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Thalia Book Club: Claire Messud: The Woman Upstairs
Thalia Book Club: Claire Messud: The Woman Upstairs
Thalia Book Club: Claire Messud: The Woman Upstairs
Audiobook1 hour

Thalia Book Club: Claire Messud: The Woman Upstairs

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this audiobook

The New York Times best-selling author of the literary page-turner The Emperor's Children discusses her richly drawn new novel with Meghan O'Rourke (The Long Goodbye). Her latest release is a riveting compulsively readable confession of a 37-year-old elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Mass, drawn into the complex world of her new neighbors -- a Lebanese scholar and professor of Ethical History, his glamourous Italian artist wife and their son -- who move in and change her life in ways she never expected. With a reading from the novel by Patricia Kalember (Don't Dress for Dinner).
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 18, 2013
ISBN9781467664301
Thalia Book Club: Claire Messud: The Woman Upstairs
Author

Claire Messud

Claire Messud was educated at Yale and Cambridge. Her first novel, When the World Was Steady, and her book of novellas, The Hunters , were finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award; her second novel, The Last Life , was a Publishers' Weekly Best Book of the Year; all three books were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Radcliffe Fellowship and the Straus Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with her husband and children.

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Rating: 3.3719851643784784 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

539 ratings70 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wow. I loved this book. I guess I can see why not everyone does - how well you relate to the story and the main character, Nora, will depend very much on what sort of a person you are. I suppose a number of people will also look for more action than you'll find in this story. It is not plot-driven by any means. I can imagine many people will find Nora to be over-dependent on others and they won't understand how anyone could get into the situation in which Nora finds herself. I do understand Nora, however. So apart from appreciating Ms Messud's wonderful character developments, fascinating imagination of art and the world of artistic people and marvellous descriptions of the urban life in which the story is set, I felt a strong connection to Nora Eldridge. I am prepared to accept that I am in a minority in that regard, but even apart from that issue, I reckon this is one stunning book by an excellent author.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I hovered between two stars and three stars for a minute before I rated this book. To me, three stars is a decent book; two means I didn't really like it.

    I did like this one, in a lot of ways. I feel like the story itself is decent - haven't we all had those relationships that are so all-encompassing that we can't stop thinking about them? And especially unreciprocated ones. I can so relate to that, but I feel like it was executed somewhat poorly.

    I like that the main character was a teacher. I don't come across many books with teachers as the focus, especially ones where the relationship began at school. I really liked the fact that Nora had such deep feelings for Sirena and Skandar, even though she was never quite sure how much the two of them reciprocated her feelings.

    However, I didn't like the pages and pages detailing Nora's feelings in such a melodramatic way. I get it - feelings and emotions ARE dramatic - but this felt overdone. I don't know if it's just because of the narrator, or if this is the author's normal style. Either way, it just wasn't for me.

    I was also a little disappointed in the fact that the big problem that the book led up to - Sirena using a video of Nora as part of her art, without warning her - was only revealed at the very end. We spent the entire book hearing about Nora being angry only to have to wait until the last couple of chapters to learn why. I'd have preferred to find out earlier, then read more on Nora's life afterwards.

    Solid story, good writing, just not one of my favorites.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I hovered between two stars and three stars for a minute before I rated this book. To me, three stars is a decent book; two means I didn't really like it.

    I did like this one, in a lot of ways. I feel like the story itself is decent - haven't we all had those relationships that are so all-encompassing that we can't stop thinking about them? And especially unreciprocated ones. I can so relate to that, but I feel like it was executed somewhat poorly.

    I like that the main character was a teacher. I don't come across many books with teachers as the focus, especially ones where the relationship began at school. I really liked the fact that Nora had such deep feelings for Sirena and Skandar, even though she was never quite sure how much the two of them reciprocated her feelings.

    However, I didn't like the pages and pages detailing Nora's feelings in such a melodramatic way. I get it - feelings and emotions ARE dramatic - but this felt overdone. I don't know if it's just because of the narrator, or if this is the author's normal style. Either way, it just wasn't for me.

