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60th out of 80 books
—
24 voters
Chilly Scenes of Winter
by
Ann Beattie
This is the story of a love-smitten Charles; his friend Sam, the Phi Beta Kappa and former coat salesman; and Charles' mother, who spends a lot of time in the bathtub feeling depressed.
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
January 2nd 1991
by Vintage
(first published September 1979)
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I found this book underwhelming and just okay. The parts I did find to be of interest also happened to be very depressing, as pretty much every character with the exception of Laura was pitiful and sad. I guess that's a function of the fact that the narrator is one of those classic "disaffected youth" types, where he can't help but see the pathos in everyone he encounters. I could see why reviewers compared it to "Catcher in the Rye," because Charles had that attitude that he was somehow better...more
This book never feels clever or exciting. It feels like real life.
C'eravamo tanto amati.
Gelide scene d'inverno è un romanzo di quelli che ti fanno scivolare lentamente nell'inerzia; il torpore ti avvolge, l'atarassia ti penetra lentamente nel sangue e tu resti là, con Charles, ad aspettare che la vita succeda.
Ricordo di aver amato molto, negli anni '80, quella generazione di scrittori nordamericani, accomunati dalla definizione "minimalista".
Non so se sia passata l'epoca, per me, per amarli, o se in fondo Ann Beattie, conosciuta più per le sue short stories ch...more
Gelide scene d'inverno è un romanzo di quelli che ti fanno scivolare lentamente nell'inerzia; il torpore ti avvolge, l'atarassia ti penetra lentamente nel sangue e tu resti là, con Charles, ad aspettare che la vita succeda.
Ricordo di aver amato molto, negli anni '80, quella generazione di scrittori nordamericani, accomunati dalla definizione "minimalista".
Non so se sia passata l'epoca, per me, per amarli, o se in fondo Ann Beattie, conosciuta più per le sue short stories ch...more
Buen libro. A terminado gustandome bastante. Eso sí, tengo que advertir que al empezar me resultó incomodo. Tendrá que ver con como está escrito y con que generar una sensación de llegar tarde a una fiesta ya comenzada (después me he enterado que eso puede deberse a que la autora "tiró" a la basura las primeras 40 páginas e hizo empezar el libro así, a medias). Una vez superado el inicio, se lee con placer y resulta a tramos muy gracioso (claro que también bastante triste a la vez, es de esos li...more
I probably shouldn't read books like this. I know plenty about disenchanted youth. I'm 24 and spend a lot of time in small bars and on lonely buses. And I liked the book, but I liked it in this weird self-indulgent pornographic way. Yes, every conversation rang true, every character was real. But a Raymond Carver or a Grace Paley can take that grit and veritas and turn it into pure transcendence. Beattie's bleak world sings some, but it doesn't transcend.
And this is probably a terrible metric fo...more
And this is probably a terrible metric fo...more
9 likes · like · see review
My three-star rating is more an indication of how much I enjoyed this book than whether or not I thought it was well done. It's well written, but geez, it is tedious. I get that that's the point of Beattie's style, capture a certain kind of tediousness (aka, reality), and maybe if I had read this in the 1970s when the book came out, I would have been impressed. Unfortunately, I read it in the twenty-first century, and too many times while I was reading it, I thought, this reminds me of someone's...more
I read this book ... why did I read this book? I didn't really like the one story of hers I read that was published in the New Yorker. But people compared her to Tao Lin and I wanted to read something like what he writes and I've read all of his books already. So I read this book. And I really liked it. Like really really liked it. Nothing tremendous happens and things are pretty normal and sometimes you don't know why this is a book, which is what makes it wonderful. I kind of felt like I had c...more
I'm re-reading this for the first time since college, when it was one of the books we studied in Craig Watson's "Contemporary American Novel" course at Monmouth College. I know I liked it back then but I barely remember it.
In the process of moving from Illinois to Iowa over the past several days, I've been going through many a dilemma about keeping/donating/throwing things away. Finally, I have decided that if I'm going to keep *anything*, it has to be for a specific reason that I can state alo...more
In the process of moving from Illinois to Iowa over the past several days, I've been going through many a dilemma about keeping/donating/throwing things away. Finally, I have decided that if I'm going to keep *anything*, it has to be for a specific reason that I can state alo...more
Charles è un ragazzo, come tanti, ma con un’ossessione amorosa per Laura, ora ritornata dal marito. Un pensiero costante che lo segue ovunque: durante una settimana di vacanza in cui arriva a trovarlo la sua sorella minore, mentre cerca di aiutare il suo unico e migliore amico Sam rimasto senza lavoro, negli incontri con altre donne (più o meno fortuiti) o ancora mentre ascolta le telefonate assurde che arrivano puntualmente dal patrigno Pete, sempre pronto a lamentarsi per le mattane della madr...more
Jun 07, 2009
Núria
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Núria by:
Oscar Pons
No hay duda que 'Postales de invierno' es una novela generacional y yo siempre recordaré que la leí en el momento adecuado. No importa que hable de la resaca de los setenta després de la fiesta hippie de los sesenta, para mí siempre hablará de ese mes de mi vida en que abandoné el trabajo y consumí los días repartiendo mi tiempo entre la angustia y la apatía. Que los dos protagonistas tengan exactamente la edad que tengo yo ahora (27) no acaba de hacer nada más que reforzar esta connexión. 'Post...more
5 likes · like · see review
Chilly Scenes of Winter is about this 26 year old named Charlie and other youngish people who go about dealing with relationships and other troubles such as ailing mothers and troubled love lives and Charlie's roommate's unemployment and just problems that can affect people.
