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Fates and Furies: A Novel
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Fates and Furies: A Novel
Unavailable
Fates and Furies: A Novel
Audiobook14 hours

Fates and Furies: A Novel

Written by Lauren Groff

Narrated by Will Damron and Julia Whelan

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation. 

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years.

At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed. With stunning revelations and multiple threads, and in prose that is vibrantly alive and original, Groff delivers a deeply satisfying novel about love, art, creativity, and power that is unlike anything that has come before it. Profound, surprising, propulsive, and emotionally riveting, it stirs both the mind and the heart.

Editor's Note

Difference of perspective…

An erudite, playful, and compelling contemporary Greek tragedy, “Fates and Furies” examines the intricacies of a marriage, how our past defines us, and how well you can ever truly know someone.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 15, 2015
ISBN9780698409651
Unavailable
Fates and Furies: A Novel
Author

Lauren Groff

Lauren Groff is the author of five novels: the instant New York Times bestseller The Vaster Wilds, and two National Book Award Finalists, Matrix and Fates and Furies; as well as Aradia and The Monsters of Templeton. Her story collections include Florida, winner of The Story Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award, and Delicate Edible Birds. She has twice been a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, as well as for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the LA Times Book Prize, and the Orange Prize for New Writers. She was a Guggenheim Fellow, a Radcliffe Fellow, a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, and was named one of Granta’s 2017 Best Young American Novelists. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband and sons.

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Reviews for Fates and Furies

Rating: 3.6106234310798944 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

1,139 ratings123 reviews

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  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Simple review here:1. Boring story2. Unbelievable characters3. Outrageous writing styleThe story is utterly boring and completely inconceivable at times. Especially the whole leech episode... disgusting!!!The characters are annoying at best and completely unbelievable in a real life circumstance. Not to mention unrelatable.but the one thing that I couldn't get passed in this novel was the writing style. Lauren Groff writes this book in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet only written badly. I'm sorry but I did not find it beautiful in any way and in fact found it extremely difficult for the reader to follow. If you're going to write a poem that is one thing if you are going to write a novel that is a completely different thing. In this case I think the author should have considered her audience a bit more.That's all I've got for you on this one guys. Just, bad!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Well that was unexpected. I thought I knew what I'd got and I wasn't that excited by it until half way through where the whole thing turns inside out. The first half was so ordinary though. I was as close to giving up a book as I have been in years. Redeemed by the infinitely more palatable second half, I was still overwhelmed by the book's unevenness and imbalance.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Difficult, uncomfortable, frustrating - but impossible not to finish. Brilliant
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff is like a complex dinner salad. Each part of the salad is delicious on its own, but the parts complement each other. You may take a bit of the blue cheese and think it’s a bit bitter, but then, after tasting the perfectly seasoned homemade crouton, it makes sense. The novel is not like an onion where each layer is similar, but uncovers secrets. It’s not like a fruit salad where each bite is sweet. And it certainly isn’t like cherry pie. It’s not a book for everyone; the reader has to like the depth and complexity of blue cheese with apples and pecans on her salad. This book should be a contender for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    One of the many reasons I admire Lauren Groff is her total inability to shy away from a narrative challenge. She saw the way in which the story of a strong, difficult marriage should be told; that the truest portrait of a marriage must reveal all the scars and injuries and oddities, all of them, in each individual as well as in the relationship (which is kind of a two-headed character, as well); and she put it all on the page. It gets so ugly and loud that it's hard to look at. But it doesn't resolve in regret.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    ''There was an enormous crack in the world.''

    What constitutes a successful union between two people who love each other? The ability to have the courage to mend the cracks that appear in an alarming speed as the years go by. Now, in the marriage of Lotto and Mathilde, the cracks are there from the beginning. Especially in Lotto and all they have to do is to ignore them and move on. But Groff's novel is completely devoid of cracks or any other fault for that matter. In fact, it is plain and simple, one of the most interesting, daring and honest books I've ever had the pleasure to read.

    I chose to read this novel, guided by the raving reviews of many beloved friends here, in Goodreads, and attracted by the claim that Groff had been inspired by Ancient Greek Tragedy. I was surprised to see that this is not just a very well-written love story, but also an immensely beautiful trip down the historical changes that New York and its society underwent from the early 90s all the way through our troubled present. To do so through the eyes of a squad of artists, in all their vanity and sensitivity, was satisfying and, frankly, hugely entertaining.

