Mating

By Norman Rush
1991
496 pgs.
Published by Vintage International
#14 on the NY Times "Best American Works of the Last 25 Years."

Mating is the sort of writing that is an incredible chore to get through--heavy, leaden prose with a ridiculously extravagent vocabulary describing the exploits and adventures of intensely unlikeable people.  Reading Mating should really only be done in the company of individuals who understand the nature of compulsive reading: i.e., not around people who say things like, "Why don't you just stop if you hate it so much?"  After all, those people are right--no awards or parties will be thrown for someone who makes it to the outrageously unsatisfying final pages of Mating, and the book is too unpopular and unwieldy to ever form much of a talking point in the fabled literary discussion circles that do not exist anyway. To put it bluntly, Mating is a waste of time for anyone.  At the close of the book, The Factual Opinion found its early theory proven true--that this was a book about arrogant jerks falling in love--and instead of feeling rewarded, we here at TFO had to ask why the author felt the need to tell that story, and why he felt the need to go about telling it in such an obtuse fashion.  Unfortunately, Mr. Rush was not available to give us a response, and in closing, we here at The Opinion cannot, in good conscience, be expected to defend in any way what has proven to be one of the worst literary experiences of our lives.