    I was also a little disappointed in the fact that the big problem that the book led up to - Sirena using a video of Nora as part of her art, without warning her - was only revealed at the very end. We spent the entire book hearing about Nora being angry only to have to wait until the last couple of chapters to learn why. I'd have preferred to find out earlier, then read more on Nora's life afterwards.

    Solid story, good writing, just not one of my favorites.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    A rather dull novel about a single third grade teacher who becomes obsessed with the Lebanese family living upstairs. Their kid is in her class, and she uses him to get closer to first the mother and then the father. Some people just need to get a life. I listened to it on audio; who knew that a Lebanese accent is the same as an Italian one? The best I can say is that it isn't quite as bad as the worst books I've ever read, so I gave it one star.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    a woman awakened, transformed, betrayed
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I did not like The Emperor's Children, so still ask myself why I bothered to pick up The Woman Upstairs. Unlike other readers, I found the writing style clumsy -- way too many commas and dashes -- there were over 50 commas on one page! I found it hard and tiresome to read...would not recommend it.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    First, I must say that I feel totally misled by the the brief synopsis I first skimmed (I never read a synopsis in its entirety). It hinted of drama and intrigue, maybe of something risque. What I discover in The Woman Upstairs was none of those things. The novel began interesting enough, but then I waited for something to happen and then I waited some more...then nothing happened. The only thing I half liked was the voice of the narrator, Nora Eldridge, the sort-of antihero, who is so lonely that she worms her way into a family, but not in a evil way, just in a boring "pick me! pick me!" way. If you enjoy character study novels with little plot, then you may enjoy this. Not for me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was on the fence with this one (3 or 4 stars) until the end.I picked up _The Woman Upstairs_ after hearing about it in a critical article about _The Goldfinch_. TWU was recommended as a great book from this past year that most readers had not heard of. I figured I would give it a try._The Woman Upstairs_ centers around the theme of unfulfilled dreams. It is at times uncomfortable, and at others, encouraging. Of course, reading this book in my late 30's, trained as a teacher, without children but, with the nickname "Mouse", may have skewed my reaction. Maybe...Nora, the novel's protagonist, a single, childless elementary school teacher in her late 30's, is quietly dissatisfied with her life. She is forever the friend, the dutiful daughter - rather than the artist and passionate woman she had imagined she would grow up to be. Nora's role as the forgettable "woman upstairs" began as a young girl, when she was first obsessed with living behind the good-girl mask, realizing that, once affixed, it could not be removed without people around her knowing that she wasn't necessarily "nice" all the time. Fast-forward to high school and college, where Nora dreams of becoming an artist (with all of the stereotyped glamor attached) but, due to her own fear and the need to appease those around her, never fulfills. Instead, she becomes a third grade teacher, living in the same Boston suburb she has lived in before, taking no husband, having no children, quietly (and sporadically) working on her agonizingly detailed miniatures of suffering female artists...until the Shahid family comes to town.There are some truly trying aspects of this book, yet all serve the overall design. It is peopled with emotional cripples - both Nora and the adult Shahids- Skandar and Sirena. Nora vacillates between intelligent and observant to whiny and absurdly obtuse. I wanted to throw the book at her - a difficult feat to do while reading her story - and wondered when, if ever, she'd grow into the knowledge that she had her own worth and that the people she chose to surround herself with (the notable exception being Didi) did not act like the "dear friends" the professed to be. You watch Nora make the same blunders over and over again, feel her awkwardness in yourself (Try reading this book while trying to network/meeting new people at your brand new grad program! I second-guessed everything I did for a solid week!); a level of discomfort that I had not felt while reading for some time, yet relished when I did. I was on the fence about this novel (and by extension Ms. Messud's storytelling and vision) until the final chapter. Boy, did it go out with a bang! Messud brings us 'round again to the sentiments expressed in the book's beginning. We feel Nora's rage justified at last, and see a scene that I generally feel to be gratuitous and cliched in books revolving around repressed women, own it's importance.Worth the read, regardless of your desire to slap Nora.