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The Paul Chowder Chronicles #1-2
The Paul Chowder Chronicles: The Anthologist / Traveling Sprinkler
TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME, BOTH OF NICHOLSON BAKER’S BRILLIANT NOVELS FEATURING BELOVED HERO AND POET PAUL CHOWDER
A New York Times notable book and a national bestseller, Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist introduces his quirkiest and most unforgettable protagonist yet, the “erudite, unpretentious, and often hilarious” ( The New Yorker ) Paul Chowder.
Chowder really needs to write an introduction to his new anthology of verse, Only Rhyme —it’s the first work his editor has sent him in months—but he’s having a hard time getting started. Not only is his career floundering, but his girlfriend, Roz, just moved out. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Chowder can’t keep his mind from drifting to the sufferings of the great poets, from Tennyson and Yeats to Roethke, Merwin, to every poet who’s been published in The New Yorker. As he ponders the strange power and musicality of language, and adjusts to his newly single life, Chowder’s introduction slowly but surely begins to take shape.
A wholly entertaining and beguiling love story, and the first novel in the chronicles of Paul Chowder—which is followed by Traveling Sprinkler in this same volume —The Anthologist is “a loving and superbly witty homage to poetryand to life” ( The Boston Globe ).
A New York Times notable book and a national bestseller, Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist introduces his quirkiest and most unforgettable protagonist yet, the “erudite, unpretentious, and often hilarious” ( The New Yorker ) Paul Chowder.
Chowder really needs to write an introduction to his new anthology of verse, Only Rhyme —it’s the first work his editor has sent him in months—but he’s having a hard time getting started. Not only is his career floundering, but his girlfriend, Roz, just moved out. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Chowder can’t keep his mind from drifting to the sufferings of the great poets, from Tennyson and Yeats to Roethke, Merwin, to every poet who’s been published in The New Yorker. As he ponders the strange power and musicality of language, and adjusts to his newly single life, Chowder’s introduction slowly but surely begins to take shape.
A wholly entertaining and beguiling love story, and the first novel in the chronicles of Paul Chowder—which is followed by Traveling Sprinkler in this same volume —The Anthologist is “a loving and superbly witty homage to poetryand to life” ( The Boston Globe ).
- GenresFiction
496 pages, Paperback
First published October 2, 2014
12 people are currently reading
338 people want to read
About the author
Nicholson Baker
40 books969 followersNicholson Baker is a contemporary American writer of fiction and non-fiction. He was born in Manhattan in 1957 and grew up in Rochester, New York. He has published sixteen books--including The Mezzanine (1988), U and I (1991), Human Smoke (2008), The Anthologist (2009), and Substitute (2016)--and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, the New York Review of Books, Best American Short Stories, and Best American Essays. He has received a National Book Critics Circle award, a James Madison Freedom of Information Award, the Herman Hesse Prize, and the Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1999, Baker and his wife, Margaret Brentano (co-author with Baker of The World on Sunday, 2005), founded the American Newspaper Repository in order to save a large collection of U.S. newspapers, including a run of Joseph Pulitzer's influential daily, the New York World. In 2004 the Repository’s holdings became a gift to Duke University. Baker and Brentano have two children; they live on the Penobscot River in Maine.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 13, 2014
I needed a dose of Paul Chowder. I've been wearing the misery hat a bit lately myself, and "The Paul Chowder Chronicles" are an antidote to feeling sorry for/about/because.
Chowder is a poet, or kind-of-a-poet, and has decided his new book of poems will be called "Misery Hat"; he's down in the dumps himself. Chapter 34, the next-to-last-one in "Traveling Sprinkler", beautifully explains the origins and purpose of the misery hat. It's not a permanent accessory; it can be taken off when not needed. But life does seem to ask us to wear it more often than we might wish.
No one would ever accuse Paul Chowder of being successful, although he's had his moments. Bassoon player, student, teacher, poet, anthologist: he has miscellaneous information stored away to suit every occasion. He dabbles, dives in, immerses himself, moves on. He attends Quaker meeting. He goes to Planet Fitness. He eats, and considers what it is he is eating. He agonizes over the news. He feeds the neighbor's chickens. He thinks (a lot) about Debussy's "Sunken Cathedral". He calls his editor to discuss the book of poetry he is supposed to be working on. He holds his former girlfriend Roz closely in his heart.
