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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What a mess Grady is...a washed-up writer who now teaches creative writing...a lousy husband, a crummy friend (he is having an affair with his boss's wife). He's a mess. But we care about him. We care that he's spent years now on his book, WONDER BOYS, which continues to grow, but doesn't seem to be meandering toward an ending.
The action of this book takes place in one weekend. Friday afternoon class to Sunday evening attack. I listened to a masterful reading of it, and I kept reminding myself, 'it's still Saturday.'
Grady has a good heart. He finds himself trying to do and say what others want him to, even if it's not the right thing for him. AND, he is a selfish ass as well. Running roughshod over the others in his life.
Trying to describe the plot is laughable...and chringe-worthy. It involves a book the size of a watermelon, a dead, blind dog. A tuba case. A transvestite, a gay friend. Baseball memorabilia used as a weapon, and a jacket Marilyn Monroe wore to her wedding with Joe DiMaggio.
And a hilarious Passover dinner, and a nightclub...a guy who plants himself on the hood of a car, leaving butt marks.
Through the weekend, Grady is forced to grow up, to take stock, and to be a man instead of a boy...wonder or not.
I loved the reflection about male friends and the quixotic journeys...sometimes they are Don Quoxite, but most often they're Sancho Panza, lumbering along on their donkey.
The weekend is manic and silly and ultimately sad.
I'll long remember this one.
The action of this book takes place in one weekend. Friday afternoon class to Sunday evening attack. I listened to a masterful reading of it, and I kept reminding myself, 'it's still Saturday.'
Grady has a good heart. He finds himself trying to do and say what others want him to, even if it's not the right thing for him. AND, he is a selfish ass as well. Running roughshod over the others in his life.
Trying to describe the plot is laughable...and chringe-worthy. It involves a book the size of a watermelon, a dead, blind dog. A tuba case. A transvestite, a gay friend. Baseball memorabilia used as a weapon, and a jacket Marilyn Monroe wore to her wedding with Joe DiMaggio.
And a hilarious Passover dinner, and a nightclub...a guy who plants himself on the hood of a car, leaving butt marks.
Through the weekend, Grady is forced to grow up, to take stock, and to be a man instead of a boy...wonder or not.
I loved the reflection about male friends and the quixotic journeys...sometimes they are Don Quoxite, but most often they're Sancho Panza, lumbering along on their donkey.
The weekend is manic and silly and ultimately sad.
I'll long remember this one.
adventurous
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was an indulgent read, not plot-driven at all, and focuses on its characters more. Wonder Boys was an absolute joy to read, reflective without being depressing but lighthearted without being shallow. The book reflects on where life plateaus and expands on the state of being where you're going nowhere, but painted in such a fun way that respects the learning curve. The characters are lovable and Chabon writes beautifully. I definitely don't think this would be a book for everyone since honestly speaking, there isn't much of a plot here, but I enjoyed this greatly.
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Grady Tripp has been working on the same novel for seven years. It's more than two thousand pages at this point, and there's no end in sight. On top of all this, his lover is pregnant, his wife has left him, his protégé has stolen valuable memorabilia and murdered a dog, and his editor is in town. The events of Wonder Boys, by Michael Chabon, play out over 48 exasperating and exhausting hours as Grady is forced to come to terms with the mess he's made of his life...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.
This is quintessential Chabon: perfect sentences, memorable quirky characters, and sharp, dry humor. As a writer, I found this novel to be especially rewarding, both from a standpoint of story and craft. Its scale is small, especially compared to some of Chabon's more ambitious works, but this is a lovely little gem of a novel.
"Sara would read anything you handed her--Jean Rhys, Jean Shepherd, Jean Genet--at a steady rate of sixty-five pages an hour, grimly and unsparingly and without apparent pleasure. She read upon waking, sitting on the toilet, stretched out in the backseat of the car. When she went to the movies she took a book with her, to read before the show began, and it was not unusual to find her standing in front of the microwave, with a book in one hand and a fork in the other, heating a cup of noodle soup while she read, say, At Lady Molly's for the third time (she was a sucker for series and linked novels). If there was nothing else she would consume all the magazines and newspapers in the house--reading, to her, was a kind of pyromania--and when these ran out she would reach for insurance brochures, hotel prospectuses and product warranties, advertising circulars, sheets of coupons. Once I had come upon the spectacle of Sara, finished with a volume of C. P. Snow while only partway through one of the long baths she took for her bad back, desperately scanning the label on a bottle of Listerine."
"Writers, unlike most people, tell their best lies when they are alone."
"It struck me that the chief obstacle to marital contentment was this perpetual gulf between the well-founded, commendable pessimism of women and the sheer dumb animal optimism of men, the latter a force more than any other responsible for the lamentable state of the world."
"Writers, unlike most people, tell their best lies when they are alone."
"It struck me that the chief obstacle to marital contentment was this perpetual gulf between the well-founded, commendable pessimism of women and the sheer dumb animal optimism of men, the latter a force more than any other responsible for the lamentable state of the world."
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is pretty much on the level of Telegraph Avenue rather than The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay or The Yiddish Policemen's Union - so, depending on your feelings on the former (which I didn't like much) or the latter 2 (which I loved), you can probably decide whether or not this is for you.
Obviously, this wasn't for me.
I didn't find it funny - there's a lot of drug use, for one (which doesn't offend me or anything; I just find it boring), and there's a dog death as well (which only bothered me a little, because there's not any way to get particularly attached to the dog in question, but still). Both were probably supposed to be much more humorous than I found them.
It didn't help that I couldn't care either way what happened to either Grady or James.
I didn't hate this book or anything, but it's the most solid "meh" in a while.
Obviously, this wasn't for me.
I didn't find it funny - there's a lot of drug use, for one (which doesn't offend me or anything; I just find it boring), and there's a dog death as well (which only bothered me a little, because there's not any way to get particularly attached to the dog in question, but still). Both were probably supposed to be much more humorous than I found them.
It didn't help that I couldn't care either way what happened to either Grady or James.
I didn't hate this book or anything, but it's the most solid "meh" in a while.