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The Feast of Love

Charles Baxter

3.69 · Rating details · 8,802 ratings · 934 reviews

The Feast of Love is a sumptuous work of fiction about the thing that most distracts and delights us. In a re-imagined A Midsummer Night's Dream, men and women speak of and desire their ideal mates; parents seek out their lost children; adult children try to come to terms with their own parents and, in some cases, find new ones.

In vignettes both comic and sexy, the owner o ...more

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Hardcover, 308 pages

Published April 25th 2000 by Pantheon

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Nov 02, 2008 Will Byrnes rated it liked it · review of another edition

Charles Baxter - image from Sycamore Review

This a delicious novel. Structurally it is a sort of extended spokes on a wheel. The central character is Bradley. We learn of his relationship history, and of people connected with him. A young couple, who outwardly seem very punky are in fact the most traditional. We see his relationship with a very harsh, intense woman who marries him almost for a lark and who then dumps him to return to her boyfriend. In another relationship his first wife leaves ...more

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Jul 05, 2008 Bill Kerwin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A celebration of Eros, a god to be reckoned with--dangerous, transformative, irrational--as told in at least five different voices by characters who have experienced his power. Baxter is a fine stylist, and the different voices are precisely delineated.

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Sep 16, 2007 Emily rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: no one

Uh, no. Boring. Charles Baxter has an anoying writing style that got on my nerves, Charles does. The dialog was written horribly, not at all like actual people conversing. And I am not just talking about the two youth characters. All of the characters. They were unnecassarily repetitive. The two youth were the worst though. I know that he was trying emulate the way immature 20-year-olds would actually talk, but . . . gag! I could barely plow through one particular passage were the two idiots wer ...more

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Apr 27, 2009 Corina rated it did not like it · review of another edition

If an older, male author is seized by the urge to speak through the mouth of a pierced, teenage nymphette, he'd better do it convincingly. The parts of this book narrated by the earnestly vapid Chloe read a little like how old men impersonating young girls in chat rooms must come off. She intersperses slang with a few ten-cent words like "mellifluous" (and then reassures us she looked the word up somewhere so we won't suspect she's really an aging academic) and, at one point refers to her "girl- ...more

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Oct 03, 2007 Empress rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: insomniacs, love-fools & Shakey Jake allumni.

A seemingly disoriented post-midnight walk through several lives and loves. People clumsily come together, and come apart, shifting narrators and tones--all thick with the theme of love (and loss) in its' many, many forms.

I loved this books and had a hard time putting it down, literally. (Which rarely happens to me.) At times, however, I was worried it was too cute a novel, given the occasional all-too-precious line, but before my skepticism could fully take hold, Baxter quickly won me back wit A seemingly disoriented post-midnight walk through several lives and loves. People clumsily come together, and come apart, shifting narrators and tones--all thick with the theme of love (and loss) in its' many, many forms.

I loved this books and had a hard time putting it down, literally. (Which rarely happens to me.) At times, however, I was worried it was too cute a novel, given the occasional all-too-precious line, but before my skepticism could fully take hold, Baxter quickly won me back with a succinct, beautifully eloquent line: More than enough to effectivly counteract his unfourtunate lapsess of syrupyness. As such, I found myself underlining often, and it is safe to say I am a big fan of his writing.

I would have given it five stars, were it not for the too-cutesy bits and the fact that, towards the end, the novel shifts heavily onto Chole's character--far from my favorite.

Having previosly been a teenage girl myself, I am not sure if I found her character unbelievable, or simply annoying. Of course, I empathized with, and could relate to some defining aspects of her story, but overall, I found her language tiresome and her development somewhat shallow.
Besides Chole and her lover; Oscar, I was totally engrossed in all the characters and their stories.

Particularly, the less prominent: Harry, an aging Jewish man, who constantly ruminates on Kierkegaardian theory, and the dissapearence of his adult son.

All in all, a great book about the trouble, complexity and wonder of love.

***Oh, and appraently this has just been made into a movie. The movie takes place in Oregon, and well, last time I checked, Ann Arbor ain't in Oregon. Their failure to get this primary detail correct, gives me little faith that the film will do ANY sort of justice to the book. (Though I do so love Morgan Freeman! XOXO!!!)

And shit--look at what the silver screen did to Girl, Interrupted!--I am still grumbling about that one.

So please read before you watch, and don't judge a book by it's movie!!! ...more

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Aug 12, 2020 Jemppu rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Touching slice(s) of life, with wonderful structure to its arc; what started off like separate, brilliantly droll and intimate vignettes, grew into teasingly intersecting threads and kept binding together into one shared narrative, driven forward through the variety of distinct, compellingly human voices.

A cavalcade of delightfully and pitifully fumbling relationships and interactions, as a selection of hopelessly human individuals try to carry on, hoping to get their own share of 'the feast of ...more

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Sep 28, 2015 Lee Klein added it

Shelves: put-down-for-now

Abandoning on pg 100 -- read like labored creative writing. Unbelievable. Mannered syntax. Dull. Vaguely interesting structurally. The occasional nice observation. But then there'd be a line like "We were swoon machines." Ugh. Incites hatred in me. The Jewish professor's inverted syntax? Double ugh. Goes firmly in the "too many books, not enough time to bother with this sort of BS" category. I'll need to read some Bernhard now to recover from this. ...more

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Aug 05, 2008 Caitlin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: for-ma

There are few books that have possessed me -- taken ahold of me, owned me, inhabited me -- like Feast of Love has. I have been dreaming about the characters. I have been dreaming about reading the book, which is also like living inside the book. I will be thinking about Nude Descending a Staircase, as a painting and as a metaphor, and the next chapter I pick up will mention the painting. I will read a chapter that uses votive candles as a reality and as a metaphor and I will close the book and o ...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Teresa rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Someone, or something I read, caused me to pick up this book several years ago at a used-books sale, because its synopsis is not one that would normally have tempted me into buying it, but whatever that something was, I have no recollection of it any longer. And it can't be the "A Midsummer Night's Dream" references as that isn't even one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.

I can tell Baxter is a smart man (his character of Harry proves that) and also a very good writer from the writing in the "pre ...more

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Jul 25, 2012 Mary McCoy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I've read this book about ten times and bought it at least four times because I keep giving my copies away to friends. Over time, I've come to see that it's not a perfect book - certain turns of phrase clunk, certain character traits don't ring true. But it's perfect to me, and no matter how many times I've read it, there are still passages that blow me away, move me to tears, and strike me as profoundly true and correct.

There are also lines that I've never noticed before that get my attention o ...more

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Jan 04, 2009 Crystal rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009

A dear friend told me about this book several years ago. I bought it, like I always do, and there it sat on my shelf for years - waiting to be read. When asked for a book club suggestion, I gazed at my shelf and it screamed at me "pick me! pick me!" So, it won the suggestion and became the early January pick for book club.

It was beautiful. Well written, heartfelt, and just an overall good read. It was a terrific portrayal of how, despite our good intentions, some things just don't work out the A dear friend told me about this book several years ago. I bought it, like I always do, and there it sat on my shelf for years - waiting to be read. When asked for a book club suggestion, I gazed at my shelf and it screamed at me "pick me! pick me!" So, it won the suggestion and became the early January pick for book club.

It was beautiful. Well written, heartfelt, and just an overall good read. It was a terrific portrayal of how, despite our good intentions, some things just don't work out the way we plan. There are about 9 major characters throughout the book - all of whom are somehow interwoven with the others. It's a novel ... but written much like a memoir. The characters tell their own stories, which makes the book way more profound than had the author been a narrator. I am all about learning from books I read (yes, eve novels) so here's what I learned:

When we tell our stories to someone else, we illuminate those parts of the stories that most affect us. By telling our story, we become more aware of the power of our thought. Telling someone else helps us to see the things we need to celebrate as well as the things we need to mourn and move past.

No matter how hard we try, we can't always choose who or when we fall in love. We can work really hard to love someone with all that we are, but if we are not in love with that person, we will never be able to love them the way they love us.

When we hide our fears from other people, we really make them worse. People around us end up picking at those fears like scabs, whether they realize it or not. Unless we claim the fear as our own and work towards healing it, the scabs get opened and our fears become scars.

Well written books not only help us escape from our own lives, but also allow us to use that escape to look on our own lives from an outside perspective. This book did just that. It took me outside of my own world - to the world of 9 beautiful, wonderfully messed up people. In each character, I found a glimpse of me. I discovered something else about myself. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Well-written books become a part of us. The characters become our friends. Charles Baxter did a wonderful job at making these 9 characters a part of my life.

...more

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Mar 10, 2008 Matthew rated it liked it · review of another edition

I almost "really liked" this book, but something kept me from getting up and over that slope. It's a really large-hearted novel - and very, very well-written - but its scope was a little small for my tastes.

In terms of the characters (which, in the end, is all this novel is), I loved reading the Ginsburgs and their careworn intelligence and parental heartbreak, and I enjoyed Diana's immediately recognizable, warfaring vanity; but I couldn't stand reading Chloe and Oscar and their impoverished, I almost "really liked" this book, but something kept me from getting up and over that slope. It's a really large-hearted novel - and very, very well-written - but its scope was a little small for my tastes.

In terms of the characters (which, in the end, is all this novel is), I loved reading the Ginsburgs and their careworn intelligence and parental heartbreak, and I enjoyed Diana's immediately recognizable, warfaring vanity; but I couldn't stand reading Chloe and Oscar and their impoverished, unwashed amour fou. Baxter doesn't let this issue slide entirely, to his credit, but in which atlas are these proletariat sensualists within a day's drive of the bourgeois professionals that inhabit the rest of the novel? I grew up in the Midwest: you may be surprised to learn that, as elsewhere, class divisions exist there. I also couldn't really place Bradley, who was supposedly at the center of this story. It seemed to me that he was a different character entirely to every other character (the narrator included). Maybe that's the point but, well, if that's the point... make that the point.

I did like the the construction of the narrative, and I found that there were some wonderful writerly gems ("America, of course, is a country vast enough to lose a child in" really stuck out for me; as did the image of the Dragon with the Rubber Nose; I also really liked "Ginsburg's" understanding of child sacrifice vis-a-vis the Kierkegaardian Abraham, but that may just be because that's all I recall of the time I spent with Fear and Trembling).

I guess I struggle, systematically, with renderings of human experience so focused on love, or sex, as the prime mover of identity. I suppose you might ask a waiting room of thoughtful people which description of human life's value they'd pin their name to, if pressed; I suppose a percentage of them might say love, some, even, without having to think about it first. This book is written for them. It's well-written and has moments of brilliant perceptiveness - I almost "really liked" it - but, for my tastes, its scope is a little small (as I mentioned). ...more

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Jun 19, 2007 gwen g rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Oh, did I love this book. Clever, but not for the sake of being clever; self-aware, but not self-absorbed. And so beautiful. Charles Baxter himself is the narrator, visible only periodically, and his neighbor Bradley is telling his own story intertwined with those of people he knows.

I turned down about 15 different pages that had passages I liked... here are two:

The upshot of it was, I kept Bradley. I fed him and petted him and I built him a doghouse and called his name when I came home, and in ...more

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Mar 25, 2019 Cheryl rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I like to read local authors before heading to a new vacation destination so this fit the bill. I was part-way through before recognizing I'd seen the movie version just a few months ago! Ha! (Big duh, I knew something seemed familiar!) It was fun, engaging, meaningful writing throughout and by the end came together in lovely ways I hadn't expected. Per usual, while the movie was decent, the book provided a depth that the film couldn't achieve. ...more

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Oct 02, 2007 cindy rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Goodness this was hard to get through. I couldn't finish it. It was written Phil Donahue confessional style. Everyone seems to have the same voice, even if they're an old Jewish man grieving the loss of his drug addict son, a young tattoed alternative in-love couple, or a middle-aged man surviving the tatters of a second failed marriage. Maybe the movie is better? ...more

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Sep 11, 2017 Kelly rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: didn-t-finish

I had such high hopes for this. Baxter is well awarded and I assumed this would be great. It's terribly disappointing and somewhat insulting. This is a boomer male who tries to write in the voice of a mix of characters but they all sort of sound the same. Of particular annoyance is the character Chloe, a teen punk whose monologue is a mix of weird slang (that Baxter seems to think teens use) and MFA-type $5 words. Read the 1-star reviews by members Emily and Corina, I agree with them entirely. I ...more

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Nov 28, 2008 Katherine Malmo rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book. It has become an all time favorite (for teh moment :). I can't quite articulate what about it I love so much. It's a good story told in an interesting way. The dialogue is perfect. I just find it so inspiring as a writer. He breaks the rules and he tells a good story. ...more

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Jan 15, 2009 Sally rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library-book, beautiful

Baxter's novel unfolds like an origami swan. The entire concept is beautiful and intricate. Upon first inspection it wows. How complex! Amazing! What an original narrative, layering individual perspectives within, among, alongside one overarching meta-narrative. The whole novel is deeply hyper-conscious of its own creation from page one.

The characters, residents of the same Michinan town are all comfortably familiar, sketched as someone recognizable. Baxter illuminates Ann Arbor's sedate Midwes Baxter's novel unfolds like an origami swan. The entire concept is beautiful and intricate. Upon first inspection it wows. How complex! Amazing! What an original narrative, layering individual perspectives within, among, alongside one overarching meta-narrative. The whole novel is deeply hyper-conscious of its own creation from page one.

The characters, residents of the same Michinan town are all comfortably familiar, sketched as someone recognizable. Baxter illuminates Ann Arbor's sedate Midwesterness, the residents are familiar with one another before their intermingling.

The book reads as a series of character portraits, told in the first person. The individuals appear at first resistant, and then yielding participants in the story. Each a work of art not unlike the basemented art of our "protagonist" Bradley. A solitary man, the owner of a mall coffee shop, Bradley's lovers describe him as both downtrodden and yet optimistic. One particularly mean lover, Diana, takes to calling him "toad" before dismissing him altogether after 2 months of marriage. We follow all of the people Bradley encounters, in a series of almost-interviews these people tell Bradley their story in first-hand accounts. At times initially unwilling participants in his novel, the characters are unrealistically verbose in describing minutiae of their daily existence to this man. We hear from his former and future lovers, past lovers' future partners, his employees and their lovers, his next door neighbors' relationship.

Each one of these stories in inextricably linked to the others - yet reads as its own narrative. What does this tell the reader about Baxter's view of the world? I can't help but imagine the place he imagines he holds - the as silent observer - noticing more about those around them than they know he does.

When the plot begins jettisoning forward and back through time I grow weary. Why do I honestly care about Bradley the coffee shop owner and his dog Bradley? What about his ill-starred home and overly-friendly workplace draw such curious characters into his life? Is anyone really that interesting when you get down to the nitty-gritty of their daily existence?

Baxter has 42 more pages to show me. I hope he delivers.

Update: I have only one chapter left and I'm a little bit afraid to pick it up one last time. I don't want the story to conclude! Baxter does reveal the connections between all the threads. Like a masterwork of macrame. ...more

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Dec 24, 2015 Manik Sukoco rated it really liked it · review of another edition