And so it is that he decides to return to music. He will learn to play guitar. He will write songs instead of poetry.
These excursions do not erase the constant inner tangential dialogue. Things appear in his musings like a rambling chain letter that makes connections while at the same time exposing huge gaps. Anything can set off an association and send him zigzagging away from his original intent, away from completion of the task at hand.
"How do you do? I'm officially a resident of the United States of America. Millions of other people live in this country with me, and I don't know their names. I have lots of words in my head, bits of pop music, phrases, names of places, and scraps of poetry and prose."
And what of the traveling sprinkler?
"National Walking Sprinkler of Nebraska made Wilson's machines, and they still do. They made them for Sears and that's where my father bought his. Everything about it is immediately understandable. It's what America did before it threw itself wholeheartedly into the making of weapons that kill everyone."
I would like to be able to explain exactly what makes me love this book but I just, like Paul Chowder, keep circling around it. I could quote from the writing a lot more, but the context is a large part of what makes the individual words resonate.
Paul Chowder lives in dialogue with life's absurdity. He sees how hopeless everything is, but he can't let go of hope. He feels deeply and widely and has a kind heart.
"'Clear thinking is overrated,' I said."
A book that makes me laugh (I've said it before): that's a good book.
I won this on goodreads; it also contains the preceding Paul Chowder tale, "The Anthologist" which I was very happy to now own (having taken it before out of the library) and reread. You can read my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Chowder is a poet, or kind-of-a-poet, and has decided his new book of poems will be called "Misery Hat"; he's down in the dumps himself. Chapter 34, the next-to-last-one in "Traveling Sprinkler", beautifully explains the origins and purpose of the misery hat. It's not a permanent accessory; it can be taken off when not needed. But life does seem to ask us to wear it more often than we might wish.
No one would ever accuse Paul Chowder of being successful, although he's had his moments. Bassoon player, student, teacher, poet, anthologist: he has miscellaneous information stored away to suit every occasion. He dabbles, dives in, immerses himself, moves on. He attends Quaker meeting. He goes to Planet Fitness. He eats, and considers what it is he is eating. He agonizes over the news. He feeds the neighbor's chickens. He thinks (a lot) about Debussy's "Sunken Cathedral". He calls his editor to discuss the book of poetry he is supposed to be working on. He holds his former girlfriend Roz closely in his heart.
And so it is that he decides to return to music. He will learn to play guitar. He will write songs instead of poetry.
These excursions do not erase the constant inner tangential dialogue. Things appear in his musings like a rambling chain letter that makes connections while at the same time exposing huge gaps. Anything can set off an association and send him zigzagging away from his original intent, away from completion of the task at hand.
"How do you do? I'm officially a resident of the United States of America. Millions of other people live in this country with me, and I don't know their names. I have lots of words in my head, bits of pop music, phrases, names of places, and scraps of poetry and prose."
And what of the traveling sprinkler?
"National Walking Sprinkler of Nebraska made Wilson's machines, and they still do. They made them for Sears and that's where my father bought his. Everything about it is immediately understandable. It's what America did before it threw itself wholeheartedly into the making of weapons that kill everyone."
I would like to be able to explain exactly what makes me love this book but I just, like Paul Chowder, keep circling around it. I could quote from the writing a lot more, but the context is a large part of what makes the individual words resonate.
Paul Chowder lives in dialogue with life's absurdity. He sees how hopeless everything is, but he can't let go of hope. He feels deeply and widely and has a kind heart.
"'Clear thinking is overrated,' I said."
A book that makes me laugh (I've said it before): that's a good book.
I won this on goodreads; it also contains the preceding Paul Chowder tale, "The Anthologist" which I was very happy to now own (having taken it before out of the library) and reread. You can read my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
December 18, 2015
My poetry professor assigned this book to the workshop poets; he said he had had a 100% approval rating from all his recommendees. Expecting a typical novel, I was pleasantly surprised by this unique approach--half-story, half-poetry-critique-and-commentary, which read at times like a man's confessions and others like an "Art of Poetry" insight from a very believable character. At times I laughed outright at his sagacious and witty comments. I will take my professor's cue and highly recommend it to other readers.
