Monday, August 3, 2009

Dana, Book Review, *Wonder Boys, *Michael Chabon

Wonder Boys: A Novel Wonder Boys: A Novel by Michael Chabon


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow. This wasn't my first foray in the the wonderful world of Michael Chabon, but it was his first adult novel that I have read. I had previously read Summerland which is a fantastic Young Adult fantasy. I'd seen the movie version of Wonder Boys ages ago and loved it, so I was definitely excited to pick up the book. I had high expectations and Chabon exceeded them.

In brief, Wonder Boys is about a college professor, Grady Tripp, who is also a bit of a has been writer. Tripp saw great success with his first couple of novels, hence the professor job, but has been unable to finish his thousand page epic Wonder Boys, due partly to his marijuana addiction, partly to his disastrous marriage and affair, and partly to the fact that he's just trying to cram far too much into this novel. When Grady's neurotic and addict editor rolls into town for the college's LitFest, the pair end up on an epic adventure involving a suicidal student, Tripp's ex-in-laws, a dead dog and a lot of drugs.

While the plot of this novel is hilarious and well crafted, I enjoyed the writing the most. What I wouldn't kill to have Chabon's gift. He is a beautiful writer and each sentence is so melodiously crafted that they are hard to get out of your head. He finds uniques ways of saying things and his comparisons are superb. I would highly recommend this novel to anyone because it's a great book, but I would especially recommend this novel to writers. Seriously, study how this man crafts a sentence, a paragraph, a book. It's beautiful and lyrical. Well worth the read.

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8 comments:

ImageNations said...

Thanks for the review. Would get a copy anytime I come across it. Seems to be interesting

moonrat said...

I'm so jealous of you!! If this is your first MC, that means you still have KAVALIER ADN CLAY and YIDDISH POLICE ahead of you!!! I *wish* I could read them again for the first time.

Read Wonder Boys as one of my first Gap books--definitely enjoyed it. But yeah, wait til you get to his other stuff.

Unknown said...

I'm sold... its been added to my list.

Emily Cross said...

MoonRat - what would be your number one Chabon recommendation? I want to start reading his stuff, i've heard such positive things about his writing

myza said...

I loved this book. I was not too sure about it when someone gave it to me cause I really didn't get into Kavalier and Clay but when I started Wonder Boys I was hooked.

moonrat said...

Emily--as you can see from this trail, different Chabon books appeal to different people... For you, based on what I've seen you read, I'd say Yiddish Policemen's Union. It's a junction of modern potboiler/sci fi/literary fiction world building. It's also not as long as Kavalier & Clay.

If you do, let me know what you think!!

Dana Strotheide said...

Moonie- I just started reading Kavalier and Clay-- which might be back considering I'm totally hooked and now am starting school in a couple of weeks. MC is totally my literary boyfriend. :)

Anonymous said...

Wow. This wasn't my first foray in the the wonderful world of Michael Chabon..nice one..


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