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A review by kirstiecat
Drop City by T.C. Boyle
4.0
I really wanted to like this more and upon pondering all of the novels I have read by T.C. Boyle thus far, I am kind of wondering if I just started out with the one that had the most interesting topic to me, Talk Talk. Suffice it to say, I'd rather read about the frustrating experience of being a deaf woman in America and having your identity stolen then a bunch of hippies who move from California to Alaska and their adventures. Boyle always does enough research and he recaptures the energy and the issues of that time both the anti war and the anti hippie sentiments, the irresponsible drug use, the racism that reared it's head more obviously than it does in our present day, the "free love," the lawlessness within the community, how things break down over time. Though, honestly, what TC Boyle does best above all is what he always does best, which is simply be a great writer. He's an incredible one and when he writes you can't help but be more interested in the story even if it isn't your thing.
Well, this one isn't going to change your life. It isn't going to change your perception of the time, unless starting from a place of ignorance. If you like to read about this time period and if you appreciate great writing, you'll like the book. There's a rawness he captures and even a baseness in humanity that seems awfully realistic. Boyle shows his talent in the way he explores all kinds of people in his novels and how drastically different his full and shorter length stories can be.
Some quotes I like:
pg. 1 "The morning as a fish in a net, glistening and wriggling at the dead black border of her consciousness, but she'd never caught a fish in a net or on a hook either, so she couldn't really say if or how or why."
pg. 30 "In the morning, which came hurtling out of the sky like a Russian missile aimed straight at his brain, Pan opened his eyes on the stiff tall grass and the golden seedheads dropping over him as if he were already dead and decomposing. "
pg. 39 "Like Leda maybe, Leda all wrapped in feathered glory, Leda and the Swan. That had been her favorite poem in Lit class, and she'd read it over and over till it was part of her, all that turmoil and fatality spinning out of a single unguarded moment, and that was something, it was, but what made her face burn and her fingers tingle was the weirdness of the act itself. Picturing it. Dreaming it. The flapping of the wings, the smell, the violence."
pg. 49 "...the county health inspector would have plenty to say and it wouldn't reflect a higher consciousness either."
pg. 160 "It felt like the middle of the night, but it was light out, and for the life of her she couldn't have said whether it was dawn or dusk. The light had no source, direction-it just held, as gray and dense as water, and the limbs of the oak were suspended in it like the superstructure of a dream.:
pg. 207 "When Pamela stepped in the door, there was nobody in the place, though it was ten 'clock in the morning and people were moving up and down the street outside like bloodclots working their slow way through the veins of the town."
pg. 257 "Nothing's the way you picture it," Star said. "The mind creates its own reality, and how could the real and actual thing ever match that? It's like a movie compared to a cartoon."
...
"Or a book," Maya said. "A book compared to a movie."
pg. 315 "...because it would be nice to get a letter once in a while, to correspond, to reaffirm that there was a world out there beyond the cool drift of the river. As she went back up the hill with the laden plate the polar sun reached out and pinned her shadow to the ground."
pg. 417 "The moon was a terrifically heavy thing as he crouched there beneath it-unsupportable, that moon, crushing..."
Well, this one isn't going to change your life. It isn't going to change your perception of the time, unless starting from a place of ignorance. If you like to read about this time period and if you appreciate great writing, you'll like the book. There's a rawness he captures and even a baseness in humanity that seems awfully realistic. Boyle shows his talent in the way he explores all kinds of people in his novels and how drastically different his full and shorter length stories can be.
Some quotes I like:
pg. 1 "The morning as a fish in a net, glistening and wriggling at the dead black border of her consciousness, but she'd never caught a fish in a net or on a hook either, so she couldn't really say if or how or why."
pg. 30 "In the morning, which came hurtling out of the sky like a Russian missile aimed straight at his brain, Pan opened his eyes on the stiff tall grass and the golden seedheads dropping over him as if he were already dead and decomposing. "
pg. 39 "Like Leda maybe, Leda all wrapped in feathered glory, Leda and the Swan. That had been her favorite poem in Lit class, and she'd read it over and over till it was part of her, all that turmoil and fatality spinning out of a single unguarded moment, and that was something, it was, but what made her face burn and her fingers tingle was the weirdness of the act itself. Picturing it. Dreaming it. The flapping of the wings, the smell, the violence."
pg. 49 "...the county health inspector would have plenty to say and it wouldn't reflect a higher consciousness either."
pg. 160 "It felt like the middle of the night, but it was light out, and for the life of her she couldn't have said whether it was dawn or dusk. The light had no source, direction-it just held, as gray and dense as water, and the limbs of the oak were suspended in it like the superstructure of a dream.:
pg. 207 "When Pamela stepped in the door, there was nobody in the place, though it was ten 'clock in the morning and people were moving up and down the street outside like bloodclots working their slow way through the veins of the town."
pg. 257 "Nothing's the way you picture it," Star said. "The mind creates its own reality, and how could the real and actual thing ever match that? It's like a movie compared to a cartoon."
...
"Or a book," Maya said. "A book compared to a movie."
pg. 315 "...because it would be nice to get a letter once in a while, to correspond, to reaffirm that there was a world out there beyond the cool drift of the river. As she went back up the hill with the laden plate the polar sun reached out and pinned her shadow to the ground."
pg. 417 "The moon was a terrifically heavy thing as he crouched there beneath it-unsupportable, that moon, crushing..."