May 22, 2024
I listened to this book on Audible, read by the author. I actually listened to it twice! It was such a treat to go out for a walk and listen to Nicholson Baker (via Paul Chowder) talk about poetry. Paul Chowder is such a great character- observant, quirky, self effacing and very lovable.
It seems like this was meant to be a spoken book. In one of his author interviews Baker revealed that he wrote the book after he had turned 50 and was going through some difficult times. He was, in fact, having trouble writing the intro to a book about old newspaper photos that he was working on with his wife. He was worried his wife was losing his love for him. So he invented this character, Paul Chowder, who like himself was having trouble writing the intro to a poetry anthology. And he, in real life, set up video cameras around the house and took his white chair (which appears in the novel too) around the house to talk about what he wanted to say- why he loved poetry. He spoke into the camera and then transcribed and cleaned it up. Amazing wring process!
I learned so much about poetry listening to this author. And now I read poetry a little more enthusiastically :-) Thank you Nicholson Baker!
It seems like this was meant to be a spoken book. In one of his author interviews Baker revealed that he wrote the book after he had turned 50 and was going through some difficult times. He was, in fact, having trouble writing the intro to a book about old newspaper photos that he was working on with his wife. He was worried his wife was losing his love for him. So he invented this character, Paul Chowder, who like himself was having trouble writing the intro to a poetry anthology. And he, in real life, set up video cameras around the house and took his white chair (which appears in the novel too) around the house to talk about what he wanted to say- why he loved poetry. He spoke into the camera and then transcribed and cleaned it up. Amazing wring process!
I learned so much about poetry listening to this author. And now I read poetry a little more enthusiastically :-) Thank you Nicholson Baker!
December 24, 2020
Spurred on by my rereading of The Anthologist, which I loved, I sprang for The Paul Chowder Chronicles: The Anthologist and Traveling Sprinkler, Two Novels just to read the further adventures of Paul Chowder. My conclusion? Baker should have resisted the urge to continue the story, Dull and repetitive. I haven’t even quite finished it and I’m thinking I may not bother.
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January 2, 2021
Read the Anthologist, and have never read another book like it. I enjoyed his turn of phrase, his deep knowledge of poetry, and his gentle humor towards his main character. I couldn't take it in big chunks, but thoroughly enjoyed his exploration of the iambic rhyme versus the four-beat line. I was as frustrated as his girlfriend Roz at Paul's inability to write the introduction to his anthology, and on finishing this novel decided to turn to other books before coming back to the sequel.
January 27, 2019
Super boring.
January 21, 2020
Making the routine beautiful. I like Baker's writing a lot.
January 27, 2025
The Anthologist
There's something about the way Nicholson Baker puts a microscope to the English language that make this plotless poetry textbook masquerading as a novel engaging and necessary.
I've always loved reading Baker. His prose is obsessive, his eye keen, and his focus laser-targeted and wildly flailing at the same time. This book is no different. His character, Paul Chowder, is a poet struggling with his own worth as a poet and now as an anthologist, as he fights against the writer's block keeping him from writing the introduction to a poetry anthology he's assembled. But really it's an account of Chowder's love affair with English verse and his iconoclastic insistence that iambic pentameter is really a waltz.
Which is controversial, I guess? Anyway, if one is any fan of poetry, or a writer of it, this is the book for you.
Traveling Sprinker
There's a Jethro Tull called "No Step" which is a early 1980's Broadsword and the Beast-era outtake track, meaning it was never released on an album proper or used as the b-side to a single. It's been collected in "rarities" anthologies and eventually was added to its parent album on an expanded and remastered release. The song has a lot of synth sounds and programmed drums alongside the band's trademark flute. Lyrically, it's literally about the stenciled "NO STEP" message you'll see painted on an airplane wing and what it could portend. You can imagine the songwriter, Ian Anderson, on a plane, glancing out the window, and jotting down these impressions on a notepad or the tiny coarse napkin they use in the drinks service. In some ways it's a perfect pairing with Nicholson Baker's second Paul Chowder novel.
