I Love Dick (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents)

The story of the re-emergence of this book is fascinating.First published in the 1990s and consigned to absolute obscurity ever since, it has suddenly turned up on best-seller lists, the author is being interviewed everywhere, it's a phenomenon. This is a story about real people and real relationships from a torrid era when things were still fluid, uncertain, when young women thought they could be filmmakers and writers, when great cities still had zones and places where creative types could live cheaply, when everyone travelled around the world and stayed in each other's apartments in London, Athens, New York, Sydney, wherever ... The author, Chris Kraus, grew up in New Zealand which gives her tale a particular poignancy. You can't help thinking she is a bit of a provincial wanne-be, who links up with a really famous intellectual who actually doesn't do anything himself - he doesn't write, he doesn't paint, but he introduces people to each other and runs an incredibly influential publishing house and an in-group intellectual magazine which everyone in the eighties knew and respected and which is unbelievably still going today. Semiotext(e) was such a key reference in the postmodern Franco-Anglo intellectual scene. Well, anyway, Chris Kraus after failing as a filmmaker (although she kept on trying) hooked up with that same intellectual, Sylvere Lotringer, many years older than her, married him, and then realised she wanted more of a real man and fell in love with Dick, who is a famous English intellectual renowned for key sociological and cultural texts, who is still around today teaching in Southern California, and Chris started sending him hundreds of messages and faxes explaining to him in detail why she loved him so much and made him have a sexual encounter with her - just once, it seems - by simple force of email and strangely enough her husband didn't mind and maybe he wanted to get in on the act himself. He loved Dick too! Wait! Stop! Who are these people? Do they actually exist? Does anyone care today? Well, yes, they do, its twenty or thirty years later and suddenly Chris Kraus's book is republished and so are her earlier books and there you go, she has also authored a biography of Kathy Acker and wow! Kathy Acker, dead at fifty of breast cancer, is now a postergirl for displaced feminist intellectuals and all her books are being republished and really it is all a whirlwind, and then Amazon Prime made a movie about I Love Dick starring Kevin Bacon as Dick and the whole thing really took off.... So, are you still with me? Probably not and I wouldn't blame you. People who want to read clear narratives with plot and character and exciting romances where for instance private investigators turn out to be Meercats will not much like Chris Kraus's books, this or any of them, but if you can stand being on a kind of nostalgic whirlwind back to the glorious 80s and 90s with all the theory and criticisms and self-delusion (which Kraus captures brilliantly, she doesn't spare herself at all) you'll be carried away. And the prose! Such a great change to read this kind of writing, no editor has ever got to it with a set of instructions about sentences or subordinate clauses. Great fun! I read her other books straight away too, I did like Torpor especially which is a kind of prequel and I've just finished the Kathy Acker bio which raises many other issues for another time. Go for it, but read the Look Inside first and if you don't like it, don't bother, but don't make others feel bad about enjoying it. We all deserve our own escapes

Was inspired by the Amazon series to read the book. The book is highly intellectual, heavy on references, but in no way pretentious. I like it, wish it did not make me feel so stupid, in a good way.

This was like if s bored person got their dumb blog published. So trite and Gen xer. Very over white women voices.

I read a profile about Chris Kraus in the LA Times magazine. Obviously, the title of the book was enticing enough for me to catch the Netflix series (a departure from the book) and the book itself. I can’t put the book down. Love the format. Author writes as though the two of you are having dinner and a glass of wine. Clearly the author is intelligent as this comes through in topics discussed in the book, diction, grammar etc. what a pleasure to know there are intelligent writers who write because they have something to say. I continually say “yep, I’ve experienced this too”. And then I wonder if the person making you feel a certain way realizes they’re doing it or do we both just not get it?! Read this. You’ll want to keep reading and hope you’ll come across these characters again.Note: don’t waste your time with the Netflix series. While Kevin Bacon, Griffin Dunne and Kathryn Hahn were excellent, I didn’t find any of their characters likable.POV: I think there is a very specific target audience for the book and series.

I feel so strongly about this book that I'm taking the time to write my first review on amazon, in hopes others won't completely waste their money and time on this book. I typically refuse to give up on a book, even if I don't love it. Reading this was PAINFUL, but I managed to get 2/3 of the way through it before I couldn't take it anymore. It was pretentious and inane, and I wasn't interested in what happened to the couple or the man with whom they were obsessed at any point. I'm honestly baffled as to how this has sold any copies. If the title piques your interest and you feel you must look into it, please just check it out at your local library and save your money!