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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
This was a re-read, though I think the last time I read it was early in college. It is very good, but it's also a reminder of how much Chabon has sharpened his writing in the last 18 years.
Also, he was so very lucky to have his second novel made into a good movie. To me, it is a great example of a book that was well-adapted into a movie that isn't slavishly tied to the plot of the book, but also doesn't make changes unless they make sense. (Oddly enough, Chabon's Mysteries of Pittsburgh was an example of one of the worst movie adaptations, with weird changes that make no sense.)
All in all, a book that I am very fond of and that was fun to revisit
Also, he was so very lucky to have his second novel made into a good movie. To me, it is a great example of a book that was well-adapted into a movie that isn't slavishly tied to the plot of the book, but also doesn't make changes unless they make sense. (Oddly enough, Chabon's Mysteries of Pittsburgh was an example of one of the worst movie adaptations, with weird changes that make no sense.)
All in all, a book that I am very fond of and that was fun to revisit
Michael Chabon is just so good. The kind of author that I'd love to be. His works switch topics so significantly. What has been consistent in everything I've read of his so far is that they are so well written and great stories. This isn't as good as Kavalier & Clay, but it is still excellent.
It is the story of a college professor's life falling apart, not because of one major mistake (e.g. Disgrace), but instead just because of who he is. Serious and funny at the same time. What more can you ask for?
It is the story of a college professor's life falling apart, not because of one major mistake (e.g. Disgrace), but instead just because of who he is. Serious and funny at the same time. What more can you ask for?
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon was a little bit of a surprise for me, mostly because the other Chabon I’ve picked up in the past (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) wasn’t really all that great, which apparently is an incredibly rare opinion to hold in the blogging community, hehe. But, unlike Kavalier and Clay, something about Chabon’s mostly terse, occasionally achingly flowering prose seems to lend itself incredibly well to the novel.
The story follows Grady Tripp, an aging and pot-addicted professor who’s been working on his book, ‘Wonder Boys’ for the past seven years. His college is hosting a writing conference the weekend the book takes place, and his publisher is coming to visit. So, added to Grady’s mental pressures about finishing his failing book is the pressure to save his dissolving marriage and quickly-complicating relationship with his mistress, the dean of the college. His editor, Crabtree, shows up with a transvestite, and it soon comes out that his sexuality is not quick to be easily defined. The other main characters of the novel are Grady’s students James Leer and Hannah Green. James is a tortured boy who writes broken and confusing prose who spends most of the book trying to hide his suburban-boy roots. Hannah is a young writer who always wears red cowboy boots, lives in Grady’s basement, and idolizes him until she reads his book and realizes that perhaps too much time and to much pot has turned her hero into a surprise failure.
The characters are the best aspect of the book, to be sure, but Chabon makes a number of interesting plot twists that keep the book moving forward, and, to be honest, this has been one of the first books I’ve read in a while that actually kept me WANTING to read, made me sad at night when I had to put it down, and at the same time, kept me dreading the day when the book would end. Add to that the incredibly poetic, incredibly sad ending of the first story arc that really sets Grady free and the book carries an almost ghost-like weight, something touching and meaningful and still surprisingly happy. It’s satisfaction, but its a kind of conflicted satisfaction. I can’t recommend the book enough, and I’m tempted to go back and read Chabon’s first book, especially knowing that I don’t exactly fancy his later work.
Also, if you’re interested, there’s a pretty good film adaptation starring Michael Douglas, Toby McGuire, and Robert Downey Jr. that is rather remarkable, if lacking some of the fire that the characters in print have. Douglass does a good job portraying Grady’s detachment from his own life, although this may be more due to the voiceover narration done by Douglass through the entirety of the film. I thought that Katie Holmes (yep, back before she made Tom Cruise do his jumping up and down and she basically morphed into the American Posh Spice) did an okay job with the Hannah character, although in the book she seemed to have a little bit more…adoration of Grady rather than just a romantic attachment, which is how Holmes chooses to play it. And, of course, Robert Downey Jr. is amazing. Then again, I WILL WATCH ROBERT DOWNEY JR. IN ANYTHING AT ALL. I AM IN LOVE WITH HIM.
This weekend I’m hoping to knock out The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant, as well as The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, which is just such a fun book, and was one of my favorites as a kid, so I can’t wait to throw myself back into it! Happy reading!
