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Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York (Vintage)
by
Adam Gopnik
Not long after Adam Gopnik returned to New York at the end of 2000 with his wife and two small children, they witnessed one of the great and tragic events of the city’s history. In his sketches and glimpses of people and places, Gopnik builds a portrait of our altered New York: the changes in manners, the way children are raised, our plans for and accounts of ourselves, an...more
Paperback, 336 pages
Published
December 10th 2008
by Vintage
(first published 2006)
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This was also a library sale find. I find Gopnik's writing *dense* but also cant put him down. A classic New Yorker writer. There were a couple of laughs-out-loud and I enjoyed the chance to follow his children's, especially his son Luke's, growing up. And his own life lessons as well.
"The taxi has its checkered lore, the subway its legend, and the Town Car a certain Michael Douglas in Wall Street icon quality; but if there is a memorable bus scene in literature, or an unforgettable moment in a movie that takes place on a New York City bus, I have not found it. it isn't that buses are intrinsically inimical to symbolism: The London bus has a poetry as rich as the Tube's - there is Mary Poppins, there is Mrs. Dalloway. In Paris, Pascal rides the bus, Zazie dreams of ridin...more
I received this book from a friend when, after years of living in NYC, I finally left--and nobody could believe it. I've always noticed that about NY (I lived there since I was 17): everyone complains and dreams of moving out, but no one believes anyone would actually do it (though people do, constantly). So I kept the book, through a move to the West and then here to Europe, without ever reading it. I'd read--with enjoyment--a few of Gopnik's pieces in The New Yorker but for the most part, I ju...more
Even if you don't love New York you may just have to love this book. Gopnik's observations are fantastic. He is able to describe things in a way you might not have thought of them as. This book is actually a series of essays that were published in the New Yorker.
Gopnik had just returned from living in Paris for four years and he entertainingly describes his views of New York. I re-read this book after living in New York and now I miss the city more than I thought I would.
Gopnik had just returned from living in Paris for four years and he entertainingly describes his views of New York. I re-read this book after living in New York and now I miss the city more than I thought I would.
Although I didn't think this was as good as "Paris to the Moon" it should be a must-read for New Yorkers with children or thinking about having children while living in the city. I particularly liked Gopnik's concern over his daughter's over-programmed imaginary friend and the adventures of trick-or-treating in high rise apartment buildings. Basically this is an enjoyable read, well-written with warmth and humor.
Oh Adam Gopnik. How in love I once was with you. How amazed I was with your facility to dig into layers of everyday life and come up with wise genius. How many times did I read aloud to friends your original New Yorker "Bumping Into Ravioli" essay?
I still may be in love with you, but this book tested my love, much like Cupid tested Psyche; I turned on the light to see you and you ran away, leaving only a poorly edited, slapped-together published collection of essays to ...more
I still may be in love with you, but this book tested my love, much like Cupid tested Psyche; I turned on the light to see you and you ran away, leaving only a poorly edited, slapped-together published collection of essays to ...more
I love Gopnik and Paris to the Moon may have been one of my favorite books, but while I love New York and fantasize about living there, this didn't quite reach the five stars I would give to his Paris book. I found his description of his daughter's imaginary friend, Charlie Ravioli, who was too busy to play with Olivia so charming, and I think his thoughts on child-rearing, whether in NY or elsewhere, were astute and could be part of a manual for parents anywhere. I had a lump in my throat readi...more
I loved this book. Full of chapters that read as short stories (or vice versa), it brought back lots of good memories of the Upper East Side of NYC. The author has terrific insights and conveys them to the reader almost effortlessly. I went back and read the first chapter upon finishing the book...that's how much I enjoyed it.
I wish Adam Gopnik would write books about all the places I've lived. First with his book about Paris, and then in this book of collected essays about New York, he captures with brilliance and eloquence all of the contradictory emotions places and spaces bring to their inhabitants. His accounts are incredibly moving, and this book in particular utilizes his childrens' growth as a metaphor for aging, loss, joy, and wonder. Though some of the selections are reprinted from pieces he published in Th...more
I adored this book -- a wonderful account of parenthood and living in New York, and observation of childhood and its pleasures and strangenesses, especially in New York. This contained two of my favorite essays from the New Yorker, which I'm happy to have between hard covers: "Bumping into Mr. Ravioli," his account of his three-year-old daughter's imaginary friend, who is too busy to play with her (only in New York, kids, only in New York), which he expands into a meditation into the ...more
Well, I liked it, not as much as "Paris to the Moon" but I am having a hard time saying why. Maybe Paris seems exotic to me so a NYC writer's essays on life in Paris are fascinating whereas, since I lived in NYC, essays on life in NYC seem less interesting. Also, I had a really hard time with the essay on Gopnik's therapy - I lost a little respect for him, and that is not good when the reader is expected to credit the writer with insight sufficient to merit attention to his essays. ...more
Louise
added it
When it's good, it's SO good. But when it's not, it's SO boring. Gopnik's writing can be breathtakingly beautiful when he hits the mark, but it can also be mindnumbingly dull when he misses. More hit than miss with this one, but still too many too long rambles.
