A review by scarlett22
A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker

funny hopeful reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

The short span of this novel made it go by in a flash. Overall, it felt lacking in content for me but I can't find fault with this as I assume that was somewhat the point. Every morning, our main character wakes up at 4 am, makes coffee in the dark (so as not to fully bring himself into the world of the awake yet), and lights a match in his fireplace. For the remainder of the morning he sits there, contemplates the domestic intimacies of the life he's lived and postulates about the deeper meaning of his life. While there is no plot in this novel, the main character and his family are endearing enough that I wasn't bothered by this and enjoyed reading about the daily routine of his pet duck, the accidental ant farm and funeral home, and the general mundanities of his life. This novel attempts to make the mundane, profound, and I think it half succeeded in this task. I found myself appreciating the self-reflection that this novel must have required to write. It is quite hard, I must assume, to write a novel about the seemingly nothingness of someone's life when you've had to make all that nothingness out of thin air. While it is hard to believe that this novel is fiction and not the actual life of the author, I am impressed if it is so. I enjoyed this novel, even if it didn't impact me to my core. Sometimes the simple is good.