I'd listened to Natalie Goldberg's audio CD on Zen and writing and enjoyed it, so when I saw Banana Rose in the used bookstore, I couldn't resist. Would her fiction live up to her writing instruction? It did. An enjoyable look at the wild hippy life of a New York Jewish girl. The writing is fresh and vital, transporting you to the world of Banana Rose and her lover/husband Gaugin. If I had a complaint, it would be that Banana remains painfully naive and without a trace of the political theory th More...

I was very excited to read this book, as I count Writing Down The Bones as one of my all time favourite books and was intrigued to read some of Goldberg's fiction, to see how she puts all those gems of writing inspiration into practice.

It's an interesting story she tells here - and I have visited New Mexico and adored it, and found the descriptions of the landscape in the novel very authentic and evocative. I found Nell/Banana Rose a bit irritating as a character though - her naivety was sometim More...

This is the kind of book you read in social work school, and write a paper to psychoanalyze the main character, Banana Rose. These days I think about affect regulation. Banana Rose, was an interesting character. I could see that her relationship was doomed, somehow, but not the way it ended. I think her true love was Taos. I liked her sexual poety. I liked her Jewishness and her experimental attitude towards life. Goldberg's writing was clear and smooth, gave you a sense of place from Boulder, N More...

This was the first Natalie Goldberg I ever read and I totally fell in love with it. The book follows Bananna Rose as she deals with love, friendship and life after the hippie-era in Taos, NM. It's pretty artsy and a lot dirty hippie. I love it.

At first I didn't think I would like this book but I decided to give it a try and I ended up enjoying it. A book about being a hippie and then trading that lifestyle for becoming a regular everyday person and realizing that you really don't like being a regular person.....I don't think I could live as a hippie....I could probably intigrate some of their ways into my lifestyle....I like electricity and running water too much to give it up....there are some sad things that happen along the way and More...

Like Anne Lamott, I like Natalie Goldberg's autobiographical works much better than her fiction.

This is a great book. I read it in two days. The imagery and the feelings are so real.

Like another author who writes very very well when she writes about herself and about writing (Anne Lamott), Natalie Goldberg sucks at fiction. I love Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within and Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life with an unquenchable passion, just as I love Lamott's Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, and Grace Eventu More...

I just finished reading Banana Rose by Natalie Goldberg for one of my book clubs. I honestly cannot recommend this book. The book has a good premise (hippie girl tries to find herself and becomes a real artist in New Mexico) but the author does a terrible job fleshing out the characters. They are not believable and the dialouge rings false. The dialouge feels very contrived and artificial.
Almost every chapter (sometimes every paragraph) had a sentance that just made me say "Ugh!" For example, More...

Like, I suspect, most people who read this book, I picked it up out of a love for Goldberg's books on writing, most notably Writing Down the Bones. In those books she emphasizes freewriting and original detail far more than standard stuff like plot, character, and revision, and it is quite evident in this debut novel. Nell is a hippie living near Taos, New Mexico; this is the story of her journey to becoming an artist. The language is vibrant and the metaphors unforgettable, but the story and di More...

A- I wanted to LOVE this like I've adored her nonfiction books, but I got irritated at the crazy narrator at time, at the implausibility of it all. Still, good read, really interesting. Realistic portrayal of how love can die. Also, I really enjoyed how she represented the deep love the narrator has for New Mexico...connecting to a place is something not everyone does.

I'm a big fan of Natalie Goldberg's writing books. I even had the pleasure to study with her last fall. I enjoyed this book, but there were just some things about the main character that bothered me. I can't exactly say what. It was worth it to me, though, especially since I had the chance to meet the author.

I'm still digesting this. It certainly held my attention and the author has good technical style. But the story was a bit unconnected. It was also a bit ... cliche. Well, the characters (who were difficult to really buy and their relationships with each other even less so) were cliche. It was interesting, though, and worth reading.

ok... will this book change your life? maybe... maybe not...

will it be a great read? absolutely! natalie goldber's semi-autobiographical novel is a book that i've read many, many times. i love her.

I think I partly loved this book because I was in the same age and life situation (kind of) as the main character. I read it again every four years or so though, and I still like it.

I read this many years back, but I remember the story as a rather plotless, meandering journey. I really like (and own) Natalie's books on writing, but this novel didn't work for me.

"Above us a waterfall... we felt the sun on our backs, and we slithered over rocks as we joined our juices together as a wide, shallow river." (pp85)

I would really have preferred to give this two and a half stars, but that option isn't available. I adore Natalie's books on writing -- Wild Mind and Writing Down the Bones are staples on my shelf -- and her writing is vivid and wonderful. But she mentions writing this book in Wild Mind, I think it is, and a friend points out to her that the book has no plot. It's really loosely based on her own life, and I guess I would have had a better opinion of it had I gone into reading it that way rather More...

Descriptive and well-written, this book made me want to move to the 4-corners region of the southwest.

This was a captivating read by an author who has taught many many people how to write.

I loved this book and have it on my read-again shelf!

It's outrageous, and it stays with you.

This is one of my all time favorites!

D:

Natalie Goldberg's books on writing are among my favorites, so perhaps my sights were set too high on Banana Rose. It is with guilt that I give this 3 stars. So much of the story is still vivid in my mind, the images linger...yet, for some reason I was let down when I read it.

I look at the West with romantic eyes, and that probably helped me overlook the shortcomings of this novel. I identified heavily with the main character. The best moment for me was near the end, when she crosses back into New Mexico after a long time away.

This book was ok. The main character is very depressing and it becomes exhausting to continue reading about her unhappiness. But i was interested enough to see where the story ended up.

I love Natalie's books on writing. I wanted to see how the woman who motivates the world to write actually writes.

I liked the way she writes, but the story was kinda boring. It was her first novel. Perhaps I'll try a newer one?

loved natalie's detailed writing, the setting (read after i first arrived in colorado, and the scenery wasn't so foreign) and the characters/plot. a really enjoyable, beautiful read (2004/05?) (5 *'s)