The Learners: A Novel
by Chip Kidd
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Read in March, 2008
Awful.
The Learners features the same eternally naive, lovable (?), ball-less and ostensible like thirteen-year-old protagonist as The Cheese Monkeys (it's even subtitled "The Book After The Cheese Monkeys"), Happy (read: Hapless), now out of art school and working for an ad agency. Only this time, not content with simply focusing on something he's familiar with (graphic design), Kidd throws in a second storyline, that of real-life psychologist Stanley Milgram and h...more
The Learners features the same eternally naive, lovable (?), ball-less and ostensible like thirteen-year-old protagonist as The Cheese Monkeys (it's even subtitled "The Book After The Cheese Monkeys"), Happy (read: Hapless), now out of art school and working for an ad agency. Only this time, not content with simply focusing on something he's familiar with (graphic design), Kidd throws in a second storyline, that of real-life psychologist Stanley Milgram and h...more
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Sigh. I've been thinking for the last few days about what I should say in this review. I love Chip Kidd's voice, you see, his snappy dialogue and his witty little characters and his charming descriptions. There's a lot of clever stuff in this book, too, including smart digressions on form vs. content, design in general, psychology, and clothing from the fifties. But the story... well it didn't really go anywhere. Or, rather, the places that it managed to go were not at all satisfying. To ...more
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12 comments
Read in March, 2008
It's amazing that Chip Kidd is such a great designer AND he can write. I absolutely loved his first book The Cheese Monkeys and this one doesn't disappoint...it's snarky and designery and a fun, quick read. It's definitely targeted toward advertising folks, but not so esoteric that others wouldn't enjoy it as well.
A few of my favorite quotes:
His voice was all knives.
She's the princess and the pea.
She's so pretty.
She's a poinsettia. Ever taste one?
I wasn't in the aud...more
A few of my favorite quotes:
His voice was all knives.
She's the princess and the pea.
She's so pretty.
She's a poinsettia. Ever taste one?
I wasn't in the aud...more
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Read in February, 2008
recommends it for:
writers, social psychologists, graphic designers, fans of Kidd
The first half of the book is somewhat slow at times (though the typography digressions are awesome!), but it really starts to pick up the pace right before the Milgram experiment.
The last third that follows is so brilliant I completely forgot any problems I had with the beginning. It reminded me a little of The Pillowman and also The Prestige (movie version). It has that absurd but very fragile quality to it that makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time, not sure when...more
The last third that follows is so brilliant I completely forgot any problems I had with the beginning. It reminded me a little of The Pillowman and also The Prestige (movie version). It has that absurd but very fragile quality to it that makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time, not sure when...more
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This is Kidd's sequel to "The Cheese Monkeys", but I ended up reading it first because I saw it on the "new" shelves in the library before my hold on the first book came in. I'm sure that had an effect on how I reacted to both books, as the second books seems much darker overall, and when I read "Monkeys" I already knew the fate of Happy and Hims. There are some very funny moments here, especially at the beginning, and the characters and situations are spot on--ha...more
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Read in May, 2008
I liked Kidd's "The Cheese Monkeys," the story of Happy's freshman year as an art major at an undistinguished state college, where he is buffeted by the harsh tutelage of Winter Sorbeck and by friendship with the bizarrely original Himillsly.
But I was disappointed by this sequel, which catches up with Happy after graduation, as he starts his advertising at the very firm where Sorbeck designed the Double Mint gum wrapper. Monkeys felt much more complete; this seems half-baked and ha...more
But I was disappointed by this sequel, which catches up with Happy after graduation, as he starts his advertising at the very firm where Sorbeck designed the Double Mint gum wrapper. Monkeys felt much more complete; this seems half-baked and ha...more
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Read in March, 2008
I was very excited to read this book...and then stalled out. It took me three weeks to finish this when the first book took me that many days. It doesn't have the same momentum that The Cheese Monkeys does, and while I loved seeing Happy at an ad agency (Winter's ad agency!), I had a harder time identifying with his internal struggles this go-round. The writing is less polished -- significantly choppier and more abrupt -- and devices which worked in the last book (the use of assignments as a way...more
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Read in February, 2008
As much as it pains me to say it, I was really disappointed in Chip Kidd’s The Learners, a follow-up to his phenomenal book Cheese Monkeys.
The Learners picks up with Happy, the main character from Cheese Monkeys all graduated from State and trying to get a job at Spear, Rakoff & Ware in New Haven, Connecticut the same ad agency where Happy’s professor and idol Winter Sorbeck got his start. However, the Happy in this new novel doesn’t feel like the same character from the earlier no...more
The Learners picks up with Happy, the main character from Cheese Monkeys all graduated from State and trying to get a job at Spear, Rakoff & Ware in New Haven, Connecticut the same ad agency where Happy’s professor and idol Winter Sorbeck got his start. However, the Happy in this new novel doesn’t feel like the same character from the earlier no...more
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Read in March, 2008
Before I begin, I want it made clear that I really like Chip Kidd. I enjoyed "The Cheese Monkeys" and, from a graphic designer standpoint, he's one of my idols.
