by Max Beerbohm
An exquisite Edwardian oddity – a sort of magic-realist proto-campus-novel about paranoid sexual fantasy, as related by Beau Brummel or Oscar Wilde. Our eponymous heroine is a personification of feminine desirability – ‘the toast of two hemispheres’, she has already, before the novel begins, ‘rang...
My, my, my, my, my.Not one for the casual reader.Briefly: My, my, my, my, my.Less briefly: A tale told in high register, of arrogance and honor, the fine lines between conflicting emotions, irony, Oxford University, the righteous and the self-righteous, the femme fatale, fantasy meeting reality, ant...
WHY I WANT TO READ IT: I haven't read much Beerbohm, except for the odd essay here and there, and as this is his only novel, I want to try it. The premise sounds kind of dumb, but perhaps the writing will make up for it, or it'll be funnier than it sounds.
I understand this work was to have been a satire on university life in the Edwardian era, or perhaps a satire of upper class, but I found it a bit silly. Zuleika isn't much of a character to speak of, but maybe that was the point. At any rate, this is a requirement on the Modern Library Top 100, so ...
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