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Palladio
In her small upstate New York town, Molly Howe is admired for her beauty, poise, and character, until one day a secret is exposed and she is cruelly ostracized. She escapes to Berkeley, where she finds solace in a young art student named John Wheelwright. They embark on an intense, all-consuming affair, until the day Molly disappears–again. A decade later, John is lured by the eccentric advertising visionary Mal Osbourne into a risky venture that threatens to eviscerate every concept, slogan, and gimmick exported by Madison Avenue. And much to John’s amazement, one of the many swept into Osbourne’s creative vortex is the woman who left him devastated so many years before.
386 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
13 people are currently reading
390 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Dee
11 books205 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Jonathan Dee is the author of six novels. He is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, a frequent contributor to Harper's, and a former senior editor of The Paris Review. He teaches in the graduate writing programs at Columbia University and the New School.
Jonathan Dee is the author of six novels. He is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, a frequent contributor to Harper's, and a former senior editor of The Paris Review. He teaches in the graduate writing programs at Columbia University and the New School.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
September 27, 2012
Well, I read 'The Privileges' and I thought it was brilliant so I went straight for Palladio and I was not disappointed. Jonathan Dee is my new favourite!
Some of the things that confused me about Dee's writing in 'The Privileges' started to fall into place for me by reading another of his books. His themes and his characters are quite elusive and there's almost no authorial judgement which is unusual in our spoon-fed world. It's disconcerting at first because it challenges you as a reader. You have to work hard to form your own opinions instead of letting someone else decide for you how you should feel.
Palladio examines the nature of art, and the ubiquitousness of irony in modern Western society, through the medium of advertising. I was very stimulated by the ideas explored and am still processing my own response to the ideas.
Dee's characters are really hard to get a grip on. Is Mal Osborne a visionary? Or is he just a pretentious egomaniac? On one level the agency Mal creates seems inspiring, on another level it seems like a kind of creepy cult. And Molly is a sort of non-character, like a giant black hole at the centre of the book. What did her life mean?
It's hard to review this book coherently because it left me with so many questions, but in a way, that seemed to be the whole point. If you don't mind books which don't give you all the answers, and if you're interested in advertising or art, then I'd really recommend this book.
Some of the things that confused me about Dee's writing in 'The Privileges' started to fall into place for me by reading another of his books. His themes and his characters are quite elusive and there's almost no authorial judgement which is unusual in our spoon-fed world. It's disconcerting at first because it challenges you as a reader. You have to work hard to form your own opinions instead of letting someone else decide for you how you should feel.
Palladio examines the nature of art, and the ubiquitousness of irony in modern Western society, through the medium of advertising. I was very stimulated by the ideas explored and am still processing my own response to the ideas.
Dee's characters are really hard to get a grip on. Is Mal Osborne a visionary? Or is he just a pretentious egomaniac? On one level the agency Mal creates seems inspiring, on another level it seems like a kind of creepy cult. And Molly is a sort of non-character, like a giant black hole at the centre of the book. What did her life mean?
It's hard to review this book coherently because it left me with so many questions, but in a way, that seemed to be the whole point. If you don't mind books which don't give you all the answers, and if you're interested in advertising or art, then I'd really recommend this book.
October 30, 2007
As one of my most beloved professors, I was anxious to see Jon Dee's words of wisdom in action. How do we define ourselves? What is individuality and how is individuality reflected in our commercial culture? These are some of the underlying questions of Palladio, a tightly woven novel that explores the dissolution of the nuclear family, the convergence of sex-violence-advertising-exploitation-meaninglessness, and what it is to be an American in the 21st Century.
I was impressed with Dee's balancing of several suspenseful plots, all of which subtly presented a far deeper meaning than their face values first suggested. In trying to understand the motivation of Dee's many flawed characters, I found myself asking larger questions. What leads someone to seek solace in anonymous sex? Is that character's psychology representative of a growing minority (majority?) of America?
My one disappointment was with Dee's ending. I'm all for E.L. Doctorow. I enjoy my fair share of cryptic prose. But why choose to end this otherwise brilliant novel with pieces of meaningless commercials? Okay, actually, I can answer that last question. I get it. But for entertainment's sake, and as a reader, the unresolved ending was a big disappointment.
I was impressed with Dee's balancing of several suspenseful plots, all of which subtly presented a far deeper meaning than their face values first suggested. In trying to understand the motivation of Dee's many flawed characters, I found myself asking larger questions. What leads someone to seek solace in anonymous sex? Is that character's psychology representative of a growing minority (majority?) of America?