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Single school.teacher involves herself with a family and becomes attached and obsessive about gaining their affection. Very self absorbed lonely woman.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Well written book but overall just too depressing. However, I thought about it for several days after finishing it so it made an impact.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Reread in 2016. A completely engrossing book for me -- what a character study of an under-analyzed type of person. Maybe a little long, maybe a little wordy, but fascinating nonetheless.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved this book. The writing was fantastic; very conversational and natural, which made it an easy read. Though Nora, the main character, starts by describing her anger, the book didn't feel very angry at all. It was about experiences and how you become the person you are in the moment. In particular, how each experience can mean something different to each person. I thought the themes of being an artist, in particular a "real" artist, is often played out in one's head and mirrored in the politics of galleries and critics. But that part I felt was very true - how Nora identifies the performative aspects of what it can mean to be a successful artist. There is a level of selfishness, of networking and charisma, that is needed to move forward in art circles. I related to how Nora constantly questioned, not only if her art was "real," but also what it meant, why she made it, and the comparison to others. Beautiful. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in feminist themes and art.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a novel about Nora Eldridge who is approaching middle age and is realizing her life is passing her by. As characters go, Nora is tiresome and needy but that's what the book is about; a lonely frustrated woman. No you won't like Nora but she is just a product of her poor choices, choices that could have been made (or have been made) by all of us. Many of us have probably had a moment in our lives just like Nora. Where we differ is in our reaction to our circumstances. Nora goes the extreme by becoming slightly obsessed and infatuated with the Shahids. And this is where Claire Messud succeeds with this novel. She gives you a protagonist so deeply flawed yet honest in depiction. She has created a character who in her desperation latches on to what she perceives to be her salvation. The relationships created by Messud with the three Shahids are distinctly different; each giving Nora something she needs. Her wants are clearly expressed within the novel.The characters of Sirena, Skandar and Reza are representative of Nora's needs. Sirena is the most defined and appears to have the most impact upon Nora's life (and oh what a "I didn't see that coming" moment she delivers at the end!)I did like this novel, appreciating Messud's clear and succinct writing style. She gives us strong characterizations and a believable plot.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is *so* good on the ego insecurities to which so many artistic people fall prey. Like OPEN CITY, it has a weird and sort of off-putting denouement -- but I'll say no more ... that would be plot spoiling.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I thought this book replayed the same theme over and over - the lonely life of a middle-aged schoolteacher with aspirations to be an artist who becomes fixated on all three members of a family. She shares an artists' studio with the family's mother, the son is in her third-grade class and the object of her affections, and the father is a one-time lover who easily forgets her. The ending is a surprise and yet shouldn't be since she was so frequently used, albeit willingly, by the family. Nora, the main character, is a study in sadness, and should have elicited my sympathy - that didn't happen. I was relieved to finish this book and surprised that I made it to the end.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A middle age woman school teacher becomes friends with the family of one your students. Nora dreamer of being a artist,, the mother of the student is an upcoming artist. For a year Nora lives her life through the family. They leave and she more alone and empany. In the end Nora is betrayed by what she believed was her friend, the artist. The artist used a video taken of that did not know about. Sort of a dark book, which is the reason I liked there was no happy ending.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The main character is really likeable but her life events being taken over for a period of time by a family I found fascinating.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I'm still sorting through what I think about this book. The main character is vividly drawn and compelling, and there are sections of the story that carry along breathlessly with them. But on the whole, there's very little plot and I found myself not quite invested enough in Nora's infatuation with the Shahid's to be deeply engaged. The ending is powerful and dramatic and kind of makes you wish that Messud hadn't held back the action until the last ten pages.