Wonder Boys
by Michael Chabon
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| published
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March 1st 1998
by Dtv
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| first published
| 2006 |
| binding
| Paperback |
| isbn
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3423124172
(isbn13: 9783423124171)
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| date added
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12-21-06
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
cynics
Wonder Boys
Over Christmas I met a woman named Storm. When she found out I was a writer she became excited and inquisitive. Her therapist, she said, told her she should "reinvent" herself so she signed up for a five-day writer's workshop. She asked me all sorts of questions and I answered truthfully. I told her writing was a great way to find out who you are, and also, a great way to express yourself.
Now I come home and find this book "Wonder Boys" on my bookshelf and it...more
Wonder Boys
Over Christmas I met a woman named Storm. When she found out I was a writer she became excited and inquisitive. Her therapist, she said, told her she should "reinvent" herself so she signed up for a five-day writer's workshop. She asked me all sorts of questions and I answered truthfully. I told her writing was a great way to find out who you are, and also, a great way to express yourself.
Now I come home and find this book "Wonder Boys" on my bookshelf and it's calling out to me" "Read me!" This novel angered me. I felt it was dishonest and made a mockery of fiction writers and the craft of writing. It is the story of a creative writing professor who can't finish his epic novel. The "Wonder Boys" is a novel about writing the Wonder Boys, and takes place over the course of two days in which the protagonist is constantly stoned and/or drunk as he manages to fuckup his entire life (but comes out living happily ever after): He survives his wife leaving him; has his novel rejected by his editor and 20yr old beautiful female student; loses the manuscrpit; gets bit by a dog; is an accessory to several crimes, gets skulled with a baseball bat; gets fired; and has the self-discovery that he is a fraud. After these events, the baseball-bat-wheeling man's wife (who the hero has gotten pregnant) decides to marry him, support him, and get him a new job.
How's that for reality? Ironic because a point the author, Michael Chabon, makes is that fiction should reveal truths. I agree with that. If the life of writers is like what Chabon depicts ... well, no wonder the world is so fucked up. This is presented as a comedy. (It was made into a movie.) I didn't laugh once in reading it. I didn't cry once. I found myself only getting aggitated by its stupidity. The author makes a point of being critical of the protagonist's novel because it goes off point and rambles on and on with irrelevant discriptions. I often skipped pages of this novel for that very thing. The same can be said for the characters ... I didn't identify, or like, any of them. There was not a scene in the novel that I felt was authentic.
How's this for humor: The editor/publisher is the protagonist's best friend, and gay. He is on the backside of forty. He takes a twenty year old, suicidal, male student (who is the child of his grandfather, who raped his mother) and drugs him; and then uses him for sexual gratification. Then he rewards him by publishing HIS iffy novel and dumps the protagonist's.
One reviewer said that this novel was about "... the only things that really matter." I guess what matters is getting published and laid; and that it does NOT matter how one gets to that end, or who gets hurt in the process....less
Read in May, 2008
It's funny, but every time someone tells Grady why his novel's such a mess, I'm not sure if they mean his Wonder Boys, or the one in my hands.
Because oi, what a mess.
First off, Chabon's a great writer style-wise. He globs the description on thick, but his simile and characterization are so intricate that I let it pass that a good third of the novel is exposition. As for storytelling....
The big beefs:
1. Great first one-hundred pages. Then we're ripped out of Philade...more
It's funny, but every time someone tells Grady why his novel's such a mess, I'm not sure if they mean his Wonder Boys, or the one in my hands.
Because oi, what a mess.
First off, Chabon's a great writer style-wise. He globs the description on thick, but his simile and characterization are so intricate that I let it pass that a good third of the novel is exposition. As for storytelling....
The big beefs:
1. Great first one-hundred pages. Then we're ripped out of Philadelphia and all central plot lines (the finishing of the novel, the stolen jacket, the pregnant lover), and plopped in the middle of high Korean-Jewish holiday for a load of over-sentimental father-in-law man-love and a Passover sermon that goes on for pages. I wondered if Chabon was Jewish, because it reads more like proselytizing than storytelling. The whole trip added nothing aside from Grady's breakup with his wife (made of cardboard) and James's capture by his parents (made of stereotype). Both could have happened without having to pass out kippahs.
