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Mount Terminus
David Grand's Mount Terminus is a dark, majestic novel about art, family, overwhelming love, and the birth of Los Angeles
After his mother's death, young Bloom boards a train with his bereaved father, Jacob, to travel west across mountains and deserts to California: Mount Terminus, their new home at the desolate end of the world. There, in a villa built atop a rare desert spring, they live apart from society, supported by the income from Jacob's invention, the Rosenbloom Loop, a piece of technology that has revolutionized the nascent art of filmmaking. There, Bloom grows up in the shadow of his father's grief, with only a pair of servants, the house's ghosts, and his own artistic muse for company.
But Jacob can't forever protect his family from his past—the dramatic series of events that has taken him from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum on New York City's Lower East Side and into the graces of beautiful twin girls, and finally to this fragile refuge in pre-Hollywood Los Angeles. And Bloom, now an eccentric dark genius, can't live alone at the top of the mountain forever. Prodded by his newly discovered half brother, in every way his opposite, Bloom will have to come down to meet the world. Otherwise the orange farmers and the vaqueros, the speculators and the developers, the artists and the barons of the silver screen, will surely come up the mountain to meet him.
Triumphant and enthralling, Mount Terminus marks a magnificent return for David Grand; it's the novel he was born to write.
After his mother's death, young Bloom boards a train with his bereaved father, Jacob, to travel west across mountains and deserts to California: Mount Terminus, their new home at the desolate end of the world. There, in a villa built atop a rare desert spring, they live apart from society, supported by the income from Jacob's invention, the Rosenbloom Loop, a piece of technology that has revolutionized the nascent art of filmmaking. There, Bloom grows up in the shadow of his father's grief, with only a pair of servants, the house's ghosts, and his own artistic muse for company.
But Jacob can't forever protect his family from his past—the dramatic series of events that has taken him from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum on New York City's Lower East Side and into the graces of beautiful twin girls, and finally to this fragile refuge in pre-Hollywood Los Angeles. And Bloom, now an eccentric dark genius, can't live alone at the top of the mountain forever. Prodded by his newly discovered half brother, in every way his opposite, Bloom will have to come down to meet the world. Otherwise the orange farmers and the vaqueros, the speculators and the developers, the artists and the barons of the silver screen, will surely come up the mountain to meet him.
Triumphant and enthralling, Mount Terminus marks a magnificent return for David Grand; it's the novel he was born to write.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published March 4, 2014
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819 people want to read
About the author
David Grand
26 books24 followersDavid Grand is the author of Louse, a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year, and The Disappearing Body, which Bookforum described as “satirical noir at its mesmerizing best.” Grand received his MFA from New York University, where he held the Fellowship in Fiction and studied with E.L. Doctorow. His writing has appeared in anthologies as well as The New York Times Magazine, Travel and Leisure, BlackBook, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and twin sons.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
March 20, 2014
David Grand’s new novel about the germination of Hollywood is no day at the pictures. Even its title, “Mount Terminus,” sounds arduous, as though to scare off Sunset Boulevard tourists. Grand may be writing about fantasies in celluloid, but he’s engaged in serious myth-making. The magic lantern of his prose projects a dark storm of thwarted romance, industrial hubris and baroque fairy tales. A silver screen won’t be nearly heavy enough: Roll down the plutonium screen!
The story takes place on a mountaintop estate in Southern California around the turn of the 20th century. A wealthy man named Joseph Rosenbloom lives here like Prospero in Xanadu. (Don’t blame me for that mixed metaphor: This pastiche splices scenes from a vast library of stories, from Greek classics to Edgar Allan Poe to “The Great Gatsby.”) Rosenbloom’s fortune stems from his invention of a timing mechanism that regulates the flow of film through Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope. The Rosenbloom Loop is a clever little device, but it’s an even more clever symbol of the role that discipline plays in the creation of illusion: the persistence of vision that makes sequential still images appear to move. In a sense, that’s the wizardry that Grand spins in this zoetrope of a novel as these characters love and build and pine and die.
To read the rest of this review, please click here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
The story takes place on a mountaintop estate in Southern California around the turn of the 20th century. A wealthy man named Joseph Rosenbloom lives here like Prospero in Xanadu. (Don’t blame me for that mixed metaphor: This pastiche splices scenes from a vast library of stories, from Greek classics to Edgar Allan Poe to “The Great Gatsby.”) Rosenbloom’s fortune stems from his invention of a timing mechanism that regulates the flow of film through Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope. The Rosenbloom Loop is a clever little device, but it’s an even more clever symbol of the role that discipline plays in the creation of illusion: the persistence of vision that makes sequential still images appear to move. In a sense, that’s the wizardry that Grand spins in this zoetrope of a novel as these characters love and build and pine and die.
To read the rest of this review, please click here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
March 12, 2014
After a strong opening, it descended into a too-literate magical realism. Clumsy, ham-handed, predictable, boring, sophomoric, self-conscious. It tries too hard and wants to be scholarly, but the voice is cloying and derivative. Is phantasmagorical, but he isn't Gogol! It's overstylized melodrama.
