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4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
A masterpiece; quite simply the dual narration and the capture of Americana at its peak really sums up Towles' narrative brilliance - able to echo Steinbeck whilst maintaining a unique feel that captures America in a way that few have told before. So many fascinating characters here, Pastor John is straight out of Night of the Hunter, and the book skilfully moves away from its main focus of Emmett to a wider ensemble - good and bad; all well rounded, all interesting - and Towles finds a way to recpature the same events in a different perspective that never feels dull or boring. A Gentlemen in Moscow next please.
I had heard mixed reviews about this book but I loved it just as much as Gentleman in Moscow. He is so good at weaving together a story full of twists and turns all while developing the characters in the most intriguing way. Recommend!!
Another well-written book by Amor Towles. I'll admit right away that this was my least favorite of Amor's books (still have to read "Table for Two"). It didn't quite capture my intrigue in both the storyline and the characters as "A Gentleman in Moscow" or "Rules of Civility" did early on and throughout the books. However, the story did take me places I didn't think it would, and the ending went in a different direction than I thought it might. (Side note: there are some interesting discussions/theories in the 'questions' section for this book here on Goodreads.) Curious if there might be a part two in the future.
The ending of this book threw me for a loop and somewhat soured the entire rest of the novel for me. If you’ve read it you know what I’m talking about. Not only does our main character and moral compass of the story behave very out of character and put his erstwhile friend in a horrible Jigsaw-esque murder trap, leading directly to his death, the whole tone was completely at odds with the previous 98.5% of the book.
Throughout, the whole novel had the flavor of a Wes Anderson movie, nothing utterly unbelievable really happened but everything was so twee and the characters spent so long exchanging snappy, glittering dialogue and there was such an abundance of pithy maxims and purple prose, that you knew this wasn't quite the real world. It veered at times into a watered down sort of fantasy for me.
That this same book should end with a central character, whose perspective we’ve shared, whose backstory we know, and whose intentions, however misguided were almost always benign and usually thoughtful, should die, drowning after his former friend put him in a damaged rowboat without an oar, was a radical departure to say the least.
More confusing still, Emmet, our main protagonist, spent all book working through his guilt over accidentally killing another boy in a fight two years prior. He worked admirably on controlling his anger and has largely mastered it, although he will always feel guilt for the life he took, however unintentionally. For Emmet to make all that progress and then deliberately put Duchess in a damaged boat, knowing full well he can’t swim, strains credulity. That Emmet, who was shown to be practical and thoughtful, and who had hours in which to plan something to keep Duchess at bay, should decide on this course of action means, to me, he either took leave of his senses or else intended serious harm. In either case its a baffling end to the novel.
I know that it appears that the author was saying Duchess’ death is his own doing, really, since he couldn’t control his greed and jostled the leaky rowboat by reaching for the money in its bow as it scattered on the wind. I don’t really buy that. Authorial intent aside, that’s not enough justification for this to seem like anything other than manslaughter at best and murder at worst.
Maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe something the author was trying to say sailed right over my head. But based on my current impressions and understandings, this ending seems like something of a slap in the face and a terrific volte-face that leaves me feeling disoriented, unfulfilled, and not a little annoyed with the writer.
Throughout, the whole novel had the flavor of a Wes Anderson movie, nothing utterly unbelievable really happened but everything was so twee and the characters spent so long exchanging snappy, glittering dialogue and there was such an abundance of pithy maxims and purple prose, that you knew this wasn't quite the real world. It veered at times into a watered down sort of fantasy for me.
That this same book should end with a central character, whose perspective we’ve shared, whose backstory we know, and whose intentions, however misguided were almost always benign and usually thoughtful, should die, drowning after his former friend put him in a damaged rowboat without an oar, was a radical departure to say the least.
More confusing still, Emmet, our main protagonist, spent all book working through his guilt over accidentally killing another boy in a fight two years prior. He worked admirably on controlling his anger and has largely mastered it, although he will always feel guilt for the life he took, however unintentionally. For Emmet to make all that progress and then deliberately put Duchess in a damaged boat, knowing full well he can’t swim, strains credulity. That Emmet, who was shown to be practical and thoughtful, and who had hours in which to plan something to keep Duchess at bay, should decide on this course of action means, to me, he either took leave of his senses or else intended serious harm. In either case its a baffling end to the novel.