    Groff touches upon so many subjects, one wouldn't know where to begin. The way I see it, the main themes are love and aspirations. We witness a relationship that starts in a rather unorthodox way. Lotto and Mathilde get married out of the blue and then, they have to learn how to live together, how to fight the daily problems, how to know each other and come to understand themselves in the process. Their relationship is presented in such a beautiful way that even a sworn enemy of marriage (such as myself) has to take a step back and contemplate for a while.

    However, in my opinion, the notion that lies at the heart of the story is the way our aspirations influence our course in life once they are fulfilled or-worse- once we realise that they have become dreams of a past that is slowly fading away...Groff's writing took me back to the time when I was studying, when me and my friends thought that we would be able to change the world once we graduate from university. Instead, we slowly found out that the world actually changed us. Worries about our families, our work, our financial status, our relationships with our loved ones, all those things that make you feel you have entered the universe of the adults and their responsibilities.

    Lotto, in particular, changes route and tries to fulfill his ambitions from a different starting point. And he succeeds. Mathilde? She remains the steady rock that binds him to the present and holds their life together. There comes my only problem with the novel. Mathilde makes the decision to stop working after Lotto's success -which took a long time to take place- and becomes the wife who cleans, cooks, etc. Perhaps, she didn't want to follow her dreams, after all. Perhaps,she found fulfillment through the role of the lady of the house, perhaps she needed to cast away her own demons of the past. I don't know and I don't judge her. I respect it, but I don't understand it, and it was at that time when I felt that the book was too centered to Lotto and his actions. This was too harsh of me, but I couldn't have foreseen the great bomb that exploded and shuttered everything to pieces...

    What can I say about Groff's writing? I'm going to resort to clichés, but I cannot help it. The language she uses is so powerful, so immediate, so creative. The style is unique, a third-person narration, with some slight but intricately woven hints of stream of consciousness. The dialogue is sharp, without unnecessary words, the pace leaves you breathless in a story that spans over twenty years, centered on two people. I enjoyed the New York colloquialisms and the fact that I could see and feel the changing city over the years, changes that were depicted in the characters and their interactions.

    What is the most fascinating element in this novel? For me, it is the title. Fates and Furies... Why Fates? Why Furies? It had me wondering. The notion of Fate lies at the centre of the Greek tragedies, the three women who controlled and, eventually, cut the thread of all mortals' lives, the Moirai : Clotho, Atropos and Lachesis. The Furies, the Erinyes, were wild, winged female deities. Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone. They hunted and haunted the wrongdoers without mercy, for the rest of their lives. Orestes is the well-known example, punished for the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra. So, Fates and Furies are our daily escorts, from the moment we are born until the day we depart from this world. They are the two sides of the same coin and Groff uses them in such a successful way that would make Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus proud...

    I was reading this book while I was commuting to work and back. There were instances when it almost slipped off my hands out of sheer shock, others because of my anger caused by certain stupid decisions of the couple. I don't know how can anyone read this novel and feel absolutely nothing. I think it's impossible. One cannot remain indifferent in front of life and Lauren Groff takes life's notions, twists them and awakes every bit and every kind of emotion to the reader. It is a book that speaks with a voice of anger, despair and hope, and we feel compelled to listen...Carefully...