2. The tuba and the snake. Seriously, what the hell? If there's one thing that puts me off a good novel it's blatant attempt at oddity. Oddity and quirkiness grow best out of unique traits of character. When a writer attempts to make some aspect of his or her novel quirky, it comes off shallow, and you can just see the writer, tongue in cheek, chuckling to themselves as they type ("See?! He inexplicably steals a tuba at the airport and carts it around for the rest of the novel! It's so baffling! Isn't life random and curious?!) I could deal with the tuba, but the dead boa in the trunk made me throw the book. That paragraph had to have been inserted post-scriptum. How else was Grady going to escape the alley except by bashing Hardapple with a hundred pound dead python? Crimany.
3. Pretentiousness. People love the notion of the writer as "other," as a tortured, sleepless, quietly brilliant individual whispering in smoky cafes about Shelley and Conrad and their darker self by way of The Secret Sharer. That's not to say there are not writer cliques at universities, but the attitude always strikes me as phony. Poets dance crazy; Miltonists toke; the Byronist will have lost his pants in a tree by party's end but get up the next day to give a smooth reading on the misogyny of Dickins. They're intellectual lepers all suffering from the same disease, and again Chabon's lecturing. It's self-important pity, and I don't buy it.
Pffft. I guess Wonder Boys is kind of fun, in the way Andrew Lloyd Weber is kind of fun. Trippy, meandering, and more than a little inane. You've got to be some kind of powerful stupid to tote around a two-thousand page novel without a back-up. ...less
Read in October, 2007
For a straight man, Chabon is very gay friendly. I know there's been stuff written, possibly by Chabon himself, about early gay liaisons he undertook, but now the man's married with three, four kids. And yet Chabon's smart enough to write this:
"[James] looked over at Crabtree with a smile that was crooked and half grateful. He didn't seem particularly distressed or bewildered, I thought, on awakening to his first morning as a lover of men. While he worked his way up the buttons of my ol...more
For a straight man, Chabon is very gay friendly. I know there's been stuff written, possibly by Chabon himself, about early gay liaisons he undertook, but now the man's married with three, four kids. And yet Chabon's smart enough to write this:
"[James] looked over at Crabtree with a smile that was crooked and half grateful. He didn't seem particularly distressed or bewildered, I thought, on awakening to his first morning as a lover of men. While he worked his way up the buttons of my old flannel shirt, he kept glancing over at Crabtree, not in any mawkish way but with a deliberateness and an air of wonder, as if studying Crabtree, memorizing the geometry of his knees and elbows."
Indeed, at every point in the novel where Crabtree—the editor of the novel's narrator, Grady Tripp, who teaches James Leer in his fiction workshop—is shown gallivanting with a drag queen or seducing James, his sexuality is taken very much in stride. He's, sure, a bit of a predator, but he's so in all facets of his personality. The drugs and debauchery he pushes on other characters is far more threatening than his unforced deflowering of Grady's student.
One other thing that rings true and respectable in the novel is this point Grady makes after he realizes Crabtree won't be publishing his 2000-page unfinished novel:
"It's not fashionable, I know, in this unromantic age, for a reasonably straight man to think of finding his destiny in the love of another man, but that was how I'd always thought of Crabtree. I guess you could say that in a strange sort of way I'd always believed that Crabtree was my man, and I was his."
For a while there's been a strange part of me that has tried to argue that it's gay men that make the friendships among men more important or noteworthy somehow, that, like, in introducing the laughable danger of potential one-way attraction, or maybe just the simple idea of men finding it in themselves to devote their lives to other men, the lines between gay and straight are properly blurred, and whatever it means to be a man gets attached to a more full and honorable set of attributes.
