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Nov 30, 2007

Paul rated it:

Well, sometimes I have to wonder if I'm on the right planet. Never has a book been so praised - and by the right people - as this one and The Sportswriter - so I gave this one a go and found myself in a hot muggy sauna of smugness, breathing in the profoundly self-satisfied atmosphere of this guy Bascombe - self-satisfied in spite of failed marriages, bad relationship with son and all that, one of those deeply wise, mature, creased lived-in face type guys who you instinctively trust - sorry pal, More...

16 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jul 30, 2007

Lauren rated it:

Glutten for punishment that I am, after reading (and strongly disliking!) Ford's first Bascombe novel I soldiered on with the hope that "Independence Day" was, indeed, worthy of the Pulitzer Prize. After just a few chapters I realized that Ford had a formula: several chapters of Bascombe's narcissistic ramblings coupled with (surprise!) a life-changing event that shocks Bascombe into engaging with his family and the world around him about 60 pages from the end. I'm not on the Pulitzer More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Devon rated it:

Eh. I'm torn about this book. There's no denying Ford is a good writer but I never really connected to the story. I just didn't feel much of anything for any of the characters, they all felt flat and one dimensional despite the overwhelming amount of detail he writes about them. This novel is like a song that is technically perfect but fails to inspire any real feeling.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 01, 2008

Abraham rated it:

Really a Virtuoso performance. Ford, in this book does right what I have always felt that Delillo fails at, which is the endless and minute description of events exactly as they unfold from within the subjective consciousness of the protagonist. It's a technique which, in this case, renders the main character overwhelmingly human by virtue of the flood of details corresponding, in quality, quantity, and pace, with my own experience of how events unfold. Ford's artifice disappears under the flood More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2008

Laura rated it:

So, I bought this book in California at the Westlake Village Library's "Book Nook", where my Grandmother has been a loyal volunteer for decades and takes me every time I visit --I think because she never remembers that she's already taken me there a million times before. And, believe it or not, I made it all the way to the end of the book only to realize that someone (probably the previous asshole owner) has ripped out the very last page. Who would do that?!!

You might t More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jun 22, 2007

Jason rated it:

one of the few novels out there with academic cred that i really love, pulitzer winner independence day is technically a sequel to ford's the sportswriter, which i actually haven't read. our hero now a willy-lomanesque real estate agent, the story takes place over a poignant fourth of july weekend, as he and his son attempt to visit every sports hall of fame in their region, while fending off constant calls from ennui-riddled clients and angry ex-wives. sad, funny, thought-provoking, it's the ty More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Rebecca rated it:

I received this book as a bday gift and really wondered if I would like it. I was heartened by the fact that it was a Pulitzer Prize winner, but I still wasn't sure how much I would enjoy reading about a divorced man starting a second career as a real estate agent!

In the end, I found the writing incredibly captivating. The uses of internal dialogue and everyday situations made each of the characters come to life. I found myself never really connecting to the main character, but More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 15, 2009

Steven rated it:

I guess this 'dude lit.' (as opposed to 'chick lit.'. I think he nailed it with this book. Not as haunting (depressing?) as his other books. There are somepassages that made me laugh out loud.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Nancy rated it:

More morose than his previous incarnation in the "Sportswriter," Frank Bascombe returns as the amazingly well-drawn protagonist with the incredibly compelling inner voice. He never quite connects with the people around him and is always to a degree dissembling to his friends and family. Only the reader understands his rich philosophies and the complex reactions he has to events as they unfold in his life. Kudos to Richard Ford for creating a character so real that I feel as if I've More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 05, 2007

Mark rated it:

I'm already getting ready for the brickbats on this one, but after reading more than one glowing review of Richard Ford's work, I tackled this one first, and I found that I disliked the main character so much that no amount of storytelling finesse about real estate in New Jersey and other exigencies of modern life could change my mind. And in this case, I had the feeling that Ford is a lot like his central character, so that gave me the kind of bad taste that has just put me off him permanently. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 19, 2011

Jonathan rated it:

