Rating: 
Summary: Hard to catch on
Review: I, too, had a hard time grasping this novel. I was much more "with it" in the beginning when identity and religion were being discussed, but I found myself having a much more difficult time following the rest. It seemed jumbled; I was re-reading passages over and over again because the text wasn't subconsiously "gripping" enough for me to remember and follow what was going on.
Rating: 
Summary: Drama Queens on Parade
Review: In Nightwood there is a purposeful distortion of biographical facts. The past is based on self-deception and self-forgetfulness. The characters speak about their identity as if it were something they are trying to lose by constantly forgetting and reformulating who they are. Felix begins the novel with a past that is admitted to be one based upon deceit. Instead of trying to clarify it, he is compelled to associate with men and women of the theatre who have assumed titles that are equally false. By absorbing himself in this community of carnival freaks, he is able to relieve himself of the need to technically defend the presentation of his identity and he is able to more fully believe in the illusion himself. It is apparent that his assumed identity is no less true than the one that has been given to him through inheritance. An implied assertion is made through his actions that an understanding of identity cannot be achieved by either historical or self-evaluative means. The reaction, then, is to cast the notion of one's own identity out away from oneself as something to be created externally. This effect is illuminated upon in Dr. O'Connor's speech about the continual process of the night: "Let a man lay himself down in the Great Bed and his ' identity' is no longer his own, his 'trust' is not with him, and his 'willingness' is turned over and is of another permission. His distress is wild and anonymous. He sleeps in a Town of Darkness, member of a secret brotherhood. He neither knows himself nor his outriders; he berserks a fearful dimension and dismounts, miraculously, in bed!" By giving oneself over to the "Night", you dispel with the responsibility for your own identity. It is a space of anonymity that can be used to escape from identity because it becomes something completely outside of the self. The suggestion is that this is a process that people are a continual participant in. It is a necessary ritual performed in order to not only to escape what identity is understood to be, but to escape false layers of identity as well. To "berserk a fearful dimension" is to be rid of the aspects of identity that are used as props to cover what is really unknown about identity. Consequently, the greatest fear of anyone in Nightwood would be the discovery of any certain facts about themselves and, more importantly, their own remembrance of their actual identities. Yet, this is unlikely to happen to any of the characters because they have subjected themselves to enough "Nights" to never remember themselves again. The result is that you are left in a labyrinth of each character's creation where they may open any one door to find another display, but no certainty because the true identity of the character has been irretrievably lost.Barnes's elliptical descriptions of her characters create a sense that she knows as little about the characters in their narration as the reader knows reading of them. This is not a failure to properly think out the characters, but a condition intentionally created to blur the character's past and relinquish control of the character's enactment of their identity. The authorial descriptions of the characters are largely metaphorical, but as the identities of the characters become more layered the descriptions become more actual than metaphorical. An example is the description of the Duchess of Broadback (Frau Mann): "She seemed to have a skin that was the pattern of her costume: a bodice of lozenges, red and yellow, low in the back and ruffled over and under the arms, faded with the reek of her three-a-day control, red tights, laced boots-one somehow felt they ran through her as the design runs through hard holiday candies, and the bulge in the groin where she took the bar, one foot caught in the flex of the calf, was as solid, specialized and as polished as oak. The stuff of the tights was no longer a covering, it was herself; the span of the tightly stitched crotch was so much her own flesh that she was as unsexed as a doll." The metaphor becomes more than an artistic way to relate the characters to reality. The characters absorb them and they transform into the thing described. This creates a space where the distinction between stage and reality is also blurred and the character can thus create a reality built on their own terms. Reality and performance become inextricable linked to each other. The absorbed descriptions of the characters create a distance between the author and character so that the characters create their own identities to perform. In this way the characters are given as much creative freedom as the author. Just as the author's imagination in the creation of the story is limitless, so is the character's scope of their identity. Thus they are able to perform as they like while giving and withholding bits of their own identity. The purpose for performing identity originates in the character's belief that there is something essential about their identity that does not work within the social mode they inhabit. In Nightwood characters are revealed to be Jewish, homosexual and transgendered. They have all found ways to express facets of these parts of their identity in ways that are safe within the community they inhabit. Because the character's past is obscured, there is no concrete sense of the identities they abandoned or the circumstances under which it did not fit into a set of social norms. Doctor O'Connor's physical identity does not coincide with his belief of what his essential identity is and so he must create a sense of being through words and by dwelling in places that are uninhibited by social norms. This novel gives a complex view on the way we view ourselves and choose to present this self perception.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't belive the (T.S. Eliot) hype.