I'm not sure I have the rhetorical ammo to fully develop the argument, but Chabon's novel seems to be pointing to something I've felt for a few years now....less
Read in March, 2008
i started this the other day simply because i picked it up and started reading the opening pages...it immediately grabbed me and i wanted to continue...
good sign yes?...
i forced myself to put it down until i finish what i'm currently in the middle of...
this guy can write as though he sold his soul to the devil...
i can't go two paragraphs without shaking my head in amazement...two examples from like the first five pages:
"i had the vague impression that my oldest friend was spea...more
i started this the other day simply because i picked it up and started reading the opening pages...it immediately grabbed me and i wanted to continue...
good sign yes?...
i forced myself to put it down until i finish what i'm currently in the middle of...
this guy can write as though he sold his soul to the devil...
i can't go two paragraphs without shaking my head in amazement...two examples from like the first five pages:
"i had the vague impression that my oldest friend was speaking to me in tones of anger and remonstrance, his words just blew by me, like curling scraps of excelsior and fish wrap, and i waved at them as they passed by."
"i knew i shouldn't have, but i did it all the same; and there you have my epitaph. or one of them, because my grave is going to require a monument inscribed on all four sides with rueful mottoes, in small characters, set close together."
it's the word choice, the construction of the sentences, the mood, the rythym...prose and poetry combined to create damn fine literature...
it makes me desire fervently that i had a shred of similar ability, but also makes me grateful that someone out there can create at this level...
i'm very much looking forward to this book...
first impressions:
i could write a lot about this book...which is problematic for me as i don't really think it's necessary for me to embark on a detailed analysis of every book i read..
but who cares...no one will read this anyway...
the structure of the book fits very nicely with the flow of the narrative because neither of them have any structure to speak of...no formal chapter divisions, no book I, book II, etc...the text just begins after the title page (similar to a certain main character's style of writing) and a small epigram from joseph conrad...which merits close examination for clues into the overarching theme of this story...
the title is particularly interesting as well, as titles are an important part of the narrative and this particular choice raises some intriguing thoughts...
i need to finish it, 40 pages to go, then i'll complete my thoughts on it...
so far this book is marvelous...
final impressions:
what a FANTASTIC BOOK!!!! if i could give it more than five stars i would...
this entire story hinges on a TUBA!!!
the burden of things that we don't choose, but find their way into our lives, and we carry them nonetheless...
a brilliant, moving, unforgettable book...one i will read again...
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bookshelves:
2008,
contemporary-fiction
Read in February, 2008
Michael Chabon is my hero and I want to have his baby. Yep, that should pretty much say loud and clear how much I love this man's writing. This is only the third book of his that I've read - after The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a novel of pure genius, and Summerland, which deserves more attention than it gets in my opinion - but he hasn't yet disappointed me - has, in fact, greatly impressed me.
If you haven't seen the movie (and you should, it's a great adaptation and Michael...more
Michael Chabon is my hero and I want to have his baby. Yep, that should pretty much say loud and clear how much I love this man's writing. This is only the third book of his that I've read - after The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a novel of pure genius, and Summerland, which deserves more attention than it gets in my opinion - but he hasn't yet disappointed me - has, in fact, greatly impressed me.
If you haven't seen the movie (and you should, it's a great adaptation and Michael Douglas is, oddly enough, captivating), the story is, basically, about an aging, stoned university lecturer and writer, Grady Tripp; his gay editor and old friend, Terry Crabtree; a student and compulsive liar, James Leer; Tripp's lover Sara, his third wife Emily and her family; a dead dog; a tuba; Marilyn Munroe's velvet jacket; a mangled python; and one manuscript of over two thousand pages - all bundled up in one classic car with a dent in the shape of a man's backside on the bonnet.
Written in first person narrative, in Tripp's sardonic, weary voice, often full of wit, Wonder Boys is an absolute gem of a novel. Taking place over a mere three days, during which a WordFest is being held, drawing writers, editors and wannabes together, Tripp's life unravels and reveals him as a sad, lonely, failing writer suffering from anxiety attacks and an ankle infected from a dog's bite. For all the above summary and list of cast and miscellany, it's not a crowded or complicated novel.
