By Love Possessed

Rating:
Summary: Cozzen's Winner Is Not
Review:

By Love Possessed chronicles an eventful weekend in the life of Arthur Winner, leading attorney and citizen in the small town of Brocton. No grasping uncouth Snopes, this Winner serve as living proof that virtue is not necessarily its own reward. When lesser lawyers offer a quid pro quo, he deigns to accept only with silence.

The novel's narrative frame begins and ends with Amor Vincit Onmia, frozen forever and eternally ambiguous. The intriguing characters surrounding Winner in this modern Man of Lawe's Tale range from pillar of legal acumen with something to hide to an unfaithful wife converting to Catholicism to a precise drunk who becomes a victim of petty theft. In the end, one wonders if the most important character in By Love Possessed is not the raccoon that freezes in Winner's headlights and is run over with only a thump to mark its passing.

The high point of By love Possessed is a masterly courtroom scene that strikes at the heart of what it is to be a parent. The novel is full of murder and suicide (intentional and unintentional). Events between the sexes range from a first date to a distasteful allegation of rape. In the end, when an untimely death reveals legal matters best left in darkness, Cozzens concludes that self-interest conquers all, at least in the world of small-town privilege.

By Love Possessed moves through so many beginnings and endings that the novel seems somehow complete by its end, although all loose ends are left hanging. Read this book; it certainly does cure nostalgia for the 1950s.

Rating:
Summary: Pretentious, bigotted, meaningless
Review: By Love Possessed is one of those gassy, 1950's faux Henry James stinkers about small town life that only a middlebrow critic could love. They did love it, (mostly because it was so pompously unintelligible, I suspect)and because in the 50's people still dutifully read what they were told to read, the thing sold a lot of copies. It's awful. The prose style is this baroque AND roccoco mess, which takes three read throughs to even begin to understand, but unlike a difficult text that a genius like Faulkner might put together, good old Cozzen's text doesn't yeild up any gold for all that digging. It's a stale story about a lawyer whose most interesting action was an affair years ago. NOTHING HAPPENS in this book until the very end, and by then, you couldn't care. Less. Worse, most of the characters are astonishing bigots. There are so many pages devoted to how the hideous Catholics are taking over the country that you begin to suspect that you are listening to Cozzens himself. In fact, you are. The man WAS a hideous bigot. There are anti=Jew, anti-black, anti Irish diatribes that go on for pages and pages. How did this crap get printed? Ah, the power of the middle brow critics in 1950's America. Think they have lost their power? Not entirely. We have them to thank for David Foster Wallace. Oh, and it isn't a coon that gets run over in the road, RE the earlier review -- it's a opossum! And yes, it is the high point of the book. BLEEEEEEEEEEEECCHHHHHHHH!

Rating:
Summary: A master craftsman and conservative novelist
Review: First of all, Cozzens remains an impressive manager of his material. Multiple plots and personalities weave tightly through the work, and just when you think that the novel is nothing but a big pile of disconnected pieces, Cozzens turns just a couple of corners and the whole things snaps into place in a stunning moment of revelation. It's masterful craft, and both emotionally and intellectually moving.

On top of that, Cozzens manages to write for grownups in a world where compromise, settling, and just muddling through are sometimes as heroic as it gets-- sacrifices must be made, and it's NOT always a bad thing. If you find Steinbeck a tad too mushy, Hemmingway too mannered and ballsy, and Fitzgerald too melodramatic, this underappreciated author may be for you, and this novel is a great place to start.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece.
Review: I'm not surprised that By Love Possessed has received such polarized views from readers. It's not an easy book to digest: it has a baroque, almost arcane style and features views of race, religion, and homosexuality that are quite uncomfortable in today's age. Yet it is a novel that I cherish.

Cozzens' novel covers 49 hours in the life of Arthur Winner Jr., a small-town Pennsylvania lawyer who has prided himself for living his life according to a strict regimen of reason and yet finds all those around him seemingly throwing their lives away to emotion. Rape, suicide, jealousy, and greed mark the behaviour of his friends and relatives, much to his consternation. Not until the end, when a deep secret is revealed, does Arthur Winner realise that an emotional reaction is sometimes the only recourse to an unreasonable situation; indeed, it may be a neccessary reaction.

Because of its style and conservative stance, I've always been surprised that By Love Possessed was such a huge bestseller when originally published; perhaps its title and small-town setting confused readers that it was another Peyton Place (which, ironically, it replaced at #1). But it IS an incredible book, very influential (just read anything by Scott Turow), and a must read for those who want to understand the mindset of the middle-class American male in the mid-20th century. Personally, I find Cozzens' prose fascinating--the more a book makes me reach for the dictionary the better. And as a gay man, I take less offense at Cozzens' occasional prejudices than I do with those politically correct readers who only blindly see bigotry and not a man truly trying to understand the world around him.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful, brilliant expose of mid-20th century truths
Review: I'm not surprised that By Love Possessed has received such polarized views from readers. It's not an easy book to digest: it has a baroque, almost arcane style and features views of race, religion, and homosexuality that are quite uncomfortable in today's age. Yet it is a novel that I cherish.

Cozzens' novel covers 49 hours in the life of Arthur Winner Jr., a small-town Pennsylvania lawyer who has prided himself for living his life according to a strict regimen of reason and yet finds all those around him seemingly throwing their lives away to emotion. Rape, suicide, jealousy, and greed mark the behaviour of his friends and relatives, much to his consternation. Not until the end, when a deep secret is revealed, does Arthur Winner realise that an emotional reaction is sometimes the only recourse to an unreasonable situation; indeed, it may be a neccessary reaction.

Because of its style and conservative stance, I've always been surprised that By Love Possessed was such a huge bestseller when originally published; perhaps its title and small-town setting confused readers that it was another Peyton Place (which, ironically, it replaced at #1). But it IS an incredible book, very influential (just read anything by Scott Turow), and a must read for those who want to understand the mindset of the middle-class American male in the mid-20th century. Personally, I find Cozzens' prose fascinating--the more a book makes me reach for the dictionary the better. And as a gay man, I take less offense at Cozzens' occasional prejudices than I do with those politically correct readers who only blindly see bigotry and not a man truly trying to understand the world around him.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book about humans under the stresses of life
Review: James Gould Cozzens is an outstanding author who writes fairly-long, serious books which address important issues regarding the myriad stresses of human life. By Love Possessed is an interesting story which deals with matters of responsibility and conscience. If you are not put off by this sort of thing you will probably find this book both rewarding and enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: Overblown, pretentious and overrated
Review: There are three subplots in this novel that intertwines around the life of attorney Arthur Winner. Sometimes interesting, this book is a chore to read as Cozzen's style is, well, wordy and ornate.

There is a scene where the central character and his sexually-repressed wife are in the sack ("Her." "Him", "Her", "Him." )...the instructions on how to program my VCR were more stimulating. Give me a break.

Maybe by today's overly PC standards this book could be considered mildly racist and bigoted, but I fail to see where. Catholics do take it on the chin, however.

This was almost a good novel. John Cheever does this type of thing much better.

Rating:
Summary: Overblown, pretentious and overrated
Review: This book combines a number of uncommon qualities that will reward the patient reader: it is beautifully plotted, with no loose ends or errors in continuity; it is based on meticulous (but not flaunted) research into the subjects depicted; and it realistically portrays aspects of modern life that rarely draw the attention of serious novelists. Here, as in his other major works, Cozzens focuses on people's jobs -- how we make it through the day, dealing with the unattractive challenges life throws at us. Admittedly, his outlook on many topics is old-fashioned (something he acknowledged), but he generally appears to be someone honestly trying to look at the world as objectively as he can. (If one reads his major works in chronological order, it becomes clear how this striving for objectivity enabled him to grow beyond many of the prejudices of his class.) A priceless view of one aspect of modern American life.

Rating:
Summary: Not All About Politics
Review: This novel successfully develops the ethical and moral challenges of a privileged small town attorney. This character is a member of the aristocracy that such settings inevitably create.However this cocoon of priviledge, with its episcopal church, union league club,and inherent awareness of rank and priviledge dating back to the revolution creates an environment where its inhabitants espouse a rigid moral code but are unable in many instances to act according to the code when faced with real life situations. The legal aspects of the story are very realistic and well developed. The characters reveal their prejudices in ways which will be offensive to some readers. However the characters are presented "warts and all" and it appears that these prejudices can be recognized as the flaws in character that they undoubtedly are.I think it is worth reading.It also enhances the book's appeal to bear in mind that it was written in the 1950's.