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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
I wish I had quit this book when I first thought about it (30%ish) but with so much praise, I thought there might be something better coming ahead. Nothing ever happens. The timeline is jumbled and the shifts aren’t clear. There’s very little about the actual game Sean creates which was the only real interesting part, the book description is very misleading.
It’s just pages and pages of a guy living too much inside his own head and not ever connecting to anything or anyone around him. He just rambles on and on about things that don’t happen and then jumps to another scene and nothing happens outside of his head again! It reads like the disconnected and sometimes incoherent thoughts of a social/psychopath
It’s just pages and pages of a guy living too much inside his own head and not ever connecting to anything or anyone around him. He just rambles on and on about things that don’t happen and then jumps to another scene and nothing happens outside of his head again! It reads like the disconnected and sometimes incoherent thoughts of a social/psychopath
Wolf in White Van tells the story of Sean Phillips, a reclusive game designer whose face has been horribly disfigured from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the end result of a failed suicide attempt. Alternating between different moments in Sean's life, he describes peoples' reactions to his appearance and his encounters with others both before and after the shooting. Having recovered from his injury, the isolated and pain-addled Sean earns a small income through his very own play-by-mail role-playing game called Trace Italian. The snail-mail game ultimately becomes his own secluded realm, a place of solace in which he shares with faceless strangers—two of whom take the fictive world to fatal extremes.
The writing is nothing short of spellbinding. Debut author John Darnielle, who hails from Bloomington (IN) and is the singer-songwriter for the Mountain Goats, writes in lengthy, lyrical sentences, a rather stream-of-unconsciousness style not unlike his music. What's especially enthralling is how the fractured narrative mirrors Sean’s splintered personality. Interestingly, his retro RPG serves as a deflection of his deep-seated guilt even as Sean finds himself potentially culpable for his adolescent fans’ perverse misinterpretations of said game. Darnielle’s novel is reflective of how heavy-metal music, horror films, violent video games, Dungeons & Dragons, and other artistic outlets have been cited for their presumed roles in suicides and mass murders.
I’m quite partial to the story’s open-ended conclusion, though admittedly I really wanted to know what the fates held in store for Sean. The novel's failure to espouse a final answer of his complicity actually works to its effectiveness. Readers will have many questions after they've finished the last page, but our inability to discern Sean's future is as frustratingly elusive and the possibility of foreseeing our own end. Don’t get me wrong, this book is genuine and deserves to be read. The writing alone makes it a worthwhile undertaking. The evocative parallels one draws between life and Trace Italian are compelling. With its infinite choices and labyrinthine storylines, life is not unlike a role-playing game; a meticulous choose-your-own-adventure in which the possibility of Death lurks around every corner—and Death will always prevail in the end.
Despite its grave subject matter, Wolf in White Van is a beguiling story from cover to cover. Vivid and profound, Darnielle's novel is one of the best I’ve read in a long while. Laced with authenticity and peppered with thought-provoking metaphors and colorful language—and let’s not forget, the lengthy exegesis of 80s cult film, Krull (a favorite from my childhood)—this striking mediation on the puissance of escapism is an absolute must-read.
The writing is nothing short of spellbinding. Debut author John Darnielle, who hails from Bloomington (IN) and is the singer-songwriter for the Mountain Goats, writes in lengthy, lyrical sentences, a rather stream-of-unconsciousness style not unlike his music. What's especially enthralling is how the fractured narrative mirrors Sean’s splintered personality. Interestingly, his retro RPG serves as a deflection of his deep-seated guilt even as Sean finds himself potentially culpable for his adolescent fans’ perverse misinterpretations of said game. Darnielle’s novel is reflective of how heavy-metal music, horror films, violent video games, Dungeons & Dragons, and other artistic outlets have been cited for their presumed roles in suicides and mass murders.
I’m quite partial to the story’s open-ended conclusion, though admittedly I really wanted to know what the fates held in store for Sean. The novel's failure to espouse a final answer of his complicity actually works to its effectiveness. Readers will have many questions after they've finished the last page, but our inability to discern Sean's future is as frustratingly elusive and the possibility of foreseeing our own end. Don’t get me wrong, this book is genuine and deserves to be read. The writing alone makes it a worthwhile undertaking. The evocative parallels one draws between life and Trace Italian are compelling. With its infinite choices and labyrinthine storylines, life is not unlike a role-playing game; a meticulous choose-your-own-adventure in which the possibility of Death lurks around every corner—and Death will always prevail in the end.
Despite its grave subject matter, Wolf in White Van is a beguiling story from cover to cover. Vivid and profound, Darnielle's novel is one of the best I’ve read in a long while. Laced with authenticity and peppered with thought-provoking metaphors and colorful language—and let’s not forget, the lengthy exegesis of 80s cult film, Krull (a favorite from my childhood)—this striking mediation on the puissance of escapism is an absolute must-read.