It's wacky, but never feels contrived; insightful, but never out of character; and downright bloody funny. Read it, and definitely read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. I'm still waiting for his latest book, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, to come out in paperback....less
one of the nice things about being a stoner is that, since your memory goes to hell, it's possible to re-read books any number of times and still have them feel unexpected and new.
i read this novel the first time while living in the pacific northwest, where the pot-induced fuzziness of my perspective nicely echoed the mossy contours of the roof under which i made my home. years later, in NYC, i vaguely remembered having enjoyed the book (and also, astonishingly, the movie notwithstanding the...more
one of the nice things about being a stoner is that, since your memory goes to hell, it's possible to re-read books any number of times and still have them feel unexpected and new.
i read this novel the first time while living in the pacific northwest, where the pot-induced fuzziness of my perspective nicely echoed the mossy contours of the roof under which i made my home. years later, in NYC, i vaguely remembered having enjoyed the book (and also, astonishingly, the movie notwithstanding the presence of michael douglas) and picked it up for a second read.
there's little doubt, to my mind, that chabon is one of the more talented writers working today. his prose is smart, funny, insightful, and glides along without a hitch. this is a character-driven book and at least two of his dramatis personae (the narrator, along with a disreputable sidekick who seems to have been filched from Bright Lights, Big City) are beautifully rendered and believable.
that said, the essential problem i had with this novel was its conventionality: it felt, in many ways, like a piece of formulaic workshop fiction, delivering exactly the sort of plot structure (the life-changing weekend in small town america) and epiphany (vague moment of belated realization, never quite articulated, which arrives while the narrator is walking alone in the rain) that has come to be the default framework for mainstream literary fiction today. which meant that, even with the help of my marijuana-assisted amnesia, reading this book felt like watching a re-run of something i've seen elsewhere (albeit in slightly less polished form) many times before....less
Read in June, 2007
He tried far too hard to be eclectic, over the top, and kitschy. The entire novel came off as insincere. The only likable characters, in my opinion, were Hannah and Sara, because they were the only ones with any kind of grip on the real world. Grady was a slacker and an asshole, Crabtree was a disturbing, self-absorbed douchebag, and James was just pathetic in every way. Actually, I take that back. Emily's parents, the Warshaws, are entirely likable. How can you not love old Jewish parents...more
He tried far too hard to be eclectic, over the top, and kitschy. The entire novel came off as insincere. The only likable characters, in my opinion, were Hannah and Sara, because they were the only ones with any kind of grip on the real world. Grady was a slacker and an asshole, Crabtree was a disturbing, self-absorbed douchebag, and James was just pathetic in every way. Actually, I take that back. Emily's parents, the Warshaws, are entirely likable. How can you not love old Jewish parents?
The entire book was a mess as Grady just skated through disaster after disaster with no real consequences for his horrendously immature and asinine behavior. I'm also bothered by the fact that they made both Grady and Crabtree more presentable and even likable by casting Michael Douglas and Robert Downey, Jr., respectively, in their roles. Crabtree is at least 10 or 15 years older than RDJ, and the casting throws doubts into how they handled the film. I'd be interested to see how they handle Crabtree's borderline pedophiliac obsession with James. Most of me doesn't even want to watch the movie, but I know I will eventually just because of Frances McDormand.
I still think Mysteries of Pittsburgh was his best work, but I've only read three of them now. Kavalier and Clay was good enough, but this book was thoroughly mediocre; I was excessively unimpressed....less
Read in June, 2008
this book was entertaining and well-written, and i liked it. perhaps if i had not seen the movie first, i would have liked it better. as it stands, though, the movie is very similar, so it wasn't as exciting a thing to be reading. still, i would recommend it to fans of michael chabon, or fans of tales about reprehensible writers who make a mess out of everything.
addenda:
ok, i actually watched the movie again, after finishing the book, and the strangest thing happened. this movie that, ...more
this book was entertaining and well-written, and i liked it. perhaps if i had not seen the movie first, i would have liked it better. as it stands, though, the movie is very similar, so it wasn't as exciting a thing to be reading. still, i would recommend it to fans of michael chabon, or fans of tales about reprehensible writers who make a mess out of everything.