I first saw this book during one of my religion classes in college. My seatmate, who is now a good friend of mine, brought it with him. I asked him if a certain movie was adapted from the book, and he firmly answered "no". This was also the first time I got interested with books that have won the Pulitzer. Now Ford is, no doubt, a good writer. I love every minute Bascombe spent with his son. I can feel the tension between them, and Bascombe's want to make it work, the relationship. It More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 11, 2011

wally rated it:

ford, richard, as there is the ole maddox or whatever his name is. no relation to chevy, i'm sure. ha! see, after signing up for goodreads back in sept of '10...or is that ought-ten?...or will that bring out the waco killers?...boggling over leggo-guns and a cheerleader w/a hunting rifle in the trunk of her car? call swat.

ha! because though i remember reading this book, and saying, right-on, bro! i couldn't for the life of me remember the title, much less the author of the piece, ford, More...

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Oct 21, 2010

Eric rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Apr 12, 2010

William rated it:

Well, ye socks, yours truly has finally finished reading Richard Ford's prize-winning novel Independence Day.

Kinda appropriate given the recent holiday, no?

Well, as alluded to in a previous post, it took a lot of effort on my part to get thru this one.

Ford's writing is often disjointed. The best dialogues . . . even monologues . . . are delivered over the phone or answering machines.

It's very hard to like any of these characters.

What's More...

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Aug 13, 2009

Mike rated it:

Goodreads' rating scale is odd. Five stars denotes, "it was amazing," while four stars means I "really liked it." I didn't especially like this book at all, but it was amazing. The book covers three days, but it does so in what it is meant to feel like "real time." Virtually every thought the main character could have (and far more, realistically) is shared with us the reader. It's like going through events in slow motion with the luxury of near-hindsight.
More...

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May 10, 2009

Jen rated it:

Frank Bascombe realizes, living in his “Existence Period,” that “equilibrium is not progress.” I loved that. We are all always moving—are we not?—yet equilibrium is not progress.

Ford’s voice, through Bascombe’s narration, takes some getting used to; the gritty, disillusioned mid-aged man, coming to terms with an unfulfilling career, failed marriage, and a troubled son on the brink of estrangement. Bascombe calls to mind Updike’s Rabbit, and Phillip Roth’s arrogant, ultimately comp More...

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Jun 30, 2009

Lynn rated it:

Frank Bascomb narrates one week-end in his life, as he pegs his "growing independence" and faces the realities of his life and his beliefs. The premise is revealed on page 5: "life is really what you have waiting for 'your life' to begin...." The second book of a trilogy, it stands independent of the others, and moves Frank out of his "existance" period where he accepted what life dealt, and into the possibility of now being able to shape, mold, change, and be " More...

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Mar 16, 2010

Bill rated it:

There are isolated moments of real insight here and it's a shame they're lost in such a meandering, pointless story. The book is strongest when it shows the impact that a realtor has on the lives of his clients -- something I hadn't really considered previously. The story of the Markhams, how the compromises they must make in settling for the home they can afford instead of the one they really want is a powerful metaphor for the lives of these two people, for the choices they've made and how the More...

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Apr 24, 2009

Kathryn rated it:

Since 1997 or 1998, I have been reading all of the Pulitzer Prize winners in Novels or Fiction (they changed the name of the category in 1948, to allow for collections of short stories), in order. The last one I read was The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields, which won the prize in 1995, and I read that book in May 2006; so I am way, way overdue for reading the 1996 winner, which is the present book. And, it took me a long, long time to read this book, as I started it back in January, or thereabout More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 15, 2009

Lauren added it

I wouldn't recommend this book. I found it at a used-book store and picked it up because it won the Pulitzer Prize. Although I found a few things in it that will stay with me, overall I wish I had spent that time reading something else.