“After a few years of unhappy and often depraved existence, I landed, again in the classic manner, in California, where I fell in love with a philosophy major at Berkeley who persuaded me not to waste in wandering what, she called, with an air or utter, soul-enveloping conviction that has since led to great mystery and that I have never for one instant forgotten, my gift.” – 18
“The midnight disease is a kind of emotional insomnia; at ever conscious moments its victim – even if he or she writes at dawn, or the middle of the afternoon – feels like a person lying in a sweltering bedroom, with the window thrown open, looking up at a sky filled with stars and airplanes, listening to the narrative of a rattling blind, an ambulance, a fly trapped in a coke bottle, while all around him the neighbors sleep soundly. This is in my opinion why writers – like insomniacs – are so accident-prone, so obsessed with the calculus of missed opportunities, so liable to rumination and a concomitant inability to let go of a subject, even when urged repeatedly to do so” – 20
The story follows Grady Tripp, an aging and pot-addicted professor who’s been working on his book, ‘Wonder Boys’ for the past seven years. His college is hosting a writing conference the weekend the book takes place, and his publisher is coming to visit. So, added to Grady’s mental pressures about finishing his failing book is the pressure to save his dissolving marriage and quickly-complicating relationship with his mistress, the dean of the college. His editor, Crabtree, shows up with a transvestite, and it soon comes out that his sexuality is not quick to be easily defined. The other main characters of the novel are Grady’s students James Leer and Hannah Green. James is a tortured boy who writes broken and confusing prose who spends most of the book trying to hide his suburban-boy roots. Hannah is a young writer who always wears red cowboy boots, lives in Grady’s basement, and idolizes him until she reads his book and realizes that perhaps too much time and to much pot has turned her hero into a surprise failure.
The characters are the best aspect of the book, to be sure, but Chabon makes a number of interesting plot twists that keep the book moving forward, and, to be honest, this has been one of the first books I’ve read in a while that actually kept me WANTING to read, made me sad at night when I had to put it down, and at the same time, kept me dreading the day when the book would end. Add to that the incredibly poetic, incredibly sad ending of the first story arc that really sets Grady free and the book carries an almost ghost-like weight, something touching and meaningful and still surprisingly happy. It’s satisfaction, but its a kind of conflicted satisfaction. I can’t recommend the book enough, and I’m tempted to go back and read Chabon’s first book, especially knowing that I don’t exactly fancy his later work.
Also, if you’re interested, there’s a pretty good film adaptation starring Michael Douglas, Toby McGuire, and Robert Downey Jr. that is rather remarkable, if lacking some of the fire that the characters in print have. Douglass does a good job portraying Grady’s detachment from his own life, although this may be more due to the voiceover narration done by Douglass through the entirety of the film. I thought that Katie Holmes (yep, back before she made Tom Cruise do his jumping up and down and she basically morphed into the American Posh Spice) did an okay job with the Hannah character, although in the book she seemed to have a little bit more…adoration of Grady rather than just a romantic attachment, which is how Holmes chooses to play it. And, of course, Robert Downey Jr. is amazing. Then again, I WILL WATCH ROBERT DOWNEY JR. IN ANYTHING AT ALL. I AM IN LOVE WITH HIM.
This weekend I’m hoping to knock out The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant, as well as The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, which is just such a fun book, and was one of my favorites as a kid, so I can’t wait to throw myself back into it! Happy reading!
“After a few years of unhappy and often depraved existence, I landed, again in the classic manner, in California, where I fell in love with a philosophy major at Berkeley who persuaded me not to waste in wandering what, she called, with an air or utter, soul-enveloping conviction that has since led to great mystery and that I have never for one instant forgotten, my gift.” – 18
“The midnight disease is a kind of emotional insomnia; at ever conscious moments its victim – even if he or she writes at dawn, or the middle of the afternoon – feels like a person lying in a sweltering bedroom, with the window thrown open, looking up at a sky filled with stars and airplanes, listening to the narrative of a rattling blind, an ambulance, a fly trapped in a coke bottle, while all around him the neighbors sleep soundly. This is in my opinion why writers – like insomniacs – are so accident-prone, so obsessed with the calculus of missed opportunities, so liable to rumination and a concomitant inability to let go of a subject, even when urged repeatedly to do so” – 20
I'd been waiting years for Chabon's follow-up to The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, and when this came out I was three days away from a deadline for a Ph.D. paper. Instead of writing the paper, I read Wonder Boys. It was effortlessly funny, and the unbridled lyricism of his first book had been reined in just enough so that the characters and their lives were first and foremost in the novel. Which is as it should be.
