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The Last Enchantments
The Last Enchantments is a powerfully moving and lyrically written novel. A young American embarks on a year at Oxford and has an impassioned affair that will change his life forever
After graduating from Yale, William Baker, scion of an old line patrician family, goes to work in presidential politics. But when the campaign into which he's poured his heart ends in disappointment, he decides to leave New York behind, along with the devoted, ambitious, and well-connected woman he’s been in love with for the last four years.
Will expects nothing more than a year off before resuming the comfortable life he's always known, but he's soon caught up in a whirlwind of unexpected friendships and romantic entanglements that threaten his safe plans. As he explores the heady social world of Oxford, he becomes fast friends with Tom, his snobbish but affable flat mate; Anil, an Indian economist with a deep love for gangster rap; Anneliese, a German historian obsessed with photography; and Timmo, whose chief ambition is to become a reality television star. What he's least prepared for is Sophie, a witty, beautiful and enigmatic woman who makes him question everything he knows about himself.
For readers who made a classic of Richard Yates's A Good School, Charles Finch's The Last Enchantments is a sweeping novel about love and loss that redefines what it means to grow up as an American in the twenty-first century.
After graduating from Yale, William Baker, scion of an old line patrician family, goes to work in presidential politics. But when the campaign into which he's poured his heart ends in disappointment, he decides to leave New York behind, along with the devoted, ambitious, and well-connected woman he’s been in love with for the last four years.
Will expects nothing more than a year off before resuming the comfortable life he's always known, but he's soon caught up in a whirlwind of unexpected friendships and romantic entanglements that threaten his safe plans. As he explores the heady social world of Oxford, he becomes fast friends with Tom, his snobbish but affable flat mate; Anil, an Indian economist with a deep love for gangster rap; Anneliese, a German historian obsessed with photography; and Timmo, whose chief ambition is to become a reality television star. What he's least prepared for is Sophie, a witty, beautiful and enigmatic woman who makes him question everything he knows about himself.
For readers who made a classic of Richard Yates's A Good School, Charles Finch's The Last Enchantments is a sweeping novel about love and loss that redefines what it means to grow up as an American in the twenty-first century.
323 pages, Hardcover
First published January 28, 2014
167 people are currently reading
5337 people want to read
About the author
Charles Finch
37 books2,470 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads' database with this name. See this thread for more information.
My name is Charles Finch - welcome! I'm the author of the Charles Lenox series of historical mysteries, as well as a recent novel about expatriate life in Oxford, THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS. I also write book reviews for the New York Times, USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune and essays in many different places.
Like most people on this website, I'm a huge reader. My taste is all over the place, though I tend to really like literary and mystery fiction. Some of my favorite writers: George Orwell, Henry Green, Dick Francis, Anthony Trollope, David Lodge, PG Wodehouse, Bill Bryson, Roberto Bolano, Jonathan Franzen, Shirley Hazzard, Leo Tolstoy, AR Ammons, Philip Larkin, Edgar Bowers, Laurent Binet, Laurie Colwin, Jane Austen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Philip Roth, Henrik Ibsen, Geoff Dyer, the list could go forever...
A bit about myself: I was born in New York City, and since then I've lived all over the place, in America, England, France...at the moment I'm in Chicago, where I just recently moved. I spend most of my time here writing, reading, walking my dog, and trying not to let my ears freeze off.
You can find me on Facebook (facebook.com/charlesfinchauthor) where my reader are always giving fantastic book reviews, or Twitter (twitter.com/charlesfinch) which I don't like quite as much, though it's okay. I'll also try to blog here. Please let me know what I'm doing wrong, since I have remedial goodreads skills...
My name is Charles Finch - welcome! I'm the author of the Charles Lenox series of historical mysteries, as well as a recent novel about expatriate life in Oxford, THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS. I also write book reviews for the New York Times, USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune and essays in many different places.
Like most people on this website, I'm a huge reader. My taste is all over the place, though I tend to really like literary and mystery fiction. Some of my favorite writers: George Orwell, Henry Green, Dick Francis, Anthony Trollope, David Lodge, PG Wodehouse, Bill Bryson, Roberto Bolano, Jonathan Franzen, Shirley Hazzard, Leo Tolstoy, AR Ammons, Philip Larkin, Edgar Bowers, Laurent Binet, Laurie Colwin, Jane Austen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Philip Roth, Henrik Ibsen, Geoff Dyer, the list could go forever...
A bit about myself: I was born in New York City, and since then I've lived all over the place, in America, England, France...at the moment I'm in Chicago, where I just recently moved. I spend most of my time here writing, reading, walking my dog, and trying not to let my ears freeze off.
You can find me on Facebook (facebook.com/charlesfinchauthor) where my reader are always giving fantastic book reviews, or Twitter (twitter.com/charlesfinch) which I don't like quite as much, though it's okay. I'll also try to blog here. Please let me know what I'm doing wrong, since I have remedial goodreads skills...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 475 reviews
November 2, 2013
I wrote this, so...totally unbiased.
March 18, 2014
I can not tell you how disappointed in this book I was. I just didn't see why it was written. It didn't have a great story, most of the characters were unlikable, and there was nothing to learn from the story. I assume it's fairly autobiographical but I don't know. The story is of a youngish (mid 20's) American who goes to Oxford for post graduation work. He spent time on working for the John Kerry presidential campaign and is at loose ends so he goes to England.
There he meets a gang of pretty dislikable people, almost all rich as is the American. There they sleep around, drink vast amounts of alcohol and do a lot of drugs. Occasionally they study. It really sounds like almost everyone's college experience. The only difference is that it's at Oxford. Not much else happens. There's no lessons to be learned. There are no memorable moments. There is no one to root for.
In short this was a waste of time. I wish I had my time back. I beg you, don't read this. Find something interesting. Try Willy Vlautin, CJ Sansom or Geraldine Brooks. Try somebody who doesn't waste your time.
There he meets a gang of pretty dislikable people, almost all rich as is the American. There they sleep around, drink vast amounts of alcohol and do a lot of drugs. Occasionally they study. It really sounds like almost everyone's college experience. The only difference is that it's at Oxford. Not much else happens. There's no lessons to be learned. There are no memorable moments. There is no one to root for.
In short this was a waste of time. I wish I had my time back. I beg you, don't read this. Find something interesting. Try Willy Vlautin, CJ Sansom or Geraldine Brooks. Try somebody who doesn't waste your time.
March 12, 2014
I was always going to be picky about this book, because the premise – a young American’s life-changing year abroad in England – hits so close to home. In 2003, as a fresh-faced nineteen-year-old, I first flew to England for a study abroad program at the University of Reading. During that year several of us also took private theology tutorials at a don’s home in suburban Oxford, so we were back and forth on the train between Reading and Oxford on a weekly basis, and I grew nearly as fond of Oxford’s gorgeous architecture, quaint pubs, river punting and cobbled walks as any international student at Oxford itself. In 2005 I went back to England, this time to the University of Leeds, to get a master’s in Victorian Literature.
(It’s an old story: I met an English guy that year, and he is now my husband of 6.5 years.)
So I found a lot that resonated for me in the experiences of Finch’s protagonist, Will Baker, who starts a master’s in English at Oxford (specializing in Orwell) in the fall of 2005. I was worried to start with, though, because Finch begins with some fairly clichéd stuff: Will mislaying his passport on the day he’s due to fly (though that did happen to one of the other girls on my study abroad program); a surly border agent at Heathrow (which didn’t seem realistic to me at all; I’ve had nothing but efficient, polite – often wordless – service at Heathrow, as opposed to landing back in America, where you’d think I’m a criminal for daring to live abroad); and Will’s roommate turning out to be your average Tory toff.
Plus, in the first 30 pages especially, Finch does way too much explaining: little narrative asides to make sure he doesn’t lose readers with any British slang or Oxford-specific customs. You could argue that this is his way of showing Will’s initial disorientation, especially given that the clarifications tail off after the first chapter, but I would rather that Finch had just thrown readers in at the deep end and expected them to be clever enough to catch up – or Google something if they were really at sea.
That said, I very much enjoyed The Last Enchantments. For me, Finch does a fantastic job of capturing what a bittersweet thing a study abroad year is: it’s a golden time, when you feel like you’re really living each day to the fullest, but by its very nature, it cannot last – “It’s hard without some pain to think of the past, how perishable both it and its certainties are: how once upon a time we belonged to something, to a school, a person, a group of friends; and how we no longer do.”
I might not be able to relate to some of the more ‘worldly’ specifics of Will and his friends’ experience – the clubbing, the drunkenness, the various (kind of annoying) on-again-off-again relationships, the hook-up culture – because I was still deep in Evangelical Christian culture back then and my life abroad turned out to be pretty tame. Still, so much felt familiar: frustration with the arid posturing of academia (“The essay I had just turned in used the words ‘sessile,’ ‘chthonic,’ and ‘Bakhtinian’—in its first sentence”), the comfort of being among one’s ‘own kind’ (“it was perfect to be with an American person—I didn’t need to explain anything, or translate from American English to British English”), failing to live up to others’ expectations of friendliness (“You’re the American, you’re supposed to be an extrovert”), even that sheepish feeling of resorting to an overseas McDonald’s or Starbucks (“There are few things as distressing to anyone who pretends to the title of world traveler than to be seated in an American chain restaurant abroad”).
Will is a fairly appealing narrator for these Anglo-American adventures. I enjoyed the snippets about his background in politics – a stalwart upper-class Democrat in his Yale days, he’d worked for the John Kerry election campaign in 2004 – but I thought the story of his druggie father was utterly ludicrous and out-of-place. The plot strand about Tom and his sister was a strong one to start with, though I became weary of Tom’s self-destructive drinking and romantic antics before too long. Some minor characters ended up being my favorites: Anil, the hip hop lover and wannabe gangster from Mumbai who bursts out with “Haters gonna hate” in any context (I imagined him resembling actor/comedian Aziz Ansari, aka Tom Haverford on Parks and Recreation), Tommo, who’s bound for 15 minutes of Big Brother fame, and St. John (that’s Sinjun to you) Jarvis, the cynical old don and family friend who gives Will useful advice.