While "The Learners" had its great points, it strays a lot. Individually, the plot points involving graphic design and advertising in the 60's, the Milgram experiment (!), and Form vs Content were very interesting. However, these points had moments where they almost seemed forced together. How that would get fixed...more
While "The Learners" had its great points, it strays a lot. Individually, the plot points involving graphic design and advertising in the 60's, the Milgram experiment (!), and Form vs Content were very interesting. However, these points had moments where they almost seemed forced together. How that would get fixed...more
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Read in February, 2008
recommends it for:
Cheese Monkeys
I wanted so badly to like this book. I loved Cheese Monkeys and bought this book the day that I heard a new Chip Kidd had hit the market. Alas, the writing is a bit too cute with one liners and tries a bit too hard to mirror the language of the last book without the preachy, grizzled college professor that allowed it to be pulled off.
The meat of the book - a psych experiment and an advertising pitch - tries a bit too hard to make the metaphor and ends put pushing a cliche plot forward with...more
The meat of the book - a psych experiment and an advertising pitch - tries a bit too hard to make the metaphor and ends put pushing a cliche plot forward with...more
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Read in February, 2008
Solid second novel from the superb graphic designer. The novel, while starting a tad slowly and blemished slightly by some narrative pitfalls, nevertheless tells a gripping tale of a graphic designer in the 1960's and Stanley Milgram's behavioral experiments at Yale, all with a splendid supporting cast of characters. Kidd breaks away from the story throughout, to digress on elements of graphic design--which are highly interesting in their own right and also manage to relate to the story. High...more
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This is a sequel to The Cheese Monkeys which I haven't read. It's is set in the 60's and is a clever dark comedy about advertising, obsession, and absolute power. The main character Happy is an obsessive college graduate that decides to get a job at the advertising agency that his favorite college professor started out at. Then he reconnects with a girl he obsesses over. Then he enrolls in a study at Yale. It's a brilliant book. I won't reveal any more than that. The characters have names like S...more
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Read in March, 2008
There are portions of this book I was captivated by, that is the old-school having to do with Typography, graphic design and how things in the not so distant past were done by hand and with a great deal of visual acuity. (the people with those kind of hand-skills are quickly again and the current generation have no idea how labor intensive things used to be.) Other than that, the book did not resonate with me that much, it is well written, the story gets bogged down in many places and with an a...more
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Read in February, 2008
Chip Kidd's a genius graphic designer, and I even enjoyed his first novel The Cheese Monkeys. This one not so much. It tries way, way, too hard to conflate very disparate elements (advertising in the 1960s, Milgram's psychology experiments involving torture) through a paper-thin protagonist. This is where voice is crucial. Instead of anything measured or affecting, we have a stop-start prose heavy on italics and light on intellect. You ...more
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Read in March, 2008
Was this better or worse than "The Cheese Monkeys"? While I was reading, I was so distracted by what I thought was a really stupid plot development, that I couldn't really concentrate on the rest of the book. While the very end was perfect, what came right before it didn't really have much of a conclusion. And what happens next? Will there be a sequel? I think with the aforementioned annoying plot point, I won't be looking forward to a new book, but will read it anyway.
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Read in February, 2008
I enjoyed Chip kidd's first novel, 'The Cheese Monkeys,' I thought it was a good look at art school, and design, it was funny, if a bit uneven. I really liked The Learners, much improved over his first book. His design philosophy weaves throughout the book - both on the surface and beneath it - and the narrative is much more focused. There's a sense of mystery or problem solving that kept me moving along, and at the end of it, I laughed out loud.
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Read in March, 2008
Not quite as satisfying as The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters, but still a pleasant read - lots of laughs and some sweetly sad moments too. Being a designer, I have a special weakness for any novel that can blend design theory and personal narrative, wrapped up in a beautiful jacket design. All in all, a really nice follow up to his first novel, but I was hoping for something...larger.
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by far, the most aesthetically pleasing and exciting use of design theory in a fiction work i've read this year...possibly ever. it may break my streak of not purchasing hardback books--i can't see how this would work in paperback without losing it's best element(s), namely, its gorgeous cover and clever book jacket. that said, the story's final lines are equally ingenious.
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I just attended a reading for this newest novel by Chip Kidd. I've always admired his work as a designer of book jackets, I was pleasently surprised to find that I truly enjoyed his writing as well. It was a refreshing book, very easy to read, comedic, and an interesting subject matter, completely beyond my skeptic's expectation.
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Read in March, 2008
I liked this, but not nearly as much as The Cheese Monkeys. It would have been better without all the jazz about the Milgram experiments and the irritating joke of naming characters after David Rakoff and Chris Ware. However, it is fun to read Chip Kidd's loving descriptions of 50's advertising and closeted gay culture.
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