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Some books I read because they have been recommended by friends and some I just pick randomly from the library shelves. Among the later some turn out not good and some unforgettable . This is one such book. The long narrative monologue by an unmarried elementary teacher completely held my attention due to her obsession with all the members of an exotic family and her desire to please them , the outcome of such a situation and then her insight at her own condition and how this changes her personality. Would definitely read more of her.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The reviews for Claire Messud's novel about a lonely woman who befriends a family has received mixed reviews. I went into reading it with low expectations and ended up liking it quite a bit. It turned the usual expectations on their head in a way I enjoyed and I liked the prickly, cynical, yet hopeful Nora quite a bit. Set in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Nora teaches elementary school, the story begins when a new boy enters her classroom. Reza's english isn't very good, but his charm wins over his classmates and Nora herself. Then she meets Reza's mother, Sirena, who is an artist poised at the edge of fame, successful in her art as Nora is not. They rent a studio together and form a friendship, which soon includes Skandar, Reza's father, with whom she enjoys long conversations that make her feel both intelligent and taken seriously. While this is a much quieter and understated book than The Dinner or Gone Girl, it has the same sense that something isn't right, and while the final revealed betrayal isn't murder or violence, it's as meaningful in its own way.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's not unusual to develop a crush on an entire family. It's one of the rites of passage of adolescence, to fall not just for a person but the people who love them, the home that embraces them, their shared rituals and beliefs. You glimpse the promise of another way to live.However, Nora, the protagonist in The Woman Upstairs, is not an adolescent. She is a professional woman in her forties, eaten up with bitterness and disappointment over the way her life has turned out. She wanted to be an artist, instead she's a teacher, living alone. When she is befriended by Sirena, a professional artist, she sees everything that she is not. Sirena is a charismatic outsider. She also has a successful husband and an intelligent, attractive child.Nora is an intriguingly untrustworthy narrator. She tells us she hasn't led the life she wants. She has been nice and compliant, as a woman should be - but she doesn't sound nice at all. She never had the chances she deserved - but then she describes opportunities that she turned down. She says she's a good teacher because she has the open worldview of a child, yet her art is rigidly controlled.Even as we see Sirena and her family through Nora's eyes, we get a sense that their lives are not as idyllic as she suggests. Sirena faces her own challenges, as a woman and as an artist.At the beginning of the book, Nora describes her life as like a hall of mirrors. Behind every mirror is another mirror. There is no end. The narration, like the hall of mirrors, constantly turns back on itself and challenges the reader's perceptions.From Nora's personal relationships to her art to her memories, everything about her both illuminates and undermines the central question of how she came to be where she is now. Even at the end of the novel, when Nora appears to reach a resolution, you're not sure whether to believe her.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I got into this story straight away and felt it was very strong for the first half of the book with a strong 1st person narrative establishing a very believable character. However, once her obsession with the parents of one of her school students was established it seemed to run out of ideas and the 'dramatic' discovery at the end of the book fell a bit flat.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    We are taken into Nora's little world and listen to her lament over her loneliness, longing and anger about .... wasting her life as her mother felt she had done and passed the torch to Nora. Enter a "mixed" family from Europe who enrolls their son in Nora's third grade public school in Boston (was it a public school? I assumed it was). The mother was Italian, the father from Jordon. They represent every thing Nora wanted in her life or expected in her life. A career in art, a handsome smart interesting husband and a beautiful child. Nora falls in "love with all three"......I will go no further in outlining the story but as you can imagine no good can come of this mix.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I thought this book was beautifully written, and I enjoyed it very much.