There's such a thing as comfort-eating. Food you turn to when feeling sad or lonely. Food that is familiar, yet delicious and can help get your spirits up each time you turn to it. Well, I believe there is also such a thing as comfort reading. It is one of the best novels that I read last year. After reading it for the first time, I've found myself returning to it again and again, turning to favorite pieces, or simply reading it from cover to cover, on long, rainy, lonely weekends. It's the kind There's such a thing as comfort-eating. Food you turn to when feeling sad or lonely. Food that is familiar, yet delicious and can help get your spirits up each time you turn to it. Well, I believe there is also such a thing as comfort reading. It is one of the best novels that I read last year. After reading it for the first time, I've found myself returning to it again and again, turning to favorite pieces, or simply reading it from cover to cover, on long, rainy, lonely weekends. It's the kind of novel that makes you step out of your everyday-world, forget all that's on your mind and live through the characters inhabiting the book.
I've been a fan of Charles Baxter for ages. It came as a surprise, because it's different from other works by Baxter. It's a novel, but it's also a collection of stories, so in this way Charles Baxter doesn't move far from his usual style of writing. One of the surprises is the fact that the author appears as a character in the book. This trick could work or could not and then would be considered just a party-trick and thus, tacky. Here, it works.
Charlie is a blocked writer who suffers from insomnia and wonders the streets of Ann Arbour, Michigan during long nights, looking for ideas but finding none. On one of his nightly walks he meets his neighbor Bradley, who's walking his dog, also named Bradley. Why not name your new novel feast of love? Bradley suggests. I could tell you stories about myself and people around me and you could talk to some of them yourself. This is the basic idea of the book and the stories start unfolding, one more enchanting than the next.
This book vaguely reminded me of "things we talk about when we talk about love" by Raymond Carver. It's one of the best collections of love stories I've ever read and for me getting such a strong emotional response from a book is reason enough to love it. There's no point in getting into details about the actual love stories. Just read this book, read it when you're in the right frame of mind and enjoy it. ...more

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Jul 16, 2007 Matthew rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: mostly everybody (proven)

This is a book I often recommend when asked to recommend a book by someone whose taste I don't know well.

It's not that it's "safe" (although everyone seems to like it) but that it's one of those transcendent middebrow books like Salinger's--Shawshank Redemption, which everyone also likes, does the same thing in the movie genre--that confirms everything you already thought or wanted to believe, and makes it seem richer than you'd ever thought. For which I'm grateful. ...more

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Aug 23, 2020 Shelley added it · review of another edition

Shelves: north-america, 2000s, 2020, 1000-books-unread

I can't finish this, 10 chapters to go and it's so infuriatingly bad that I can't even stand to keep listening to this.

The female characters are written with this greasy tone of contempt that makes me just feel gross. ...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Erin rated it liked it · review of another edition

I was not expecting to like this book when I picked it up. A used bookstore had clearance books on sale 7 for 5 dollars and I needed a seventh book, so I just threw this one on top of my stack. I'd heard of Baxter, but wasn't too familiar with his writing. I was kind of put off at the beginning by the meta-narrative style of the novel, but once I got into the stories of these characters, I was engrossed in their lives. Each chapter in this book is a vignette that sketches each character's love l ...more

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Aug 28, 2008 Elisabeth Kinsey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Baxter's style is so easy going, you forget you are being led into intertwining plots and characters' lives. Love this subtle tour de force. ...more

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Mar 23, 2017 Jim Leckband rated it really liked it · review of another edition

If Mr. Baxter was writing in earlier times this book would have been written in the manner of The Decameron or The Canterbury Tales where a framing excuse is used to write disparate tales that often don't have much to do with each other. Baxter isn't quite that off of that though - the framing device is an author (Charles ~~Kaufman~~ Baxter) waking up in the middle of the night, going for a walk and meeting another insomniac, Bradley Smith, who acts as Baxter's intercessor for the many tales of love ...more

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Mar 22, 2017 Judy rated it liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 24, 2018 Kim Savage rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

An exploration of love and all its varieties. All of its confusion and pain and wisdom. In this book it takes on many forms. Beauty. Humor. Tragedy. Charlie, Bradley the human and Bradley the dog. Kathryn, Diana, Chloe and Oscar, Esther and Harry. All from different walks of life, but all with their own love story. I’m emotionally involved with all the characters. I don’t usually like love stories, but this one has its own unique twist. It touches the heart. A very good read.

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Sep 26, 2020 Elizabeth Sulzby rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Most interesting book for a fellow Ann Arborite. Made into a silly movie set in a northwestern town with few interesting characteristics. I have read the book a number of times and saw the movie once. Just never put anything about it on Goodreads before. I made up the dates below as placeholders.

P.S. You cannot make love on the 50th yard line of the Big House any more. (A 20 min. walk from my house on Scio Church.) And if Jitters was Espresso Royale--it was descimated by the Coronavirus this yea ...more

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Oct 02, 2017 Rebekah Redinger rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I was totally entranced by this book!!!! LOVED IT!!

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Apr 02, 2018 Reyna Gentin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I very much enjoyed this insightful and clever book. It explores many paradigms of love, and is sad and moving and hopeful.

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Jul 19, 2010 Judy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone

I read this because I was planning to watch the movie. The book was full of surprises. I knew that Charles Baxter taught at the University of Michigan, a school I once attended, but was delighted to find The Feast of Love set in Ann Arbor, MI, where I lived for many years. I often read just for the pleasure and experience of being taken to places I will probably never go to myself, but there is a unique pleasure to recognizing the details of weather, types of people, buildings and streets, while

I read this because I was planning to watch the movie. The book was full of surprises. I knew that Charles Baxter taught at the University of Michigan, a school I once attended, but was delighted to find The Feast of Love set in Ann Arbor, MI, where I lived for many years. I often read just for the pleasure and experience of being taken to places I will probably never go to myself, but there is a unique pleasure to recognizing the details of weather, types of people, buildings and streets, while reading a work of fiction.

The novel opens with a writer named Charles Baxter who, suffering from insomnia, goes out for a midnight walk. He wanders into the U of M football stadium (one of those places I know well) and then on to a nearby park where he encounters a neighbor. They strike up a conversation and soon the neighbor, not a writer, starts to give Charles advice about writing a book, including a title and a plan: to talk to various people about love.

At this point, sixteen pages about a man taking a walk and describing what he sees followed by some clunky dialogue with his neighbor have me worried. I am definitely not hooked except by the fact that I know exactly where these two men are sitting. I decide to give both Charles Baxters one more chapter. (An odd point is that Bradley, the neighbor, has a dog named Bradley.)

By the end of Chapter Two I am intrigued. A story about Bradley and his first failed marriage has unfolded. I had a first failed marriage in Ann Arbor. So I keep going and more characters show up, who are all connected to Bradley in one way or another, who all have relationships of varying success. By the time Oscar and Chloe show up, a pair of quintessential Ann Arbor love children, I find myself completely involved in a feast of love that I hope will never end.

Chloe is my favorite character: she is young, reckless, intrepid and believes totally in love. There are several other female characters of different types and Baxter's writing chops are good enough that not one of them comes off as a type. Each is a fully realized personality. He is just as good with the male characters but especially with Harry Ginsberg, a professor of philosophy with a secret sorrow.

Bradley continues to be a clunky guy. It was his "bad dialogue" that I objected to, but that turns out to be a product of his personality and in fact, I know a guy from Ann Arbor who is amazingly like Bradley. Every once in a while though, Bradley comes up with a zinger, delivered in his clunky manner: "This song, 'My Funny Valentine,' as sung by Ella Fitzgerald, was going through my head as I walked. I always liked her; I liked it that she sang jazz while wearing glasses."

The Feast of Love, which is the name of Bradley's best painting (yes, he is a secret painter though he manages a franchise coffee place in the mall, the one I shopped in for years) turned out to be a little masterpiece of a book, celebrating people, life and love, with all the amazing moments of transcendence and many of the sorrowful depths of loss that most of us experience.

The very evening of the day I finished the book, I watched the movie. My advice is just read the book. Morgan Freeman as the Jewish philosophy professor? Please, skip the movie which does not begin to capture the magic of the book. Anyway, it is set in Portland, OR. ...more

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About Charles Baxter

Charles Baxter

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Charles Baxter was born in Minneapolis and graduated from Macalester College, in Saint Paul. After completing graduate work in English at the State University of New York at Buffalo, he taught for several years at Wayne State University in Detroit. In 1989, he moved to the Department of English at the University of Michigan--Ann Arbor and its MFA program. He now teaches at the University of Minnes ...more

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“Forget art. Put your trust in ice cream.” — 88 likes

“In truth, there are only two realities: the one for people who are in love or love each other, and the one for people who are standing outside all that.” — 87 likes

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