Traveling Sprinkler treads a lot of the same ground as its predecessors, but this time around our hero anthologist is supposed to be writing his next book of poetry, and just doesn't want to do it. So he dabbles in tobacco. He decides he wants to write lyrics, not poems. Because you can get away with a lot more in a song. You can rhyme things in a song that wouldn't have any business rhyming in a poem. Paul Chowder wants to write songs. So he smokes cigars, and he writes lyrics about whatever he sees around him, like the "Overside Load" sign on a flatbed cargo truck. He wants to write a protest song about drone strikes. He wants to write a love song. Instead of writing poems he writes songs, and buys some home studio hardware and uses Logic to write the songs.
Meanwhile, Chowder tells us about all the bassoon-centric music he loves because he played the bassoon when he was younger. He tells us about contemporary musicians that he likes as they come shuffled up on his iPod. He gives us a playlist of great dance songs because he wants to write a great dance song. He still tells us about poems and poets, but it's subdued now, secondary to the music. He tells us about all the cigars he smokes. He tells us about the traveling sprinkler he can't seem to write a poem about.
There's something about the way Nicholson Baker puts a microscope to the English language that make this plotless poetry textbook masquerading as a novel engaging and necessary.
I've always loved reading Baker. His prose is obsessive, his eye keen, and his focus laser-targeted and wildly flailing at the same time. This book is no different. His character, Paul Chowder, is a poet struggling with his own worth as a poet and now as an anthologist, as he fights against the writer's block keeping him from writing the introduction to a poetry anthology he's assembled. But really it's an account of Chowder's love affair with English verse and his iconoclastic insistence that iambic pentameter is really a waltz.
Which is controversial, I guess? Anyway, if one is any fan of poetry, or a writer of it, this is the book for you.
Traveling Sprinker
There's a Jethro Tull called "No Step" which is a early 1980's Broadsword and the Beast-era outtake track, meaning it was never released on an album proper or used as the b-side to a single. It's been collected in "rarities" anthologies and eventually was added to its parent album on an expanded and remastered release. The song has a lot of synth sounds and programmed drums alongside the band's trademark flute. Lyrically, it's literally about the stenciled "NO STEP" message you'll see painted on an airplane wing and what it could portend. You can imagine the songwriter, Ian Anderson, on a plane, glancing out the window, and jotting down these impressions on a notepad or the tiny coarse napkin they use in the drinks service. In some ways it's a perfect pairing with Nicholson Baker's second Paul Chowder novel.
Traveling Sprinkler treads a lot of the same ground as its predecessors, but this time around our hero anthologist is supposed to be writing his next book of poetry, and just doesn't want to do it. So he dabbles in tobacco. He decides he wants to write lyrics, not poems. Because you can get away with a lot more in a song. You can rhyme things in a song that wouldn't have any business rhyming in a poem. Paul Chowder wants to write songs. So he smokes cigars, and he writes lyrics about whatever he sees around him, like the "Overside Load" sign on a flatbed cargo truck. He wants to write a protest song about drone strikes. He wants to write a love song. Instead of writing poems he writes songs, and buys some home studio hardware and uses Logic to write the songs.
Meanwhile, Chowder tells us about all the bassoon-centric music he loves because he played the bassoon when he was younger. He tells us about contemporary musicians that he likes as they come shuffled up on his iPod. He gives us a playlist of great dance songs because he wants to write a great dance song. He still tells us about poems and poets, but it's subdued now, secondary to the music. He tells us about all the cigars he smokes. He tells us about the traveling sprinkler he can't seem to write a poem about.
January 4, 2015
I received this book as part of a First Reads giveaway. Thanks!
The Anthologist:
Looking back over my lists on Goodreads I'm surprised to learn that I haven't actually read that many of Nicholson Baker's books. I feel like I have a long history with his work, I suppose, because everything I have read has stuck with me. (Read Human Smoke, by the way. Just stop everything and read it.) This novel, the Anthologist is another perfect gem of a novel, that I'm sure I'll be thinking of months from now. The narrator, Paul Chowder is a poet who's long time girlfriend has left him over an unfinished introduction to a poetry anthology. Obviously, there's more to it than that. Many novelists would use the poetry as a backdrop to explore the man and his depression (although Chowder assures us its not depression), and Baker does, but what makes him such a wonderful writer is, when Nicholson Baker writes a book about a poet he has something to say about poetry. Chowder's thoughts on rhythm and rhyme are wonderful. Baker's words are beautiful. What a joy of a novel.