addenda:
ok, i actually watched the movie again, after finishing the book, and the strangest thing happened. this movie that, when first viewed seemed very interesting and well-done and happily full-of-depth, all of a sudden felt like the flimsiest piece of nothing ever. it was easier to think that the filmed version of the story had life in it before i realized that they had sucked all the life out of it to make a filmed version. ok, maybe i am being harsh. but katie holmes? really? enough to make me shudder hard and turn away.
sigh.
just the part where our shamefully-immoral hero wants to hug his soon-to-be-ex father-in-law to him with an excess of feeling makes me mourn the movie version, not to mention missing snakes and shoot outs and endearing characters left on the cutting-room floor.
i gave the book another star after i finished watching the movie. it was a good movie before i realized it had such a clumsily-"deep" novel shadowing it somewhere. now i know better.
(i put "deep" in quotes because i am tipsy and good words elude. sigh, again)
...less
While I liked Wonder Boys, I was not as utterly engrossed in it as I was with Cavalier and Clay and The Yiddish Policeman's Union. While Chabon strikes his usual perfect balance between descriptive and straight-forward prose and fills the book with believably improbable characters, the general premise of the book was less interesting to me than the other two novels of his I've read. While I am a great fan of the unlikable narrator, Grady is the sort of protagonist I have a...more
While I liked Wonder Boys, I was not as utterly engrossed in it as I was with Cavalier and Clay and The Yiddish Policeman's Union. While Chabon strikes his usual perfect balance between descriptive and straight-forward prose and fills the book with believably improbable characters, the general premise of the book was less interesting to me than the other two novels of his I've read. While I am a great fan of the unlikable narrator, Grady is the sort of protagonist I have a hard time taking an interest in - a miserable middle-aged white author who smokes two much pot, is a constant disappointment to himself and everyone around him, and who is in the midst of destroying his third marriage and possibly his current mistress. I liked the story itself and the book was fun to read, but Grady's guilt-ridden self-indulgence and cowardice kept me a bit distanced in a way I wasn't when reading C&C or YPU. If you like anything else by Chabon, however, I do recommend it, as he is such a fantastic writer that "not quite as good as his others" still denotes a very good novel....less
Read in August, 2006
recommends it for:
Anyone who has taste
I learned that being a pot smoking, washed-up, hippie-like Professor in Pittsburgh isn't all it's cracked up to be.
I also learned that it's one of the things I aspire to be most, although maybe not in Pittsburgh. But somewhere.
Read it, you won't be disappointed. Chabon does an incredible job telling the story of the above described Grady Tripp...especially for an author who's been so consisently good in the past. Upon further reading, it's apparently about an old Professor that Chabon h...more
I learned that being a pot smoking, washed-up, hippie-like Professor in Pittsburgh isn't all it's cracked up to be.
I also learned that it's one of the things I aspire to be most, although maybe not in Pittsburgh. But somewhere.
Read it, you won't be disappointed. Chabon does an incredible job telling the story of the above described Grady Tripp...especially for an author who's been so consisently good in the past. Upon further reading, it's apparently about an old Professor that Chabon had in undergrad at Pitt.
Tripp's bisexual editor/friend/drunk/eccentric/awesome guy Terry Crabtree is in this guy's Hall of Fame for Best Supporting Character in any novel. Absolutely hilarious. The character of James Leer, a gifted but troubled student is also well-developed and intriguing, especially since all of us knew someone like him in college.
Overall, it was one of the best books I read in 2006, which means it was "Wonder Boys" edging out (very closely) the "Left Behind" series. Maybe not. Stay tuned for those reviews.
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Read in January, 2006
recommends it for:
everyone!