I had heard about this book, well, I had read Beattie's Falling in Place and that's probably one of my favorite novels just for what it says about life… I remember she had some really good lines in there - not to make this a...more
I had heard about this book, well, I had read Beattie's Falling in Place and that's probably one of my favorite novels just for what it says about life… I remember she had some really good lines in there - not to make this a...more
This is my favorite Ann Beattie book. I wish she wrote happier material. Ann Beattie is very deliberate in her words and descriptions. Often compared to Carver. She doesn't like the tag of being a minimalist.
When Ann Beattie writes about a man she writes it like a man. Most of her stories are nearly the opposite of a love story. The line from Charles goes something like this, "Why Would you chose someone who loves you less over someone who loves you more?"
You get submerged into charles charact...more
When Ann Beattie writes about a man she writes it like a man. Most of her stories are nearly the opposite of a love story. The line from Charles goes something like this, "Why Would you chose someone who loves you less over someone who loves you more?"
You get submerged into charles charact...more
I'm probably confusing this with the excellent film starring John Heard, but I think the film stayed pretty close to the book. We can all be so comical when obsessed with someone who is just not in our reach (and these obsessions begin early). I think that is a better way of looking at a person in those circumstances, rather than seeing them as pathetic. So I like what Ann Beattie does with Charles's predictament.
A group of friends get together and talk about their lives, their broken hopes and the things in life that affected them the most.
There is alcoholism, attempted suicide, memories of being in the hospital and family relationships that didn't turn out the way the characters expected.
A very literary work but the characters never grabbed me or made me want to find out more about them.
There is alcoholism, attempted suicide, memories of being in the hospital and family relationships that didn't turn out the way the characters expected.
A very literary work but the characters never grabbed me or made me want to find out more about them.
I wanted to like this book more, but found the characters remarkably uncompelling. They annoyed me. Beattie, though, writes with style and captures a fractured time in America well in her narrative style.
On a side note, I was amazed by how dated the novel seemed--perhaps owing to the sheer number of pop cultural references the book relies on.
On a side note, I was amazed by how dated the novel seemed--perhaps owing to the sheer number of pop cultural references the book relies on.
I saw most of the movie on television last year then bought the book. The movie had a more believable ending. I give this book five stars because of the believable characters. Charles is all kinds of messed up, obsessing over Laura. I've lost count of how many times I've been there myself but I'm a love addict. This book is porn for a love addict's soul.
This was an AWFUL debut. I was told that it is much like The Catcher in the Rye, but I honestly couldn't even get through the first 20 pages. It's poorly written, and has so much wrong with it, I grimaced the majority of the time spent reading it... How was it picked up by Vintage?
this book is the literary equivalent of A Hazy Shade of Winter" by Simon & Garfunkel. Why did I read it? I don't know. All of her books are depressing and cynical. But-I don't forget them either. Maybe the products of my young adulthood have informed my middle adulthood.
Jul 09, 2012
Orsodimondo
added it
Buoni, ma lontani ricordi. Memoria pi�� viva del film, anche migliore del libro, con alcuni attori interessanti che furono protagonisti di una breve stagione cinematografica (John Heard, Mary Beth Hurt, Peter Riegert).
Read this probably twenty years ago or more, at the recommendation of a friend who was into modern severe sculpted New Yorker fiction. I found it dull, self involved and chilly. Very self-consciously literary.
Tells the internal monologue (but in 3rd person) of a stunted guy, Charles, obsessed with a married woman. There's no plot. It's just him hanging around with his sister or best friend, starting at every phone call that might be from his love object, but that usually is from his step-father who is minding his mentally ill mother. Charles sounds a little crazy too, but many of his thoughts are hilarious. It's Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie, published in 1976, if you can imagine. Almost lik...more
An incredibly real and moving book. It was sad without being melodramatic or so depressing i couldn't connect with the character. Beattie truly captured what it means to be in love. Not the healthy, whimsical romance it's off portrayed as, but real, messy, destructive love. Just an all around great, poignant book.
pretty and sad and fun, just a little bit boring. A quick read that really sucks you in and makes you feel like you're best friends with all the main characters.
This is one of my top ten favorite all time books. I have a battered copy I bought over ten years ago and have read this book at least twice a year since I bought it.
Ann Beattie divides her time between York and Key West; her works have very little to do with Maine, perhaps because there’s almost no upper middle class here.
my favorite of hers, and one of her earliest. sweet, resonant -- an honest portrayal of young unrequited love
Novela musical. Tristes imágenes. Comidas solitarias. ¿Qué tipo de amor se presenta en la obra?
I like Ann Beattie...I especially like her essays, but this is really well crafted also.
minimalist fiction about one person's obsessive life during a very dull winter.
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Ann Beattie (born September 8, 1947) is an American short story writer and novelist. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a PEN/Bernard Malamud Award for excellence in the short story form. Her work has been compared to that of Alice Adams, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, and John Updike. She holds an undergraduate degree from Americ...more
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May 13, 2011 11:59am
May 13, 2011 12:06pm