Traveling Sprinkler:
Baker returns to Paul Chowder just as the poet begins to give up his life's work for a new passion- music. Poetry and rhyme were the central ideas in the Anthologist, so one would expect music would be the same for the follow-up. It isn't exactly. Chowder's musing on music are interesting, but the book itself is less focused than the Anthologist, which is fairly amazing considering how loose the Anthologist is. The spine of Traveling Sprinkler is Chowder's relationship with Roz, his former girlfriend, recently split with in the first book. Chowder believes that poetry is a young man's game, and finds new expression in music. He starts wanting to make people dance, but ends up making a love song. The book is similar. It bops along inviting us to enjoy the moment with it, but really finds its groove when it discovers Paul and Roz and the heart of their story. Lovely.
The Anthologist:
Looking back over my lists on Goodreads I'm surprised to learn that I haven't actually read that many of Nicholson Baker's books. I feel like I have a long history with his work, I suppose, because everything I have read has stuck with me. (Read Human Smoke, by the way. Just stop everything and read it.) This novel, the Anthologist is another perfect gem of a novel, that I'm sure I'll be thinking of months from now. The narrator, Paul Chowder is a poet who's long time girlfriend has left him over an unfinished introduction to a poetry anthology. Obviously, there's more to it than that. Many novelists would use the poetry as a backdrop to explore the man and his depression (although Chowder assures us its not depression), and Baker does, but what makes him such a wonderful writer is, when Nicholson Baker writes a book about a poet he has something to say about poetry. Chowder's thoughts on rhythm and rhyme are wonderful. Baker's words are beautiful. What a joy of a novel.
Traveling Sprinkler:
Baker returns to Paul Chowder just as the poet begins to give up his life's work for a new passion- music. Poetry and rhyme were the central ideas in the Anthologist, so one would expect music would be the same for the follow-up. It isn't exactly. Chowder's musing on music are interesting, but the book itself is less focused than the Anthologist, which is fairly amazing considering how loose the Anthologist is. The spine of Traveling Sprinkler is Chowder's relationship with Roz, his former girlfriend, recently split with in the first book. Chowder believes that poetry is a young man's game, and finds new expression in music. He starts wanting to make people dance, but ends up making a love song. The book is similar. It bops along inviting us to enjoy the moment with it, but really finds its groove when it discovers Paul and Roz and the heart of their story. Lovely.
March 16, 2016
If you were not already a Nicholson Baker fan, this would not make you one. But then again, that could probably be said of all his novels. I thought that he wrote The Everlasting Story of Nory as an apology for Vox; if that is the case, then the Paul Chowder "novels" could be seen as an apology for House of Holes. Here, Chowder has about given up poetry, though he does go off to a panel discussion on the future of poetry (it has one, the panel concludes). Instead, he turns to music, to writing songs and learning how to use music programs on his computer, to bring in all sorts of "samples" (whatever they are) to augment his minuscule guitar talents. He muses on the lives and accomplishments of various composers, focusing on Debussy mostly, as he mused on poets in The Anthologist. He reflects on his youthful career as a bassoonist, making the inevitable joke about Coleridge obviously never having heard a bassoon, which in no way could ever be described as "loud" as he does at the start of "Ancient Mariner." The first floor of his barn, where he composes his songs, upstairs, collapses, crushing the canoe that his former inamorata, Roz, gave him. He buys her a new one with the insurance money, and proposes to her, and she doesn't turn him down flatly. He ends the book sort of content.
A very muted book, slow and tentative, as is Chowder's life at this point. It is pointless to point out the pointlessness of Baker's novels. As always, this is written in a lovely way, Chowder is worth listening to, even as he natters his way through learning his music programs. His relationship with Roz is tender, his relationship to his work, whatever it may be, is ruefully ironic, and aware of its own pointlessness.
Not my favorite Baker (I liked The Anthologist better) but I am glad I read it. I will remember his smoking of the powerful cigars, and how he described their psychological effect on him.
