-referential expands and twists and gyres into a unique and engaging read.

Not quite what I was expecting. Deeply self-involved and self-referential work that seems to have been very influential, but which left me a little meh. I can kinda see the attraction but it wasn't really for me. I understand the blurred lines between truth and fiction, and some of the other stuff going on, but it all felt a little masturbatory, and while I get that that is a worryingly gendered take on a feminist work, I'm not sure if that isn't the whole point and I'm not sure if I was ever really engaged enough to care.

Im Grundsatz ist mir klar, warum dieses Buch als in Meilenstein des Feminismus gilt. Allein seine Existenz und die widersprüchlichen Gefühle, die es auslöst, machen deutlich, dass es immer noch ungewohnt ist über weibliches Begehren so zu schreiben.
Die unverhüllte Lust- ohne reale Entsprechung – die männliche Reaktion darauf, das hat schon entlarvendes Potential. Auch der Titel „I love Dick“ in seiner Zweideutigkeit zeigt, dass einerseits Lust und Liebe dann doch dem heterosexuellen und maskulinen Mann gilt. Die männliche Figur, die noch am ehesten zur feministischen Liebe taugt, ist aber der nahezu asexuelle großväterliche Partner, der das Spiel mitspielt. Im Grunde unterdrückt aber auch er seine Frau, was an vielen Stellen deutlich wird.
Allerdings fand ich das Buch dennoch oder vielleicht auch deshalb mühsam und die Personen samt und sonders psychisch äußerst auffällig. Es gibt keine einzige Figur, die nicht essgestört und völlig egozentrisch ist. Dieses ganze kopfgesteuerte Kreisen um sich selbst finde ich furchtbar. Ich habe mir mehrfach gedacht, dass es für Chris Kraus gut gewesen wäre, ein Kind weniger abzutreiben und Verantwortung für einen anderen Menschen zu übernehmen. Ich bin mit Sicherheit Feministin in meiner ganzen Lebensweise, aber dennoch kann ich diese Personen nicht nachvollziehen.

someone told me my writing style was like hers and i haven't written a word since finishing this book because i'm so grossed out at myself.

Recommended. This is a really interesting semi-autobiographical work about the nature of love and infatuation. Sure it is self-indulgent, but that is part of the fun!

I've never read a novel like this before. A blending of the epistolary novel, feminist manifesto, art criticism, tell-all reality-memoir, critical theory, personal essay, and diary. Somehow it all works together, and I would even say that it is a Great Novel.

The first part, which establishes the narrative impetus (Chris, the author, falls in love/crush with an acquaintance (Dick) and, together with her husband, writes love letters to him but doesn't send them).

The conceit can only go so far (although conceit is the wrong word here, since I think this is pretty much non-fiction, or maybe slightly edited non-fiction), so after the first part, the rest of the "novel" is a slowly evolving amalgamation. The obsession for Dick continues and changes. Her relationship with her husband changes. Her life and relation to her art changes. Her view of feminism changes. She begins to see everything through the lens of Dick. Dick-lens.

It's really hard to describe, but it's super smart, very funny, and sad all at the same time. By the end, the letters get long, and ramble about all types of subjects, but they're written so well that it doesn't matter if it's about an obscure painter or performance artist, it somehow still fits into the book's unique structure. I still flipped the pages maddeningly because I started interpreting everything through the Dick-lens, through what she is discovering about her current situation. It's amazing that she was able to bring these different intellectual subjects so much into the sphere of the personal... where it actually feels like it matters.

Bonus: makes for great reading in the men's locker room.