How did this book get such good ratings?!
Review to come later.
Review to come later.
This was not my favorite. I read it for an assignment and while it wasn't a waste of time, I wouldn't reread it.
Sean is a very interesting character with his trauma issues and impulsivity but I would have preferred a bit more reason to the rhyme. The first half of the book is figuring out what happened and the second half is figuring out why (though both are present throughout), only I wasn't satisfied with the answer to 'why.' It's developed so that it makes sense for Sean's character but I didn't like or agree with it.
Plot-wise, not much happens even though the book is packed full and quite the roller coaster with shifting timelines. It's very much meant as a character study and does well in that. Just wasn't my cup of tea.
Sean is a very interesting character with his trauma issues and impulsivity but I would have preferred a bit more reason to the rhyme. The first half of the book is figuring out what happened and the second half is figuring out why (though both are present throughout), only I wasn't satisfied with the answer to 'why.' It's developed so that it makes sense for Sean's character but I didn't like or agree with it.
Plot-wise, not much happens even though the book is packed full and quite the roller coaster with shifting timelines. It's very much meant as a character study and does well in that. Just wasn't my cup of tea.
I really enjoyed the audiobook and was enthralled the entire time but at the end I felt something was lacking. I didn’t need to be fed a reason “why” Sean shot himself (and almost shot his parents) as a teen, but a few scenes where his demons were mentioned would have been nice. He seemed to have a pretty typical middle class life. Decent parents. Friends. Even a girl he seemed to be interested in and who was interested in him. Then suddenly he’s hiding the gun under his bed and blowing his face off. I know suicide can seem senseless when you’re on the outside looking in…but we were quite literally in Sean’s head. We knew his thoughts. Yet still no real hint on where this decision came from unless im missing it.
I don’t regret the read but do wish I gotten a little more from all aspects of the story.
I don’t regret the read but do wish I gotten a little more from all aspects of the story.
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I like the author's style. I appreciated the story even though it wasn't fleshed out as much as it could've been. But ultimately it was anticlimactic.
it took some time to get into the writing style of this book which is why I took a star off, but overall I really liked how the writing style went because it let the ending be what it was, if that makes any sense.
John Darnielle, lyricist and lead singer for The Mountain Goats, proves once again why he’s a voice to celebrate. His debut novel, Wolf in White Van, emphasizes the same themes most of his music deal with: the way we relive and process trauma as an endless mental puzzle we ascribe meaning to. The novel follows Sean, a person who suffered a personal tragedy while he was in high school, the gravity of which is slowly revealed throughout the course of the novel, as his future self deals with the ramifications of a mail-in RPG he runs out of his own house when two people take his game more seriously than he is aware of.
There is a bruised perspective that I’m sure Darnielle is more than familiar with on the nature of authorial intent and responsibility, and where the line is drawn between the two concepts. As a lyricist, he is nothing but confessional, and undoubtedly his fans range from the outwardly empathetic to those wounded with recognize-able scars, similar to John’s own battle with childhood abuse and parental neglect. As a musician, he’s channeled it into some of the greatest music of the last few decades, but as a novelist he’s now been given the freedom to paint more abstractly. I can imagine Wolf in White Van being very therapeutic for him, in a way his music can never be. Confessing and addressing can only get you so far. It’s when you play the record backwards, that you can start to hear the real message hidden within. Or do you? Darnielle chides the religious fanatics who look for these kinds of simple answers for why traumatic art is the devil’s work, but Darnielle also leaves room for the idea that any interpretation of art is valid. Why limit something so full of infinite possibilities? The important thing is that somebody wrote it, not that somebody can misread it.
There is a bruised perspective that I’m sure Darnielle is more than familiar with on the nature of authorial intent and responsibility, and where the line is drawn between the two concepts. As a lyricist, he is nothing but confessional, and undoubtedly his fans range from the outwardly empathetic to those wounded with recognize-able scars, similar to John’s own battle with childhood abuse and parental neglect. As a musician, he’s channeled it into some of the greatest music of the last few decades, but as a novelist he’s now been given the freedom to paint more abstractly. I can imagine Wolf in White Van being very therapeutic for him, in a way his music can never be. Confessing and addressing can only get you so far. It’s when you play the record backwards, that you can start to hear the real message hidden within. Or do you? Darnielle chides the religious fanatics who look for these kinds of simple answers for why traumatic art is the devil’s work, but Darnielle also leaves room for the idea that any interpretation of art is valid. Why limit something so full of infinite possibilities? The important thing is that somebody wrote it, not that somebody can misread it.
