{"id":1112,"date":"2014-01-06T12:49:37","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T12:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jameslawless.net\/?p=1112"},"modified":"2014-01-06T12:52:03","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T12:52:03","slug":"another-encouraging-review-of-knowing-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/?p=1112","title":{"rendered":"Another encouraging review of Knowing Women"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/-2StbqjSvDE4\/Usk9AJHT1fI\/AAAAAAAApCs\/eJ8WZPevEwQ\/s640\/blogger-image--896175083.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/-2StbqjSvDE4\/Usk9AJHT1fI\/AAAAAAAApCs\/eJ8WZPevEwQ\/s640\/blogger-image--896175083.jpg?w=668&#038;ssl=1\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/-vVIpp20Xgww\/Usk92cAyKII\/AAAAAAAApC0\/A9942ozfoRY\/s640\/blogger-image--647843842.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/-vVIpp20Xgww\/Usk92cAyKII\/AAAAAAAApC0\/A9942ozfoRY\/s640\/blogger-image--647843842.jpg?w=668&#038;ssl=1\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><i>Knowing Women\u00a0<\/i>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. \u00a0That<i>\u00a0Knowing Women<\/i>brought these three powerful works to my mind is a very high tribute to its artistic depth and high intelligence. \u00a0I will explain what I mean in a bit.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The central character in\u00a0<i>Knowing Women\u00a0<\/i>is Laurence Benbo, thirty seven, a bachelor getting over a so so relationship, living in Dublin. \u00a0He is bashful and has had difficulty finding women in the past. \u00a0He likes to go for walks around Dublin, when he is not at his job as a graphic artist. \u00a0He notices an attractive woman sitting outside reading\u00a0<i>Anna Karenina. \u00a0<\/i>He is intrigued by her and begins to follow her on his daily walks. \u00a0Not wanting to give away to much plot, he follows her, she is from Eastern Europe to the club where she does lap dances. \u00a0He 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. \u00a0Laurence wins a big lottery prize. \u00a0Now a subplot begins involving his brother and his family. \u00a0The brother has always up until now considered the better adjusted and more successful of the two. \u00a0Something nasty happens to Laurence, caused by his brother and sister-in-law, who I did come to emphasize with. \u00a0I will leave the rest of the plot unspoiled. \u00a0There is sex, fascinating plot twists, and it does feel like Dublin is being well depicted.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The first book\u00a0<i>Knowing Women<\/i>\u00a0reminded me of was\u00a0<i>Occasions of Sin: \u00a0Sex and Society in Modern Ireland\u00a0<\/i>by Diarmaid Feriter. \u00a0Feriter depicts a culture of sexual repression, of joyless sex, late marriages and old virgins with the church and the state in everyone&#8217;s bedroom. \u00a0 I see Laurence Benbo as clearly emerging from \u00a0this. \u00a0<i>\u00a0<\/i>His girlfriend might as well be a prostitute. \u00a0Recently I read for the first of now numerous times Patrick Kavanagh&#8217;s majestic poem, &#8220;The Great Hunger&#8221;. \u00a0Benbo made me think of the men in this poem who never really mature sexually or discover their sexual nature. \u00a0Men with a hunger they don&#8217;t understand. \u00a0Lastly, and this reaction is probably quite off the wall, I was at once brought to mind by the hesitant character of Benbo, &#8220;The Love Song of Alfred J. Profrock&#8221; by T. S. Eliot.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><i>Knowing Women\u00a0<\/i>is observationally and psychologically acute. \u00a0It is also a lot of fun. \u00a0You 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.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I recommend this book very much and hope to read more of the work of Lawless in 2014.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Review by Mel Ulm from his blog The Reading Life, 5\/1\/14<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloglovin.com\/frame?post=2149415859&amp;blog=3527604&amp;link=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRwcm94eS5nb29nbGUuY29tL35yL2Jsb2dzcG90L3J5VGUvfjMvOWFndVpxY0\">http:\/\/www.bloglovin.com\/frame?post=2149415859&amp;blog=3527604&amp;link=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRwcm94eS5nb29nbGUuY29tL35yL2Jsb2dzcG90L3J5VGUvfjMvOWFndVpxY0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Knowing Women\u00a0by 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.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1112"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1117,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions\/1117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}