August 12, 2014
David Grand’s Mount Terminus is an ultimate coming-of-age story; it also concerns itself with the coming-of-age of an artist: the protagonist, Bloom. Beyond the journeying, the discovering of self, Grand gracefully builds a dramatic and subtle interior and exterior world.
The serious business here is that Grand has written an essential origin story that builds like layers of limestone. His complicated characters grow into in a world that doesn’t quite exist yet - pre-modern Los Angeles - and this central question of origin asserts itself as a universal and spiritual focus for his inhabitants.
Mount Terminus is a book that dives deep. What I like most is its assured originality, its surprising strangeness. I think there is much to be said, in our own modern age of disappearing attention spans and rapidly changing technology, about newness and how or why we should embrace change. We must and we are better off for it. Invention and modernity exist at the core of Bloom’s California, and these are also the reasons to embrace this serious text. There is a lot to discover and love.
Grand’s landscapes are culled from the hard earth of the American West and are just as beautifully written; the language is much like the landscapes he invents - familiar and packed with so much time, so much life. Through Bloom, Grand takes the time to name what he sees in the new world, the beginning of everything we take for granted.
Beyond the landscape are the technologies of early filmmaking: phasmatropes, kinetoscopes, zoetropes, and the glass telescope through which Bloom watches the world of Hollywood being built below him. The story has a way of bringing us in close and far away (sometimes at the same time) so that we may feel “the thrill of being present at the focal point.”
Perhaps what is most moving about this epic novel is that Grand takes the creator’s command of the recognizable: strained familial relationships, new technologies, the emergence of an entire landscape, the interior life of an artist. Between the beautiful and skillful language, and the verbal and visual communication between characters, we, the readers, may feel as if we’ve just walked out of one of Bloom’s brilliant films, as if we’ll “walk out of the darkness into the light [as] changed people.”
The serious business here is that Grand has written an essential origin story that builds like layers of limestone. His complicated characters grow into in a world that doesn’t quite exist yet - pre-modern Los Angeles - and this central question of origin asserts itself as a universal and spiritual focus for his inhabitants.
Mount Terminus is a book that dives deep. What I like most is its assured originality, its surprising strangeness. I think there is much to be said, in our own modern age of disappearing attention spans and rapidly changing technology, about newness and how or why we should embrace change. We must and we are better off for it. Invention and modernity exist at the core of Bloom’s California, and these are also the reasons to embrace this serious text. There is a lot to discover and love.
Grand’s landscapes are culled from the hard earth of the American West and are just as beautifully written; the language is much like the landscapes he invents - familiar and packed with so much time, so much life. Through Bloom, Grand takes the time to name what he sees in the new world, the beginning of everything we take for granted.
Beyond the landscape are the technologies of early filmmaking: phasmatropes, kinetoscopes, zoetropes, and the glass telescope through which Bloom watches the world of Hollywood being built below him. The story has a way of bringing us in close and far away (sometimes at the same time) so that we may feel “the thrill of being present at the focal point.”
Perhaps what is most moving about this epic novel is that Grand takes the creator’s command of the recognizable: strained familial relationships, new technologies, the emergence of an entire landscape, the interior life of an artist. Between the beautiful and skillful language, and the verbal and visual communication between characters, we, the readers, may feel as if we’ve just walked out of one of Bloom’s brilliant films, as if we’ll “walk out of the darkness into the light [as] changed people.”
March 20, 2014
David Grand is a master. I loved this book, devoured it. Grand sets such a monumental story in play, beginning with the first sentence, that one might think the pace would be slow, but the geographic timescale of his wonderful character Bloom's life is offset by incredible deftness of storytelling. Just between pages 8 and 25, Grand unspools a backstory large enough to rest a mountain on, and it keeps on going, and getting better, from there.
April 13, 2014
Make no mistake this is an astonishingly good novel. In fact, it’s as good as it is ambitious which is really saying something because what this sets out to do in literary terms would make a run at high political office appear like a soft option. There is so much packed into these three hundred and sixty-four pages that it could have easily sprouted into something of biblical proportions. Gothic, baroque fairly tales filled with blood, vengeance and bad romance, sibling jealousies repeated over generations and that old chestnut of art versus commerce just for starters. This fantasy somehow combines, along with real the real life horrors of the First World War and an improvised rendering of the birth of Hollywood to keep this dense but absorbing story moving forward.