I don’t usually comment on such peripherals, but I’ll also say that I love the title (from a Matthew Arnold quote about Oxford) and the cover – that view of the Bridge of Sighs is one of the most iconic in a town full of amazing vistas. Overall, Finch gets the atmosphere of mixed naïveté and melancholy nostalgia just right; in this way, his novel is reminiscent of The Bellwether Revivals and Brideshead Revisited. I loved his encapsulation of how you can miss a time and a place even when it’s still part of your life: “I miss Oxford, too, and I live here.” I sometimes feel the same way about Reading. I still live here, yet it’s nothing like it was in that one perfect year.
With this novel’s surprisingly advanced vocabulary (involucre, appanage), I can see how Finch would have the diction for historical fiction. I’m not entirely convinced by the sound of his ‘Charles Lenox’ Victorian mysteries, though perhaps I’ll take a chance on the first one, at least. Based on this, his first work of contemporary fiction, I think Finch is a terrific writer, and I’m certainly very glad I had the chance to read The Last Enchantments.
(Also of interest: Finch chose six favorite novels of expatriate life for Bookish.)
I was delighted to win a copy in a First Reads giveaway.
(It’s an old story: I met an English guy that year, and he is now my husband of 6.5 years.)
So I found a lot that resonated for me in the experiences of Finch’s protagonist, Will Baker, who starts a master’s in English at Oxford (specializing in Orwell) in the fall of 2005. I was worried to start with, though, because Finch begins with some fairly clichéd stuff: Will mislaying his passport on the day he’s due to fly (though that did happen to one of the other girls on my study abroad program); a surly border agent at Heathrow (which didn’t seem realistic to me at all; I’ve had nothing but efficient, polite – often wordless – service at Heathrow, as opposed to landing back in America, where you’d think I’m a criminal for daring to live abroad); and Will’s roommate turning out to be your average Tory toff.
Plus, in the first 30 pages especially, Finch does way too much explaining: little narrative asides to make sure he doesn’t lose readers with any British slang or Oxford-specific customs. You could argue that this is his way of showing Will’s initial disorientation, especially given that the clarifications tail off after the first chapter, but I would rather that Finch had just thrown readers in at the deep end and expected them to be clever enough to catch up – or Google something if they were really at sea.
That said, I very much enjoyed The Last Enchantments. For me, Finch does a fantastic job of capturing what a bittersweet thing a study abroad year is: it’s a golden time, when you feel like you’re really living each day to the fullest, but by its very nature, it cannot last – “It’s hard without some pain to think of the past, how perishable both it and its certainties are: how once upon a time we belonged to something, to a school, a person, a group of friends; and how we no longer do.”
I might not be able to relate to some of the more ‘worldly’ specifics of Will and his friends’ experience – the clubbing, the drunkenness, the various (kind of annoying) on-again-off-again relationships, the hook-up culture – because I was still deep in Evangelical Christian culture back then and my life abroad turned out to be pretty tame. Still, so much felt familiar: frustration with the arid posturing of academia (“The essay I had just turned in used the words ‘sessile,’ ‘chthonic,’ and ‘Bakhtinian’—in its first sentence”), the comfort of being among one’s ‘own kind’ (“it was perfect to be with an American person—I didn’t need to explain anything, or translate from American English to British English”), failing to live up to others’ expectations of friendliness (“You’re the American, you’re supposed to be an extrovert”), even that sheepish feeling of resorting to an overseas McDonald’s or Starbucks (“There are few things as distressing to anyone who pretends to the title of world traveler than to be seated in an American chain restaurant abroad”).
Will is a fairly appealing narrator for these Anglo-American adventures. I enjoyed the snippets about his background in politics – a stalwart upper-class Democrat in his Yale days, he’d worked for the John Kerry election campaign in 2004 – but I thought the story of his druggie father was utterly ludicrous and out-of-place. The plot strand about Tom and his sister was a strong one to start with, though I became weary of Tom’s self-destructive drinking and romantic antics before too long. Some minor characters ended up being my favorites: Anil, the hip hop lover and wannabe gangster from Mumbai who bursts out with “Haters gonna hate” in any context (I imagined him resembling actor/comedian Aziz Ansari, aka Tom Haverford on Parks and Recreation), Tommo, who’s bound for 15 minutes of Big Brother fame, and St. John (that’s Sinjun to you) Jarvis, the cynical old don and family friend who gives Will useful advice.
I don’t usually comment on such peripherals, but I’ll also say that I love the title (from a Matthew Arnold quote about Oxford) and the cover – that view of the Bridge of Sighs is one of the most iconic in a town full of amazing vistas. Overall, Finch gets the atmosphere of mixed naïveté and melancholy nostalgia just right; in this way, his novel is reminiscent of The Bellwether Revivals and Brideshead Revisited. I loved his encapsulation of how you can miss a time and a place even when it’s still part of your life: “I miss Oxford, too, and I live here.” I sometimes feel the same way about Reading. I still live here, yet it’s nothing like it was in that one perfect year.
With this novel’s surprisingly advanced vocabulary (involucre, appanage), I can see how Finch would have the diction for historical fiction. I’m not entirely convinced by the sound of his ‘Charles Lenox’ Victorian mysteries, though perhaps I’ll take a chance on the first one, at least. Based on this, his first work of contemporary fiction, I think Finch is a terrific writer, and I’m certainly very glad I had the chance to read The Last Enchantments.
(Also of interest: Finch chose six favorite novels of expatriate life for Bookish.)
I was delighted to win a copy in a First Reads giveaway.
February 8, 2016
I decided that I wanted to read this book because I liked the Charles Lennox mysteries that this author writes and I was curious about this book. I requested an audio version of the book from my Library.
I started listening to the audio, narrated by Luke Daniels. After listening to the first two CDs, I was not sure I was all that interested in the story. It had nothing to do with the audio quality or narration, I just wasn't sure that I was all that interested in the story. I had recently read a similar story, The Marriage Plot and I wasn't sure I wanted to read another story about Graduate Students. College students drinking and partying when they were not studying. College students who like someone, who doesn't like them, or obsessing over someone they left behind, or who they want to sleep with, etc. bla, bla, bla.
I decided to sleep on it and see if I felt different the next day. The next day, I listened to another CD. It didn't make me feel any differently. I got on-line and looked over the reviews for the book. Several reviewers had indicated that the author was trying to re-write Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, which I had never read. I found a copy, downloaded it, and spent 5 hours straight listening to it. I was awed by it!
I finished The Last Enchantment. It wasn't great, but it wasn't that bad either. The characters were okay. I wanted to slap one or two, but I did not really care one way or another, really.
Basically, the author was trying to write a somewhat autobiographical story about a time in his life that he really cared about and loved. The only comparison to Brideshead Revisited that I could find was Oxford, really. Not the same story at all!
I started listening to the audio, narrated by Luke Daniels. After listening to the first two CDs, I was not sure I was all that interested in the story. It had nothing to do with the audio quality or narration, I just wasn't sure that I was all that interested in the story. I had recently read a similar story, The Marriage Plot and I wasn't sure I wanted to read another story about Graduate Students. College students drinking and partying when they were not studying. College students who like someone, who doesn't like them, or obsessing over someone they left behind, or who they want to sleep with, etc. bla, bla, bla.
I decided to sleep on it and see if I felt different the next day. The next day, I listened to another CD. It didn't make me feel any differently. I got on-line and looked over the reviews for the book. Several reviewers had indicated that the author was trying to re-write Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, which I had never read. I found a copy, downloaded it, and spent 5 hours straight listening to it. I was awed by it!
I finished The Last Enchantment. It wasn't great, but it wasn't that bad either. The characters were okay. I wanted to slap one or two, but I did not really care one way or another, really.
Basically, the author was trying to write a somewhat autobiographical story about a time in his life that he really cared about and loved. The only comparison to Brideshead Revisited that I could find was Oxford, really. Not the same story at all!
August 28, 2017
I didn't know what I would make this book, as I am quite fond of Charles Finch's Lenox series, a character I have, as I rarely do, adopted into my fictional family circle along the lines of 'good old uncle Charlie'. The LAST ENCHANTMENTS is unquestionable different, which is not to say it is less enjoyable, if anything I must say I read it faster than any in the Lenox series.
The book centers around the life, specifically one year in the life of William Baker, a graduate student from NY spending a year studying in Oxford. As someone who loves this city, I was instantly curious. Finch manages to make Oxford a major character in itself, no easy feat. Maybe this is because I have an understanding of the strange magic of the place, so it was not hard for me to see the elegant spires, the green lawns, the Bod or the punts as he describes them, but I really think any reader, whether or not familiar with the city would be transported.
Another aspect which makes this book entirely readable, despite a great deal of philosophical musings and literary allusions, is that the characters come across as incredibly real and life-like, sometimes to their detriment. The story is told in the first person voice of Will, and I am a big fan of using the first person, if it is done well, because it allows this instant insight, even a bond between reader and character. So even when Will did things I wish he hadn't, I didn't like him any less because I knew he felt guilty or at least that he was a thoughtful person. He could, at times, be a bit of a tosser yet I find myself writing about him as though we are good acquaintances, but that, I suppose, is a testament to the skill of the writer.
I will say, it was a bit strange, at first, coming across swear words, sex, an abundance of drinking, and other such topics from an author from whom I am used to reading about much more sophisticated behavior; yet this book is set in 2005 in a University town, and thus one could hardly expect everyone to go about saying, 'jolly good' or 'heavens no!', courting and wooing and sipping their port.
Another aspect I enjoyed were the references to music and pop culture, which were just as relevant as the more lofty references to art, literature, and politics. Will was thus a well rounded, sometimes immature, even frustrating, mostly kind, intelligent and overall absorbing character to spend a few days with. Part of me wishes Finch would write another book, a follow up, but then, maybe this snippet, a full year really, is best left as it is. There were portions of the story which frustrated me, the romance, which I won't elaborate on for fear of spoiling the story for anyone, in particular was difficult at times when I just wanted to take Will by the shoulders and give him a nice shake. And still, now that I have sped through it, I wish I hadn't. There was a sort of calm, tenderness to the whole approach, if that makes any sense. Nothing felt forced or overdone. There were so many passages, phrases, sentences which somehow felt very "true" and as I closed my copy of the book I found it all puffy from the many dog-ears I had made to mark them. One so rarely comes across books like this by male writers, or at least I have not, and I feel I got such a deep insight into this character and his life and his thoughts it is hard to let go and move on to someone else. Alas, that is the burden of the reader. Perhaps, in some time, I will return and visit Will and Oxford again.
I received this advanced reader copy from St Martin's Press and have written what I hope is a fair and fitting review, thanks!
Find more reviews and bookish fun at http://www.princessandpen.com
The book centers around the life, specifically one year in the life of William Baker, a graduate student from NY spending a year studying in Oxford. As someone who loves this city, I was instantly curious. Finch manages to make Oxford a major character in itself, no easy feat. Maybe this is because I have an understanding of the strange magic of the place, so it was not hard for me to see the elegant spires, the green lawns, the Bod or the punts as he describes them, but I really think any reader, whether or not familiar with the city would be transported.
Another aspect which makes this book entirely readable, despite a great deal of philosophical musings and literary allusions, is that the characters come across as incredibly real and life-like, sometimes to their detriment. The story is told in the first person voice of Will, and I am a big fan of using the first person, if it is done well, because it allows this instant insight, even a bond between reader and character. So even when Will did things I wish he hadn't, I didn't like him any less because I knew he felt guilty or at least that he was a thoughtful person. He could, at times, be a bit of a tosser yet I find myself writing about him as though we are good acquaintances, but that, I suppose, is a testament to the skill of the writer.
I will say, it was a bit strange, at first, coming across swear words, sex, an abundance of drinking, and other such topics from an author from whom I am used to reading about much more sophisticated behavior; yet this book is set in 2005 in a University town, and thus one could hardly expect everyone to go about saying, 'jolly good' or 'heavens no!', courting and wooing and sipping their port.
Another aspect I enjoyed were the references to music and pop culture, which were just as relevant as the more lofty references to art, literature, and politics. Will was thus a well rounded, sometimes immature, even frustrating, mostly kind, intelligent and overall absorbing character to spend a few days with. Part of me wishes Finch would write another book, a follow up, but then, maybe this snippet, a full year really, is best left as it is. There were portions of the story which frustrated me, the romance, which I won't elaborate on for fear of spoiling the story for anyone, in particular was difficult at times when I just wanted to take Will by the shoulders and give him a nice shake. And still, now that I have sped through it, I wish I hadn't. There was a sort of calm, tenderness to the whole approach, if that makes any sense. Nothing felt forced or overdone. There were so many passages, phrases, sentences which somehow felt very "true" and as I closed my copy of the book I found it all puffy from the many dog-ears I had made to mark them. One so rarely comes across books like this by male writers, or at least I have not, and I feel I got such a deep insight into this character and his life and his thoughts it is hard to let go and move on to someone else. Alas, that is the burden of the reader. Perhaps, in some time, I will return and visit Will and Oxford again.
I received this advanced reader copy from St Martin's Press and have written what I hope is a fair and fitting review, thanks!
Find more reviews and bookish fun at http://www.princessandpen.com
February 28, 2014
Parts of this novel were, indeed, enchanting. However, the sophomoric (literally) conduct of most of the main characters was wearying after a while. The American narrator's obsession with an obviously manipulative woman--and his own execrable treatment of other young women--made him an unsympathetic protagonist. Unfair of me, I know, since such behavior is not atypical of privileged students in his age group. I liked other novels by this author, and the quality of the prose would ordinarily get a 4-star rating.
July 10, 2016
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. Thank you Goodreads, and thank you, publisher.
You think this is a fantasy book? Or with elements of magical realism? Well, titles can fool you and this one does. It’s set in fairly contemporary times – 2005 – at Oxford in England, mostly, and concerns a young Amerian male (25 years old) who’s there for a year to get a graduate degree. He interacts with other students, some English, others foreigners, and makes friends, lives a fairly staid and ordinary life – drinking, studying, reading, talking philosophy, politics, history – and makes a lot of comments about his personal philosophy about death, friendship, the meaning of life, and so on. It’s a book where most things happen to Will, the MC, but actually, not a lot happens. He falls in love, of course; he and the girl get it on (now and then) as she tries to be faithful to another. (She does a bloody poor job of that, by the way.) There are other girls floating around Will’s life; he gets it on with some, not others. There’s an old girlfriend back in the states, and she pops up now and then, and so on, and so on…
I suppose this is an attempt at a literary novel. If you enjoy genre fiction, mysteries and horror and whatnot, this is NOT the book for you. You will drown in its ordinary-ness. Its constant reference to landmarks and grassy lawns and ‘punting.’ If you are a fan of intriguing, depth-laden dialogue where you wonder later ‘what did she really mean by that?’, this is not the book for you. Most conversations revolve around where the best pub is and let’s go get drunk. If you are a fan of stories which take place on college campuses or boarding schools or Oxford and its forty-odd colleges in particular, where students – and sometimes faculty – have deep discusions but also get up to merry antics and pay, or not pay for them later, this is not the book for you. You shall leave its final pages disappointed.
If you are, however, a fan of that kind of book which takes place primarily in one person’s mind as he sorts out who he is, where he’s going, who he loves and why he should/should not love that particular one, and which job should he take, with little mention of his past, except for a token flashback here and there, and continually wonders how someone with so much ‘entitlement’ can get so mixed up, and yet remain fairly sane, then this is the book for you.
I’m in the middle. I found it interesting, but barely so. It reads almost like a memoir in places and in others it’s slow going, like being in a bog where you pick up one foot … put it down in front of the other … lift the other foot as you sink a little … put it down in front of the other … and so on and so on.
I stuck with it as I won it, felt it deserved a fair shake. I gave it one. I’m done and glad it's over.
March 19, 2014
Oh, I so wanted to like this. The setting, the coming of age story, Oxford, where I once lived and studied for a short while – I was all set for a perfect read. Instead, I found it dull – something I hardly ever say about a book, and feel ashamed even to admit to. But I grew so bored with this story that as I neared the end, I skimmed the last few chapters, read the epilogue, and called it a day.
This reads like a memoir, disguised as fiction. The author often employs the phrase “I don’t need to tell you…” which felt absurd every time. That phrase -- and its related content -- should be edited out. Characters feel like early drafts,so even when difficult or tragic things happen to them, they’re so unformed and unexplored it’s hard to feel anything for them, which is what made this so dull for me. I love character-driven stories – I don’t need a plot – but they don’t work if you feel nothing but apathy towards anyone. My guess is that they were based on real people, and the author had full knowledge and understanding of them, and through that intimate lens was unable to recreate them fully-formed. I felt as though it was assumed that we knew them as well as he did.
‘The Last Enchantments’ tries to cover far too much ground – too many events, too many people – to be successful. It left me wondering, “What is this about? What is the author trying to tell me?” Was it politics? Was it literary theory? Was it the difficulty of love and relationships? Was it about blue bloods and the upper class? Was it about mortality? And if he so loved Allison, why didn’t they try to make it work? I didn’t believe his explanations for why he needed to go to Oxford and start fresh; they felt flimsy at best. And Sophie? What was her draw? What a manipulative, whiny wet blanket. I was 25 not all that long ago and I had more sense than Will Baker than to waste my time with someone who jerked me around like that. Will never gives any kind of grounding for his obsession, and it comes across as the kind of puppy love one would feel at 15, not 25.
I hate to be such a bastard about this book, but it just felt like it could be SO much more, especially if it was indeed a passion project. There are glimmers of beauty here, glimmers of deep thoughts on the human condition, on mortality especially, and I think it just makes me frustrated that someone obviously so smart wrote something that felt so trite. In the end, the author’s knowledge of Oxford, of its familiar landmarks and hidden gems, was all that I found that carried me along. But for any other Oxford lovers/alums, I would not pick this up on that fact alone.
This reads like a memoir, disguised as fiction. The author often employs the phrase “I don’t need to tell you…” which felt absurd every time. That phrase -- and its related content -- should be edited out. Characters feel like early drafts,so even when difficult or tragic things happen to them, they’re so unformed and unexplored it’s hard to feel anything for them, which is what made this so dull for me. I love character-driven stories – I don’t need a plot – but they don’t work if you feel nothing but apathy towards anyone. My guess is that they were based on real people, and the author had full knowledge and understanding of them, and through that intimate lens was unable to recreate them fully-formed. I felt as though it was assumed that we knew them as well as he did.
‘The Last Enchantments’ tries to cover far too much ground – too many events, too many people – to be successful. It left me wondering, “What is this about? What is the author trying to tell me?” Was it politics? Was it literary theory? Was it the difficulty of love and relationships? Was it about blue bloods and the upper class? Was it about mortality? And if he so loved Allison, why didn’t they try to make it work? I didn’t believe his explanations for why he needed to go to Oxford and start fresh; they felt flimsy at best. And Sophie? What was her draw? What a manipulative, whiny wet blanket. I was 25 not all that long ago and I had more sense than Will Baker than to waste my time with someone who jerked me around like that. Will never gives any kind of grounding for his obsession, and it comes across as the kind of puppy love one would feel at 15, not 25.
