Another encouraging review of Knowing Women

Knowing Women by James Lawless made me think of one very good book I read a year ago, and two poems, one I have read several times in the last few months, and one I have not read in decades.  That Knowing Womenbrought these three powerful works to my mind is a very high tribute to its artistic depth and high intelligence.  I will explain what I mean in a bit.

The central character in Knowing Women is Laurence Benbo, thirty seven, a bachelor getting over a so so relationship, living in Dublin.  He is bashful and has had difficulty finding women in the past.  He likes to go for walks around Dublin, when he is not at his job as a graphic artist.  He notices an attractive woman sitting outside reading Anna Karenina.  He is intrigued by her and begins to follow her on his daily walks.  Not wanting to give away to much plot, he follows her, she is from Eastern Europe to the club where she does lap dances.  He gets to know her, she is not really a prostitute but she does begun to take gifts from Laurence and they do start a romance of sorts.  Laurence wins a big lottery prize.  Now a subplot begins involving his brother and his family.  The brother has always up until now considered the better adjusted and more successful of the two.  Something nasty happens to Laurence, caused by his brother and sister-in-law, who I did come to emphasize with.  I will leave the rest of the plot unspoiled.  There is sex, fascinating plot twists, and it does feel like Dublin is being well depicted.

The first book Knowing Women reminded me of was Occasions of Sin:  Sex and Society in Modern Ireland by Diarmaid Feriter.  Feriter depicts a culture of sexual repression, of joyless sex, late marriages and old virgins with the church and the state in everyone’s bedroom.   I see Laurence Benbo as clearly emerging from  this.   His girlfriend might as well be a prostitute.  Recently I read for the first of now numerous times Patrick Kavanagh’s majestic poem, “The Great Hunger”.  Benbo made me think of the men in this poem who never really mature sexually or discover their sexual nature.  Men with a hunger they don’t understand.  Lastly, and this reaction is probably quite off the wall, I was at once brought to mind by the hesitant character of Benbo, “The Love Song of Alfred J. Profrock” by T. S. Eliot.

Knowing Women is observationally and psychologically acute.  It is also a lot of fun.  You knew this middle aged graphics artist with an Eastern European bisexual lap dancer girl friend was headed for trouble and I enjoyed observing his tribulations.

I recommend this book very much and hope to read more of the work of Lawless in 2014.

Review by Mel Ulm from his blog The Reading Life, 5/1/14