Vital Parts: A Novel

Reinhart #3

by Thomas Berger

The saga of Thomas Berger's Reinhart series continues. Carlo Reinhart, now a 44-year-old liberal, has found himself to be merely a vague shadow of the young man he once was. Bob Sweet, a high school acquaintance for whom success has become a habit walks into his life.

Genres: Fiction, Humor

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Thomas Louis Berger was an American novelist, probably best known for his picaresque novel Little Big Man, which was adapted into a film by Arthur Penn. Berger explored and manipulated many genres of fiction throughout his career, including the crime novel, the hard-boiled detective story, science fiction, the utopian novel, plus re-workings of classical mythology, Arthurian legend, and the survival adventure.

Berger's use of humor and his often biting wit led many reviewers to refer to him as a satirist or "comic" novelist, though he rejected that classification.

Reviews

[Kai · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic, roller-coaster ride of a continuation of Carlo Reinhart's life and times. It is actually, and contrary to the text accompanying it here, the third volume of a tetralogy, following Crazy in Berlin and Reinhart in Love, and followed by Reinhart's Women.

[Shelby *trains flying monkeys*]

DNF'd

I just can't figure out what's going on in this book. It's way over my head.

I received an arc copy of this book from Netgalley/Open Media in exchange for an honest review.

[Sara Coker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn’t know it was the finale of a saga, but it stands great on its own and I love a satire.
The first two chapters were hard to read for me but very clearly set up that Reinhart is just not a good guy. It felt like Babbitt but set in the 70s, except I was rooting for Reinharts downfall.

[Squeaky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I might have liked this more if I had read it in the 70s. But I did not. The writing is undeniably clever, but I am not the brightest match in the box and am just not getting a lot of it. I liked the ending, though.

[Bob Box · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read in 1972. I'm sure I read this because I loved Little Big Man..

[Heidi Wills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shades of DFW, Walker Percy, and others in the prose

[Bill FromPA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1970, this is the first Reinhart book that takes place at a time approximately contemporary to its writing. In this it is reminiscent of Updike’s Rabbit series and would make an interesting companion to Rabbit Redux. Both are by white, straight, middle-aged establishment writers attempting to come to terms with the youth-oriented, anti-establishment, androgynous, civil-rights-movement late sixties. It involves Reinhart’s involvement, through a former high school classmate, with a scheme involving the cryonic preservation of the bodies of recently dead until cures for their now-fatal illnesses can be found. Berger seems to have taken the upsetting of traditional values as a license to produce a rambling, basically plotless novel into which he brings a few characters from the prior volumes, which took place 22-24 years previously. Berger writes English prose with precision and occasional poetry, and has created some amusing situations and interesting characters here, which embody abstract conflicts such as death wish vs. life urge, truth vs. appearance, youth vs. age, and male vs. female, but the novel ultimately is not very satisfying.
Previous: Killing Time
Next: Regiment of Women

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this novel has a few fine moments, most of them are tucked between a tremendous amount of expository writing. While Berger may have had a philosophical or other satirical point to make by making the plot consist mostly of abstract conversations or thoughts, it doesn't make for very interesting reading. Definitely a disappointment in light of his other fine work.