In most love stories, a man pursuing a woman is depicted as gallant, noble, and deeply romantic. When a woman pursues a man, we call her ‘crazy,’ ‘obsessed,’ and ‘unstable.’ Why one gender is gallant and the other nutso, I’m not sure, but one thing is clear: the female gone mad with love makes for one hell of an unconventional narrative
“In order to paint Nasreen as a mad woman with a powerful grudge, Lasdun takes an unnecessarily dry and impersonal tone, using supplementary texts on the nature of obsession to further his case. As he goes into his analysis, painting Nasreen as a stalker and himself as a heroic naïf, the more he starts to sound like Humbert Humbert, more complicit than innocent, more culpable than defensible.”
Like a Woman Scorned: On James Lasdun’s Give Me Everything You Have by Jessica Freeman-Slade
Our own Mark O’Connell spoke with James Lasdun about the story behind his new book. (Here’s a preview: it involves getting stalked.)
