Margery Kempe
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Book Overview
Lust, religious zeal, and heartache come together in this provocative novel about two infatuations, one between a man and his young lover in the late 20th century and another between a 15th-century woman and Jesus Christ. First published in 1994, Robert Gl ck's Margery Kempe is one of the most provocative, poignant, and inventive American novels of the last quarter century. The book tells two stories of romantic obsession. One, based on the first autobiography in English, the medieval Book of Margery Kempe, is about a fifteenth-century woman from East Anglia, a visionary, a troublemaker, a pilgrim to the Holy Land, and an aspiring saint, and her love affair with Jesus. It is complicated. The other is about the author's own love for an alluring and elusive young American, L. It is complicated. Between these two Margery Kempe, the novel, emerges as an unprecedented exploration of desire, devotion, abjection, and sexual obsession in the form of a novel like no other novel. Robert Gl ck's masterpiece bears comparison with the finest work of such writers as Kathy Acker and Chris Kraus. This edition includes an essay by Gl ck about the creation of the book titled "My Margery, Margery's Bob."
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:1681374315
ISBN13:9781681374314
Release Date:March 2020
Publisher:New York Review of Books
Length:192 Pages
Weight:0.50 lbs.
Dimensions:0.6" x 4.9" x 7.9"
Customer Reviews
2 ratings
All hail Margery Kemp!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 19 years ago
Is there a good book that is not, in some fundamental way, odd? This book is odd, and it is brilliant, and if you're a little odd yourself, it will do you rapturous good to read it. I've hesitated too long to take the plunge... Don't make the same mistake. Read this book now!
Margery Kempe is a stunning piece of fiction
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 26 years ago
Margery Kempe deserves to be seen by a readership that responds to the same stunning language that characterizes Joyce' best work, and the profound sense of longing that hasn't been rendered since McCullers. There aren't many works of fiction today that take such risk, and this risk has little to do with the sense of erotic in the portrayal of Jesus. Rather, the risk is in the completely raw characterization of Margery and her unabashed expressions of abandon that symbolize desire at its most powerful and destructive. Here is a female protagonist that loves what she loves and is not concerned with forming a humble or pretty picture. She is a "failed saint" because she is a raw, real character. Gluck has built an incredible story around both Kempe and her modern, parallel "brother."
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