    I was disappointed in the ending, but I think that was only because I predicted it. The fact that I was able to do so probably means it was fitting; and if I hadn't foreseen it, I most likely would have been satisfied.

    I knew that either the naughty Polaroids or the masturbation session in Wonderland were going to come back and bite Nora in the ass. When she made it through her rendezvous with Skandar and the field trip with her class without a stray picture turning up, I figured she was safe from those. But even though the book wasn't clear about the cameras being set up at the time she got drunk and touched herself, or when she and Skandar fucked, I thought those subplots were meant to contribute more to the story than just a demonstration of the main character's loneliness. When she freaked out in the gallery in Paris, my only question was which scene the video depicted: her masturbating, or her and Skandar. The masturbation would be more embarrassing, I suppose, and thus made the most sense. I was frustrated that Nora didn't confront Sirena about her betrayal -- hell, she could have sued her, although the latter would have made the humiliation more public. Sirena, being Sirena (criminally arrogant and self-involved), will never wonder why Nora didn't make their breakfast/lunch date, will never wonder why she stopped emailing or calling. Nor will she make contact herself. It will probably never even occur to her that the reason for the loss of friendship is Nora's discovery. I was pissed that, in all these ways -- in every way -- Sirena got away with taping and selling someone's private masturbatory moment, profiting both financially and (more importantly) artistically from betraying someone who did nothing but love and help her. /end rant
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Messud's "Woman Upstairs" is her take on the character without an identity such as Ellison's Invisible Man or The Mad Woman in the Attic, but in this case the nice woman who no one takes notice of. Nora is a school teacher who takes an obsession with the family of one of her pupils who are only in the country for a year. She ends up babysitting the boy, starting an art studio with his mother, and developing a romantic attraction for the father on long walks together. Messud makes her narrator Nora extremely unappealing in her self-absorption, and unreliable in her idealization of the Shahid family. There's also a sense that the Shahid's are taking advantage of Nora the whole time. There are some interesting internal narratives of a woman's place in modern society and as the book is set in Cambridge, MA, some good local color. I'm not sure I'm convinced by the conclusion, which is somewhat predictable, but I don't get the sense that it is as life changing as Nora claims it to be.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I loved the anger of the first chapter; the rest of the book never quite lived up to this for me. I didn't find the story of how Nora came to be angry as interesting as the rage itself, and I would possibly have cared more about what she actually did following the events in the novel.
    The story itself felt oddly paced: very drawn-out at first, and then the ending felt rushed.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I'm looking forward to reading more by Messud---I liked the person telling this story as she tried to discover herself. So many books in this world could use sequels and this is one of them..... The idea of the power of the inner self was a great subject to dwell in, at least for me. My own gets out every now and then!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I feel as though I may be in the minority when I say that I really, really enjoyed this book. Actually quite a bit more than the one I read previous, The Goldfinch. It's not as though that one wasn't extremely enjoyable at some points. It's just that this one was....well, interesting the entire way through. The plot is essentially that this wannabe professional artist, schoolteacher Nora, becomes obsessed with the family of one of her students, Reza. The novel explores her journey with this family and asks very interesting questions about what is real and what isn't. It's also quite narrow in scope, very limited to Nora's musings as she is going through her experiences with this family (which I really liked, because my previous read wasn't "narrow," at all).It's just a really fascinating psychological explortation, and again, I know I'm in the minority when I say that I genuinely liked Nora's voice. She has some very clear faults, of course, and definiteley comes unhinged a bit, but she, as she presents herself on the very first page, is "an angry woman," and quite honestly, it seems that I seldom read books from the perspective of angry women, or rather, women willing to present themselves so openly as angry. And I honestly wonder if, had the narrator been a man, people who have reviewed this book would throw around the terms "unhinged" and "crazy" and "delusional" as casually as they have. I only used the former very hesitantly, as I don't think it's the most accurate word.In additon to all of this, I will say that the ending of the novel genuinely surprised me, and I really, really liked it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An uncomfortable book that I may admire, but did not enjoy. So is it enough to read novels to appreciate their literary merits, or do we need to be engaged, entertained, or inspired? Since I am not an academic, I suppose I can mostly read for pleasure and skim novels such as this in the future.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I did not enjoy this book at all. Did not like the characters or the plot. I could not get involved in it. Ended up skipping bits to get to the end.