My Education: A Novel

Regina Gottlieb, an attractive twenty-one year old, seems to be a rather unmoored graduate student in liberal arts at a northeastern college where she finds herself in Professor Nicholas Brodeur’s postmodern class only because she is fascinated by his sexy persona and reputation. Hopelessly in over her head, she visits Brodeur to drop the class, only to be hired by him as a TA for his class in Chaucer. Later, being more or less in his circle, she is invited to a party at his home. Surely, the classic professor and enamored female story will now be played out. But the unexpected happens.Ginny had caught glimpses of Martha Hallett, Brodeur’s wife and a stunning beauty, on a few occasions. Now observing her more closely, Ginny is astounded by Martha’s coolness, exquisite appearance, fierceness, and indifference to her guests. Ginny is helpless. Before the evening is out, she aggressively pursues Martha, which is passionately reciprocated. In the ensuing months, they are inseparable; Brodeur is pushed aside.To the author’s credit, the story is hardly one of “love conquers all.” Martha is thirteen years older, is married with a baby, and has a career, etc. She is leery of Ginny’s recklessness and assumptions about the future. While Martha and Ginny are obviously of the same sex, there is no sense that the author is probing the nature of lesbianism. It is the need for connection regardless of gender that concerns the author.In the last one-third of the book, fourteen years later, Ginny, now a successful author living in NYC and married with her own child, is given a chance to revisit that earlier time in her life, much to her edificatory benefit. Brodeur to his credit is a part of that process.Overall, the book is not without its passion, sensuality, and understandings, yet, in some ways it is a bit flat and unrealistic. Ginny comes across as unduly immature, needy, and at times self-destructive. Her recovery to middle-class life feels a little convenient and easy. The tough, interesting Martha is the character that one could wish had been followed more closely by the author. In addition, the writing at times seems a bit awkward, requiring rereading.

Regina is a young woman who is initially attracted to a male professor with a reputation and then even more strongly so to his wife. Regina pursues the wife aggressively, compulsively and recklessly, with much emotional fallout. Then there is a fast forward, and the whole affair is re-viewed from the point of view of a mature Regina.I enjoyed this book and I sympathize and empathize with both the young Regina and the older Regina. I remember how it felt to be in love when I was young. I remember how I thought that love was all-important and that it could overcome all obstacles. Sure, I can move to Germany and get a job there, as a university professor and researcher in an esoteric field where there are hardly any jobs at all. Sure, her personality is completely different from mine but "I love her!" Yeah, big age difference, so what? Well, it didn't work out.There is an inherent selfishness and self-absorption in young love that Susan Choi brings out so well, by contrasting the emotions that the young Regina feels towards the older Martha, with the love and demands and needs that flow between the children and parents of the protagonists ("I love you and I want to keep you forever"). Conversely, Choi also describes well how (SPOILER ALERT) Regina's love for her own child supercedes her romantic love(s). That's been true for me, too. My great romantic loves of my past (as I imagine them) pale beside my love for my children and my wife as the mother of my children. I remember that younger self fondly, but not with admiration.I really liked a number of side characters in this book: Laurence and Dutra. Such good, decent people, vividly and lovingly and humorously portrayed. Dutra is really funny too and he made me laugh quite a number of times. I was really touched by both of them. At the end, I admired Laurence and Dutra more than I did Martha or Nicholas.Finally I also liked Choi's complex sentences and analytic style that she adopts for the young Regina. This played off in an interesting way against her reckless behavior, which she does not attempt to analyze, or at least not explicitly. Things suddenly happen, abruptly and with interesting results. It made me think of Henry James. The clash of the analytic mind with the darkly forceful id. I will re-read this book at some point.

This may be me, but I found this book a little difficult to read> I did want to know what happened at the end so I admit I did end up skimming some pages just to get through it. I understand the characters were academics, etc but still thought for me it was written in too much of an academic style in a lot of places!

this book! this book! this book is GREAT. I'm working my way through a lot of prize winners at the mo, and they all seem to be about college professors having affairs with their students. this is a brilliant twist on that trope. perfect.

This book could do with being edited to about a third of it's current length. It tells how a needy student matures into a woman. The author has an ability with words, but uses too many. I felt that her need to alliterate took priority over the story. There are many explicit sex passages if you like that sort of thing.

A good read!

I chose this book because I have really loved this author's narrative style. This book just had much more detail for me with the girl-on-girl relationship than I felt was necessary, as I didn't feel it added anything to the story, and I found myself very bored. I also found that I had no kind of bond with the protagonist, and that the relationships in this book have a lot of gaps with "go nowheres" or inadequate and unsatisfying development. It's very strange to say that the writing itself is quite brilliant--dense, with layers in each sentence--but I had to force myself to finish the book.