A very muted book, slow and tentative, as is Chowder's life at this point. It is pointless to point out the pointlessness of Baker's novels. As always, this is written in a lovely way, Chowder is worth listening to, even as he natters his way through learning his music programs. His relationship with Roz is tender, his relationship to his work, whatever it may be, is ruefully ironic, and aware of its own pointlessness.
Not my favorite Baker (I liked The Anthologist better) but I am glad I read it. I will remember his smoking of the powerful cigars, and how he described their psychological effect on him.
May 23, 2016
Not my favorite Baker, but well worth reading.
Notes:
2... poetry is prose in slo mo (except rhyming poetry)
5... trance music ---Paul Oakenfold
meter .... cf prosody
8... one useful tip I can pass on is: copy poems out. Absolutely top priority.
10... prosody ... mina... forged shrivelments
the real basis of English poetry is walking rhythm
14-15... 4 beats in a line ... how to scan
27... later, cut out the story, and the poem has a mysterious feeling of charged emptiness
Roz gone --- I squandered her good nature. I didn't take it seriously.
28... Sinead O'Connor ... "she moved thru the fair"
31... Who wants to be forced into the role of enforcer.
Why I didn't want to adopt .... horrible, spoiled, rude, selfish kids
39... Never recite. Sometimes, if you quote a phrase just in passing, that can work.
57... Singing is a desire to warble out something that is beyond words but that relies on words.
87... WS Merwin ... To the corner of the eye
95... Merwin reading The Vixen
126... Spending your life concentrating on death, like watching a movie and thinking only the end credits. It's a mistake of emphasis.
Notes:
2... poetry is prose in slo mo (except rhyming poetry)
5... trance music ---Paul Oakenfold
meter .... cf prosody
8... one useful tip I can pass on is: copy poems out. Absolutely top priority.
10... prosody ... mina... forged shrivelments
the real basis of English poetry is walking rhythm
14-15... 4 beats in a line ... how to scan
27... later, cut out the story, and the poem has a mysterious feeling of charged emptiness
Roz gone --- I squandered her good nature. I didn't take it seriously.
28... Sinead O'Connor ... "she moved thru the fair"
31... Who wants to be forced into the role of enforcer.
Why I didn't want to adopt .... horrible, spoiled, rude, selfish kids
39... Never recite. Sometimes, if you quote a phrase just in passing, that can work.
57... Singing is a desire to warble out something that is beyond words but that relies on words.
87... WS Merwin ... To the corner of the eye
95... Merwin reading The Vixen
126... Spending your life concentrating on death, like watching a movie and thinking only the end credits. It's a mistake of emphasis.
May 27, 2014
I liked this book. It was am easy read and made me want to go and do things in combination; like running thru a field; holding a ribbon dancer while smoking a Sherlock Holmes pipe wearing swim fins...I thoroughly enjoyed it.
November 27, 2016
Nicholson Baker's droll, hyper-detailed humor is on full display here.
Read
August 30, 2018I carried this book that combines two novels all the way to Europe so that I could have a nice fat book for the flight back. I found the title on a sales shelf at the library. In the first novel, "The Anthologist," the main character, Paul Chowder is a poet who for career reasons is working on assembling an anthology of poetry. He suffers writers' block, and constantly gets distracted. His partner, Roz, finally has no more patience for his procrastination and moves out. We then get to share his misanthropic narrative as well as his opinions on free verse. Contrary to what one might expect, the stream of consciousness is actually funny. Paul Chowder, the character, interweaves real insights about literature into his mundane everyday life in a self-deprecating poignant way that is nonetheless engaging. In the second novel, "The Traveling Sprinkler," Paul Chowder decides he will win back Roz by writing a love song for her. He builds on his former bassoon training, takes up acoustic guitar, goes to Quaker meetings and the gym. Nickolson Baker's prose is quirky and perhaps too literary for most tastes. Yet through the sheer force of vivid detail Paul takes us along on his personal journey to overcome mid-life depression and make life meaningful. Spoiler alert: things get better with Roz. Reading both of these novels make me want to track down Nicholson Baker's other titles. (There are at least ten) The author won the National Book Critics Circle Award for "Double Fold."
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews