Lisa's review
The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
I fell instantly for this book -- the writing is lovely and clear, and Baxter's images and metaphors are startling and precise.
But then he moves away from these vignettes of people's love lives and their deep but funny meditations on them. He narrows the novel to a fairly dramatic ending, and even though this brings several of the previously unrelated characters together, it felt as though we were losing voices instead of gaining or synthesizing them. I still very much enjoyed the book as a whole, but it was a little disappointing to go from such a fantastic, rich beginning to a less rewarding, more simplistic end.
Also, some of the repeated ruminations were, basically, "all you need is love," and the characters could occasionally border on quirky rather than complex. These characteristics made me think that Charles Baxter could be a little too Francesca Lia Block or Tom Robbins for me, with funky love magic covering all ills. I've heard that people don't like his oth...more
But then he moves away from these vignettes of people's love lives and their deep but funny meditations on them. He narrows the novel to a fairly dramatic ending, and even though this brings several of the previously unrelated characters together, it felt as though we were losing voices instead of gaining or synthesizing them. I still very much enjoyed the book as a whole, but it was a little disappointing to go from such a fantastic, rich beginning to a less rewarding, more simplistic end.
Also, some of the repeated ruminations were, basically, "all you need is love," and the characters could occasionally border on quirky rather than complex. These characteristics made me think that Charles Baxter could be a little too Francesca Lia Block or Tom Robbins for me, with funky love magic covering all ills. I've heard that people don't like his oth...more
Isn't that shift -- from really rich, crystalline prose to a fairly pat ending -- way too common among current fiction? Thanks for the review. "Funky love magic."