I really enjoyed Paris to the Moon, but haven't read it in years. I'm wondering now if I felt this way about that one then.
I do love his use of words and the love he has for his family, especially his kids really comes through. And being a...more
I really enjoyed Paris to the Moon, but haven't read it in years. I'm wondering now if I felt this way about that one then.
I do love his use of words and the love he has for his family, especially his kids really comes through. And being a...more
Gopnik and his wife decide to move with their family from Paris back home to New York City. The chapters of the book consist of little stories about Gopnik’s kids, about life in New York City after living in Paris, about New York after 9-11. The subject of the chapters is not important. Gopnik has a way of writing so well, so thoughtfully, that the real subject is clearly living itself. Trying to battle what Gopnik calls “the screens,” the video and computer and game screens that have taken over...more
I just finished this second collection of essays by Adam Gopnik. I didn't like it as well as well as Paris to the Moon, which I thought was a lovely book. This collection seems disjointed and at times Gopnik bogs down, and the book becomes difficult , even uninteresting to read. His observations on parenthood though, are generally good and Charlie Ravioli is a scream.
Also finished Grave Goods, another Ariana Franklin mystery set in the 12th century. Adelia is much the same as alway...more
Also finished Grave Goods, another Ariana Franklin mystery set in the 12th century. Adelia is much the same as alway...more
This is yet another book I have owned for ages and only just finished reading now. This book was an impulse purchase, bought out of curiosity and with no knowledge whatsoever as to what the book was about.. or even who the author was. One of those, and yet this book ended up being quite the pleasant surprise.
The book is comprised of essays, all dealing with the topic of turning New York City into one's home. The essays, for the most part, take place post-9/11 and the topic of that...more
The book is comprised of essays, all dealing with the topic of turning New York City into one's home. The essays, for the most part, take place post-9/11 and the topic of that...more
While Adam Gopnik was penning this latest collection of essays and observations about New York post 9/11, I was reading his first book “Paris to the Moon” – which recounted his Gallic sojourn pre-9/11. Now almost seven years later, I’m confess to being a bit disappointed – over-all – when comparing his latest offering to that sense of wonder when reading him for the first time. As a whole, “Through the Children’s Gate” was disjointed. Despite several top-notch essays, one too many of those inclu...more
Written by a writer for the New Yorker, an ex ex-pat's renewed view of New York and the New York City life. Lots of it is too true and eerily parallel to so many of us New Yorkers. All current ex-pats from New York should read this to make you more homesick than you are now - you know who you are!
A good friend of mine gave me this book because based on the title, she thought it was about bringing up kids in NYC. Since I thought I knew all about this subject, I let it sit on my she...more
A good friend of mine gave me this book because based on the title, she thought it was about bringing up kids in NYC. Since I thought I knew all about this subject, I let it sit on my she...more
in general, a mild mannered cosmopolitan take on - what some might derisively call, the "bourgeois" lifestyle in the early years of the new millennium. it is a remarkably well thought out, compassionate book, with a concern for children - their growth, their troubles - as seen by a somewhat bemused and intelligent parent. the book contains many stellar passages about life prior to 9/11 and the immediate aftermath -- the effects of that event on sensibilities all around. he writes abo...more
Adam Gopnik writes for the New Yorker, but since I don’t read that magazine, I first encountered him when I read “Paris to the moon”, his collection of essays about his family’s years living in Paris – first himself and his wife, and then the two of them and the children they had while they lived there. I loved that book, although it’s interesting to me to note that the only part of it I really remember is the section on their experience of the French health system as they were going through his...more
From my blog:
When I was in graduate school, I took a course in travel writing and publishing. Throughout the semester, we had to read a number of books about travel, including Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik. In this book of essays, I loved the way Gopnik described the five years he and his wife and young son lived in Paris. He describes the minutiae of everyday life and then brings it around to a larger point on a humanity scale. I loved that book. I listed it as a favorite book ba...more
When I was in graduate school, I took a course in travel writing and publishing. Throughout the semester, we had to read a number of books about travel, including Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik. In this book of essays, I loved the way Gopnik described the five years he and his wife and young son lived in Paris. He describes the minutiae of everyday life and then brings it around to a larger point on a humanity scale. I loved that book. I listed it as a favorite book ba...more
Gopnik can find the universe in a ball of twine. These essays, about making a home in Manhattan, elevate apparently mundane topics like street noise and urban busy-ness to philosophical meditations on the whole human condition, and Gopnik's metaphors are consistently rich, surprising and allusive. A book of cultural criticism masquerading as personal essays, it returns you to your own life with an expanded sense of possibilities and a a more humane and flexible sense of the good.