I hate to be such a bastard about this book, but it just felt like it could be SO much more, especially if it was indeed a passion project. There are glimmers of beauty here, glimmers of deep thoughts on the human condition, on mortality especially, and I think it just makes me frustrated that someone obviously so smart wrote something that felt so trite. In the end, the author’s knowledge of Oxford, of its familiar landmarks and hidden gems, was all that I found that carried me along. But for any other Oxford lovers/alums, I would not pick this up on that fact alone.
December 30, 2014
I felt really disconnected with all of these characters. From the very beginning when Will leaves his girlfriend to go across the country for school and he didn't really show a lot of emotion. I felt like I was an outsider looking at a group of college students who were all in on something, but I wasn't allowed to know about it. They seemed to have their own unique group.
I wasn't super impressed with the plot - I was left wondering what the point of it all was.
I wasn't super impressed with the plot - I was left wondering what the point of it all was.
February 11, 2015
I've never read any of Charles Finch's mysteries and I decided I wanted to read this standalone novel because I liked the cover, so I really had no idea what to expect. But I liked it. The writing reminded me a little of early Michael Chabon or Donna Tartt, except funnier (well, maybe not funnier than Chabon; he's pretty funny. But definitely funnier than Donna Tartt). It also brought to mind Caleb Crain's Necessary Errors; they both have the same day-to-day feel, the sense that you're getting to know the characters by experiencing their lives as they live them. Also like Necessary Errors, this novel felt rather autobiographical. Anyway, it was a good read. Like the narrator at the beginning of the book, I've never been to Oxford but am kind of fascinated by it, so this was a good way to step inside it for a while. Also like the narrator, I worked on the Kerry campaign (as a volunteer, of course, not a paid staffer) and it was nice to be reminded of that time again. I appreciated all the interesting info on Orwell, although I was mystified by the lack of mention of Down and Out in Paris and London--is it worth reading or not? That's one of the questions this book left me with. The other is how it is that no one associated with this book could be bothered to look up the correct spelling of "Stephanopoulos." (Sorry, that's the copy editor in me.) Still, like I said, I really enjoyed it. I've already committed to reading the first of Charles Finch's mysteries (by which I mean, I've already bought it), and I'll look forward to whatever he comes up with next.
August 13, 2016
I found this book a rare combination of unique, intelligent, and completely readable/enjoyable. There are two ways I measure the value of a book I'm reading. (1) How much I want to keep reading while I have the book in my hand. (2) How much I think about the book when I'm not physically reading it. THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS passed both measures with high marks. It is set in 2005, when 25-year-old Will (a defeated staffer on the Kerry campaign and Yale Alum with a patrician ancestry) leaves his life and fiancee in NYC to take what is supposed to be a one year break to study literature in Oxford. I've never been to Oxford, but the details about the setting and culture felt very familiar to my time at St. Andrews in Scotland, right down to the drinking games. What interested me most, is how the narrative was both old-fashioned and completely contemporary. Will attaches great importance to coming from a family of social status in a way that is separate from money (something that I've only found in the UK). In fact, much of his inner dialogue reads like a John Cheever short story, in the best possible way. At the same time, I think Will's struggle is one of the newly found status of an emerging adulthood, which feels very contemporary. I don't think this book could have been written in a time when marriage was the first step of adulthood, not the last. Hook up culture, contemporary politics, and race/gender identity all stood out to me as important in the narrative. At least, those were the things that resonated with me.
Additionally, there is a larger question of what is the purpose of education, and by extension literature. I loved the descriptions of Will as a lonely and bookish child. The book is riddled with literary allusions, that can't help but excite great readers or former English majors.
I will probably be blogging about this book soon, but until then I want to highly recommend reading this book. I especially recommend it, to all my friends who studied abroad with me in the UK. It will take you back to bops, ordering pitchers of woo woo, and wondering how all the British kids knew what what table to sit at in hall.
Additionally, there is a larger question of what is the purpose of education, and by extension literature. I loved the descriptions of Will as a lonely and bookish child. The book is riddled with literary allusions, that can't help but excite great readers or former English majors.
I will probably be blogging about this book soon, but until then I want to highly recommend reading this book. I especially recommend it, to all my friends who studied abroad with me in the UK. It will take you back to bops, ordering pitchers of woo woo, and wondering how all the British kids knew what what table to sit at in hall.
May 16, 2017
If you want an in-depth look at white male privilege, this is the book for you. The narrator's own consciousness of his callousness and opportunities is supposed to be exculpatory, but it does not go nearly far enough. The narrator is a hypocrite but only a quarter aware of it. He acknowledges he treats his girlfriend Alison badly but still (without self-consciousness) offers a paean to her consisting of how well she knows him and forgives him his flaws. Poor guy: he feels his girlfriend's pain and says over and over he loves her but somehow mysteriously he still has to leave her--his desire to have sex with other women cloaked in that kind of romantic literary fatefulness perfected by the Beat authors, where impulse and freedom must always be pitted against domestic entanglement.
No woman can meet him and not desire him; no man can meet him (unless he's an English upper-class boor) and not want to be buddies. Nothing this narrator does has any consequences: he can screw over as many women as he wants, turn down as many jobs as he want, and he will be okay; he will thrive. It's magic: all you have to be is white, Ivy-league-educated, and from a good (i.e., WASP) family. But, still, the poor guy has had a rough childhood, for which, I think, we are meant to sympathize with him as well as look back nostalgically at our own crazy, drunken, profound youth, spent punting in Oxford and bedding townies. Ah, those golden days!
The book is also for those who can't get enough of reading about parties where everyone gets absolutely wasted. But lest you worry this is just a series of frat boy anecdotes, the endless descriptions of drunkenness are leavened by Deep Thoughts about the transitoriness and selfishness of youth, so it must be good writing.
And did I mention the comic Indian guy who talks like a gangster? Hilarious!
No woman can meet him and not desire him; no man can meet him (unless he's an English upper-class boor) and not want to be buddies. Nothing this narrator does has any consequences: he can screw over as many women as he wants, turn down as many jobs as he want, and he will be okay; he will thrive. It's magic: all you have to be is white, Ivy-league-educated, and from a good (i.e., WASP) family. But, still, the poor guy has had a rough childhood, for which, I think, we are meant to sympathize with him as well as look back nostalgically at our own crazy, drunken, profound youth, spent punting in Oxford and bedding townies. Ah, those golden days!
The book is also for those who can't get enough of reading about parties where everyone gets absolutely wasted. But lest you worry this is just a series of frat boy anecdotes, the endless descriptions of drunkenness are leavened by Deep Thoughts about the transitoriness and selfishness of youth, so it must be good writing.
And did I mention the comic Indian guy who talks like a gangster? Hilarious!
December 28, 2013
I recently read a comment by a reviewer I respect that men have given up reading literary fiction, that such practice went out of fashion some time in the 1980's due to their being afraid of admitting they had interior lives. Which I have to question since men are responsible for at least half of the great fiction coming around these days. if the observation were true, would such authors as Wally Lamb, Colm McCann, Jonathan Frazen and Khalid Housseini be selling out seats at their readings? No, this isn't a blog, but I'd like to add Charles Finch into this mix even though this is his first contemporary novel.
Read over the course of a busy Christmas season, The Last Enchantments was so readable that I could pick it up and be immediately transported to Oxford University, 2005. Will Bankman has the opportunity to study there, taking a "break" from his post college life that seems on a sure trajectory to success given his solid relationship with Alison, his experience working the Kerry campaign, and his background of privilege and connections. This is a coming of age novel that is different from others since the protagonist is not a naif, unschooled in the ways of the world as much as a young man of certain talents who learns for himself what the world is all about and what is important in making life worthwhile. The characters are original creations, each interesting in their own way, and the situations plausible and difficult to presuppose. Thus, the surprises are many if not earth shattering. What gives this novel its worth is the weight behind its prose, literary references that are far from the norm which would be expected from a cast that is more than unusually intelligent. We watch Will stretch and grow and reach new levels through his interior life that is not cynical, but human as well as humane. As he stumbles toward some unknown goal of recognition, he makes mistakes and uses them as stepping stones for his enlightenment. Highly recommended.
Read over the course of a busy Christmas season, The Last Enchantments was so readable that I could pick it up and be immediately transported to Oxford University, 2005. Will Bankman has the opportunity to study there, taking a "break" from his post college life that seems on a sure trajectory to success given his solid relationship with Alison, his experience working the Kerry campaign, and his background of privilege and connections. This is a coming of age novel that is different from others since the protagonist is not a naif, unschooled in the ways of the world as much as a young man of certain talents who learns for himself what the world is all about and what is important in making life worthwhile. The characters are original creations, each interesting in their own way, and the situations plausible and difficult to presuppose. Thus, the surprises are many if not earth shattering. What gives this novel its worth is the weight behind its prose, literary references that are far from the norm which would be expected from a cast that is more than unusually intelligent. We watch Will stretch and grow and reach new levels through his interior life that is not cynical, but human as well as humane. As he stumbles toward some unknown goal of recognition, he makes mistakes and uses them as stepping stones for his enlightenment. Highly recommended.
April 8, 2015
Thank you, Edelweiss, for providing this book from St. Martin's Press for review!
EDIT 11/30: Thank you, St. Martin's Press, for providing a hard copy for a First Reads review!
3/7: Featured Review on Edelweiss
William Baker decides to pack his bags and head to Oxford to study literature for a year. His career in political campaigns has slowed and he feels like he's stuck in a rut. Leaving behind NYC, job opportunities, a long-time girlfriend, Will looks forward to his adventure in England and putting off "real life" for the time being. As the weeks progress in school, he befriends posh Tom, adorable Anil, talented Anneliese, studious Ella, driven Peter, and the ever elusive Sophie. His journey into self-discovery, and navigating the many forms of love, is deeply moving and incredibly touching.
I was originally drawn to this book because of the Oxford setting. I didn't expect to like Will -- the stereotype I have in my head of "poor little rich boy" is not a positive one -- but little by little I began to see myself in him, my friends in him and his friends, our experiences quite similar. Will feels lost in the "adult world" and finds comfort in academia. Unsure of his future, he makes wild decisions to put off the inevitable. There are so many twenty-somethings out there who feel just the same: the desire to grow up and become someone, while at the same time terrified, unsure, and fearing failure.
Will is conflicted throughout the book when it comes to romance. Every type of love is presented: the enduring love with a long-time flame, passion and obsession with someone new and out-of-reach, and lust after a friend. There is no clear-cut relationship, which is actually quite refreshing in a book because it's true to life. Emotions, love especially, never have logical explanations.
Everything you would expect from a graduate student is in this book: from studying in libraries, pubs, and cafes to parties in clubs, from sleeping with a friend to lazy walks in the park. There's no sugar-coating or brushing over facts. It's plain truth about one young man's journey, all the mistakes and accomplishments, all the experiences, to the path of his future. It's beautiful.
EDIT 11/30: Thank you, St. Martin's Press, for providing a hard copy for a First Reads review!
3/7: Featured Review on Edelweiss
William Baker decides to pack his bags and head to Oxford to study literature for a year. His career in political campaigns has slowed and he feels like he's stuck in a rut. Leaving behind NYC, job opportunities, a long-time girlfriend, Will looks forward to his adventure in England and putting off "real life" for the time being. As the weeks progress in school, he befriends posh Tom, adorable Anil, talented Anneliese, studious Ella, driven Peter, and the ever elusive Sophie. His journey into self-discovery, and navigating the many forms of love, is deeply moving and incredibly touching.
I was originally drawn to this book because of the Oxford setting. I didn't expect to like Will -- the stereotype I have in my head of "poor little rich boy" is not a positive one -- but little by little I began to see myself in him, my friends in him and his friends, our experiences quite similar. Will feels lost in the "adult world" and finds comfort in academia. Unsure of his future, he makes wild decisions to put off the inevitable. There are so many twenty-somethings out there who feel just the same: the desire to grow up and become someone, while at the same time terrified, unsure, and fearing failure.
Will is conflicted throughout the book when it comes to romance. Every type of love is presented: the enduring love with a long-time flame, passion and obsession with someone new and out-of-reach, and lust after a friend. There is no clear-cut relationship, which is actually quite refreshing in a book because it's true to life. Emotions, love especially, never have logical explanations.
Everything you would expect from a graduate student is in this book: from studying in libraries, pubs, and cafes to parties in clubs, from sleeping with a friend to lazy walks in the park. There's no sugar-coating or brushing over facts. It's plain truth about one young man's journey, all the mistakes and accomplishments, all the experiences, to the path of his future. It's beautiful.
March 11, 2014
What a disappointment this novel was. It had everything going for it, too: lovely setting, a supposed “romance”, and a group of friends trying to figure life out. For me though, the book fell short of its promise.
One of the main issues I saw was the lack of any likeable characters. They were all whiny, with the kind of indecisiveness that is so overdone it doesn’t ring as true. Will, the protagonist, couldn’t make a decision to save his life, which makes for a frustrating reading experience. No one wants to read about a group of adults who can’t the most basic of things in their lives. Sophie, the love interest, is the worst, though. She wins the prize for most annoying character I’ve read about in a long, long time.
There is no real plot. I understand that this is a literary novel and is therefore character-driven and not plot driven, but when your characters are so frustrating, you have to at least try to give the readers something that can propel them to keep reading. The storyline has no structure; it meanders, giving us glimpses into life in Oxford without truly bringing anything into focus.
As you can probably tell, this book is not one that I would recommend unless you want to roll your eyes at the page every few minutes. From weak, almost pathologically indecisive characters to a non-existent plot, this novel is one of the least interesting ones I’ve read in a while.
One of the main issues I saw was the lack of any likeable characters. They were all whiny, with the kind of indecisiveness that is so overdone it doesn’t ring as true. Will, the protagonist, couldn’t make a decision to save his life, which makes for a frustrating reading experience. No one wants to read about a group of adults who can’t the most basic of things in their lives. Sophie, the love interest, is the worst, though. She wins the prize for most annoying character I’ve read about in a long, long time.
There is no real plot. I understand that this is a literary novel and is therefore character-driven and not plot driven, but when your characters are so frustrating, you have to at least try to give the readers something that can propel them to keep reading. The storyline has no structure; it meanders, giving us glimpses into life in Oxford without truly bringing anything into focus.
As you can probably tell, this book is not one that I would recommend unless you want to roll your eyes at the page every few minutes. From weak, almost pathologically indecisive characters to a non-existent plot, this novel is one of the least interesting ones I’ve read in a while.
July 22, 2014
Hated it. To his credit, Charles Finch did title his book "The Last Enchantments" and that is what the story is about. The protagonists last chance to go back and be young again, before facing adulthood. The problem was, I found him, and all of his friends whiny crybabies with no morals and no values. Hated them all.
September 18, 2022
I will come back to write a full review once I’ve fully processed my thoughts. I really enjoyed this book and want more! This is truly good writing! I had just finished Breakfast at Tiffany’s before I started this and I’m some way it feels similar. I like stories where the people are complicated, real, and sometimes a bit unlikable. I’m also a sucker for anything set at Oxford. I’m starting the authors other books tonight!
February 18, 2014
The Last Enchantments is a novel about a generation, our generation, the generation that was spawned by and left to deal with the chaos that the baby boomers continue to leave in their wake. Charles Finch packs as much material as possible into 323 pages, discussing politics, national identity, the tragedy of academia, love, sex, the molds of childhood, and it is all wrapped into the great journey, the last escape of a young man, who flees his life in order to experience youth once more before it ends.
Will Baker, Finch’s central character and narrator, leaves New York, his girlfriend, and the ghost of a failed campaign, to spend a year studying Orwell at Oxford, attracted to the medieval allure of its great walls and historical reputation. He is immediately drawn into the social life of the university and the novel evolves into a being that embodies a world of characters, whose subtly and national quirks are their gleaming attributes.
Will is Finch’s greatest triumph. Unapologetically human, he confesses his flaws without wallowing in regret. The use of Orwell to highlight his character and immersion is well designed and perfectly executed, allowing the reader to not only understand the personality, but also at once the individual and yet universal experience. The personal exploration is his own, but the overall journey and sensation belong to his generation, he and his friends, who all represent interweaving strands of thread that culminate in a single string.
This is truly a novel about breaking the molds childhood, in order to search for ourselves outside of what has defined us. Finch wants the reader to acknowledge that Will and all of his friends are conditioned. Over the course of the novel we see them discover who they are and what they need, breaking away or giving into the bounds that have confined them. These characters are both fearless and fearful, tumbling forward in leaps and bounds, while knowing it must all come to an end, never knowing which decision will lend itself to them.
The structure is a little jumpy. Finch moves back and forth through Will’s life, connecting his personality together, showing his development of character and self up to this point in pieces like a puzzle. This movement rarely feels stretched and tends to keep us on our toes. However, Finch tends to squeeze in the plot points of various characters, forcing them to fit, in order to make sure nothing has been left out . The cast is so large that it can be overwhelming. Although it provides us with a sense of community, the secondary characters tend to be dropped from time to time and then picked back up when the author realizes they haven’t been mentioned recently. The story is about Will, but the secondary characters are a significant part of the novel’s energy. Tom and Sophie, as well as Alison, are consistent presences, but the others tend to wander off. Ella and Anneliese both disappear towards the end, while Anil and Timmo become incognito in the middle and pop up again towards the end to tie up plot points. There are also classmates that appear for brief moments, professors, deans, friends of friends, etc. They all serve as representations within the melting pot, connecting the global community in this place and time. The intention is present, but it seems to be a little too much juggling for our author.
A significant part of this novel is a romance. Will’s overlapping relationships and sexual affairs tend to take up more space than I personally wanted them to. Both his relationship with Alison and Sophie, though at times pleasantly steamy, are rather cliché. Both women are likeable and interesting as separate characters, but the two relationships are at their heights only in the beginning. The magic of Alison and Will’s relationship disappears quickly and while the strength of it is evident, there is never a point when you want them to stay together. Sophie’s character has moments of great tenderness and interest, particularly in reference to her childhood friend and pet Chessie. However, her enigmatic nature is over played and their relationship is drawn out thin and predictable.
This was a greatly enjoyable read. As an academic and a connoisseur of literature, I was delighted by the many literary references and connections of text with culture. The life of an Oxford student, in its various forms, was interesting to observe and Finch beautifully captures England through American eyes, the delicate facade that covers centuries of class tension and turmoil.
The Last Enchantments is a lovely contemplation of youth, growth, and the choices that define and create us.
Will Baker, Finch’s central character and narrator, leaves New York, his girlfriend, and the ghost of a failed campaign, to spend a year studying Orwell at Oxford, attracted to the medieval allure of its great walls and historical reputation. He is immediately drawn into the social life of the university and the novel evolves into a being that embodies a world of characters, whose subtly and national quirks are their gleaming attributes.
Will is Finch’s greatest triumph. Unapologetically human, he confesses his flaws without wallowing in regret. The use of Orwell to highlight his character and immersion is well designed and perfectly executed, allowing the reader to not only understand the personality, but also at once the individual and yet universal experience. The personal exploration is his own, but the overall journey and sensation belong to his generation, he and his friends, who all represent interweaving strands of thread that culminate in a single string.
This is truly a novel about breaking the molds childhood, in order to search for ourselves outside of what has defined us. Finch wants the reader to acknowledge that Will and all of his friends are conditioned. Over the course of the novel we see them discover who they are and what they need, breaking away or giving into the bounds that have confined them. These characters are both fearless and fearful, tumbling forward in leaps and bounds, while knowing it must all come to an end, never knowing which decision will lend itself to them.
The structure is a little jumpy. Finch moves back and forth through Will’s life, connecting his personality together, showing his development of character and self up to this point in pieces like a puzzle. This movement rarely feels stretched and tends to keep us on our toes. However, Finch tends to squeeze in the plot points of various characters, forcing them to fit, in order to make sure nothing has been left out . The cast is so large that it can be overwhelming. Although it provides us with a sense of community, the secondary characters tend to be dropped from time to time and then picked back up when the author realizes they haven’t been mentioned recently. The story is about Will, but the secondary characters are a significant part of the novel’s energy. Tom and Sophie, as well as Alison, are consistent presences, but the others tend to wander off. Ella and Anneliese both disappear towards the end, while Anil and Timmo become incognito in the middle and pop up again towards the end to tie up plot points. There are also classmates that appear for brief moments, professors, deans, friends of friends, etc. They all serve as representations within the melting pot, connecting the global community in this place and time. The intention is present, but it seems to be a little too much juggling for our author.
A significant part of this novel is a romance. Will’s overlapping relationships and sexual affairs tend to take up more space than I personally wanted them to. Both his relationship with Alison and Sophie, though at times pleasantly steamy, are rather cliché. Both women are likeable and interesting as separate characters, but the two relationships are at their heights only in the beginning. The magic of Alison and Will’s relationship disappears quickly and while the strength of it is evident, there is never a point when you want them to stay together. Sophie’s character has moments of great tenderness and interest, particularly in reference to her childhood friend and pet Chessie. However, her enigmatic nature is over played and their relationship is drawn out thin and predictable.
This was a greatly enjoyable read. As an academic and a connoisseur of literature, I was delighted by the many literary references and connections of text with culture. The life of an Oxford student, in its various forms, was interesting to observe and Finch beautifully captures England through American eyes, the delicate facade that covers centuries of class tension and turmoil.
The Last Enchantments is a lovely contemplation of youth, growth, and the choices that define and create us.
November 15, 2013
My review ran in the 11/15/13 issue of Library Journal:
Young man studies abroad, falls in love with his new surroundings, and meets a beautiful woman: that sounds like the gist of every campus story ever told, but Finch's charming effort distinguishes itself with its personal touch. After graduating from Yale University and working on the doomed John Kerry presidential campaign in 2004, Will Baker leaves his girlfriend and political aspirations behind to study at Oxford. Quickly falling in with a vibrant group of housemates who help him acclimate to British life, Will soon is ensnared in a romance whose intensity surprises him, forcing him to ask how temporary his yearlong excursion really is. In prose that glides effortlessly from scene to scene, Finch captures the fleeting time in people's lives when their every decision, from career to lover, seems freighted with eternal consequence. VERDICT A vividly evocative love letter to his alma mater, Finch's first contemporary novel (following his acclaimed historical Victorian mysteries starring MP Charles Lenox) often reads less like fiction than as memoir, and will be enjoyed by readers of both. Highly recommended for all collections.
Copyright ©2013 Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
Young man studies abroad, falls in love with his new surroundings, and meets a beautiful woman: that sounds like the gist of every campus story ever told, but Finch's charming effort distinguishes itself with its personal touch. After graduating from Yale University and working on the doomed John Kerry presidential campaign in 2004, Will Baker leaves his girlfriend and political aspirations behind to study at Oxford. Quickly falling in with a vibrant group of housemates who help him acclimate to British life, Will soon is ensnared in a romance whose intensity surprises him, forcing him to ask how temporary his yearlong excursion really is. In prose that glides effortlessly from scene to scene, Finch captures the fleeting time in people's lives when their every decision, from career to lover, seems freighted with eternal consequence. VERDICT A vividly evocative love letter to his alma mater, Finch's first contemporary novel (following his acclaimed historical Victorian mysteries starring MP Charles Lenox) often reads less like fiction than as memoir, and will be enjoyed by readers of both. Highly recommended for all collections.
Copyright ©2013 Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
June 23, 2015
Author Charles Finch took me back 20-some years to a period of time that’s simultaneously joyful and volatile: college. His protagonist, Will Baker, through a first-person narrative, let me re-experience that time of hills and valleys, of doubt and resolve. 25-year-old Will is an American in a master’s program at Oxford. He approaches both English literature and love the same way: tentatively and then with full immersion. He emerges somewhat changed by his experiences, but it’s his journey through this oh-so-familiar experience that quickens the heart of the reader, especially one who looks back fondly on those college years.
On college:
"It's hard without some pain to think of the past, how perishable both it and its certainties are: how once upon a time, we belonged to something, to a school, a person, a group of friends; and how we no longer do" (241).
On literature:
"The novel was where our deepest correspondences called out to each other. It was how we moved each other into recognition of ourselves" (194). And "It was the novel that offered the most sustained, honest interrogation of the human experience" (195).
On college:
"It's hard without some pain to think of the past, how perishable both it and its certainties are: how once upon a time, we belonged to something, to a school, a person, a group of friends; and how we no longer do" (241).
On literature:
"The novel was where our deepest correspondences called out to each other. It was how we moved each other into recognition of ourselves" (194). And "It was the novel that offered the most sustained, honest interrogation of the human experience" (195).
November 5, 2013
Will Baker leaves NYC and his fiance to spend a year at Oxford for grad school. What ensues is a telling of Will's personal life. He makes friends, meets women, goes to parties and bars and from all indications does very little studying. This is the ultimate coming of age story and Will experiences all the typical flings, traumas, and hangovers.
I didn't dislike the book, thought it was extremely well written, and in fact have gathered some of Finch's other titles to read next. The Last Enchantments is probably aimed at a 20-something reader who would probably enjoy it a great deal more than I.
Thanks to BookBrowse for the ARE.
I didn't dislike the book, thought it was extremely well written, and in fact have gathered some of Finch's other titles to read next. The Last Enchantments is probably aimed at a 20-something reader who would probably enjoy it a great deal more than I.
Thanks to BookBrowse for the ARE.
January 17, 2014
I have to admit that I was enchanted by the book. It was sweet and tender in a way that isn't typical of a male character lead and reminiscence in that definitely male perspective. Even the casual relationships described were authentic to a fault. The confusion of the adultolescent period when one begins to commit to life choices about career, relationships, living situations, and other things of a long term nature is carefully and lovingly expressed in all its inherent confusion, strong emotions, and impulsivity.
This was no quick read. It required some thought and personal reminiscing to process. It was, however, a delightful journey.
This was no quick read. It required some thought and personal reminiscing to process. It was, however, a delightful journey.
December 22, 2016
I was hooked. End of story.
June 14, 2015
There’s always a bit of anxiety when a favorite author departs from their established genre and dabbles in a new one. When I heard about Charles Finch’s THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS, I didn’t have those feelings because I knew he would take care of me. That being said, this is the hardest review I’ve had to write as a blogger and it’s not because I’m a fan of his, but rather I don’t know what to say other than to use shouty capitals: GO BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT NOOOOW!
After John Kerry loses the 2004 presidential election, William Baker decides to pursue a postgraduate degree in literature at Oxford University. Leaving behind political dreams he soon finds himself immersed in academic life and contemplating his future. Will isn’t prepared for the experience and through a series of missteps finds his life changing. Along the way, Will reminds us what it means to be human and to have the world at our feet.
Character development is strong and we’re introduced to several secondary characters who play a vital role. Before I talk about them I want to take a moment to discuss Will. Oh Will…what a love / hate relationship I had with him! It was difficult at times to like him because he is in many ways selfish without knowing it. Although several people have pointed out Will’s infidelity and how fast it happens (less than a week in Oxford), that tells us something about his relationship with Alison. And as the novel progresses especially when Will talks to old friends and acquaintances that served on political campaigns with him and Alison, it’s the way his relationship with Alison is addressed that says a lot. I’m not defending Will’s decision to be unfaithful, but I’m okay with it because Will was done with that relationship. His decision to attend Oxford was his way of getting out of it even if he doesn’t realize it at that moment. As I mentioned, we have secondary characters who are key players. There’s Tom, the first person he officially meets at Oxford. Then we have Anil from India who quickly becomes a favorite character despite his love for gangster rap and his, “haters gonna hate,” phrase. It’s Sophie that remains the most enigmatic character and at the end of THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS, I still couldn’t understand Will’s fascination with her. Other characters included photographer and Medievalist Anneliese, Jess who works at a local tea shop, and Timmo who dreams of being on BIG BROTHER.
Narration is first person via Will and this is his journey. As a narrator he’s trustworthy and as I mentioned he’s difficult to like. What I really admire about Will is how unapologetic he is about his actions and he’s the first to admit to his faults. Though at times he was a bit inconsistent or at least it felt that way. Here we have a character who comes from money and yet loathes Bush because of what he represents (the rich and elite). We’re often reminded which political spectrum Will identifies with and yet when he’s offered a lucrative job at a bank without having the qualifications, I wanted to shake some sense into him and remind him that he himself has now joined the ranks of a group he dislikes.
What I loved about THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS is how it reads like a love letter to Oxford. Finch’s admiration for the city and university clearly shows and it’s one any reader can fully appreciate. If Oxford could compile a list of books to use for a travel campaign, it’s easy to imagine them using THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS. While I’m not a fan of first person narrative, I can’t imagine this written any other way. We get to walk alongside Will and he makes us want to text our friends, “Hobnobs!” and pray they will understand what you’re talking about (or just craving them as we read). Most importantly, Will’s friends become ours as well. One reason it took me so long to finish reading THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS was because I didn’t want it to end.
Overall, I just adored THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS! If you’ve ever studied abroad you’ll easily identify with the nostalgia and the longing of a time that upon reflection we’ll never get to experience for the first time again. A few years ago, Peter Jon Lindberg wrote a piece in TRAVEL + LEISURE about revisiting London something like ten years after he moved back to New York. One quote from that article that has always stayed with me, “Long after we stop haunting the places we loved, the places we loved keep haunting us.” As I read THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS I kept thinking about this quote and it sums it up. I believe Will would agree with me and Finch had me longing for Glasgow. It was easy to substitute parts of Oxford for Glasgow and Finch made me wish I had experienced more. I easily associated with Will and the academic woes of working on a master’s abroad and trying to figure out what to do afterwards. Will often questions if he has what it takes to work in academia and that resonated with me because anyone who has embarked on a postgraduate degree program has had these exact thoughts. As I read, I was happy for the characters that stayed behind to work on a doctorate and yet it was easy to feel a bit envious that they got to do it.
Charles Finch’s THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS is lyrical, beautiful, and evocative. If you keep up with the world of publishing, you’ve probably heard the term “new adult” and it’s often defined as, 18-26 year old protagonists finding themselves through college or shortly afterwards with the whole first job / first apartment thing. Though these new adult novels tend to be found primarily in the romance genre, Finch’s THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS is everything I want a new adult novel to be and one new adult authors could definitely take a page from.
If you read only a handful of books a year, this is one you won’t want to miss. I always enjoy Finch’s Lenox novels, but I truly can’t wait to read his next non-Lenox novel.
This review and more are posted at Literary, etc.
After John Kerry loses the 2004 presidential election, William Baker decides to pursue a postgraduate degree in literature at Oxford University. Leaving behind political dreams he soon finds himself immersed in academic life and contemplating his future. Will isn’t prepared for the experience and through a series of missteps finds his life changing. Along the way, Will reminds us what it means to be human and to have the world at our feet.
Character development is strong and we’re introduced to several secondary characters who play a vital role. Before I talk about them I want to take a moment to discuss Will. Oh Will…what a love / hate relationship I had with him! It was difficult at times to like him because he is in many ways selfish without knowing it. Although several people have pointed out Will’s infidelity and how fast it happens (less than a week in Oxford), that tells us something about his relationship with Alison. And as the novel progresses especially when Will talks to old friends and acquaintances that served on political campaigns with him and Alison, it’s the way his relationship with Alison is addressed that says a lot. I’m not defending Will’s decision to be unfaithful, but I’m okay with it because Will was done with that relationship. His decision to attend Oxford was his way of getting out of it even if he doesn’t realize it at that moment. As I mentioned, we have secondary characters who are key players. There’s Tom, the first person he officially meets at Oxford. Then we have Anil from India who quickly becomes a favorite character despite his love for gangster rap and his, “haters gonna hate,” phrase. It’s Sophie that remains the most enigmatic character and at the end of THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS, I still couldn’t understand Will’s fascination with her. Other characters included photographer and Medievalist Anneliese, Jess who works at a local tea shop, and Timmo who dreams of being on BIG BROTHER.
Narration is first person via Will and this is his journey. As a narrator he’s trustworthy and as I mentioned he’s difficult to like. What I really admire about Will is how unapologetic he is about his actions and he’s the first to admit to his faults. Though at times he was a bit inconsistent or at least it felt that way. Here we have a character who comes from money and yet loathes Bush because of what he represents (the rich and elite). We’re often reminded which political spectrum Will identifies with and yet when he’s offered a lucrative job at a bank without having the qualifications, I wanted to shake some sense into him and remind him that he himself has now joined the ranks of a group he dislikes.
What I loved about THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS is how it reads like a love letter to Oxford. Finch’s admiration for the city and university clearly shows and it’s one any reader can fully appreciate. If Oxford could compile a list of books to use for a travel campaign, it’s easy to imagine them using THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS. While I’m not a fan of first person narrative, I can’t imagine this written any other way. We get to walk alongside Will and he makes us want to text our friends, “Hobnobs!” and pray they will understand what you’re talking about (or just craving them as we read). Most importantly, Will’s friends become ours as well. One reason it took me so long to finish reading THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS was because I didn’t want it to end.
Overall, I just adored THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS! If you’ve ever studied abroad you’ll easily identify with the nostalgia and the longing of a time that upon reflection we’ll never get to experience for the first time again. A few years ago, Peter Jon Lindberg wrote a piece in TRAVEL + LEISURE about revisiting London something like ten years after he moved back to New York. One quote from that article that has always stayed with me, “Long after we stop haunting the places we loved, the places we loved keep haunting us.” As I read THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS I kept thinking about this quote and it sums it up. I believe Will would agree with me and Finch had me longing for Glasgow. It was easy to substitute parts of Oxford for Glasgow and Finch made me wish I had experienced more. I easily associated with Will and the academic woes of working on a master’s abroad and trying to figure out what to do afterwards. Will often questions if he has what it takes to work in academia and that resonated with me because anyone who has embarked on a postgraduate degree program has had these exact thoughts. As I read, I was happy for the characters that stayed behind to work on a doctorate and yet it was easy to feel a bit envious that they got to do it.
Charles Finch’s THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS is lyrical, beautiful, and evocative. If you keep up with the world of publishing, you’ve probably heard the term “new adult” and it’s often defined as, 18-26 year old protagonists finding themselves through college or shortly afterwards with the whole first job / first apartment thing. Though these new adult novels tend to be found primarily in the romance genre, Finch’s THE LAST ENCHANTMENTS is everything I want a new adult novel to be and one new adult authors could definitely take a page from.
If you read only a handful of books a year, this is one you won’t want to miss. I always enjoy Finch’s Lenox novels, but I truly can’t wait to read his next non-Lenox novel.
This review and more are posted at Literary, etc.
January 26, 2014
This book inspired some musings about life. Check them out here: http://the-word-muse.blogspot.com/201...
There are things about this book that I will never understand - mainly why the characters are hell-bound to destroy and remake their relationships, following the same pattern, never really becoming at peace with what they have.
Being in my early 20s and studying in a university originally created in the Oxford tradition, this should have been the book for me. In fact, Finch's ability to transport the reader into Oxford, in an intensely intimate and local way, made me melancholic about my first year in uni. All those early feelings, insecurities and messes came back, but that is where the book's resonance with me stopped. Impossibly, despite not having everything "figured out" and not intending to do that anytime soon, I felt that strangely I had outgrown the appeal of Will's experience. Maybe it depends on the kind of person you are, and what you are looking for in a coming of age novel.
I changed my mind about "The Last Enchantments" about a dozen times. There were parts that were genuinely enchanting, especially when Finch talked about youth, love, and friendship in a general sense. The writing was at its best in those moments. (I suppose that is why I liked the epilogue the most.)Then there were moments when the style changed completely. It was jarring, too modern and too detached the grander experience.
The most infuriating part of the novel were the characters, mainly Will. Call me naive, but for the life of me I could not understand why they were all so awful to each other. Cheating, getting back together, making empty promises, lying, betraying and re-stitching their relationships only to start the complicated web again. Will, mainly, was at his worst times a dog. I felt like knocking some sense into him with the very book I was holding. He was arrogant, selfish and I did not feel like he was a better person at the end of the novel. In some ways, I respected him less (for a few reasons I will not talk about because of spoilers).
So although I did not find myself in the book, there were moments when I found it thoughtful and intriguing (I am now much more versed in American politics than I was a week ago). I also feel like that it does not really represent the experience of a modern young people in search of themselves. Instead, it may represent only a part of modern youth -- people like Will's friends.
This is not a book I will find myself thinking about a long time after, it was an okay read. Who knows, maybe someone else will find themselves in it more or, pack their bags and go to Oxford the minute they finish reading it.
** I want to thank St. Martin's Press for sending me an ARC for an honest review.
There are things about this book that I will never understand - mainly why the characters are hell-bound to destroy and remake their relationships, following the same pattern, never really becoming at peace with what they have.
Being in my early 20s and studying in a university originally created in the Oxford tradition, this should have been the book for me. In fact, Finch's ability to transport the reader into Oxford, in an intensely intimate and local way, made me melancholic about my first year in uni. All those early feelings, insecurities and messes came back, but that is where the book's resonance with me stopped. Impossibly, despite not having everything "figured out" and not intending to do that anytime soon, I felt that strangely I had outgrown the appeal of Will's experience. Maybe it depends on the kind of person you are, and what you are looking for in a coming of age novel.
I changed my mind about "The Last Enchantments" about a dozen times. There were parts that were genuinely enchanting, especially when Finch talked about youth, love, and friendship in a general sense. The writing was at its best in those moments. (I suppose that is why I liked the epilogue the most.)Then there were moments when the style changed completely. It was jarring, too modern and too detached the grander experience.
The most infuriating part of the novel were the characters, mainly Will. Call me naive, but for the life of me I could not understand why they were all so awful to each other. Cheating, getting back together, making empty promises, lying, betraying and re-stitching their relationships only to start the complicated web again. Will, mainly, was at his worst times a dog. I felt like knocking some sense into him with the very book I was holding. He was arrogant, selfish and I did not feel like he was a better person at the end of the novel. In some ways, I respected him less (for a few reasons I will not talk about because of spoilers).
So although I did not find myself in the book, there were moments when I found it thoughtful and intriguing (I am now much more versed in American politics than I was a week ago). I also feel like that it does not really represent the experience of a modern young people in search of themselves. Instead, it may represent only a part of modern youth -- people like Will's friends.
This is not a book I will find myself thinking about a long time after, it was an okay read. Who knows, maybe someone else will find themselves in it more or, pack their bags and go to Oxford the minute they finish reading it.
