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tarryncurrentlyreading's review
5.0
“There was a tremendous rupture of some kind, totally unprecedented, or else it was a rerun of something that had happened many times before, maybe somewhere in space, except no, this rupture created space, at least this time around it did, space and everything in it.
Eons later, a girl kissed Moody Fellow.”
Maybe I’m just simple or maybe I’m not nearly as jaded as I assume myself to be, but I tend to be drawn to obscure profundity, the likes of which can be exemplified by this quickie of a book in a very lovely way.
A Moody Fellow Finds Love and Then Dies is more honest than most books I’ve read in a long time, starting, very clearly, with its up-front title, what it is all about. There are no tricks here, folks. You know exactly what you’re getting into just by reading those 8 words. And yes, our main character’s name really is Moody Fellow, and no it’s not nearly as annoying as you might think heading into this book. Moody Fellow is, truthfully, quite unremarkable. He’s gullible, awkward, and as is oftentimes true with most guys – hell, most people, he is a blundering idiot. He is no superhero. He’s definitely not smooth with the ladies. He has a family, he has feelings, he’s pretty good at tennis. He is a billion different people on this earth who are walking around just trying to get by and unsure of what to do. He is unremarkable and that, in my opinion, is what makes him an interesting main character.
As we follow Moody through his first few kisses and to college, we are taken along with the story of Amanda, an eccentric, sexually liberated, hipsteresque young woman who is essentially the most gorgeous female residing on planet earth. Her thought process can seem quite destructive, as is her constant need to be as interesting as she can possibly feel, yet she graces the story with some surprisingly insightful and biting concepts.
“One day it occurred to her that if she was going to go through life feeling as if she’d done something wrong, she might as well do something wrong.”
During this short tale we come to know two other characters, Chad, a middle-aged artist who will become the father of the New Cubist movement (though he doesn’t know it yet), and his shrink Dr. Love. All of our characters’ stories will eventually intertwine in one way or another.
There are moments of sheer absurdity in this book that seem to perfectly fit in the format which the story. Reading it was a very unique experience for me as the narrators are a very active presence in this book. They want you to know they are the ultimate omnipresent voice, they know everything. The narrators thoughts are often interjected into the story; little anecdotes or funnies separate from the tales of our characters, though they never seem to detract from what is happening.
As bizarre as this story can be, it is immensely refreshing and insightful. It delves into basic human issues and emotions that are so complex and dense and carefully pulls them apart neatly within less than 200 pages. It’s quite beautiful to watch unfold. And although you are informed of how this story will end from the very start, I was never once drawn away from this quirky yet profound little tale.
Random Favorite Quotes:
“There’s been a war, he thought (picturing the charred corpses that day’s newspaper had shown), but we’re all supposed to just get on with our lives as if nothing had happened. It was his first real lesson in philosophy.”
“The sadness came in waves that washed not over him but right through him, through the center of him. He secretly believed that his greatest gift to the world would be to take that sadness with him when he was buried.”
“Am I alive? She would sometimes think. The ennui would just sit there and say, Well? Are You?”
“Never break a taboo because you wish to be the one to break it. Break it because you want to see what the pieces look like.”
“Growing up, if he understood the concept correctly, meant accepting the world as it was.”
I recommend this book to any and all interested in something a little different. I would say, too, that if you liked Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, give this a try. It isn’t nearly as heavy or emotional, but it seems similar to me in the way of a unique, humorous, yet powerful narrative.
“The rest, dear reader, is fictional history.”
drewsof's review
5.0
Lovely, silly, funny, heartwarming -- just like life. A cute little book indeed.
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