It’s the turn of the 20th Century and Jacob Rosenbloom lives on a mountaintop estate in Southern California. His fortune stems from his invention, the Rosenbloom loop which regulates the flow of film through Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope. In the nascent world of film making this is to the moving picture what the propeller is to moving plane. There is dark and violent history to the Mount Terminus estate contained in its secret catacombs and revealed to Rosenbloom’s son, Bloom by their deaf mute maid. The younger Bloom, artistic but sheltered by his dour, unavailable father is at the center of the tale. Bloom’s own existence owes itself to the rivalry between his mother and her sister and it’s this dark scandal that emotionally cripples Bloom’s father. Just like the loop that the elder Rosenbloom invented, history seems destined to repeat itself in the form of Bloom’s Machiavellian movie mogul brother, Simon, a kind of Samuel Goldwyn figure (surely it’s a sly nod to the Goldwyn inspiration that Simon has a history in glove making?)
With the plot at times threatening spread its wings and take flight Grand skillfully manages to keep the whole thing grounded by his coolly efficient prose. It’s not easily done. When a writer possesses the skills this author does, there is a tendency to show what you can do. To unnecessarily pad and elaborate. Grand prefers the Miles Davis approach. It’s not what you put in but rather what you leave out that counts. It’s hardly surprising that this epic took a decade to write because this is not a pop culture, stream of consciousness undertaking. I get the sense that each one of these paragraphs and sentences went through an Olympic like qualifying process to make it onto the page. Like spools of film left on the cutting room floor, only the leanest, most honed lines made the final draft.
Then there’s the story itself. With this kind of constantly meandering, evolving tale there must have been a danger for the plot to get lost inside its own bowels, to get so convoluted that the original thread became invisible? It’s a credit to Grand and perhaps his editor that this never happens. I was always curious to know what happened next and never able to predict it. Also, grounding this was the believability of the characters, particularly Bloom and Isabella who find themselves tied in a gripping, emotionally complex knot. Throw in the movie director, Gottlieb for comic relief, the dark shadow of the ruthlessly ambitious Simon, the melancholic mysterious Estella marooned and mourning on her love island, along with cadre of colorful and corruptible sidemen and you have a work, penned by a wordsmith at the top of his game, which will leave you breathless by its brilliance.
It’s the turn of the 20th Century and Jacob Rosenbloom lives on a mountaintop estate in Southern California. His fortune stems from his invention, the Rosenbloom loop which regulates the flow of film through Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope. In the nascent world of film making this is to the moving picture what the propeller is to moving plane. There is dark and violent history to the Mount Terminus estate contained in its secret catacombs and revealed to Rosenbloom’s son, Bloom by their deaf mute maid. The younger Bloom, artistic but sheltered by his dour, unavailable father is at the center of the tale. Bloom’s own existence owes itself to the rivalry between his mother and her sister and it’s this dark scandal that emotionally cripples Bloom’s father. Just like the loop that the elder Rosenbloom invented, history seems destined to repeat itself in the form of Bloom’s Machiavellian movie mogul brother, Simon, a kind of Samuel Goldwyn figure (surely it’s a sly nod to the Goldwyn inspiration that Simon has a history in glove making?)
With the plot at times threatening spread its wings and take flight Grand skillfully manages to keep the whole thing grounded by his coolly efficient prose. It’s not easily done. When a writer possesses the skills this author does, there is a tendency to show what you can do. To unnecessarily pad and elaborate. Grand prefers the Miles Davis approach. It’s not what you put in but rather what you leave out that counts. It’s hardly surprising that this epic took a decade to write because this is not a pop culture, stream of consciousness undertaking. I get the sense that each one of these paragraphs and sentences went through an Olympic like qualifying process to make it onto the page. Like spools of film left on the cutting room floor, only the leanest, most honed lines made the final draft.
Then there’s the story itself. With this kind of constantly meandering, evolving tale there must have been a danger for the plot to get lost inside its own bowels, to get so convoluted that the original thread became invisible? It’s a credit to Grand and perhaps his editor that this never happens. I was always curious to know what happened next and never able to predict it. Also, grounding this was the believability of the characters, particularly Bloom and Isabella who find themselves tied in a gripping, emotionally complex knot. Throw in the movie director, Gottlieb for comic relief, the dark shadow of the ruthlessly ambitious Simon, the melancholic mysterious Estella marooned and mourning on her love island, along with cadre of colorful and corruptible sidemen and you have a work, penned by a wordsmith at the top of his game, which will leave you breathless by its brilliance.
March 1, 2014
Set in the early years of the 20th century, ‘Mount Terminus’ chronicles the rise of the film industry and the growth of Los Angeles through the eyes of Joseph Rosenbloom, most often referred to as ‘Bloom’. Bloom’s father is a millionaire due to his invention, a device that allowed the smooth projection of film.
When Bloom’s mother dies, his father takes him to Mount Terminus, California, to raise Bloom in isolation on the house on the hill. The elder Rosenbloom feels that his money has created a world where his son will always be taken care of, but he hasn’t counted on the fact that no matter how hard you try, the world will always find its way in and pain will enter every life.
The prose is dense but not slow reading. The story has epic proportions and reads like a grim fairy tale: sibling betrayals in two generations, a stolen birthright (and more), good and evil twins, a quest. Bloom is the innocent to whom things happen rather than a person who makes things happen; he is a puer who takes forever to mature. Bloom is not, in fact, a particularly interesting character, but enough adventures happen to and around him that the story kept my interest. The story is not just about Bloom; it’s about love and art and unwise grandiosity. It reads like a long dream that you don’t really want to have end.
