A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women cover art

A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women

Essays on Art, Sex, and the Mind: 'A phenomenal book' - Guardian

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A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women

By: Siri Hustvedt
Narrated by: Caitlin Thorburn
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About this listen

 'Hustvedt is that rare artist, a writer of high intelligence, profound sensuality and a less easily definable capacity for which the only word I can find is wisdom' Salman Rushdie

'A great mind that is constantly exploring, searching, "becoming" . . . an impressive collection' Elif Shafak, Observer

A TRAIL-BLAZING AND INSPIRING COLLECTION OF ESSAYS ON ART, FEMINISM, NEUROSCIENCE AND PSYCHOLOGY FEATURING THE DELUSIONS OF CERTAINTY, WINNER OF THE EUROPEAN ESSAY PRIZE 2019.

Internationally acclaimed as a novelist, Siri Hustvedt is also highly regarded as a writer of non-fiction whose insights are drawn from her broad knowledge in the arts, humanities, and sciences.

In this trilogy of works collected in a single volume, Hustvedt brings a feminist, interdisciplinary perspective to a range of subjects. Louise Bourgeois, Pablo Picasso, Susan Sontag and Knut Ove Knausgaard are among those who come under her scrutiny. In the volume's central essay, she explores the intractable mind-body problem and in the third section she reflects on the mysteries of hysteria, synesthesia, memory, perception, and the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard. With clarity, wit, and passion, she exposes gender bias, upends received ideas, and challenges her reader to think again.

(P)2016 Hodder & Stoughton Limited©2016 Siri Hustvedt Art Consciousness & Thought Gender Studies Philosophy Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Social Sciences

Critic reviews

This is a phenomenal book. Its soul is in the connections it draws between disparate subjects, through which Hustvedt manages to shrink the world into something comprehensible. (Claire Kohda Hazelton)
A writer with an unusual blend of incisive intelligence, humour and imagination. There is a moving essay on the blurring of gender in Louise Bourgeois and a brilliantly comic analysis of Karl Ove Knausgaard . . . She is able to combine [a] personal perspective with erudite analysis and, as the personal perspective is at the forefront, she is always open to uncertainty, which she sees, rightly, as itself a political stance . . . as the complicated warnings of experts are decried and swaggering lies broadcast on the news, this kind of uncertainty matters more than ever . . . We are fortunate to have Hustvedt voicing doubt so intelligently. (Lara Feigel)
It is obvious that hers is a great mind that is constantly exploring, searching, "becoming" . . . An impressive collection by a novelist who clearly loves the humanities, the sciences and the ancient art of storytelling. But Hustvedt is not only a writer. She is also a passionate reader and therein lies the secret of this book . . . Here is a great book that invites reading . . . not only to 'look at a woman writer looking at men looking at women', but also to look within, deep inside the recesses of our minds, so as to recognise the fascinating complexity but also the heartbreaking fragility of human existence. (Elif Shafak)
[The Delusions of Certainty] reads like the work of a talented teacher who has the drive and the ability to organise and present - in an exceptionally clear, clean, even limpid voice - a monumental amount of abstract information. It's hard to overstate the pleasure and the comfort that such demystification provides the scientifically uninitiated; it does indeed make the world feel larger, more expansive, more alive to the touch
Few writers eviscerate bias and flawed logic as elegantly and ruthlessly as Hustvedt . . . she expertly flays assertions about biological and psychological sex differences . . . Hustvedt does not resolve her many questions, but her exhilarating conclusion testifies to the virtues of doubt . . . Her work is cerebral but also warm, deeply felt.
[Hustvedt] impresses as a writer of blazing intelligence and curiosity . . . This is fertile and fascinating territory for scientists and humanists alike.
[An] erudite collection . . . The book conveys the wide range of Hustvedt's reading as she focuses on the interstices between people; between disciplines; and between concepts such as art and science, truth and fiction, feeling and perception. The research is sound and the scholarship engaging, and the exacting prose turns humorous and almost warm when Hustvedt incorporates her personal reflections
A wide-ranging, irreverent, and absorbing meditation on thinking, knowing, and being
All stars
Most relevant
A fascinating series of essays spoiled by frequent mispronounciations and incorrect emphases from the narrator.

Content great but narrator not

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Siri Hustvedt has this distinct, beautifully cerebral and engaging prose that makes anything she writes both thought provoking and a joy to read. Sadly, none of that comes through here. Finishing this book has proven to be a challenge, not because of language or subject matter, but due to its narration: dull, inconsistent, with strange stops & confusing word emphasis, that make me question the narrator's understanding of punctuation. Get yourself a written copy and save yourself the 23+ hours of frustration.

Interesting book, awful narration

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Brilliant book. Irritating nnarrator. KNAUSGÅRD is mentioned over ten times, pronounced very wrong,it sounnds like nausea?

Knausgård-nausea?

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I didn’t mind the narration, I had it on in the background while doing other things and whilst I didn’t absorb every word I had lots of ah ha moments about life, myself, the way the world now is. Some I had to stop and write down. I do feel I could listen again and take different info out of it. But wouldn’t listen to straight with all my attention.

Interesting

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the narrator mispronounced quite a few things, and the topics in the book were somehow made painfully boring to listen to despite being interesting in and of themselves

made interesting topics boring

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