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The Weekend Man
Everyone agrees that Wes Wakeham is a likeable if unambitious fellow, with the exception of his estranged wife, Molly, and Mrs. Bruner, the sale department secretary in the venerable Toronto publishing company where he works. Wes's strategy for getting along with people is usually effective. Doesn't he make it a point to never give offence or disagree? Doesn't he avoid giving an opinion on anything? For all his failures as a husband and a salesman, Wes is a decent man with an ironic sense of humour who suspects that life can offer more than the routines of everyday existence, if only he can figure out what we wants.
Richard B. Wright's come tale of urban angst has become a Canadian classic.
Richard B. Wright's come tale of urban angst has become a Canadian classic.
245 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
2 people are currently reading
107 people want to read
About the author
Richard B. Wright
26 books94 followersRichard B. Wright was a Canadian novelist.
Born in Midland, Ontario, Wright attended Trent University, from which he graduated in 1970. He was the author of 13 published novels and two children's books. Many of his older novels were republished after his novel Clara Callan won three of Canada's major literary awards in 2001: the Giller Prize; the Trillium Book Award; and the Governor General's Award.
Born in Midland, Ontario, Wright attended Trent University, from which he graduated in 1970. He was the author of 13 published novels and two children's books. Many of his older novels were republished after his novel Clara Callan won three of Canada's major literary awards in 2001: the Giller Prize; the Trillium Book Award; and the Governor General's Award.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 10, 2024
He's a real Nowhere Man
Living in his Nowhere land -
Making all his Nowhere plans
For Nobody.
Lennon & McCartney
Wes Wakeham is the Weekend Man. His life's a painful mess. Separated from his wife, he feels lost and alone and unmoored from life. He has to resort to physical self-love as his last resort to ease the pain.
Wright’s Weekend Man was ME, when I read it in my early twenties. Like the protagonist, I lived on the Moon - I was pretty much out of it.
And having never picked up on the Sterner Stuff that was getting my parents through Life (when they could overlook my ditziness for long enough) I was lost.
They were members of the Greatest Generation. And I - I was a Flower Child. A drifter through life.
Wright’s right!
There are so many disenchanted drifters just like I was. The media encourages that sort of attitude. Our laissez-faire friends extol it. And you know, everybody loves a target!
But is it intelligent? Not really. Mere ditziness can disintegrate into depression.
For the Wheel of Karma, meanwhile, continues to grind away. And we fall beneath it if we’re unwary.
Excelsior!
We will, in fact, gain by LEARNING ABOUT THE VALIDITY OF OTHER PEOPLE’S SIDES. And who to trust, comparing the extent of their infection - with our own moral thermometer.
If it all only gets worse, though, there is a further remedy - to keep learning from, respecting and loving those around us no matter how hopelessly dumb it seems - in spite of all their ironic attacks.
That irony is our Education. It makes us Sophomoric. But our inborn ditziness can be our best defence, if it grows into compassion. Don’t fall between life’s cracks by growing cynical.
A sense of total forgiveness can help dispel the foul mood that inevitably creeps over us when we fall into that vicious Storm. But that takes much work.
And it hurts.
It’s gotta.
Life hurts Wes Wakeham, too. But as yet grace has shown him no exit from his pain. He has been assigned a number, and awaits his turn - there, in the not-unpleasant Anteroom of Hell.
But, “Give up Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here.” The shreds of hope within Wes are like embers of the Spirit, which could be once again coaxed into Flaming Life - could Wes be convinced into FIGHTING his downward urges and his slide into the Slough of Despond - the spongy marshland on the precincts of the Kingdom of Dis.
One bold man, 2,000 years ago, marched right into that swamp and freed many. He can free you from your Hell, too.
Though, perhaps Wes has already relinquished his will.
But, you know, most of US haven’t! But most of us just haven’t tried the limits of our endurance. Better safe than sorry? Sorry - no.
Endurance is everything.
Cultivating the parched soil of the desert is hard, but hard and devoted work will eventually pay off. It pays off when we get our the strength we need from our fellow travellers, and One Fellow Traveller in particular.
