The Married Man: A Novel [Paperback]

I enjoyed reading 'A Boy's Own Story', written by this writer, which I rated very highly, and therefore I thought I would read another book by Edmund White. However, 'The Married Man' was a disappointing read.

'The Married Man' lacks much in the way of plot. Instead, its content depends mainly on the main character leading a not spectacularly unusual life, but travelling from place to new place and to new venues far too often, extravagantly, rather than working, so the writer can then describe in detail yet another set of new scenes and events and characters and yet more huge expenditure in the new place/venue. That method of creating a book, and the absence of much interesting plot besides, made the book tiresome after a while. I felt I was being made to read material that had being written simply in order to pad the book out unnecessarily.

The content itself becomes quite depressing in the second half of the book.

The style of writing, often with very long turgid sentences and over-complicated similes, suggests the book has been too overwritten ('A Boy's Own Story', in contrast, had a much more interesting, direct, snappy style of writing to it).

Frankly, the main characters aren't likeable (apart from Ajax).

This book was slow going to read, and not a pleasurable experience: more a grim slow turning of the pages, just to finish the thing off.

The writer hasn't really attempted any form of climax to the book, or even a good ending, either. He just lets the book tail off into nothingness after 310 pages.

Overall, this didn't seem to me to be a book worth reading, and I was sorry to have spent time going through it.

In picking up this book, I entered it with a sneaking suspicion that the two main characters; Austin and Julien, were variations on White himself, and his lover Hubert Sorin. Austin is an author, like White himself. Sorin was an architect, just as Julien is when Austin meets him. Sorin passed away in 1994 of AIDS complications, the novel is set in that same time period...etc, etc, etc,....there are too many parallels to White's own story for it not to be a continuation of where he left off with 'The Farewell Symphony'. And so, the choice to tell the story as an 'observer' or 'outsider' by writing it in the third person is a matter of curiosity to me...as if White himself could not 'make the story real' by putting himself into it as narrator...like the story as a whole is still too painful for him to tell as his own.

About 100 pages into this novel, I emailed a new acquaintance with some thoughts that the protagonist and his lover were both 'unlikable' characters to me...Austin came across as extremely co-dependent; Julien as selfish, emotionally protracted, and abusive. Through the circumstances of the story, it is hard to not feel a degree of sympathy for both the characters eventually, but initially it was hard (for me) to become engaged with either one of them.

As in the other novels I have read by the same author, White has a 'baring of the soul' approach to character development unlike most authors I have read. They are self-effacing; emotionally raw; virtually unable to hide any unattractive facet or character flaw from their chronicler...White lays out most all his characters like 'open wounds' and invites readers to gape at them.

The story itself, that of an HIV positive man who meets and falls in love with an initially married man, who then finds himself succumbing to full-blown AIDS...is full of the same emotions I have found in other works by White. While I experienced a feeling of malaise with the co-dependency of Austin, and the abrasiveness of Julien, White labels Austin as co-dependent by the end of the story; and Julien's story becomes so heart-wrenching that it is near impossible to not try to understand the anguish invoking his treatment of those around him, especially Austin...as if his relationship with Austin was the most honest, because he displayed his real feelings to him, and didn't sugar coat them like he did with others...who in retrospect called him 'always cheerful and good-natured'...

While I enjoyed this novel overall, I have to give it only 4 stars in rating it, due to the fact that I think White's writing is a lot less 'detached' when it is written in first person. I would have to explore another third person novel to really make an informed conclusion, but...in comparing Married Man to the other three I have read...they come across as if White was far more 'involved' in them by inserting himself as narrator.

However, this is a good read by a wonderful author, and I recommend it highly.