Review: Is Nightwood one of the greatest novels ever written by a woman? I sincerely hope not. The book is ultimately depressing, a sad portrayal of humanity as a race of beings who, though they like to think they are capable of reason and controlling their own choices, are truly nothing more than complex parasites drawn to their host. At its best, Nightwood has all the makings of a great read, but those moments are few and far between. Barnes has written in true T.S. Eliot style and has masked everything important in a 'stream' of B.S. If you want to feel as though you are sitting in a room with two people who are talking about something that you could not possibly care less about... then read this book. Otherwise, stay away. Nightwood is unbearably cerebral.
Rating:
Summary: Don't believe the (T.S. Eliot) hype.
Review: Is Nightwood one of the greatest novels ever written by a woman? I sincerely hope not. The book is ultimately depressing... a sad portrayal of humanity as a race of beings who, though they like to think they are capable of reason and controlling their own choices, are truly nothing more than complex parasites drawn to their host. At its best, Nightwood has all the makings of a great read, but those moments are few and far between. Barnes has written in true T.S. Eliot style and has masked everything important in a 'stream' of B.S. If you want to feel as though you are sitting in a room with two people who are talking about something that you could not possibly care less about, then read this book. Otherwise, stay away. Nightwood is unbearably cerebral.
Rating:
Summary: Don't belive the (T.S. Eliot) hype.
Review: Is Nightwood one of the greatest novels ever written by a woman? I sincerely hope not. The book is ultimately depressing, a sad portrayal of humanity as a race of beings who, though they like to think they are capable of reason and controlling their own choices, are truly nothing more than complex parasites drawn to their host. At its best, Nightwood has all the makings of a great read, but those moments are few and far between. Barnes has written in true T.S. Eliot style and has masked everything important in a 'stream' of B.S. If you want to feel as though you are sitting in a room with two people who are talking about something that you could not possibly care less about... then read this book. Otherwise, stay away. Nightwood is unbearably cerebral.
Rating:
Summary: Don't believe the (T.S. Eliot) hype.
Review: Is Nightwood one of the greatest novels ever written by a woman? I sincerely hope not. The book is ultimately depressing... a sad portrayal of humanity as a race of beings who, though they like to think they are capable of reason and controlling their own choices, are truly nothing more than complex parasites drawn to their host. At its best, Nightwood has all the makings of a great read, but those moments are few and far between. Barnes has written in true T.S. Eliot style and has masked everything important in a 'stream' of B.S. If you want to feel as though you are sitting in a room with two people who are talking about something that you could not possibly care less about, then read this book. Otherwise, stay away. Nightwood is unbearably cerebral.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible
Review: Maybe I'm not "literary" enough, but I read this book and did not get it. I thought it was just the worst book I have ever read. I would rather read a college textbook! What was the point of it all? I thought the characters never developed into anything. I would only recommend this book to people who had trouble sleeping at night. It will put you to sleep in a minute.
Rating:
Summary: DJUNA BARNES IS BRILLIANT AND MAGICAL
Review: Nightwood is a Masterpiece. So much can be written about masterpieces that it's better to let the master's speak. I was never horrified by this book, but then I have no doubt that Nora and Robin loved like prisoners of one another's souls, and hearts, and as if their lives were on fire. Perhaps they were "As Rome burns against a nightime sky" (Dr O Connor the philosophizing heavy drinking Transvestite Irishman surmises) "Rome could only have burnt at night." Unlike the woman who says to skip a few chapters I will tell you every drop of this book is indispensible but that while light and well rehearsed as a good play, the language can be daunting. Buy a dictionary or get an encyclopedia if it's too much but I think the general effect of Barne's alchemy will take hold anyway. I first read her when I was twenty years old. I was in utter astonishment. I am a writer, and this book permanently altered my ideas of what made a book or a novel because I was ready to receive the genius of this fresh. I have gone back and reread the dense, tightly packed metaphysical drama of the heart and soul and NEVER come away disappointed. Wizardry. A must must must read!
Rating:
Summary: Baffling - would like to hear from others
Review: Nightwood recently appeared high on the list of the top 100 lesbian and gay novels. A friend and I decided to read the book together so as to discuss it as we went along. We are both baffled at its reputation as one of the greatest pieces of prose ever written, as neither of us is able to appreciate either its characters or the meaning of its poetic writing, however profound it may seem to be. I would love to hear from other readers - what do you love about it and understand it to be about? Nightwood has proved a msytery to me.
Rating: 
Summary: Astounding poetic fiction, disordered and dark
Review: OK. OK. We all know that nobody can write a review of this book without eliciting strong emotions and offending some group or the other, no matter what one says. But I think the book is unique, worth a review, and let the flaming coals fall where they may. First off: I think T.S. Eliot was a useless poseur and snob when it came to criticism (though I do like some of his poetry, particularly The Four Quartets.) I read his intro anyway and the only thing I agreed with him on was "...that it is so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it." This is ominously true. So true, that those who read it because it is a "lesbian" or "gay" novel without a deep appreciation of poetry are bound to be dumbfounded...By the way, Barnes herself stated that she wasn't a "lesbian," per se. She just happened to fall in love with a woman. These artists, they just don't want to fall into our pigeonholes. Do they?...All this having been said, I humbly admit that I don't know exactly what the book is about and I'm not too sure Barnes did either, much less Eliot.-One of my favorite anecdotes about Barnes is her meeting with the equally poetic novelist Malcolm Lowry. Lowry remarked later to his wife that he couldn't decide if Nightwood was a work of genius, the results a disorder of some kind, or both (The same could be said of Lowry's work, by the way.) Anyway, I think this is about as honest as criticism of Nightwood gets. My apologies to Ph.D candidates! Eliot's initial assessment is correct: The "Watchman, What of the Night?" chapter is the most beautiful, most poetic and most unique in the book. Unfortunately, the retentive Eliot found a need to make rational sense of it all, and so retracted what his not so retentive heart told him initially. It is passages like the following that make the work unique in a darkly wondrous way: "Have you thought of the night, now, in other times, in other countries,-in Paris?...not to mention the palaces of Nymphenburg echoing back to Vienna with the night trip of late kings letting water into plush cans and fine woodwork! No," he said, looking at her sharply, "I can see you have not! You should, for the night has been going on for a long time." and "those who turn the day into night, the young, the drug addict, the profligate, and that most miserable, the lover...These can never again live the life of the day. The light does not become them any longer...." What am I suppose to say about these passages? They are as dark and beautiful and lovely as anything in literature. If you get it, you get it. If you don't, well, there's a hole in my head concerning mechanical manuals. Not everybody's cut out for poetic prose. There are plenty of more pedestrian works out there about gays, lesbians, feminism etc. No doubt I'm missing the whole point of this novel according to informed reviewers. No doubt the convoluted plot can be made sense of and parsed and diagrammed out for me in several different ways. But please spare me. Barnes was a disturbed individual (as most artists are) and unhappy (as most passionate lovers are). Not everything she wrote made much sense. But much of what she wrote created a unique beauty. It is for lovers of beauty to whom I recommend this book....Those who insist on reading it with an axe to grind or with a vested interest to confirm will find themselves in uncharted waters: Dark waters with a beauty beyond them.
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