For we are NEVER alone.
You know, one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s best-known tunes is Wachet Auf - Sleepers Awake. If we can make ourselves Wake Up we’ll avoid a lot of unnecessary pain in our lives. And the Road to Awakeness is well-mapped in our books.
There’s the new beginning of a New Dawn out there.
And that morning light is in seeing the value of other folks’ personal TRUTHS. Yes, even some of the ‘Bad Guys.’ You may not like what you see. So pace yourself!
To paraphrase an old Neil Sedaka tune, Waking up is Hard to Do (Ouch)! But it’s worth it.
For it will bring new richness and value into our parched lives. The deaths we must die will in fact bring us Life.
We CAN’T drift forever.
If we just let the Good Times Roll on & on, they WILL roll - all over us. T. S. Eliot looked out of his window shortly after WWI and what did he see? Crowds and crowds of people, walking in a ring. Those aimless people are US, when we avoid our private bugaboos.
Thinking we already know, sophomorically. We don’t.
Waking up means’s facing EVERYONE’s MUSIC. Including our OWN false notes.
Don’t back out!
In her monumental literary sci-fi novel, Shikasta, Doris Lessing describes a scene of similarly futile universal behaviour as the World comes to an end...
Is this what we really want? To live for only our weekends all the way to a dusty radioactive death?
But that was ME.
If I, as I later thought, can endure in wakefulness, by realizing just how hard it really is to plant the Flag of Hope in all this dust - all the time - I would gain the Will to do it.
But then the Grace of the Ordinary stepped in and picked up the slack for me... for, you know, God’s very Being is in the Ordinary!
So, wake we must.
Because the Left Hand of of own own unsleeping Darkness will try endlessly to remove it. “We would rather be Ruined than Changed?”
Keep moving!
Richard Wright, of course, since this book, went on to innumerable critical accolades and has since become a Canadian literary icon.
He was a born writer. His great, later Clara Callan is a fine example.
But this book of his will always be the one I’ll remember.
For this is the book that told me I was ASLEEP...
Just in time to join the struggle.
For it’s only in struggle that we GROW.
And become at Peace with ourselves, in the end.
And we MUST persevere to the end.
Like it or not!
Living in his Nowhere land -
Making all his Nowhere plans
For Nobody.
Lennon & McCartney
Wes Wakeham is the Weekend Man. His life's a painful mess. Separated from his wife, he feels lost and alone and unmoored from life. He has to resort to physical self-love as his last resort to ease the pain.
Wright’s Weekend Man was ME, when I read it in my early twenties. Like the protagonist, I lived on the Moon - I was pretty much out of it.
And having never picked up on the Sterner Stuff that was getting my parents through Life (when they could overlook my ditziness for long enough) I was lost.
They were members of the Greatest Generation. And I - I was a Flower Child. A drifter through life.
Wright’s right!
There are so many disenchanted drifters just like I was. The media encourages that sort of attitude. Our laissez-faire friends extol it. And you know, everybody loves a target!
But is it intelligent? Not really. Mere ditziness can disintegrate into depression.
For the Wheel of Karma, meanwhile, continues to grind away. And we fall beneath it if we’re unwary.
Excelsior!
We will, in fact, gain by LEARNING ABOUT THE VALIDITY OF OTHER PEOPLE’S SIDES. And who to trust, comparing the extent of their infection - with our own moral thermometer.
If it all only gets worse, though, there is a further remedy - to keep learning from, respecting and loving those around us no matter how hopelessly dumb it seems - in spite of all their ironic attacks.
That irony is our Education. It makes us Sophomoric. But our inborn ditziness can be our best defence, if it grows into compassion. Don’t fall between life’s cracks by growing cynical.
A sense of total forgiveness can help dispel the foul mood that inevitably creeps over us when we fall into that vicious Storm. But that takes much work.
And it hurts.
It’s gotta.
Life hurts Wes Wakeham, too. But as yet grace has shown him no exit from his pain. He has been assigned a number, and awaits his turn - there, in the not-unpleasant Anteroom of Hell.
But, “Give up Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here.” The shreds of hope within Wes are like embers of the Spirit, which could be once again coaxed into Flaming Life - could Wes be convinced into FIGHTING his downward urges and his slide into the Slough of Despond - the spongy marshland on the precincts of the Kingdom of Dis.
One bold man, 2,000 years ago, marched right into that swamp and freed many. He can free you from your Hell, too.
Though, perhaps Wes has already relinquished his will.
But, you know, most of US haven’t! But most of us just haven’t tried the limits of our endurance. Better safe than sorry? Sorry - no.
Endurance is everything.
Cultivating the parched soil of the desert is hard, but hard and devoted work will eventually pay off. It pays off when we get our the strength we need from our fellow travellers, and One Fellow Traveller in particular.
For we are NEVER alone.
You know, one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s best-known tunes is Wachet Auf - Sleepers Awake. If we can make ourselves Wake Up we’ll avoid a lot of unnecessary pain in our lives. And the Road to Awakeness is well-mapped in our books.
There’s the new beginning of a New Dawn out there.
And that morning light is in seeing the value of other folks’ personal TRUTHS. Yes, even some of the ‘Bad Guys.’ You may not like what you see. So pace yourself!
To paraphrase an old Neil Sedaka tune, Waking up is Hard to Do (Ouch)! But it’s worth it.
For it will bring new richness and value into our parched lives. The deaths we must die will in fact bring us Life.
We CAN’T drift forever.
If we just let the Good Times Roll on & on, they WILL roll - all over us. T. S. Eliot looked out of his window shortly after WWI and what did he see? Crowds and crowds of people, walking in a ring. Those aimless people are US, when we avoid our private bugaboos.
Thinking we already know, sophomorically. We don’t.
Waking up means’s facing EVERYONE’s MUSIC. Including our OWN false notes.
Don’t back out!
In her monumental literary sci-fi novel, Shikasta, Doris Lessing describes a scene of similarly futile universal behaviour as the World comes to an end...
Is this what we really want? To live for only our weekends all the way to a dusty radioactive death?
But that was ME.
If I, as I later thought, can endure in wakefulness, by realizing just how hard it really is to plant the Flag of Hope in all this dust - all the time - I would gain the Will to do it.
But then the Grace of the Ordinary stepped in and picked up the slack for me... for, you know, God’s very Being is in the Ordinary!
So, wake we must.
Because the Left Hand of of own own unsleeping Darkness will try endlessly to remove it. “We would rather be Ruined than Changed?”
Keep moving!
Richard Wright, of course, since this book, went on to innumerable critical accolades and has since become a Canadian literary icon.
He was a born writer. His great, later Clara Callan is a fine example.
But this book of his will always be the one I’ll remember.
For this is the book that told me I was ASLEEP...
Just in time to join the struggle.
For it’s only in struggle that we GROW.
And become at Peace with ourselves, in the end.
And we MUST persevere to the end.
Like it or not!
January 2, 2019
Stabs near themes that Heller's Something Happened conquered before salting the earth lest anyone else attempt a virtuoso performance in his theme-space.
I don't know which novel came first but it doesn't matter much.
This is like reading Zamyatin's We after having read Orwell's 1984. You see where it came from but you prefer where it went :)
I don't know which novel came first but it doesn't matter much.
This is like reading Zamyatin's We after having read Orwell's 1984. You see where it came from but you prefer where it went :)
October 29, 2024
Aldous Huxley light. Ironisk og morsom om «livets uendelige letthet». Mens Huxley’s «Brave new world» er science fiction og foregår i framtida, er scenen for denne boka Toronto på 70-tallet. Det moderne livets uendelige repetisjoner framstår som meningsløse. Hovedpersonens manglende ambisjoner er beskrevet på en særs humoristisk måte. Lettlest og underholdende samtids kritikk.
