Scan barcode
A review by llynn66
The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer
3.0
I have wondered throughout my life about how it would be to age backwards. The conceit always captured my imagination and I focused only on the positives. You would get what are, perhaps, your hardest years over with first...frailty, pains, faulty memory, and the other ravages of time would fall away, a year at a time, to reveal a version of yourself that was stronger, sharper and more attractive. Yet, because you age in reverse, your youthful days would also contain the wisdom garnered by a life instead of the foolishness that characterizes so many of our decisions and priorities at 20. And I thought that, by getting younger instead of older, one could overcome the fear of death...leaving this world in the oblivion of infancy rather than with the weariness and knowledge of old age.
The Confessions of Max Tivoli posits such a life and reminds the reader of the downside to such a fantasy. Max is a tragic figure. He is born an ugly wizened creature with the face of someone in their seventies. (Not that 70 is so very old...this is one issue I had with the story. Why not birth Max as a Centenarian and go for broke?) As he 'ages' he becomes a more vital man of middling years and meets his lifelong muse in Alice, the girl who lives downstairs.
The rest is a poignant unraveling of a singular life that is fated to be tragic. I enjoy Greer's imagination and his writing. As in The Story of a Marriage, he plays with the concepts of illicit relationships. In the former Greer dealt with the dual taboos of a homosexual and inter-racial relationship in the 1950s. The Confessions of Max Tivoli also explores relationships the greater society will not accept, but does so in extremis. Although Max is really a youth of 17 when he first encounters young Alice, he appears to the world (and to the object of his adoration) as an "old bear" of 50. There is some Nabakov here. And also some Proust. Max lives in the past more than most. (And, if we are being honest, most of us revisit the past obsessively throughout our lives.)
Max's love can only be toxic under the circumstances under which he must live out his days. The strongest writing comes through in the passages that deal with the way the characters wound one another with feelings they cannot control. In this way, I found the style and impact to be similar to The Story of a Marriage, which I read earlier this year.
I do not remember ever having read Benjamin Button (although I am a Fitzgerald fan and own some of his short stories.) I will definitely have to seek out that story to round out my reading a bit more.
I am giving this title 3 stars instead of 4,. Although I did enjoy it and felt that, at times, the writing was of higher than average quality, somehow I wanted "just a little more" from this title. I am frustrated that I cannot articulate exactly what else I wanted to see/feel/experience with the story...maybe i have toyed with this concept in my own mind for so long that had unreasonable expectations. Still, I will remember this book and many of the characters for a long time to come.
The Confessions of Max Tivoli posits such a life and reminds the reader of the downside to such a fantasy. Max is a tragic figure. He is born an ugly wizened creature with the face of someone in their seventies. (Not that 70 is so very old...this is one issue I had with the story. Why not birth Max as a Centenarian and go for broke?) As he 'ages' he becomes a more vital man of middling years and meets his lifelong muse in Alice, the girl who lives downstairs.
The rest is a poignant unraveling of a singular life that is fated to be tragic. I enjoy Greer's imagination and his writing. As in The Story of a Marriage, he plays with the concepts of illicit relationships. In the former Greer dealt with the dual taboos of a homosexual and inter-racial relationship in the 1950s. The Confessions of Max Tivoli also explores relationships the greater society will not accept, but does so in extremis. Although Max is really a youth of 17 when he first encounters young Alice, he appears to the world (and to the object of his adoration) as an "old bear" of 50. There is some Nabakov here. And also some Proust. Max lives in the past more than most. (And, if we are being honest, most of us revisit the past obsessively throughout our lives.)
Max's love can only be toxic under the circumstances under which he must live out his days. The strongest writing comes through in the passages that deal with the way the characters wound one another with feelings they cannot control. In this way, I found the style and impact to be similar to The Story of a Marriage, which I read earlier this year.
I do not remember ever having read Benjamin Button (although I am a Fitzgerald fan and own some of his short stories.) I will definitely have to seek out that story to round out my reading a bit more.
I am giving this title 3 stars instead of 4,. Although I did enjoy it and felt that, at times, the writing was of higher than average quality, somehow I wanted "just a little more" from this title. I am frustrated that I cannot articulate exactly what else I wanted to see/feel/experience with the story...maybe i have toyed with this concept in my own mind for so long that had unreasonable expectations. Still, I will remember this book and many of the characters for a long time to come.