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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Gripping and absolutely bizarre, 8 Sep 2006
I wanted to read this having loved 'Tortilla Curtain' and am glad I did - Boyle is a great storyteller and this is quite a story ! He paints a vivid yet fictitious picture of the personal and professional lives of Kinsey and his entourage through the eyes of his earliest disciple, John Milk. In fact, as it turns out there can be no distinction between their personal and professional lives and the job description is not as much fun as you might expect! Lots and lots of sex, obviously, but very much from a scientific point of view. If you want eroticism you may be disappointed as after a while it's like reading about gardening, but the characters and their unconventional relationships are brilliantly drawn and involving, some endearing and others absolutely repellent. Also packed with period detail on the USA from the 1930s to 50s. Parts of the story I found very dark and disturbing and although I thoroughly enjoyed it I felt relieved that despite the way it reads it isn't actually a true story.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pioneer or Perv?, 16 July 2007
I loved Water Music and was truly impressed by how TC Boyle captured so well the images of lowland and highland Scotland, I can't say how well he has captured the ordinary lives of 1930s and 40s America but this book is as well written as you would expct of the author.
I'm left wondering whether any of Kinsey's circle wrote their own version of their experiences. And not to put too fine a point on it I'm rather curious as to how interactive Milk got in his H activities with the good doctor. It's all very well telling us what the Prof could do with a whole toothbrush right at the end of the book but what was it the narrator increasingly found to be a tedious duty when the prof appeared naked and primed for action at his bedside? Generally for a book about the development of openness about sex the tone is quite coy and curiously detached in it's descriptions of sexual activity. Not that I was looking for porn but Milk's narrative is pompous rather than youthfully earnest about the importance of being freer to express your sexuality.
Milk sounded to me like a cold untrustworthy creep, the professor comes across as a cold manipulative pervert and an arrogant bore. The other characters scattered throughout the book are the warmth and, to me, more representative of the truth and variety of human nature.
Had I read this first I might not have tried Water Music.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautifully Written and Touching, 5 July 2006
In a year in which I've been uncharacteristically prolific in terms of volume of books read, this novel is the finest of the bunch. TC Boyle's "The Inner Circle" is a beautiful story which exposes you to a whole gamut of emotions: joy, frustration, disappointment, enlightenment, and to a lesser extent, titillation. Having never heard of the author before ("ignoramus!" you cry - guilty as charged), I chose to read the book purely because of an enthusiastic review in The Economist. I was glad I did.
The story is narrated by John Milk, a handsome but socially awkward college undergraduate whose adult life has hitherto been fairly uninspired and directionless, both professionally and sexually. A chance encounter with a college professor, Alfred Kinsey ("Prok"), forever changes the course of Milk's life. When the two men meet, Prok is at the very beginning of an ambitious research project that would later revolutionise American attitudes to sex; he needs an extra pair of hands with which to share the burden of work. Milk, humbled at being given the opportunity to be part of such a momentous project, agrees to work for Prok (although tellingly, it never seems as if he is given a choice; to agree is almost expected). Initially the combination works well; it is only when Milk begins to develop and mature into adult that the problems begin.
As Milk begins to form meaningful relationships and undergoes his own personal sexual revolution, albeit orchestrated largely by Prok (Milk's first two partners are Prok and his wife), it becomes apparent that his mentor's views aren't always conducive to matrimonial harmony, even though they seem to make perfect rational sense on the surface. Perhaps notions of "love" and fidelity aren't as antiquated as they might seem. We are given insight into the complex relationship between Prok and Milk - one that is pseudo-paternal but also involves physical relations, even though it often seems as if Milk is not that way inclined. Subconsciously, Prok and Milk fulfil different needs in each other. In Milk, Prok finds a subservient auxiliary who will carry out orders with blind devotion and without question, including the servicing of his sexual whims. At a deeper level, he finds someone who is impressionable and malleable enough to be indoctrinated into his distinct worldview. In Prok, Milk finds a paternal figure who will give his life what is so badly needs: direction and approval.
This book's strengths are many; superb character development is perhaps its foremost. Milk, the narrator, variously evokes frustration, pity but ultimately sympathy from the reader. The portrayal of Prok as a deeply flawed genius is perhaps even more impressive. Prok is a man perfectly clear of his life's goal, and a tireless pursuant of his cause. He lives and breathes his work as if he were put on Earth for only one reason: to revolutionise the way Americans think about sex. However, he is also tyrannical, dictatorial and extremely inflexible - qualities that become increasingly apparent as the story unfolds. Other characters of note include Iris - Milk's wife - who, despite being in many ways a victim of Prok's consummation of her husband, proves the only character capable of standing up to him. In Mac, Prok's wife, we find a woman who is ostensibly a doormat: she is resigned to her husband's way of life and is ostensibly accepting of any indiscretion he fancies committing. In her quiet way, however, she retains the capacity for human emotion and we are never entirely convinced that she has entirely subscribed to her husband's worldview.
In a book that is supposed to be about sex, "The Inner Circle" is surprisingly fraught with emotion, perhaps just as physical relations and emotion are inextricably linked in real life. Boyle reminds us that the desire to be loved and jealousy are just as basic human instincts as is the carnal need to copulate. He does so without being remotely patronising or offensive, instead with a beautiful story that involves very ordinary human beings whose emotional capacities are stretched by one revolutionary but ultimately misguided man.
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