  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Tried reading a few pages awhile ago and wasn't into it, so had put it down. I almost missed one of my favorite books of the year! (I'm calling it early.)
    I still have issues with the first chapter -- steamy sex-in-the-sand when you don't know anything (let alone care) about the characters leaves me cold. But it was all uphill from there, and the view from the top was stunning.
    Her mother had smelled of cold and scales, her father of stone dust and dog. She imagined her husband's mother, whom she had never met, had a whiff of rotting apples... Sallie was starch, cedar. Her dead grandmother, sandalwood. Her uncle, Swiss cheese. People told her that she smlled like garlic, like chalk, like nothing at all. Lotto, clean as camphor at his neck and belly, like electrified pennies at the armpit, like chlorine at the groin.
    Electrified pennies! I marveled over and over again at Groff's facility with description, and at the slow, deliberate fleshing out of her characters (especially Mathilde, who was a revelation time and again). But this is not one of those books where characterization and beautiful description are the entirety of the book. There's plenty of plot (the book spans more or less its main characters' lifetimes) and plenty of twists both large and small. Pulling all of that together is, in my view, nothing short of heroic.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was sort of mesmerizing as I read it. Lauren Groff is great at setting. I lived for most of my life in Florida, so for me, especially, I found this to be evocative. The characters were drawn well and there were some nice surprises. I liked the way it felt like I was sitting in a humid vat of uncertainty, waiting for the mosquitoes to carry me away, then unexpectedly dunked in an ice bucket. I like the way Groff portrayed art and the artist. I love the way she drew her characters. There is no scorned woman here, even though there is. It's just...not what I expected and I think that's pretty great.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Ostensibly this is supposed to be a novel about marriage, but I think the question Laura Goff is actually posing in this tale – which just happens to involve a marriage – is: “To what extent are we capable of truly knowing ourselves?”Lancelot “Lotto” Satterwhite, raised to believe himself a young prince – wealthy, charismatic, handsome – fashions a whole life around this self-delusion. So convincing is he, the people around him become willing participants in helping to create and maintain the self-delusion. He never seems to question why he should be so universally beloved even though he rarely gives more than he gets; why he shouldn’t attain celebrity as a playwright, in spite of the fact that he’s never really written anything; or why he shouldn’t be entitled to the “perfect wife,” in spite of the fact that he almost never bothers to wonder what it is that he has to offer her. His life, in short, seems wholly shaped by the “Fates” referenced in the title of the novel. Whereas Lotto’s inamorata, Mathilde, constructs a life shaped by Furies – ancient Greek spirits believed to wreak vengeance on those who commit crimes. Having been raised to believe she possesses a fundamentally wicked nature, it never seems to occur to Mathilde that there are other ways to pay for college than pimping herself to a ghastly older man who enjoys debasing her; or that she might possess enough love to share with both a husband and a child; or that she might be worthy of love without having to constantly earn it. Given that Goff is supposed to be such a terrific writer, one might wonder why this novel has received so many so-so reviews from readers. I suspect it comes down to frustration – frustration over the inability of her characters to engage in honest self-reflection. Most of the stories we’re drawn to – as children, and later as adults - contain strong character arcs: either humble everymen who develop into heroes, or heroes who experience a hubristic plummet into humility. In contrast, no one in this novel (with the notable exception of Lotto’s younger sister Rachel) ever learns, changes, matures, or grows. Where Goff’s talent shows itself to best advantage is in the way she has crafted this modern morality tale. Unveiling both halves of the relationship at once would have been a more conventional approach. But by first presenting the marriage through Lotto’s eyes and then, later, through Mathilde’s eyes, Goff forces her readers to explore how these differences in perception are shaped not just by who the characters are, but who they believe themselves to be.Which, in turn, spawns a host of weighty questions – questions sure to trigger many a juicy book club discussion. To what extent are we, as adults, able to defy or transcend the forces that mould us throughout our psychologically fragile childhood years? To what extent do we unconsciously (or consciously) become complicit in sustaining the self-delusions of the people in our lives? Do we have a “duty” to seek self-understanding? (And, if so, a duty to who? Ourselves? Our family? The people we love?) Is being able to experience love predicated on self-awareness? On honesty? On being able to love (or at least forgive) ourselves? And what constitutes a “good marriage” anyway – is it the ability to gain from one’s partner the support one needs, or the support one “deserves”? Fairly early on, readers will realize that Goff intends her work to be appreciated not just as a story, but as a literary construct. In addition to the deliberately artful method of storytelling described above, there are plenty of references to Greek plays and myths – including frequent bracketed comments that – in the style of a Greek chorus – constantly comment on the main action of the story. But none of this need distract from the fact that many of us continue to live lives shaped by fate and fury, if only we possess the self-awareness to perceive it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An ambicious and engaging study of marriage, love, frienship and many more things, with two very well-developed characters and an original Rashomonesque structure as a plus.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Oh my, this book. Intense, twisted, and absolutely incredible. I can't wait to see what Groff comes up with next.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    unexpected and interesting. The first half is HIS story, his perspective of growing up, meeting his wife, his career ups and downs and his relationship with his wife. The second half is HER story going forward, with lots of back tracking to reveal different versions of events, now in her perspective, and of her unusual childhood etc. It is a live story, essentially, but it so more than and better than that moniker suggests. Surprisingly captivating and engaging, and well-written.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Hard to enjoy a book when none of the characters are at all likeable. Also, the prose seemed a bit pretentious. Maybe I'm just not smart enough but I don't get why this book was so highly rated.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Marriage is a mystery.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Pretty far fetched story of a marriage, if the first part seems a little stretched, the second part defies belief. Despite that, it is written in a page-turner style, so polished the book off quite quickly. But really, up for prizes? for what? Comparisons to Gone Girl come to mind, just evil in a different form.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I started this book believing that I would not finish it and would not like it. That almost turned out to be the case, and yet I felt oddly compelled to keep going. The style of writing is difficult to wrap your head around at times. If you can manage to slog your way through the first 200 pages, which is Lotto's story - "Fates", you will be rewarded when you read Mathilde's story - "Furies." Sometimes what appears to be a superlative marriage to all that observe it can turn out to be, under the surface, totally unexpected and shocking.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I wanted to like this book. I really did. Even after my initial shock of it not being at all like I thought it would be. Which is my fault for not really finding out what this book was about, but that's beside the point. I would be lying if I said I absolutely hated it though. It was a very beautiful and touching story. I adored the story very much.