Again, I can’t find fault with Chabon’s style and use of language, but whereas Kavalier & Clay kept me rapt throughout, I found myself drifting from the narrator/protagonist the further into the novel I delved. He’s well observed and fleshed out, but there wasn’t enough about him to hold my attention fully. In truth I found myself more engaged in the periphery cast of Lear and Crabtree. Nonetheless, an outstanding perspective on the threadbare subject of a failing writer.
This is an academic novel about Grady Tripp, a creative writing professor in Pittsburgh who has a major case of writer's block. The action takes place on a Writer's Festival weekend, in which all Tripp's mistakes in life converge to bring one disaster after another upon him. At times it seemed that the plot could be completely contrived from an exercise to write a story that includes a tuba, a dead dog, and a theft. The twists and turns of poor Tripp's weekend from hell kept me completely engaged.
A strong, early Chabon. It has all the things that I love about Michael Chabon: the quirky characters, the beautiful filigreed prose, the androgenous and ambiguous lovers. But, it also contains more warmth and crazy energy than some of his later books. And I appreciate that. I appreciate the feeling that this book ran past Chabon's careful editing. Its kinetic narrative isn't about to be slowed by careful massaging. To Hell with all that. In someways it feels a bit like the Pastoral Wanderings of Don Quixote (just replace Rocinante and Sancho Panza with a dead dog and a tuba). IT also at times feels like a Greek New Comedy with the chorus singing through the vortex ring of Afghan Indica pot smoke. So yeah, I liked it good enough.
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- Robert Farwell / Edward Jones library / Mesa, AZ 2014
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- Robert Farwell / Edward Jones library / Mesa, AZ 2014
Michael Chabon is such a stunning writer, but this book was just not for me. There are a few guys I knew in college who would've drooled over it, and I do know a lot of people who would've been able to read it critically. I couldn't get over how uncomfortable it was to read from the narrator's perspective, and I thought much of the plot was pretty predictable. I wanted more in some parts (I am desperate to see more of Terry, please, and Deborah) and a whole lot less in others (I like Hannah and all, but really. I mean really.).
Part of the point of this book may have been to expose the destructive self-obsession of people like Kerouac, whose wildness served as an inspiration for the narrator as a young man, but reading about an older sadder more obviously messed up version of Kerouac wasn't overly fun. I guess I'd prefer to be left to my teenage beat boys delusions.
Part of the point of this book may have been to expose the destructive self-obsession of people like Kerouac, whose wildness served as an inspiration for the narrator as a young man, but reading about an older sadder more obviously messed up version of Kerouac wasn't overly fun. I guess I'd prefer to be left to my teenage beat boys delusions.
My favorite book written by my favorite author, Michael Chabon. Professor Grady Tripp is a former best-selling author whose latest book has become a 2,000 page unfinishable monkey on his back. His editor is under pressure from the publisher to obtain what should be a great sophomore effort. His wife has left him and his mistress is pregnant. He smokes too much pot and blacks out occasionally. He is driftless and directionless. All the while he somehow become attached to one of his students, James Leer, a disturbed, but extremely talented young man.
This book follows one weekend of pure mayhem in the life of Grady Tripp. It is very humorous and can be moving in parts. Michael Chabon is a gifted writer, and his prose is flawless. The ending is one of redemption and resolve without being overly-sentimental.
As a side note, I liked this book so much I named my son Grady!
As yet another side note, this is one of the few books made into a movie where the movie is GREAT! I wish they had kept the passover scene though....
This book follows one weekend of pure mayhem in the life of Grady Tripp. It is very humorous and can be moving in parts. Michael Chabon is a gifted writer, and his prose is flawless. The ending is one of redemption and resolve without being overly-sentimental.
As a side note, I liked this book so much I named my son Grady!
As yet another side note, this is one of the few books made into a movie where the movie is GREAT! I wish they had kept the passover scene though....