I know that it appears that the author was saying Duchess’ death is his own doing, really, since he couldn’t control his greed and jostled the leaky rowboat by reaching for the money in its bow as it scattered on the wind. I don’t really buy that. Authorial intent aside, that’s not enough justification for this to seem like anything other than manslaughter at best and murder at worst.
Maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe something the author was trying to say sailed right over my head. But based on my current impressions and understandings, this ending seems like something of a slap in the face and a terrific volte-face that leaves me feeling disoriented, unfulfilled, and not a little annoyed with the writer.
Amor Towles is a master of his craft. This book reminded why I love to read... and has inspired me to seek out and share stories more than ever before.
"To hold another man in disdain, his father would say, presumed that you knew so much about his lot, so much about his intentions, about his actions both public and private that you could rank his character against your own without fear of misjudgment." …yet we all do it.
My third by Amor Towles…fell in love with these characters as much as I did in A Gentleman in Moscow. Brilliant!
My third by Amor Towles…fell in love with these characters as much as I did in A Gentleman in Moscow. Brilliant!
Readers expecting another A Gentleman in Moscow will receive a surprise because this book is very different in terms of style. But just like Towles’ previous book, it is a great read.
The novel covers ten days in June of 1954. Emmett Watson, 18, arrives home after serving a sentence in a juvenile reformatory. Since he and his eight-year-old brother Billy are orphans, they decide to leave their Nebraska home and set out for California in Emmett’s 1948 Studebaker to begin a new life. Before they can leave, two of Emmett’s fellow inmates, Duchess and Woolly, arrive with alternate travel plans. Instead of heading west, the Watsons have to make a detour to New York City and not always in Emmett’s car.
The book is narrated from multiple perspectives, most in the third person. Only Duchess’ chapters and those of Sally, a neighbour of the Watsons, are in first person. Often the same event is seen from the viewpoint of more than one character. Characters also reveal their opinions of others; for instance Duchess admires Emmett’s integrity and Woolly is well aware of Duchess’s tendency to exaggerate: “For when it came to telling stories, Duchess was a bit of a Paul Bunyan, for whom the snow was always ten feet deep, and the river as wide as the sea.”
This structure allows all characters to be fully realized. Emmett emerges as a decent young man who loves his brother and is determined to make a better life for both of them. Billy is an endearing child, trusting and precocious but naïve. Sally is stubborn and independent. Woolly is kind and has a childlike sense of wonder. Duchess is a charismatic charmer, described by one man as “one of the most entertaining shit slingers whom I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet,” but he is selfish and manipulative. Because detailed backstories are provided for everyone, the reader comes to understand characters’ motivations and see that all are flawed. No one is totally perfect or imperfect. My one complaint about the characters is that they often seem older than their biological ages.
Billy is obsessed with a book compiling stories of heroes and adventurers, some real and some mythical. These stories are referenced often. What is emphasized is that each of the characters in the novel sets out on a journey with a personal agenda. Emmett wants to go to Texas but Billy convinces him to go to California because he wants to find someone. Duchess and Woolly want to go to the summer home of Woolly’s family in the Adirondacks, though their specific reasons for that visit are different.
Billy’s book combines stories “of the greatest minds of the scientific age,” like Galileo, da Vinci and Edison, and legends of “mythical heroes” like Hercules, Theseus, and Jason, to suggest “That shoulder to shoulder they traveled through the realms of the known and the unknown making the most of their intelligence and courage, yes, but also sorcery and enchantment and the occasional intervention of the gods.” Like legendary travellers and real-life discoverers, Billy and Emmett encounter obstacles, and both dangerous people and people who are genuinely kind. They are sometimes taken off course. They both learn lessons along the way.
The point seems to be that life is a journey, but people get to make choices about where they want to go: “Maybe, just maybe what [God] requires of us, what He expects of us, what He hopes for us is that . . . we will go out into the world and find [our missions] for ourselves.” Everyone can be a hero or adventurer. Emmett’s father quotes Emerson to encourage his son to choose his own path “and in so doing discover that which he alone was capable of.” We can determine our fates: “For only when you have seen that you are truly forsaken will you embrace the fact that what happens next rests in your hands, and your hands alone.” This lesson Billy takes to heart. One elderly man chooses to follow in Ulysses’ footsteps (in both the literal sense and in the sense outlined in Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses”).