    The first half of the book was amazing. I just adored Lancelot. Yes, he was a flawed individual. But he was a sweet individual none the less. The second half ruined it all for me. I won't get into the details too much. I'll just say that without the viewpoint of Lancelot, you see certain characters for how they really are and leave it at that.

    All in all, I'd still recommend this book. It was a very beautiful and very sweet story. I adored it. I was rooting for Lancelot through most of the story. I do wish that some of the other characters would have been seen more and not as background to the story, but that's beside the point.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved everything about this. The narration. The twists. The complexities of two people. The lies. The truths.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Beautiful, nuanced writing. Although the self imposed misery of the characters was reflective of reality, it impeded my ejoyment of the book. It was engaging, but left me feeling sorrowful.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent! Poetic and amazing… Best book I've read in a long time!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I liked this novel, the spirals unwinding the many aspects of the story; the truth that all long-term relationships are complicated and each person has more than one version of himself.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Well written and interesting, but lonnng and slow moving plot.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    4.5 stars. LOVED it. Do people in relationships really keep secrets like this??
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The succinct language and unique narrative voice (omniscient? Greek chorus?) really pulled me in to this book. The two characters that make up the fates and furies halves are both engaging, but the second half did not disappoint. If you ever lose patience with the SAT vocab words or having to re-read a few tight sentences, stick with it. The second half fills in the blanks in unexpected ways.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    fiction (marriage drama). I got bored with Lotto during the "Fates" part, and then I tired of Mathilde during the "furies" part. Maybe it would have been better if the two perspectives weren't separated into halves, as to give us respite from one personality or the other. Otherwise, the writing was pretty good (though a bit pompous as thespian/playwright characters are intended to be?) and the unraveling of secrets was pretty good too. I would have liked it a lot more but for the tired pacing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was introduced to Lauren Groff via the LibraryThing early review program more than a decade ago with her book [Arcadia]. I loved the book, and I excitedly picked up Monsters of Templeton a couple years later, loved that as well. So when I saw Fates and Furies at my local used book store, I snatched it up. I was disappointed at first, but I should have had more faith. I just looked up some reviews and saw literary critics with an opposing view, but I thought the first part of the novel was not as strong, but act two was the big payoff. By the end, I was confident I'll track down Groff's collection of short stories I've yet to read and she remains one of my very favorite contemporary writers.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Read this book for it's hopelessness.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Simple review here:1. Boring story2. Unbelievable characters3. Outrageous writing styleThe story is utterly boring and completely inconceivable at times. Especially the whole leech episode... disgusting!!!The characters are annoying at best and completely unbelievable in a real life circumstance. Not to mention unrelatable.but the one thing that I couldn't get passed in this novel was the writing style. Lauren Groff writes this book in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet only written badly. I'm sorry but I did not find it beautiful in any way and in fact found it extremely difficult for the reader to follow. If you're going to write a poem that is one thing if you are going to write a novel that is a completely different thing. In this case I think the author should have considered her audience a bit more.That's all I've got for you on this one guys. Just, bad!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I am completely unsure about whether I liked this book or not. It's writing style annoyed me, I didn't find the characters likeable in any way, and yet I wanted to know what happened.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    a labor of love. loved it. recommend you read it.