Ophelia and the Great Idea

By Deborah Levy

1989

First Published

3.17

Average Rating

120

Number of Pages

3H39M

Audio Length

This short story collection is the work of a gifted young writer who has yet to find her voice. In "Preparing for Life,'' Levy imitates Latin-American magic realists to tell of Mamita, a dying woman whose sneeze causes her soul, in the form of a white mouse, to pop out of her mouth. The title story and many of the other flat, disconnected tales, are told like dreams. "Flush'' is college humor. There's a little Zen parody, a few interspersed news bulletins. Throughout, the message is grim. Society undervalues art and artists, oppresses women, is intent on destroying the human race, uses money to crush esthetics; yet, underneath irony as thick as armor, there seems to beat a heart which Levy may, in the future, set free. In the meantime, there is a vogue for writing that satirizes contemporary life without engaging or threatening anyone's emotions, and Levy's spare parodies have attracted a cult following in England.

Avg Rating

3.17

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

4 STARS

40%

3 STARS

34%

2 STARS

17%

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Deborah Levy

Author · 22 books

Deborah Levy trained at Dartington College of Arts leaving in 1981 to write a number of plays, highly acclaimed for their "intellectual rigour, poetic fantasy and visual imagination", including PAX, HERESIES for the Royal Shakespeare Company, CLAM, CALL BLUE JANE, SHINY NYLON, HONEY BABY MIDDLE ENGLAND, PUSHING THE PRINCE INTO DENMARK and MACBETH-FALSE MEMORIES, some of which are published in LEVY: PLAYS 1 (Methuen) Deborah wrote and published her first novel BEAUTIFUL MUTANTS (Vintage), when she was 27 years old. The experience of not having to give her words to a director, actors and designer to interpret, was so exhilarating, she wrote a few more. These include, SWALLOWING GEOGRAPHY, THE UNLOVED (Vintage) and BILLY and GIRL (Bloomsbury). She has always written across a number of art forms (see Bookworks and Collaborations with visual artists) and was Fellow in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1989-1991.