My favorite book written by my favorite author, Michael Chabon. Professor Grady Tripp is a former best-selling author whose latest book has become a 2,000 page unfinishable monkey on his back. His editor is under pressure from the publisher to obtain what should be a great sophomore effort. His wife has left him and his mistress is pregnant. He smokes too much pot and blacks out occasionally. He is driftless and directionless. All the while he somehow become attached to one of his students, ...more
My favorite book written by my favorite author, Michael Chabon. Professor Grady Tripp is a former best-selling author whose latest book has become a 2,000 page unfinishable monkey on his back. His editor is under pressure from the publisher to obtain what should be a great sophomore effort. His wife has left him and his mistress is pregnant. He smokes too much pot and blacks out occasionally. He is driftless and directionless. All the while he somehow become attached to one of his students, James Leer, a disturbed, but extremely talented young man.
This book follows one weekend of pure mayhem in the life of Grady Tripp. It is very humorous and can be moving in parts. Michael Chabon is a gifted writer, and his prose is flawless. The ending is one of redemption and resolve without being overly-sentimental.
As a side note, I liked this book so much I named my son Grady!
As yet another side note, this is one of the few books made into a movie where the movie is GREAT! I wish they had kept the passover scene though.......less
bookshelves:
fiction
Read in January, 2007
I borrowed this book a few months ago and literally stopped at page 20. I thought it was slow-going and a little overblown. But I loved Chabon's writing style--he seems to be infatuated with language. There were several times I wanted to do the unspeakable and dog-ear pages because the passages were that good...after only a chapter.
Once I made myself read beyond the first twenty pages, I was engrossed. Maybe because I was so disturbed and depressed from reading. I didn't much like Grady, cou...more
I borrowed this book a few months ago and literally stopped at page 20. I thought it was slow-going and a little overblown. But I loved Chabon's writing style--he seems to be infatuated with language. There were several times I wanted to do the unspeakable and dog-ear pages because the passages were that good...after only a chapter.
Once I made myself read beyond the first twenty pages, I was engrossed. Maybe because I was so disturbed and depressed from reading. I didn't much like Grady, couldn't understand James, wanted to hit Crabtree. But I was sucked in. Between the strange tale of a murdered blind husky, a stolen coat from a deceased movie star, a professor who smoked far too much pot, his agent who was obsessed with a bi-curious/bi-depressed student, and the bi-whatever student himself, it was really engrossing. And that's not even a big chunk of the story.
I read it once and probably will not read it again, but I definitely will recommend it to everybody I can. ...less
Read in June, 2000
Movie was amazingly close to the book, except for the soon-to-be ex-wife part, and some of teh editor/new boy relationship. Grady Tripp's life is much more fully. . . well, developed isn't the right term, actually it's almost the complete opposite. It unravels quickly throughout the book. He is completely unable to control his life. He is merely reacting. Like a kid sitting in the back seat of a car rolling backwards down the hill, he has no control and makes no real attempt to gain control...more
Movie was amazingly close to the book, except for the soon-to-be ex-wife part, and some of teh editor/new boy relationship. Grady Tripp's life is much more fully. . . well, developed isn't the right term, actually it's almost the complete opposite. It unravels quickly throughout the book. He is completely unable to control his life. He is merely reacting. Like a kid sitting in the back seat of a car rolling backwards down the hill, he has no control and makes no real attempt to gain control, or idea how to start, it seems. His novel, leviathan that it is, represents this most clearly. He doesn't steer it to any particular path. It just keeps going.
