false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173305900m/271227.jpg 271227 2 When is a bomb not a bomb? When it's a novel, of course. Peter D. Kramer's <I>Spectacular Happiness</I> is an intellectual blitzkrieg of a book, setting off depth charges of meaning long after its pages are closed. Kramer's protagonist, Chip Samuels, is the sort of man for whom the term <I>mild-mannered</I> seems to have been coined: college teacher, part-time carpenter, ambivalent anarchist, noncustodial father of a dearly loved son. When someone begins blowing up beachfront homes in his Cape Cod hometown, Samuels is the last person anyone should suspect--and yet the bombing campaign is his personal form of redemption, the work of an ex-radical finally coming into his own. Ironically, the resulting media frenzy turns him into the last thing any right-thinking radical would wish to become: a celebrity, a spokesperson, a rich man, an <I>insider</I>.<p> Samuels's story takes the shape of an extended journal written for his absentee son. It's a risky form for a novel, both introspective and deliberate, and for the first third of the book its discursive style can be a challenge to read. Kramer is the psychiatrist author of the bestselling <I>Listening to Prozac</I>, and his first novel often proceeds according to the rhythms of nonfiction: light on scene and dialogue, heavy on exposition and allusion. He seems never to have met a book he didn't like, and he's not at all afraid to wear his learning on his sleeve, repeatedly citing Marx, Robbe-Grillet, Sartre, Dickens, Thoreau, and Walter Benjamin. Fortunately, it's all in the service of character, and not quite as intimidating as it sounds. <p> Ultimately, Samuels has the temperament not of a terrorist but of an artist. He finds Marx inferior to Dickens as a thinker, and describes the bombings as a form of personal expression, reflecting his own quiet fastidiousness and keen sense of the absurd. But what are the moral implications of his actions? We're left to work that one out for ourselves, with not even a crazed manifesto to point us in the right direction: "I have never intended to impose political solutions on my neighbors. I have hoped to say at most, We know the dilemma we are in, the human dilemma." The human dilemma is, of course, the territory of both the psychiatrist and the novelist. And in his first foray into fiction, Kramer asks questions he can't answer and raises issues he won't resolve--a kind of "silent therapy" for a culture that could use some time on the couch. <I>--Mary Park</I> 262950 2001 Spectacular Happiness: A Novel total:27|5:4|4:10|3:9|2:2|1:2| 27 93 37 6 3 0 false false Sun Feb 22 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 22 23:52:05 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 22 23:54:20 -0800 2009 1 0 false false Mon Aug 03 18:37:05 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 18:39:03 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Dec 22 15:28:16 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 22 15:29:03 -0800 2008 ecoterrorism with an absurdist ending.]]> 3 0 false false Mon Mar 24 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Mar 01 18:35:52 -0800 2008 Mon Mar 24 17:33:07 -0700 2008
As a card-carrying feminist, I must add that this ultra-lefty guy was pretty damn condescending towards the women characters...more...]]> 1 0 false false Mon Jul 23 18:55:53 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 23 18:58:53 -0700 2007 4 0 false false Fri Jul 11 08:49:17 -0700 2008 Fri Mar 28 02:03:39 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 11 08:49:17 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Wed Nov 18 19:46:22 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 18 19:46:22 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Thu Nov 12 07:09:35 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 12 07:09:35 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Oct 19 15:07:41 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 15:07:41 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Sep 29 10:22:39 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 29 10:22:39 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Thu Aug 20 00:32:15 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 20 00:32:15 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Jul 13 15:11:51 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 15:11:51 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Wed Apr 22 05:58:42 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 22 05:58:42 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Apr 14 09:30:10 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 14 09:30:10 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Mar 21 23:43:14 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 05 21:31:11 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Dec 09 16:12:53 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 09 16:12:53 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Thu Aug 07 19:12:39 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 07 19:12:39 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Tue Aug 05 07:53:25 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 05 07:53:25 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon Sep 08 08:47:47 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 12 16:58:08 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 08 08:47:47 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Thu Jun 05 08:57:13 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 05 08:57:23 -0700 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=271227