When Bloom’s mother dies, his father takes him to Mount Terminus, California, to raise Bloom in isolation on the house on the hill. The elder Rosenbloom feels that his money has created a world where his son will always be taken care of, but he hasn’t counted on the fact that no matter how hard you try, the world will always find its way in and pain will enter every life.
The prose is dense but not slow reading. The story has epic proportions and reads like a grim fairy tale: sibling betrayals in two generations, a stolen birthright (and more), good and evil twins, a quest. Bloom is the innocent to whom things happen rather than a person who makes things happen; he is a puer who takes forever to mature. Bloom is not, in fact, a particularly interesting character, but enough adventures happen to and around him that the story kept my interest. The story is not just about Bloom; it’s about love and art and unwise grandiosity. It reads like a long dream that you don’t really want to have end.
March 25, 2014
I wanted to like this novel but found it strangely inert. A few sections--for example Jacob Rosenbloom's youth and training--were bright and engaging, but the majority of the novel seems observed through a Mt. Terminus dust storm.
Let's say 2.5 stars.
Let's say 2.5 stars.
March 16, 2014
Wonderful ! If only The bible, etc. were this readable I might have gotten more out of sunday school and my other educational endeavors.
April 6, 2014
Three is generous. Interesting story, boringly told. I hated the writing style and I had a very hard time paying attention to it.
July 16, 2014
Ehh ... pacing uneven (at least by my standards). Not the book about the building of Los Angeles I was expecting.
June 27, 2014
This book made me very angry.
Why is sexual assault still such a pervasive problem here in the U.S. and all over the world? Why do upwards of 1 in 3 young women in America report having experienced some level of sexual violence in their childhoods? I would submit one of the reasons is a sense of ENTITLEMENT in many young men. A sense that women can and should serve their own sexual appetites, on their own terms. Such entitlement is quite clearly on display with the main protagonist of this story, Joseph Rosenbloom (AKA “Bloom”).
Bloom has three main “love” interests. Roya is a deaf, mute Hispanic girl who, with older assistant Meralda, are the house maids in Bloom’s estate. Based on no apparent actions by Bloom, Roya freely shares the many secrets of the Mount Terminus estate with him—secret passages, doorways, and older art and memorabilia. One day—again, completely unsolicited by Bloom—Roya takes off her clothes and gives Bloom freedom to do things. For quite literally years thereafter, Roya is Bloom’s fiercely devoted and loyal helper. She apparently has no other friends beyond Meralda, and no other apparent lovers of any sort.
Nevertheless, when Bloom meets Isabella Reyes – his main love interest in the book – Roya does essentially everything she can to help Bloom succeed in his romantic conquests with her. Roya’s total devotion to Bloom evidently includes the selfless desire to see that he succeeds in his love conquests, even if they don’t involve herself. As a reward for this loyalty and self-sacrifice, Bloom essentially ignores Roya through almost the entire book except in the few instances he needs her help or is desperate for companionship.
Bloom’s third love interest is Estella, a Native American of the Chumash tribe. Bloom first meets Estella’s brother Eduardo by accident on a ferry ride to an island. Without any solicitation, Eduardo invites Bloom to stay with him and his sister on their grand mansion in the island. Eduardo insists that Bloom sleep in the main bedroom, and says he prefers sleeping outdoors. Soon after, Eduardo introduces Bloom to Estella. Then, literally almost immediately after Bloom and Estella meet, Estella commands Bloom to have sex with her. And not only that, she instructs him to close his eyes and say the name of Isabella out loud as they’re having sex. Repeatedly. (At this point in the story, Bloom thinks Isabella is dead.) After it’s over, Bloom stays in Estella and Eduardo’s house for several months and then leaves just as abruptly as he came. Bloom then has a completely “no strings attached” (ie, “booty call”) relationship with Estella. Every now and then, whenever it fits his fancy, he goes over to Estella and Eduardo’s to have sex with Estella. He stays as long as he wants and leaves whenever he wants. Each time he comes, Estella’s brother Eduardo welcomes him to their house, as if to say, “Hello again, please come over and have sex with my sister anytime you like.” This relationship continues until Bloom once again encounters Isabella, who it turns out is not dead after all.
Finally, Isabella, it turns out, likes it from behind. In one particular scene when she is bathing, Isabella begs – literally BEGS – Bloom to give it to her up the butt. He obliges. Isabella suffered PTSD as she was filming soldiers in battle in World War I. Apparently, this was the “cure” that made her feel better.
If this book is any indication, Grand apparently treats his female characters essentially as sex objects. All three women in this book—Roya, Isabella, and particularly Estella—freely offers sex and services to Bloom basically whenever he wants it. They are there to serve his needs and his needs only. There’s no thought to these women’s own particular needs or motivations. Roya, Isabella, and Estella are not real characters. They are sex robots and occasionally plot points. Beautiful women who are begging him to have sex with them. This is quite literally the stuff of pornography.
It’s NOT that I am a particular prude or I am suggesting David Grand does not have artistic license to write about these events. If David Grand wants to write erotica that is certainly his prerogative. But what made me so angry is that Grand depicts Bloom’s love interests both as the way the world IS, and implicitly as the way the world SHOULD BE. Keep in mind that Mount Terminus is not an over-the-top farce like Django Unchained. In Grand’s worldview, IT’S PERFECTLY FINE to expect beautiful, young women to throwing themselves at men and feed their sexual appetite. In Grand’s vision, this is the world as it’s meant to be.
Bloom is not an anti-hero. He is meant to be a HERO. This is what makes this book so perverse and particularly malignant. The “villain” in this book is Bloom’s older brother Simon, who devastates the land surrounding Mount Terminus for his own avaricious ends. The good/evil dichotomy with Simon is quite clear. With Bloom, however, I wonder if David Grand himself even sees how one-sided, how self-centric, and ultimately how ENTITLED Bloom actually is. The way Grand casually depicts Bloom’s victimization of women makes me think Grand himself has blinders on. What makes this depiction even more troubling is Bloom is a white man, and all three of his sexual conquests are minority women.
No wonder men today feel so entitled. They read books like Mount Terminus—which is MEANT to be high-brow literature—that assume women can be treated with disrespect and utter lack of dignity. Not only that but depicts these actions in a way to suggest that that’s exactly what these women WANT. You don’t need to be a feminist to understand that books like Grand’s subtlety yet perversely distort societal views on women, and perpetuate the myths that keep the candle of sexual violence burning in our culture.
Why is sexual assault still such a pervasive problem here in the U.S. and all over the world? Why do upwards of 1 in 3 young women in America report having experienced some level of sexual violence in their childhoods? I would submit one of the reasons is a sense of ENTITLEMENT in many young men. A sense that women can and should serve their own sexual appetites, on their own terms. Such entitlement is quite clearly on display with the main protagonist of this story, Joseph Rosenbloom (AKA “Bloom”).
Bloom has three main “love” interests. Roya is a deaf, mute Hispanic girl who, with older assistant Meralda, are the house maids in Bloom’s estate. Based on no apparent actions by Bloom, Roya freely shares the many secrets of the Mount Terminus estate with him—secret passages, doorways, and older art and memorabilia. One day—again, completely unsolicited by Bloom—Roya takes off her clothes and gives Bloom freedom to do things. For quite literally years thereafter, Roya is Bloom’s fiercely devoted and loyal helper. She apparently has no other friends beyond Meralda, and no other apparent lovers of any sort.
Nevertheless, when Bloom meets Isabella Reyes – his main love interest in the book – Roya does essentially everything she can to help Bloom succeed in his romantic conquests with her. Roya’s total devotion to Bloom evidently includes the selfless desire to see that he succeeds in his love conquests, even if they don’t involve herself. As a reward for this loyalty and self-sacrifice, Bloom essentially ignores Roya through almost the entire book except in the few instances he needs her help or is desperate for companionship.
Bloom’s third love interest is Estella, a Native American of the Chumash tribe. Bloom first meets Estella’s brother Eduardo by accident on a ferry ride to an island. Without any solicitation, Eduardo invites Bloom to stay with him and his sister on their grand mansion in the island. Eduardo insists that Bloom sleep in the main bedroom, and says he prefers sleeping outdoors. Soon after, Eduardo introduces Bloom to Estella. Then, literally almost immediately after Bloom and Estella meet, Estella commands Bloom to have sex with her. And not only that, she instructs him to close his eyes and say the name of Isabella out loud as they’re having sex. Repeatedly. (At this point in the story, Bloom thinks Isabella is dead.) After it’s over, Bloom stays in Estella and Eduardo’s house for several months and then leaves just as abruptly as he came. Bloom then has a completely “no strings attached” (ie, “booty call”) relationship with Estella. Every now and then, whenever it fits his fancy, he goes over to Estella and Eduardo’s to have sex with Estella. He stays as long as he wants and leaves whenever he wants. Each time he comes, Estella’s brother Eduardo welcomes him to their house, as if to say, “Hello again, please come over and have sex with my sister anytime you like.” This relationship continues until Bloom once again encounters Isabella, who it turns out is not dead after all.
Finally, Isabella, it turns out, likes it from behind. In one particular scene when she is bathing, Isabella begs – literally BEGS – Bloom to give it to her up the butt. He obliges. Isabella suffered PTSD as she was filming soldiers in battle in World War I. Apparently, this was the “cure” that made her feel better.
If this book is any indication, Grand apparently treats his female characters essentially as sex objects. All three women in this book—Roya, Isabella, and particularly Estella—freely offers sex and services to Bloom basically whenever he wants it. They are there to serve his needs and his needs only. There’s no thought to these women’s own particular needs or motivations. Roya, Isabella, and Estella are not real characters. They are sex robots and occasionally plot points. Beautiful women who are begging him to have sex with them. This is quite literally the stuff of pornography.
It’s NOT that I am a particular prude or I am suggesting David Grand does not have artistic license to write about these events. If David Grand wants to write erotica that is certainly his prerogative. But what made me so angry is that Grand depicts Bloom’s love interests both as the way the world IS, and implicitly as the way the world SHOULD BE. Keep in mind that Mount Terminus is not an over-the-top farce like Django Unchained. In Grand’s worldview, IT’S PERFECTLY FINE to expect beautiful, young women to throwing themselves at men and feed their sexual appetite. In Grand’s vision, this is the world as it’s meant to be.
Bloom is not an anti-hero. He is meant to be a HERO. This is what makes this book so perverse and particularly malignant. The “villain” in this book is Bloom’s older brother Simon, who devastates the land surrounding Mount Terminus for his own avaricious ends. The good/evil dichotomy with Simon is quite clear. With Bloom, however, I wonder if David Grand himself even sees how one-sided, how self-centric, and ultimately how ENTITLED Bloom actually is. The way Grand casually depicts Bloom’s victimization of women makes me think Grand himself has blinders on. What makes this depiction even more troubling is Bloom is a white man, and all three of his sexual conquests are minority women.
No wonder men today feel so entitled. They read books like Mount Terminus—which is MEANT to be high-brow literature—that assume women can be treated with disrespect and utter lack of dignity. Not only that but depicts these actions in a way to suggest that that’s exactly what these women WANT. You don’t need to be a feminist to understand that books like Grand’s subtlety yet perversely distort societal views on women, and perpetuate the myths that keep the candle of sexual violence burning in our culture.
May 25, 2020
Really beautifully written. However, I could not finish it. The story and plot became so mundane that I completely lost interest.
September 4, 2020
Kind of a tough read but a very interesting story. Very creative. Neat to imagine LA area clear and before all the development.
October 9, 2020
Honestly not what I was expecting, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Much more of a literary exploration of love and loss than a story of the rise of the film industry in California.
June 14, 2016
Set a story in a past Los Angeles that’s never named as Los Angeles, buff it with little dialogue and sparse historical mentions till it shines a mute sepia, add a biblical flourish, spread it across one generation but with the stories of others folded in, and you have David Grand’s Mount Terminus.
It took me almost a month to get through the first 80ish pages of Mount Terminus and where every book seems to require some period of acclimation, this one took me considerably longer. The world in this story flickers reticent, and is folded in mystery upon mystery. With shadows that haunt the living, mention of John Dee, and very occasional mention of a demon, Mount Terminus flirts with magic realism but never takes the plunge and is better for it. It has dreamlike qualities but any further detachment from reality might have robbed it of a certain sense of weight. Mount Terminus rings mythical and the characters seem archetypal and yet it resists these boundaries.
There’s plenty to keep the story in motion but I feel as though it’s partly a celebration of stillness and quiet. The main character, Bloom, is an introvert, day dreamer, and later deemed as a luftmenschen, or a contemplative person that often forgoes more practical matters. Protagonists as such are more meditative than active and this resonates throughout the story. Grand further imbues this in the text by allowing the odd paragraph to run for several pages and while at risk of becoming a ramble or frustrating the when-I-can readers in desperate need of a stopping point, these sections never feel as overbearing as the monolithic blocks of text might imply.
I enjoyed Mount Terminus for its subtle use of the past and hushed defiance to a noisy world that knows only how to take and take. We’ve all seen our share of difficulty but this is a particular variety of the ol’ slings and arrows not everyone will appreciate. But give it a try. Wrap yourself in the cool breezes and sweet smelling sage of Mount Terminus and see if you can find its humble, old world magic.
It took me almost a month to get through the first 80ish pages of Mount Terminus and where every book seems to require some period of acclimation, this one took me considerably longer. The world in this story flickers reticent, and is folded in mystery upon mystery. With shadows that haunt the living, mention of John Dee, and very occasional mention of a demon, Mount Terminus flirts with magic realism but never takes the plunge and is better for it. It has dreamlike qualities but any further detachment from reality might have robbed it of a certain sense of weight. Mount Terminus rings mythical and the characters seem archetypal and yet it resists these boundaries.
There’s plenty to keep the story in motion but I feel as though it’s partly a celebration of stillness and quiet. The main character, Bloom, is an introvert, day dreamer, and later deemed as a luftmenschen, or a contemplative person that often forgoes more practical matters. Protagonists as such are more meditative than active and this resonates throughout the story. Grand further imbues this in the text by allowing the odd paragraph to run for several pages and while at risk of becoming a ramble or frustrating the when-I-can readers in desperate need of a stopping point, these sections never feel as overbearing as the monolithic blocks of text might imply.
