Nic Kelman’s Girls: A Paean is a wide-ranging novel that really has one premise as it zig-zags around its target: the thirst of older men for younger women (in one case, an underage girl). Kelman's men have money and power, and are able to satisfy their appetites with those two accouterments.
Kelman wants everything in this novel, and is less than consistent. Many of the encounters in this work are not between older men and young women, but relationships based on some foundation of equality (at least in age). Some sections are straight out pornography, while others digress into the etymology of the rude term for the female reproductive organ. among other items. Passages from the Iliad are interspersed here and there, seemingly to illustrate how powerful men have always had a yen for younger woman.
The results here are mixed. Kelman is saying something with this novel, but it is difficult to say exactly what. This in itself is fine, if the novel is exploring topics without easy or firm resolutions. But Kelman ends up with a semi-mess because of a lack of control of the narrative, and inconsistency in the arch of his stories. He could have done more with less.
Kelman wants everything in this novel, and is less than consistent. Many of the encounters in this work are not between older men and young women, but relationships based on some foundation of equality (at least in age). Some sections are straight out pornography, while others digress into the etymology of the rude term for the female reproductive organ. among other items. Passages from the Iliad are interspersed here and there, seemingly to illustrate how powerful men have always had a yen for younger woman.
The results here are mixed. Kelman is saying something with this novel, but it is difficult to say exactly what. This in itself is fine, if the novel is exploring topics without easy or firm resolutions. But Kelman ends up with a semi-mess because of a lack of control of the narrative, and inconsistency in the arch of his stories. He could have done more with less.
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