James Leer is a little more ambiguous in the book than the movie. He plays so innocent on the screen, but it comes through better in the book, his attempts to maneuver, his lies, his stealing, his consumption with movies, his escapist attitudes. He seems to actively participate in the editor's seduction of him....less
bookshelves:
fiction
Read in September, 2007
Second only to Catcher in the Rye in my all-time favorite list of books. If you are a writer, if you've taken a creative writing class, if you've verged on totally and completely fucking up your life with sweet redemption held just at your fingertips, but which you chose to thumb your nose at for just a teensy bit longer....god, read this book. If you love prose, good prose, jubillant, wild, ecstatic indulgent prose, read Chabon. I just want to roll around in his words and bathe in it like a ...more
Second only to Catcher in the Rye in my all-time favorite list of books. If you are a writer, if you've taken a creative writing class, if you've verged on totally and completely fucking up your life with sweet redemption held just at your fingertips, but which you chose to thumb your nose at for just a teensy bit longer....god, read this book. If you love prose, good prose, jubillant, wild, ecstatic indulgent prose, read Chabon. I just want to roll around in his words and bathe in it like a bubble bath and candlelight and a glass of champagne. I love this book, messy, huge, overwrought, comedic, tragic, careening towards a great big crash at the end -- I love it all. It's what I love about life, it's what I love about literature -- I like it big and messy and joyous. Did I mention I love this book? And Grady -- he's my second favorite literary character of all time -- second only to Holden Caulfield....less
recommends it for:
struggling writers, struggling dope smokers
Tame. Competent. Nearly every chapter ends with a quip. Chabon sums up these chapters every so often, as if he's worried we've forgotten what's happened. His characters are always looking or giving looks. Eyes are often widened. And people are preternaturally perceptive in this novel. Here's a typical example:
She affected not to be surprised to have come upon me thus but I could tell by the way that she held her mouth so perfectly straight, and by a certain telltale dilation of her nostrils, that she had been panicking for hours and might be panicking still....more
Tame. Competent. Nearly every chapter ends with a quip. Chabon sums up these chapters every so often, as if he's worried we've forgotten what's happened. His characters are always looking or giving looks. Eyes are often widened. And people are preternaturally perceptive in this novel. Here's a typical example:
She affected not to be surprised to have come upon me thus but I could tell by the way that she held her mouth so perfectly straight, and by a certain telltale dilation of her nostrils, that she had been panicking for hours and might be panicking still.
He can read her recent past, without qualification, by the way she held her mouth. This happens hundreds of times throughout the narrative. There are other things I could grouse about but I see no reason for it. There a few funny lines in Wonder Boys and the occasional smart observation but very little poetry.
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bookshelves:
ffw-08,
judaism,
skinny-white-boy-authors
Read in April, 2008
Grady Tripp: "I'd spent my whole life waiting to awake on an ordinary morning in the town that was destined to be my home, in the arms of the woman I was destined to love, knowing the people and doing the work that would make up the changing but essentially invariable landscape of my particular destiny. Instead, here I was, forty-one years old, having left behind dozens of houses, spent a lot of money on vanished possessions and momentary entertainments, fallen desperately in and abruptly ...more
Grady Tripp: "I'd spent my whole life waiting to awake on an ordinary morning in the town that was destined to be my home, in the arms of the woman I was destined to love, knowing the people and doing the work that would make up the changing but essentially invariable landscape of my particular destiny. Instead, here I was, forty-one years old, having left behind dozens of houses, spent a lot of money on vanished possessions and momentary entertainments, fallen desperately in and abruptly out of love with at least seventeen women, lost my mohter in infancy and my father to suicide, and everything about to change once more, with unforeseeable result.
And yet for all that I still had never gotten used to the breathtaking impermanence of things.
The only part of my world that carried on, inalterable and permanent, was Wonder Boys."
[pg. 45...300 pages makes all the difference]...less
Read in March, 2003
recommends it for:
narcs and narcotics
My memory of this book is hopelessly intermingled with the movie. I cannot stop imagining Michael Douglas, Frances McDormand, Tobey Maguire, Robert Downey, Jr.
The movie is more polished and mature than the book. The book has long derivations into Passover meals, adopted Jews, small soul singers and bars - wild escapades that don't quite hold water, because they've been trucked in to ground characters' camraderie.
Also, in the book, Frances McDormand's character is chunky and frumpy - Fran...more
My memory of this book is hopelessly intermingled with the movie. I cannot stop imagining Michael Douglas, Frances McDormand, Tobey Maguire, Robert Downey, Jr.
The movie is more polished and mature than the book. The book has long derivations into Passover meals, adopted Jews, small soul singers and bars - wild escapades that don't quite hold water, because they've been trucked in to ground characters' camraderie.
Also, in the book, Frances McDormand's character is chunky and frumpy - Frances McDormand is quite frankly anything but.