** I want to thank St. Martin's Press for sending me an ARC for an honest review.
May 6, 2014
Charles Finch’s The Last Enchantments is a book well worth the attention of any person recently graduated from college up to 40 years old, as it encompasses the range of thoughts, emotions, anxieties, and amours of the new-young adult 20-30 category, and the complex dynamic that living in our fast-paced society adds to those dillemmas. Nothing is necessarily new: there’s both camaraderie and rivalry amongst friends, who move in the same social circles and drink at the same bars and dance at the same clubs and sleep with the same people. There’s a realistic use of profanity that, having recently graduated from an America university, I can say Finch nails spot on, so that it adds dimension and personality to his work without dissuading the morally sensitive. The profanity, as well as the other dialogue, is largely reflective of the characters’ emotional states as those states undergo their constant fluctuations throughout the novel. Chances are, the reader is already thinking some of this dialogue before it appears on the page.
Finch is also wonderfully adept at poetically Proustian interjections into the narrative which designate the literary value of the work as well accentuate the interiority of these characters. For the short length of the novel, these sections are skillfully woven into the text. Silently I harbored wishes that these types of deep introspective metaphysical commentaries were a part of the actual dialogue, but I see that this would have essentially conflicted with the novel’s scope. The characters are of course intellectual creatures, being that they attend a prestigious university like Harvard, but the story is not centered upon academia but on sociability, personal and professional aspirations, and love. Part of Sophie’s trials are the decision whether or not to pursue a doctorate, but her actual studying is condensed into brief passages to make way for the sociable aspects upon which the novel is grounded and lent its structure and enticement. The work is intellectual, but the characters, with the exception of protagonist and first person narrator Will Baker, are not–and that’s perfectly fine.
I tremendously enjoyed this novel, and bought it immediately after reading around 30 pages in Barnes & Noble one day. The one wish I would have, is that it was a bit longer; not much, perhaps 100-150 pages more, just to flesh the characters out fully and add more intrigue amongst them, as perhaps to interweave some Will Baker’s passive intellectualism more into the story and dialogue.
Finch is also wonderfully adept at poetically Proustian interjections into the narrative which designate the literary value of the work as well accentuate the interiority of these characters. For the short length of the novel, these sections are skillfully woven into the text. Silently I harbored wishes that these types of deep introspective metaphysical commentaries were a part of the actual dialogue, but I see that this would have essentially conflicted with the novel’s scope. The characters are of course intellectual creatures, being that they attend a prestigious university like Harvard, but the story is not centered upon academia but on sociability, personal and professional aspirations, and love. Part of Sophie’s trials are the decision whether or not to pursue a doctorate, but her actual studying is condensed into brief passages to make way for the sociable aspects upon which the novel is grounded and lent its structure and enticement. The work is intellectual, but the characters, with the exception of protagonist and first person narrator Will Baker, are not–and that’s perfectly fine.
I tremendously enjoyed this novel, and bought it immediately after reading around 30 pages in Barnes & Noble one day. The one wish I would have, is that it was a bit longer; not much, perhaps 100-150 pages more, just to flesh the characters out fully and add more intrigue amongst them, as perhaps to interweave some Will Baker’s passive intellectualism more into the story and dialogue.
September 4, 2019
If setting and writing for writing’s sake is your thing, you’ll love this one.
The plot here felt almost secondary to the gorgeous, intimate prose and the atmosphere of Oxford. This didn’t bother me (as someone who loves writerly novels), though I confess to being a bit surprised by the fact that the story (which felt as though it was building to some cataclysmic event, at least by the characters’ standards) simply faded away in the end, failing to reach any sort of dramatic denouement.
I suppose some of this is because this book is, generally speaking, a romance. I’m generally not a fan of the genre and thus read very little of it, so I spent a large swath of the book waiting for someone to get murdered or something.
I didn’t much care for the romantic element of the book, partly because that’s just not My Thing, and partly because the object of Will’s obsession seemed like such a poor choice. I kept waiting for Sophie to show herself to be remarkable in some way, but in the end she was a pretty girl with average intellect and ambition and a weak, indecisive personality.
Alison, though boring, at least felt ambitious and reliable. And Jess, though only a minor, fleeting interest to Will, at least had spunk.
As someone with whom the nostalgia for college/university theme always resonates, I loved the tone and atmosphere of the book and thus didn’t really need the plot or the characters’ choices to be flawlessly crafted. But I imagine the book might fall short for other readers for this reason.
Regardless, Finch writes beautifully and poignantly, and the immersive, almost painterly writing will likely make me seek out more of his work.
The plot here felt almost secondary to the gorgeous, intimate prose and the atmosphere of Oxford. This didn’t bother me (as someone who loves writerly novels), though I confess to being a bit surprised by the fact that the story (which felt as though it was building to some cataclysmic event, at least by the characters’ standards) simply faded away in the end, failing to reach any sort of dramatic denouement.
I suppose some of this is because this book is, generally speaking, a romance. I’m generally not a fan of the genre and thus read very little of it, so I spent a large swath of the book waiting for someone to get murdered or something.
I didn’t much care for the romantic element of the book, partly because that’s just not My Thing, and partly because the object of Will’s obsession seemed like such a poor choice. I kept waiting for Sophie to show herself to be remarkable in some way, but in the end she was a pretty girl with average intellect and ambition and a weak, indecisive personality.
Alison, though boring, at least felt ambitious and reliable. And Jess, though only a minor, fleeting interest to Will, at least had spunk.
As someone with whom the nostalgia for college/university theme always resonates, I loved the tone and atmosphere of the book and thus didn’t really need the plot or the characters’ choices to be flawlessly crafted. But I imagine the book might fall short for other readers for this reason.
Regardless, Finch writes beautifully and poignantly, and the immersive, almost painterly writing will likely make me seek out more of his work.
September 17, 2019
An American Douchebag in Merry Olde England.
Writing LitFic about an unlikable character is hard and Finch just didn't manage to pull it off. Will Baker is just your typical entitled, vapid, selfish, promiscuous, American jerk studying abroad. He puts his own immediate happiness above all else at all times -- lying to his girlfriend and then breaking up with her. He seems to just fall in love with whatever girl he happens to be standing in a room with.
The book never develops a plot which is acceptable for LitFic. But that only works if the characters are worth caring about. Anil is kind of interesting but he's very much an ancillary character and a one-trick pony: a wealthy British-Indian who speaks with a "BBC accent" but listens to hip-hop and uses black American urban slang. It was funny enough but he did little else of interest.
The writing is fantastic... there just wasn't anything to write about here. This shouldn't have made it through the publisher. But I'll absolutely read another of Finch's books. With the right material, he'd produce fantastic work. But this was a miss.
I listened to the audio version and even the masterful narration of Luke Daniels couldn't rescue this book.
Writing LitFic about an unlikable character is hard and Finch just didn't manage to pull it off. Will Baker is just your typical entitled, vapid, selfish, promiscuous, American jerk studying abroad. He puts his own immediate happiness above all else at all times -- lying to his girlfriend and then breaking up with her. He seems to just fall in love with whatever girl he happens to be standing in a room with.
The book never develops a plot which is acceptable for LitFic. But that only works if the characters are worth caring about. Anil is kind of interesting but he's very much an ancillary character and a one-trick pony: a wealthy British-Indian who speaks with a "BBC accent" but listens to hip-hop and uses black American urban slang. It was funny enough but he did little else of interest.
The writing is fantastic... there just wasn't anything to write about here. This shouldn't have made it through the publisher. But I'll absolutely read another of Finch's books. With the right material, he'd produce fantastic work. But this was a miss.
I listened to the audio version and even the masterful narration of Luke Daniels couldn't rescue this book.
April 9, 2014
I was captivated by the story-line. It was so youth oriented, I thought I might find the whole thing narcissistic and self-congratulatory. And it was. I find it hard to believe that I might have been that callous to others in my twenties, but I probably was. Some.
However, I liked the main character and found his emergence into Oxford life, stretching academic wings, deepening friendships and growing up despite the parties, engaging and found myself on the couch and had to finish the book.
His description of falling in "Love" whammo and the grip it had on him, reminded me of how poignant and terrible it can be.
The voice, on looking back, had gentled and was very revealing, in reviewing his faults. I enjoyed the way he created the atmosphere of Oxford, the descriptions of window curtains moving in warm winds, the way he still see's Oxford in his minds eye.
I also was consoled in how he was able to see into each individual in a deeply caring way. I relied on that to carry the book, and it didn't let me down. Truly enjoyed it.
However, I liked the main character and found his emergence into Oxford life, stretching academic wings, deepening friendships and growing up despite the parties, engaging and found myself on the couch and had to finish the book.
His description of falling in "Love" whammo and the grip it had on him, reminded me of how poignant and terrible it can be.
The voice, on looking back, had gentled and was very revealing, in reviewing his faults. I enjoyed the way he created the atmosphere of Oxford, the descriptions of window curtains moving in warm winds, the way he still see's Oxford in his minds eye.
I also was consoled in how he was able to see into each individual in a deeply caring way. I relied on that to carry the book, and it didn't let me down. Truly enjoyed it.
October 2, 2014
To quote one of the more likable characters from the book, I can see why "haters gonna hate," on this sometimes dreary novel where not much happens. However, it really got under my skin and had a haunting way of evoking the time and place----Oxford in 2005 and 2006. The main character is not sympathetic, and isn't meant to be. The romantic relationships don't compel the reader to care about their outcome. But as the story concludes with the American narrator wishing he could have that isolated period of time back, the friendships, the music, the conversations, there is a nostalgic sense of loss. Readers will have to decide if novels with mostly unsympathetic characters and little action have appealed to them in the past before attempting this one. (As a side note, the cover is fabulous and I looked further into the photographer's work online. It looks like a grownup Harry, Ron and Hermione walking away through an otherwise deserted Oxford courtyard.)
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