I enjoyed Mount Terminus for its subtle use of the past and hushed defiance to a noisy world that knows only how to take and take. We’ve all seen our share of difficulty but this is a particular variety of the ol’ slings and arrows not everyone will appreciate. But give it a try. Wrap yourself in the cool breezes and sweet smelling sage of Mount Terminus and see if you can find its humble, old world magic.
July 4, 2016
Read my review in New York Journal of Books first. Additional remarks that appeared in a different and now defunct publication begin with the next paragraph.
Books: in Mount Terminus both protagonist and Los Angeles come of age
From the time this country annexed what was then northern Mexico in 1848 New Yorkers have been moving to California to start their lives anew. In David Grand's third novel Mount Terminus (published last month by New York based publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux) a father and son move from New York to the outskirts of Los Angeles, and the boy nicknamed "Bloom" and his new home come of age in the movie business in the first decades of the Twentieth Century.
In my New York Journal of Books Review I describe Mr. Grand's novel as "written in luscious, erudite prose so dense his readers have no choice but to read it slowly." I recommend the book but only to sophisticated readers; as I read the novel I kept a Wikipedia app handy to look up cultural references.
I first became aware of Mount Terminus when I read an excerpt in Tablet Magazine. But as the novel progresses there is less and less Jewish content, perhaps accurately reflecting a process of assimilation. For a fuller discussion of the book read my NYJB review.
Books: in Mount Terminus both protagonist and Los Angeles come of age
From the time this country annexed what was then northern Mexico in 1848 New Yorkers have been moving to California to start their lives anew. In David Grand's third novel Mount Terminus (published last month by New York based publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux) a father and son move from New York to the outskirts of Los Angeles, and the boy nicknamed "Bloom" and his new home come of age in the movie business in the first decades of the Twentieth Century.
In my New York Journal of Books Review I describe Mr. Grand's novel as "written in luscious, erudite prose so dense his readers have no choice but to read it slowly." I recommend the book but only to sophisticated readers; as I read the novel I kept a Wikipedia app handy to look up cultural references.
I first became aware of Mount Terminus when I read an excerpt in Tablet Magazine. But as the novel progresses there is less and less Jewish content, perhaps accurately reflecting a process of assimilation. For a fuller discussion of the book read my NYJB review.
April 28, 2015
I'm always in awe of books that take me to another time and place, but even more in awe of the ones that take me into another's internal reality so wholly and completely that I'm unaware I crossed a line.
I became lost in Bloom's perceived worlds and thoughts, and lost in the descriptions of a villa on Mount Terminus so grand that I would love to let it swallow me whole. And I found in the relationship between Bloom and his brother a beautiful, delicate balance of counterparts that reveals the meaning of truth, sacrifice and deceit in familial relationships.
Despite the uniqueness of each character, I could find in each a reflection of myself. The book expresses humanity in a painfully dark, creative story of a boy who is forced to live in two worlds- ours and the one of his own creation.
David Grand writes and writes wonderfully in this post-modern novel so dark and complex you can't help but feel a part of Bloom's budding truth and all-consuming passions.
This will be a re-read.
I became lost in Bloom's perceived worlds and thoughts, and lost in the descriptions of a villa on Mount Terminus so grand that I would love to let it swallow me whole. And I found in the relationship between Bloom and his brother a beautiful, delicate balance of counterparts that reveals the meaning of truth, sacrifice and deceit in familial relationships.
Despite the uniqueness of each character, I could find in each a reflection of myself. The book expresses humanity in a painfully dark, creative story of a boy who is forced to live in two worlds- ours and the one of his own creation.
David Grand writes and writes wonderfully in this post-modern novel so dark and complex you can't help but feel a part of Bloom's budding truth and all-consuming passions.
This will be a re-read.
December 2, 2015
Mount Terminus is a highly densely written book with Steinbeckian epic potential that just does not realise itself. While reading the fitst part I was wondering if this was in fact some mystery story, due to the grim tone of it, but in the second part it moved to lighter material and seemed to cover the development of the film industry. Subsequently it attempted to increase the suspense and deal with brotherly betrayal, but that story never managed to reach a climax either. Finally, a love story without the slightest emotional expression but with some unexpected twists was in fact the most interesting part.
The strength of the book is the use of language. The weakness are the many unconvincing plot lines, lack of true emotional expression of all characters and some odd details, such as pointless but very explicit sex scenes and why is everyone Jewish? It is not about the de elopment of Los Angeles either, for it could have been set anywhere.
It's a good read, but has too many complications to want to read another novel by this author.
The strength of the book is the use of language. The weakness are the many unconvincing plot lines, lack of true emotional expression of all characters and some odd details, such as pointless but very explicit sex scenes and why is everyone Jewish? It is not about the de elopment of Los Angeles either, for it could have been set anywhere.
It's a good read, but has too many complications to want to read another novel by this author.