Minor missteps notwithstanding, this is a good, solid book that reads quickly but takes its coat off and stays with you awhile after the last page. It should be read, not for those moments which ring false, but rather for the true and funny ones, like the narrator proclaiming his hatred for disciplined writers churning out regular manuscripts. ...less
one of the few novels that I like less than the movie made from it. the movie actually follows the book pretty closely, except that it cuts out a couple of long scenes that, frankly, the book really doesn't need. I'm possibly being a little bit unfair, though, because I read the book after seeing the movie, and the movie was so brilliantly cast that every time a physical detail in the novel differed from tobey maguire's or michael douglas' performance, I was a bit distracted.
and in gener...more
one of the few novels that I like less than the movie made from it. the movie actually follows the book pretty closely, except that it cuts out a couple of long scenes that, frankly, the book really doesn't need. I'm possibly being a little bit unfair, though, because I read the book after seeing the movie, and the movie was so brilliantly cast that every time a physical detail in the novel differed from tobey maguire's or michael douglas' performance, I was a bit distracted.
and in general, though, that's a pretty minor quibble--I love the book and the movie because all of the characters in it are weird and funny in the exact same way that all of my friends are weird and funny (I guess none of my friends ever shot the dean's dog in college, but if anyone had, this is probably how we would have responded).
go see the movie, though. I love this movie....less
bookshelves:
fiction,
queerlit
Read in August, 2007
I absolutely adore the movie adaptation, so I was both biased in favor of the book and concerned that Chabon would somehow "screw up" the story that was his in the first place. He didn't, but I still like the movie better. The film is zanier—more of a comedy, while the novel is a drama with some great one liners (and yeah, a dent in the hood of a car shaped like a butt). I enjoyed the backstory about Grady's wife's family and their passover dinner; it certainly made Grady's ch...more
I absolutely adore the movie adaptation, so I was both biased in favor of the book and concerned that Chabon would somehow "screw up" the story that was his in the first place. He didn't, but I still like the movie better. The film is zanier—more of a comedy, while the novel is a drama with some great one liners (and yeah, a dent in the hood of a car shaped like a butt). I enjoyed the backstory about Grady's wife's family and their passover dinner; it certainly made Grady's choice of who to stay with—his wife or his pregnant girlfriend—more complicated, something the movie avoids. But the film's ending is much neater (and not just because it sidestepped this problem—the Wife is dismissed long before the conclusion) but because Chabon has serious Ending Issues, I think. Still: it's a really good book. But it's a FABULOUS movie....less
Read in September, 2006
recommends it for:
people who liked High Fidelity
This reads like a much better version of High Fidelity. I mean, High Fidelity wasn't bad, but Chabon is a better writer and the Wonder Boys has a lot more depth. I saw the movie and have a kind of vague but pleasant memory of it (not entirely the movies' fault, this is the way my memory works with most movies). Anyway, the characters are so specific and wonderfully drawn in the book I can't quite believe that anyone could have gotten them right, by which I mean the way I grew to see them in m...more
This reads like a much better version of High Fidelity. I mean, High Fidelity wasn't bad, but Chabon is a better writer and the Wonder Boys has a lot more depth. I saw the movie and have a kind of vague but pleasant memory of it (not entirely the movies' fault, this is the way my memory works with most movies). Anyway, the characters are so specific and wonderfully drawn in the book I can't quite believe that anyone could have gotten them right, by which I mean the way I grew to see them in my head. Even Michael Douglas, Toby McGuire, Robert Downey Jr. and Katie Holmes. Chabon's writing about sexual identity is the main link I see between this book, Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Kavalier and Clay - excellent and really sensitive in each case. ...less
book data (includes all editions)
avg rating
(all editions):
3.98 (3446 ratings)
avg rating
(this edition): 3.99
(2531 ratings)
number of reviews: 256
other editions
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Wonder Boys (Paperback)
isbn: 0312140940
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Wonder Boys (Hardcover)
isbn: 1568952570
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Wonder Boys (Hardcover)
isbn: 0679415882
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