Frank, a middle-aged divorced real estate agent, spends a long Fourth of July weekend showing houses and taking his mentally/emotionally troubled 15-year old son on a road trip to the basketball and baseball halls of fame. If the book were actually More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Mar 25, 2010

Joan rated it:

This is the intermediate book in the Frank Bascombe trilogy. It is perhaps the best of the three covering the time from Frank's divorce from Ann, 7 years earlier, to the week of Independence Day, with Frank dilly-dallying about his attachment to Sally, going on a foreseeably unfortunate trip with his 15 year old disturbed son and trying to sell a house to a noxious couple. Actually, the real estate threads of these novels are quite interesting. The only caveat that I have is while self-awareness More...

0 comments like

Jun 11, 2009

Brian rated it:

I read this book in college and then again shortly thereafter. This time around was my third and I'm about 10 years older now than when I read it the second time. Now that I have a child of my own and am thoroughly and indelibly living an "adult" existence, this is an almost completely different read for me. It's better now than it was when I was 23 or 26 or whatever.

Richard Ford just KNOWS things about humanity that I could never suppose to know. If I met him at a bar More...

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Jul 14, 2011

Joe rated it:

Much denser and slow-going than its prequel, The Sportswriter, and at the same time much more profound and elegiac. Frank Bascombe is back, and you have to hand it to Richard Ford for creating a convincing character who was once a novelist, then a sportswriter, and in this novel a real estate agent. Sometimes it feels like a stretch. Why would he abandon writing completely? I know it's part of the Ford approach to put stages of life in pegs. Apart from a brief urge to write again, Bascombe leave More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 13, 2011

Becky rated it:

Another book in my seemingly never-ending quest to read all the Pultizer Prize fiction winners since 1980. I keep thinking I'm finished and then find another book on my shelf I haven't read (Damn you, Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love). I missed this one because it's a sequel, and of course I had to read the first book first. I just found out there's now a sequel to this one.

I really liked the first one, The Sportswriter, even though I don't remember much about it. I remember the voic More...

0 comments like

Aug 17, 2011

August rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Jun 08, 2011

Mark rated it:

This is probably my favorite book. Most people don't like it and think I'm crazy. This is a story of a middle-aged divorced real estate agent in his 40s who takes his kid to the Baseball Hall of Fame. That's it. Along the way, the narrator listens to phone messages and does a lot of thinking. Not much happens in the book. It's just a whole lot of interior monologue and characterization.

Because I loved the writing and could identify with the main character, I thought this book was excel More...

0 comments like

Jan 08, 2009

Emily rated it:

I can't believe I forgot this book! Ug!

Before he went back to being a chemist (or something like that) the bookstore in my hometown was run by this skinny little guy, I don't remember his name, but he was great at picking out books for you to read. My mother, who adored him, always took his advice when getting books and he never disappointed. Independence Day was a Christmas present to me in High School and I was hooked from page one. In a recent application I filled out for graduat More...

3 comments like

Mar 20, 2011

Terry rated it:

Very good indeed - this is part of a trilogy though you can clearly read the books independently of one another. The protaganist is going through what he calls the "existence period" which amounts to what some might describe as a mid-life crisis. The narrator is brilliantly crafted: both sympathetic and unbelievably frustrating - you can see why his wife divorced him even without the previous book in the trilogy and at times you want to grab him and make him drop the rational analysis More...

4 comments like

Nov 26, 2009

Rebecca rated it:

1 part Richard Russo and 2 parts John Updike's Rabbit Series, this novel did not wow me. I think I understand why it was in the running for the Pulitzer, even if I don't understand why it won: Ford has a rare talent for prose; for taking every day mundanity and writing about the details in a relateable, beautiful way. At the end of the day, however, it's really just mundanity, and I believe Updike and Russo have been there, done that, and done it much better to boot. Frank Bascome spends a good More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 26, 2010

Myla rated it:

This is an amazing book. I will be thinking about it for a long time. It is an incredibly detailed account of one man's 4th of July weekend and the days leading up to it. The narrator weaves in his entire past including his divorce and family tragedies, his current relationships with his ex-wife and children and his girlfriend, and his career as a realtor, while taking the reader through every single event of the days leading up to a roadtrip with his son. His observations about his own life and More...

2 comments like

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