You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
Amazing! All in verse but just like reading a novel in prose.... and many SF and Palo Alto scenes in the 80s! A little Berkeley reference too, where I was in 1986 when this was published! Printers Inc shoutouts! :) I read A Suitable Boy and An Equal Music years ago, I remember really enjoying them at the time. Now I'm curious what other writings he had done since. Must re-con. I guess this would've been a 5 if I'd liked some of the characters a little more... I grew to like some of them towards the end.
WARNING: May cause reader to start thinking in sonnets.
As I finished this novel in verse I was left conflicted. I loved the language, the soaring images. I did not care for the characters. Personally I was hoping a mighty wave would’ve swept all of them away. Anticipating Franzen’s rank and file, Seth gives us a half dozen achievers who universally succeed in annoying me to no end. I just didn’t care but I read to the end, enjoying the Sunday trips to the coast and the fate of an ancient pickup.
It's dark. He drives. The street lamps glimmer
Through the cooling air. The golden globes
By City Hall glow, and the glimmer
--Like sequins on black velvet robes--
Of lights shines out across the water
Across the bay, unruffled daughter
Of the Pacific; on the crests
Of hill and bridge red light congests
The sky with rubies. Briskly blinking,
Planes--Venus-bright--traverse the sky.
Ed drives on, hardly knowing why,
Across the tall-spanned bridge. Unthinking,
He parks, and looks out past the strait
The deep flood of the Golden Gate.
Subdued and silent, he surveys it--
The loveliest city in the world.
No veiling words suffice to praise it,
But if you saw it as, light-pearled,
Fog-fingered, pinnacled, I see it
Across the black tide, you'd agree it
Outvied the magic of your own.
Even tonight, as Ed, alone,
Makes out Marina, plaza, tower,
Fort Point, Presidio--he feels
A benediction as it steals
Over his heart with its still power.
This is a perfect little read about a few friends living in 1980s San Francisco. The story is told entirely in rhyming verse as excerpted above, and though the plot never feels particularly adventurous or sweeping in scope, it is an emotionally moving story about friends dealing with love, loss, homosexuality, fear of nuclear war, and moving in with your girlfriend only to find that her cat hates you.
Yes, the bit about nuclear war seems odd in the overall context of the story, which otherwise mostly focuses on romantic and family relationships. A substantial portion of a chapter is devoted to an anti-nuclear sermon that might just slightly resemble Father Mapple's sermon in Moby Dick, in its use as an exposition device for the themes: "Hate shifts with diplomatic fashion. / To love is to be resolute."
The rest of the story follows the yuppies--a young techie, a lawyer, a sculptor, and their friends and families. That might not appeal to everyone. But the language, the relationships, and the emotionally charged ending (which I will hint, with a probably unnecessary spoiler tag, is).
Recommended for modern day poets and lovers of the city by the bay.
Through the cooling air. The golden globes
By City Hall glow, and the glimmer
--Like sequins on black velvet robes--
Of lights shines out across the water
Across the bay, unruffled daughter
Of the Pacific; on the crests
Of hill and bridge red light congests
The sky with rubies. Briskly blinking,
Planes--Venus-bright--traverse the sky.
Ed drives on, hardly knowing why,
Across the tall-spanned bridge. Unthinking,
He parks, and looks out past the strait
The deep flood of the Golden Gate.
Subdued and silent, he surveys it--
The loveliest city in the world.
No veiling words suffice to praise it,
But if you saw it as, light-pearled,
Fog-fingered, pinnacled, I see it
Across the black tide, you'd agree it
Outvied the magic of your own.
Even tonight, as Ed, alone,
Makes out Marina, plaza, tower,
Fort Point, Presidio--he feels
A benediction as it steals
Over his heart with its still power.
This is a perfect little read about a few friends living in 1980s San Francisco. The story is told entirely in rhyming verse as excerpted above, and though the plot never feels particularly adventurous or sweeping in scope, it is an emotionally moving story about friends dealing with love, loss, homosexuality, fear of nuclear war, and moving in with your girlfriend only to find that her cat hates you.
Yes, the bit about nuclear war seems odd in the overall context of the story, which otherwise mostly focuses on romantic and family relationships. A substantial portion of a chapter is devoted to an anti-nuclear sermon that might just slightly resemble Father Mapple's sermon in Moby Dick, in its use as an exposition device for the themes: "Hate shifts with diplomatic fashion. / To love is to be resolute."
The rest of the story follows the yuppies--a young techie, a lawyer, a sculptor, and their friends and families. That might not appeal to everyone. But the language, the relationships, and the emotionally charged ending (which I will hint, with a probably unnecessary spoiler tag, is
Spoiler
tragic, and not quite expectedRecommended for modern day poets and lovers of the city by the bay.
This book is absolutely brilliant, but I'm afraid I couldn't finish it. The verse was simply too distracting, and almost hypnotic. I couldn't keep a track of the narrative, the characters etc., as well as trying to appreciate the brilliance of the rhyme, metre etc. More than once did I dream in verse after reading this before bed, which was not a blessing because my verse was much worse than Seth's.
I picked this book up on a whim and I was truly not expecting to like it, and here I am telling you I was very pleasantly surprised! It’s a charming, funny, witty, tragic, and sweet read that just happens to be set in one of my favorite cities.
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Set in 1980s San Francisco, this novel follows the lives of a group of twenty-somethings over the course of two years. The themes are not unique -- it's about love and loss, set against the background of possible nuclear war. The way Seth handles romance and relationships seems a little naive at times, perhaps because the characters are not all well-realised. But this is written in rhyming tetrameter, and that makes the novel extremely memorable. Some of the verse reads like doggerel, some of it is clumsy, and some of it is beautifully executed, but it's all interesting. I really enjoyed this structurally and spent time thinking about how it was composed, and I think it's well worth reading even if it can be clumsy at times. My favourites parts of this were when Seth went meta and asked himself why he was writing tetrameter and then insulted his critics -- very funny and tongue-in-cheek.