I love Adam Gopnik's work-- essays in The New Yorker, and I loved his book on he and his family's time in Paris. I heard him speak once at Brown, and he is truly a phenomenal thinker, speaker, person.
I find his writing engaging and it makes me think, carefully about things I may think I already know quite a bit about, yet I always come away with some new nugget or insight. I read it a few years ago, I have no idea really when.
I find his writing engaging and it makes me think, carefully about things I may think I already know quite a bit about, yet I always come away with some new nugget or insight. I read it a few years ago, I have no idea really when.
Barbara
rated it
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Jennifer definitely, Kate, Anne and Anali maybe.
Shelves:
great-book-resolution-2011
I had read Paris to the Moon first which I think helped and I would recommend maybe you read it first. I really, really liked it and was pretty satisfied with it. It was a good sense of NY and bringing up children there. He still looks nothing like Adam Rosen of my college days. And Martha was still one of my fave people, though more so in Paris to the Moon. And it was particularly good since I was in AZ just after 9/11 and had a more removed pov.
Putting this aside for now... too much "New York is the center of the universe" stuff for me to swallow. Lots of people live there and lots of things happen there, but I don't buy the idea that it's the most fascinating place in the world, or that people's lives there are more interesting than the lives of people anywhere else. Certainly the dilemma of finding an apartment in New York is an oft-told story I find perfectly excruciating to read.
MCL. My favorite part was his daughter's imaginary friend, Charlie Ravioli. It seems very "New York" to have an imaginary friend who is too busy to play with you. She calls and leaves messages on his answering machine, bumps into him at the coffee shop but he has to run, arranges lunches that are cancelled...
Reading this book and LOVING it! He alternately writes about living in New York in a way that makes me passionately think YES, that's EXACTLY how I feel! and make me laugh aloud, which I rarely do when reading. (that move can get you some odd looks on the subway by the way - beware)
I wanted to like this book, but I found the trite stereotypes and forced metaphors got on my nerves after awhile. This book didn't feel like it had an authentic voice, and I therefore didn't enjoy it much, despite the potential of the subject matter.
I didn't expect this book to be so witty and laugh-out-loud funny. The author and his young family move back to NYC from 5 years in Paris, and readjust to life in Manhattan and learn to be NY'ers with kids. That's the entire story but it's engaging and sharply observed, as well as wry in the mid-section of the book (post 9/11). I would recommend it to all my NYC friends!
I loved this book at first, but it drags under the weight of Gopnik's intellectualism and analysis. At times he sounds as if he simply trying to impress with the breadth of his knowledge and research, making his writing overly dense and ponderous. At his best he is funny and warm and wise; at worst he is annoying and pedantic. I too loved Olivia's imaginary friends and funny comments, and the sections about Gopnik's son Luke. The section on Gopnik's Purim talk was great. The football team coache...more
I picked this up at my parents' library in Johnstown, PA while visiting them for Easter. I enjoy reading books about New York while I am away from home, just as I enjoy reading books about other places (especially England and Ireland) when I am in New York. I am about 1/3 of the way in, and I really am enjoying Gopnick's observations. I have read several of these previously, in the New Yorker, and did not pick up on the humor so much at that time. Now I am really getting it. These are essays, so...more
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An American writer, essayist and commentator. He is best known as a staff writer for The New Yorker—to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, memoir and criticism—and as the author of the essay collection Paris to the Moon, an account of the half-decade that Gopnik, wife Martha, and son Luke spent in the capital of France.
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“I love you forever' really means 'Just trust me for now,' which is all it ever means, and we just hope to keep renewing the "now," year after year.”
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