Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
A modern classic, now in a welcome new edition, Wonder Boys firmly established Michael Chabon as a force to be reckoned with in American fiction. At once a deft parody of the American fame factory and a piercing portrait of young and old desire, this novel introduces two unforgettable characters: Grady Tripp, a former publishing prodigy now lost in a fog of pot and passion and stalled in the midst of his endless second book, and Grady’s student, James Leer, a budding writer obsessed with Hollywood self-destruction and struggling with his own searching heart. All those who love Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay will find the same elegant imagination, bold humor, and undeniable warmth at work in Wonder Boys.
“[A] wise, wildly funny story . . . Chabon is a flat-out wonderful writer– evocative and inventive, pointed and poignant.” –Chicago Tribune
“Whether making us laugh or making us feel the breathtaking impermanence of things, Michael Chabon keeps us wide awake and reading.” –All Things Considered
“Beguiling and wickedly smart . . . There is first-rate satirical farce in Chabon’s novel but essentially it is something rarer: satirical comedy.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
"Why did you keep writing this book if you didn't even know what it was about?"
Customer Rating:
In this farcical send-up of academia and the writing life, author Michael Chabon focuses on forty-ish author Grady Tripp, an aptly named writer/professor who is so often stoned that after seven years he has written two thousand pages of a book that is not even close to being finished. Grady's book, Wonder Boys, is much like his life--lacking in focus, fixated on the moment, and completely empty of goals or a sense of direction. His third wife has walked out on him; he's been having an affair with the Chancellor of the college where he teaches, and she is now pregnant; his editor is pressing him for a final draft of his unfinished book; and his publisher and everyone at the college are wondering if he will ever duplicate the success of his first novel.
As the novel opens, Grady "saves" one of his students, James Leer, from a possible suicide attempt, but his "mentoring" of James leads to hilariously absurd disasters for both of them. Grady's editor, the tuba-playing transvestite "girlfriend" who accompanies him, a collector of memorabilia from the marriage of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, and the violent owner of a car that Grady was given to settle a debt, further flesh out the wacky characters and keep the reader amused and laughing almost non-stop.
As the weekend progresses and Grady's personal life further unravels, he finds himself driving around with the transvestite's tuba, the Chancellor's fatally shot malamute, and an equally dead ten-foot boa constrictor in the car's trunk. Scenes in which he tries to prevent the trunk from being opened are worthy of the Marx Brothers.
The dialogue is snappy, the narrative speeds along, the word play and humor never flag, and the satire of academic life and the world of writers shows the stamp of familiarity and the author's own offbeat sense of perspective. A grand farce which carries the bite of satire, Wonder Boys avoids the arch self-consciousness of so many novels of academia and comes across instead as pure, unadulterated fun. Mary Whipple
Summerland: A Novel: Summerland The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Maps and Legends The Final Solution: A Story of Detection (P.S.)
Literary Fireworks
Customer Rating:
Most people marvel at Michael Chabon's use of language: his long, complex sentences; his wide and surprising vocabulary; his unique descriptions; and his comedic rhythm. And yes, in Wonder Boys, readers will find these in abundance. But, equally emblematic (and less talked about) are Chabon's larger-than-life characters, and his action-packed plots and sub-plots.
This author's love for comic books and so-called "genre fiction" bleeds through every page. All his characters (even minor ones) are so filled with color readers might picture them drawn by the hand of a Disney animator. And, in 350 plus pages, Chabon does not let a single scene go by without injecting it with an interesting event or conversation. In this way, he is very much a contemporary American Dickens. What I mean, is that like Dickens, Chabon moves his characters on and off the novel's field (sometimes never to return), and while the action of any given scene may not be necessary to the plot, it is nevertheless interesting.
Wonder Boys: A Novel
Customer Rating:
Fun to read but complex as all the threads of the plot come together. A very enjoyable book. I'm reading "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" now and I'm impressed by Chabon's originality and skill. I love it when books are so good that I crave uninterrupted time for reading.
Will disappoint fans of "Kavalier & Clay"
Customer Rating:
The story goes that Chabon composed Wonder Boys in a few weeks, after getting stuck on a 1,000 page tome. Turning his predicament around, he decided to write about being bogged down with an unfinishable 1,000 page manuscript.
I never understood why writers think writing itself, or their misdemeanours when they can't engage in it, should be of such great interest to the public. But this aside, one can't expect a work produced in a few weeks to live up to one that was matured over years; so fans of Kavalier & Clay are likely to be disappointed by Wonder Boys. The WWII, comic-book-inspired epic was a rich and deeply-felt adventure tale, but this is mostly about parties and the hangovers that follow them, and it takes the reader no further than a few miles outside the university campus. Even Chabon's normally lush, elliptical, but evocative style is only ironic in this earlier novel. And it contains minor inconsistencies. Of course, Chabon is never boring, and he doesn't fail to amuse with anecdotes and nice character portraits. But this book seemed to me atypical and unworthy of his awesome imagination.
Great Writing About Writing
Customer Rating:
Michael Chabon's amusing and insightful novel Wonderboys concerns an aging novelist, Grady Tripp (also the narrator), whose life and 2,600 page novel are quickly spinning onward without him. Other important characters include Grady's long-time agent, Terry Crabtree, and Grady's most gifted and troubled student, James Leer. The novel is divided into parts, of varying length, that move fluidly between present actions, the past, and what it means to be a writer. It is funny, sad, and bizarre in so many ways, but it does seem to capture some of the ethos of writing and reading literature.
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