September 16, 2014
`Mount Terminus' begins in somewhat of a confusing state. There are identical twin sisters and their devoted friend Jacob. There is a wedding and 2 sons born and life lost. Jacob travels to the west coast with his son Bloom to live on Mount Terminus. There are threats against his life and mysterious followers.
The whole background slowly and painfully reveals itself. Bloom, remains for the totally of the book - just there. Even when he asks questions he is put aside by it will be revealed later and he is accepting. He is happy to give control of his life to others, he drifts and it sometimes becomes hard to tell what is symbolism and what is real. The narrative become opaque and the plot almost secondary to it.
It was a disappointment in that the description of the book was presented as the story of a family and the growth of Los Angeles. It could have happened almost anywhere. It is more of a psychological study of Bloom.
The whole background slowly and painfully reveals itself. Bloom, remains for the totally of the book - just there. Even when he asks questions he is put aside by it will be revealed later and he is accepting. He is happy to give control of his life to others, he drifts and it sometimes becomes hard to tell what is symbolism and what is real. The narrative become opaque and the plot almost secondary to it.
It was a disappointment in that the description of the book was presented as the story of a family and the growth of Los Angeles. It could have happened almost anywhere. It is more of a psychological study of Bloom.
May 27, 2014
The premise seemed engaging -- development of Los Angeles through the eyes of a young man whose father had invented a device enabling film to pass through Edison's device. Unfortunately, research was spotty in the execution of the progress of Hollywood as a town and as an industry. There was an exceptional story here, but this alas wasn't it. I also felt a disconnect with the characters whose personal lives didn't jibe with the story. There were a few loops that should have made their histories more attainable, but with incomprehensible shifts in focus, it never really took hold for me.
September 24, 2014
This is an odd and beautiful book. It overlays both the distant and even farther distant past of California with a fairy-tale like structure of two brothers born of the same fathers and twin sisters. The book evokes the genocide of the Native Californians, the life of the Californios, the early movie industry, and the development of water and land in Southern California, through the strangely symbiotic relationship between the brothers, both Jewish, one a reclusive artist and the other a ruthless builder.
January 26, 2015
All the important book lists said this was a fabulous book. I wanted to love this book, I really did. But I just couldn't. I loved parts of it, and the last 80 or so pages was very good. I struggled to get through some it, even though it was written beautifully. It seemed to jump around a little bit for me, and made it difficult for me to remain interested. I typically read a book in two days or less. It took me more than a week on this one because I often did not want to pick it back up. Even when I pictured the character of Bloom as Orlando Bloom...
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May 30, 2015I'm not rating this book, because I only made it to page 90. It is a serious MFA fever dream. It feels like an ~example~ novel, like something a computer would be programmed to create. The author uses great language, but nothing about his style is lush or convincing; he summons grand descriptions without any serious precision, without creating any permanent impressions or comprehension. The story itself is compelling, but would have been better treated by Michael Chabon.
September 13, 2014
I give any book 50 pages, sometimes 100.
This book is soooo dull, the writing so plodding, I couldn't make it past page 40. And shouldn't something (anything!) happen by then? This only seemed to be getting worse, I kept having to go back because I couldn't remember what in the hell I was reading. And it took me 2 weeks to make it to page 40.
This book is soooo dull, the writing so plodding, I couldn't make it past page 40. And shouldn't something (anything!) happen by then? This only seemed to be getting worse, I kept having to go back because I couldn't remember what in the hell I was reading. And it took me 2 weeks to make it to page 40.
May 16, 2014
This started off as promising, even channeling a bit of East of Eden in its early California/family evil and incest themes, but I felt it lost its momentum and could have been much shorter and thus more compelling. The author's formal, ponderous and almost Biblical language was also somewhat daunting and excessive.
September 17, 2014
This book seized my imagination and didn't let go until I reached the last page. The weeks I spent in its company were like entering a dream of another time and place. The character of Bloom got under my skin and I am still thinking about him when I wake up. This book does what the best in literature can do for you: make you want to get home soon so that at you can KEEP READING!
June 3, 2015
David Grand is certainly a wonderful wordsmith. His prose is lyrical. His characters unusual and well drawn BUT I found the magical realism detracted from the story of the beginnings of Hollywood. It was written almost like Greek mythology and felt like the characters were more symbolic than flesh and blood.
October 16, 2015
I was excited to dig into this novel but I guess I needed a bigger shovel. 20 pages was all I could manage. The narrative is very distant and dry--reportorial is maybe the word. The characters seemed like cardboard cut outs with the emotional stenciled on top. Life's too short so I shelved this one.
April 14, 2015
This is a grand novel, huge scope, interesting plot lines--not shocking, but rather, unexpected and then diminishing into expectations. A very artistic rendering of movies, the history, development and most of all the creative process that produces them.
April 23, 2015
Not really finished, but I find life too short to try and struggle through a book that cannot seem to catch my attention. Is it because it is so overtly jewish, which shouldn't be a problem? I don't know and might reconsider, but not just now.
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