There is something for every reader. There is suspense when they face life-threatening danger. There is pathos in the troubled histories of so many of the characters. There is humour: “On the shelf above the fish was a recent photo of four men having just finished a round of golf. Luckily it was in color, so you could take note of all the clothes you would never want to wear.” I loved the literary allusions: a Walt Whitman impersonator is described so that “with the floppy hat on his head and his milky blue eyes, he was every bit the song of himself.”
The more I think about the novel, the more I find noteworthy. A re-reading would not be amiss. This is magical storytelling. Though the book has almost 600 pages, it does not feel lengthy in the least.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
The novel covers ten days in June of 1954. Emmett Watson, 18, arrives home after serving a sentence in a juvenile reformatory. Since he and his eight-year-old brother Billy are orphans, they decide to leave their Nebraska home and set out for California in Emmett’s 1948 Studebaker to begin a new life. Before they can leave, two of Emmett’s fellow inmates, Duchess and Woolly, arrive with alternate travel plans. Instead of heading west, the Watsons have to make a detour to New York City and not always in Emmett’s car.
The book is narrated from multiple perspectives, most in the third person. Only Duchess’ chapters and those of Sally, a neighbour of the Watsons, are in first person. Often the same event is seen from the viewpoint of more than one character. Characters also reveal their opinions of others; for instance Duchess admires Emmett’s integrity and Woolly is well aware of Duchess’s tendency to exaggerate: “For when it came to telling stories, Duchess was a bit of a Paul Bunyan, for whom the snow was always ten feet deep, and the river as wide as the sea.”
This structure allows all characters to be fully realized. Emmett emerges as a decent young man who loves his brother and is determined to make a better life for both of them. Billy is an endearing child, trusting and precocious but naïve. Sally is stubborn and independent. Woolly is kind and has a childlike sense of wonder. Duchess is a charismatic charmer, described by one man as “one of the most entertaining shit slingers whom I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet,” but he is selfish and manipulative. Because detailed backstories are provided for everyone, the reader comes to understand characters’ motivations and see that all are flawed. No one is totally perfect or imperfect. My one complaint about the characters is that they often seem older than their biological ages.
Billy is obsessed with a book compiling stories of heroes and adventurers, some real and some mythical. These stories are referenced often. What is emphasized is that each of the characters in the novel sets out on a journey with a personal agenda. Emmett wants to go to Texas but Billy convinces him to go to California because he wants to find someone. Duchess and Woolly want to go to the summer home of Woolly’s family in the Adirondacks, though their specific reasons for that visit are different.
Billy’s book combines stories “of the greatest minds of the scientific age,” like Galileo, da Vinci and Edison, and legends of “mythical heroes” like Hercules, Theseus, and Jason, to suggest “That shoulder to shoulder they traveled through the realms of the known and the unknown making the most of their intelligence and courage, yes, but also sorcery and enchantment and the occasional intervention of the gods.” Like legendary travellers and real-life discoverers, Billy and Emmett encounter obstacles, and both dangerous people and people who are genuinely kind. They are sometimes taken off course. They both learn lessons along the way.
The point seems to be that life is a journey, but people get to make choices about where they want to go: “Maybe, just maybe what [God] requires of us, what He expects of us, what He hopes for us is that . . . we will go out into the world and find [our missions] for ourselves.” Everyone can be a hero or adventurer. Emmett’s father quotes Emerson to encourage his son to choose his own path “and in so doing discover that which he alone was capable of.” We can determine our fates: “For only when you have seen that you are truly forsaken will you embrace the fact that what happens next rests in your hands, and your hands alone.” This lesson Billy takes to heart. One elderly man chooses to follow in Ulysses’ footsteps (in both the literal sense and in the sense outlined in Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses”).
There is something for every reader. There is suspense when they face life-threatening danger. There is pathos in the troubled histories of so many of the characters. There is humour: “On the shelf above the fish was a recent photo of four men having just finished a round of golf. Luckily it was in color, so you could take note of all the clothes you would never want to wear.” I loved the literary allusions: a Walt Whitman impersonator is described so that “with the floppy hat on his head and his milky blue eyes, he was every bit the song of himself.”
The more I think about the novel, the more I find noteworthy. A re-reading would not be amiss. This is magical storytelling. Though the book has almost 600 pages, it does not feel lengthy in the least.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
Wow. What a wonderful book. I enjoyed every minute of this American journey, and already miss the characters. You can feel the love and care the author has for them. Beautiful story.