Less in Love

photo: nytimes.com

I often feel like I'm in the throes of an (almost) mid-twenties crisis, which is why the impending midlife crisis terrifies me to no end. To think of having an even bigger crisis thirty some years from now, no longer being young, being expected to have it all together...a real shudder passes through my body at the thought.

Arthur Less, the protagonist in Andrew Sean Greer's novel Less, is thrown into his own midlife crisis when his younger sort-of boyfriend of the past nine years announces his marriage to another man.

As the marriage approaches, Less, an author only half-remembered by the literary world, accepts all of his invitations for small events around the world, from writing a food review in Japan to hosting a half-baked literary event in Mexico and joining a birthday celebration for a woman he doesn't even know in Africa.

Less wants to be distracted, and he uses his trip around the world as an excuse to get out of the wedding. His travels bring him brief amorous encounters, wild run-ins with dogs, and thoughts on love, writing, and genius.

While Less despairs of his own pathetic life, he discovers, to his complete surprise, that his life might not be as bad as he thinks it is.

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Less recently won the Pulitzer Prize, and while it was a nice, easy read, I didn't feel it to be utterly life-changing or even terribly resonant (at least in the way some past winners have affected me, such as The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt).

The novel was comedic and some of the descriptions were gorgeous. However, these two points often felt at odds with each other. This isn't to say that a good book must be without humor, but the humor and passages of descriptive prose didn't blend together the way they could have to make the novel feel more like a cohesive unit.

Despite this, I enjoyed the novel, and especially how Greer plays with the word "less" throughout. Impossible though it seems, I like the ending too - I like the belief in love that it ends on.

7/10 📕