March 20, 2018
I loved it .It seems to be so simply written . I flew through it . But what seems simple writing has layers of much unsaid underneath it all. What’s not mentioned comes to mind while reading . The lyrics of a Pink Floyd song come to mind ,
“Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day , you fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way “. Harold Caufield the main character in “ the catcher in the rye “ also comes to mind . How many people are there like Wes Wakefield who wonders to him self “ Why I assume to assume anything at all is a great puzzle”. How many people just go thru life simply waiting for it to end and couldn’t care less about accomplishing anything ? As I teenager I recall older people asking me “what are you going to be in life ?” . Think about how dumb that statement is . Do you mean what I really want or more realistically what I expect ? Because they’re not the same thing . What are you gong to be in life ?! I wish I could have responded with something clever at the time but I was too young .I found myself bursting out laughing while reading some of the passages . Filled with wry humor and I was able to relate to all of it .
“Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day , you fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way “. Harold Caufield the main character in “ the catcher in the rye “ also comes to mind . How many people are there like Wes Wakefield who wonders to him self “ Why I assume to assume anything at all is a great puzzle”. How many people just go thru life simply waiting for it to end and couldn’t care less about accomplishing anything ? As I teenager I recall older people asking me “what are you going to be in life ?” . Think about how dumb that statement is . Do you mean what I really want or more realistically what I expect ? Because they’re not the same thing . What are you gong to be in life ?! I wish I could have responded with something clever at the time but I was too young .I found myself bursting out laughing while reading some of the passages . Filled with wry humor and I was able to relate to all of it .
January 3, 2021
I struggled to rate this book as it the first book by Richard B. Wright that I have read. It is also the first novel that this award-winning Canadian author had published (and that was back in 1970).
Needless to say, some of the language was dated and I cringed when the protagonist Wes Wakeham, a 30-year old salesman referred to women in the firm as 'girls'. However, despite not liking many of the 'womanizing' males and 'shallow' female characters depicted in the book, I felt Wright had a good eye and ear for details. He also wove some deeper themes about life within the Christmas themed setting and he had a good command of the English language. (Some beautifully-written phrases and metaphors.)
Was the book a "comic tale of urban angst" as stated on the back cover? Perhaps it depends on your sense of humour. There was certainly angst and so many bad decisions, making me wonder where Wes Wakeham is headed once the final page is read.
I am indeed curious to read more of Wright's work to see how it has evolved over the years.
Needless to say, some of the language was dated and I cringed when the protagonist Wes Wakeham, a 30-year old salesman referred to women in the firm as 'girls'. However, despite not liking many of the 'womanizing' males and 'shallow' female characters depicted in the book, I felt Wright had a good eye and ear for details. He also wove some deeper themes about life within the Christmas themed setting and he had a good command of the English language. (Some beautifully-written phrases and metaphors.)
Was the book a "comic tale of urban angst" as stated on the back cover? Perhaps it depends on your sense of humour. There was certainly angst and so many bad decisions, making me wonder where Wes Wakeham is headed once the final page is read.
I am indeed curious to read more of Wright's work to see how it has evolved over the years.
September 19, 2020
It starts off intriguingly and hypnotically; Wes Wakeham is an fascinating character, likable yet somehow off-kilter with the world around him. The first third of the novel strings out the mystery behind the character...only to see the story collapse into a holding pattern, going around in circles...ending roughly where it began, with a character who is mysteriously at an angle to the rest of reality...but offering no solid explanation as to why, and what the resolution to his whatever-it-is could possibly be. Only Richard B Wright's superb writing style got me through to the end of this frustrating work.
November 22, 2024
4 stars is a little high but 3 too low. A gifted storyteller👍
June 3, 2025
I love this story book
August 10, 2012
Some isolated beautiful passages, but this piece is more about philosophy than plot. The central conflict is not as well crafted as it is in Adultery or October. I continue to think of this man as a favourite writer no matter how faint this praise may be.
July 27, 2007
booorrrring!
June 27, 2013
i didn't think i was going to like but i did...very well written
September 25, 2013
Humorous look at an unambitious man. Well written like most of Wright's novels.
May 5, 2016
An excellent portrayal of the minutiae of everyday living.
Read
December 31, 2016I had to read this for my English class and I must admit, I dislike it a lot.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews