Skip to main content

Wonder, Not Wonderful

11. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon is a modern-day Nabokov, and I don't mean that as a compliment. Like the Russian pedantic, Chabon is too obsessed with coaxing a pondiferous meaning out of each sentence for his work to flow as a whole. His prose is littered with adjectives and dubious compounds.

Such a style tends to make me want to skip around in search of a plot, and often ends up making me despise that pretentious narrator. All of Chabon's characters in this book are wordy and self-centered. If I don't like the characters, I rarely like a book. That said, Chabon's Grady Tripp is no Humbert Humbert. He's done (and does) some bad things, but I never ended up hating him.

Wonder Boys starts to improve toward the final third of the book. Usually, a book will start out well and go downhill from there, but I found this to be the opposite. Once I figured out the point of the book, and the main theme, how authors become their characters and vice versa, it became a lot more interesting.

I liked how Wonder Boys is also the name of the narrator's novel, and the parallels between the novel being read and the novel in the book. Chabon is skilled in this seamless blending of fiction within a fictional reality. A lot of authors have tackled this theme, and it can be tricky, but Chabon's version is neither overwhelming nor confusing.

In the end, Wonder Boys wasn't wonderful, but it did have something to say. If you have the time to get through it, especially if you're a writer, I'd say go for it. I'm not planning to pick up more Chabon anytime soon though.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Books with Single-Word Titles

Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at That Artsy Reader Girl! Books with Single-Word Titles These are all my favorite books that I could think of with one-word titles. A lot of fantasy, a few nonfiction (minus subtitles) and Kindred , whether you consider it scifi or historical fiction. Also two portmanteaus using the word "bitter." I suppose it's a word that lends itself to amelioration. 1. Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler 2. Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore 3. Fire by Kristin Cashore 4. Heartless by Marissa Meyer 5. Inheritance by Christopher Paolini 6. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 7. Stoned by Aja Raden (has a subtitle) 8. Educated by Tara Westover 9. Fledgling by Octavia Butler 10. Kindred by Octavia Butler

Feliz Ano Nuevo!

Speaking of cultures and society, I leave for Spain on January 9. Instead of continuing as a book blog with a specific goal for number of books to read in a year, Space Station Mir will become a chronicle for my adventures in Spain. Expect a post for each new place that I visit, with pictures! I also plan to continue reviewing books, however I will not make a set goal for number of books to read this year. I do pledge myself to read at least one book in Spanish that was not assigned for a class. In terms of my goals for 2009, I was not diligent enough in keeping track of them. Looking back, I've fulfilled some of them and not others. The greatest trend in my reading this year, which marks a huge deviation for me, is that I've read more non-fiction than I think I've read any other year in my life. I've finally developed the ability to sustain interest in non-fiction other than biographies. For a while, biographies were the only non-fiction I ever read, with the exception

Most Recent Books I Did Not Finish

 I feel like I've been DNFing a fair amount lately, mostly with review books. I feel obligated to read review books longer than I would if they were books I just picked up on my own. That said, I have a caveat in my Book Review Policy  that if I feel I am not the right audience for the book, I won't post a review. I try to avoid that by only picking books I genuinely think I will enjoy, but of course I can't always predict that before I read. Also, while book clubs have been a great way to get exposed to books I wouldn't normally read, tastes will differ and every once in a while, I find a book I'm just not willing to finish. I also want to say no shade to the authors or anyone who enjoyed these books--they just weren't for me. Happy Top Ten Tuesday! Most Recent Books I Did Not Finish 1. Caribbean Competitors by Poppy Minnix--LibraryThing review--This one sounded great and has a beautiful cover, but while the island setting was compelling, I just couldn't ge