My one disappointment was with Dee's ending. I'm all for E.L. Doctorow. I enjoy my fair share of cryptic prose. But why choose to end this otherwise brilliant novel with pieces of meaningless commercials? Okay, actually, I can answer that last question. I get it. But for entertainment's sake, and as a reader, the unresolved ending was a big disappointment.
December 27, 2010
This book came so frustratingly close to greatness. It remains an exceptional novel, still. But it did not fulfill its potential.
Blame Part 2. Halfway through Palladio Jonathan Dee does something fiercely original with his plotting. It complements perfectly his third-person narrative. And the reader braces for something euphoric and original. And then Part 2 begins in the first-person voice of the novel’s least-distinguished voice, and a feeling of disappointment that almost grows into resentment happens.
How could Dee do this? There are two possibilities, probably. The first is that he chose safety. Why ruin the novel’s two original characters – Mal Osbourne and Molly – by putting either in the first-person? Why not let the bland John character tell of his pain with the two most-original characters by using his voice? But that raises a question of narration that leads to the second possibility. Why use the first-person at all? Unfortunately, the answer may be autobiographical. The middle 100 pages of this book have the too-sincere feeling of autobiography, as if Dee, himself, wanted to take vengeance on some extraordinary act of scorn perpetrated on him by a waifish lass in NYC.
The wonderful news is that Dee forsakes the first-person in Part 3 and finishes the novel well as he begins it. The bad news is that Part 2 is still there, compromising what precedes and follows it.
Part 2 really is that bad. In the name of being some character’s laptop journal entry, it uses shabby changes of tense and the usual tricks of expressing pain. As if it were lifted from one more creative-nonfiction class of memoirists with no original experiences to which they might attribute their predictable torment. There’s no need for it; had Dee wished to put the reader too close to one character’s pain, he could have done it with excerpts or dialogue or something else. The first-person bit was poor.
So much of the rest of the book was so fantastic, though – the inevitable ends to which a baby-boomer couple drifts (its delusional self-consumption becoming mere delusion), the dissenting college professors, the rigidly disapproving religious convert, the creative folks in the ad agency and all their petty rebellions, the postmodern concern with art as reality, all of it – that you just wish Dee could have a second chance at Part 2. He wouldn’t need to change the story itself one bit, just the narration of it, and he’d have the best American novel since Sabbath’s Theater.
But finally, and perhaps crucially, Dee, as novelist, didn’t quite understand his Molly character well enough to write her. He realized this at a certain moment, it seems, and went for the vividness of her victim’s pain instead of her pathos. An understandable choice, but still a lamentable one.
Blame Part 2. Halfway through Palladio Jonathan Dee does something fiercely original with his plotting. It complements perfectly his third-person narrative. And the reader braces for something euphoric and original. And then Part 2 begins in the first-person voice of the novel’s least-distinguished voice, and a feeling of disappointment that almost grows into resentment happens.
How could Dee do this? There are two possibilities, probably. The first is that he chose safety. Why ruin the novel’s two original characters – Mal Osbourne and Molly – by putting either in the first-person? Why not let the bland John character tell of his pain with the two most-original characters by using his voice? But that raises a question of narration that leads to the second possibility. Why use the first-person at all? Unfortunately, the answer may be autobiographical. The middle 100 pages of this book have the too-sincere feeling of autobiography, as if Dee, himself, wanted to take vengeance on some extraordinary act of scorn perpetrated on him by a waifish lass in NYC.
The wonderful news is that Dee forsakes the first-person in Part 3 and finishes the novel well as he begins it. The bad news is that Part 2 is still there, compromising what precedes and follows it.
Part 2 really is that bad. In the name of being some character’s laptop journal entry, it uses shabby changes of tense and the usual tricks of expressing pain. As if it were lifted from one more creative-nonfiction class of memoirists with no original experiences to which they might attribute their predictable torment. There’s no need for it; had Dee wished to put the reader too close to one character’s pain, he could have done it with excerpts or dialogue or something else. The first-person bit was poor.
So much of the rest of the book was so fantastic, though – the inevitable ends to which a baby-boomer couple drifts (its delusional self-consumption becoming mere delusion), the dissenting college professors, the rigidly disapproving religious convert, the creative folks in the ad agency and all their petty rebellions, the postmodern concern with art as reality, all of it – that you just wish Dee could have a second chance at Part 2. He wouldn’t need to change the story itself one bit, just the narration of it, and he’d have the best American novel since Sabbath’s Theater.
But finally, and perhaps crucially, Dee, as novelist, didn’t quite understand his Molly character well enough to write her. He realized this at a certain moment, it seems, and went for the vividness of her victim’s pain instead of her pathos. An understandable choice, but still a lamentable one.
March 27, 2016
Sometimes a novel gives you that "not so fresh feeling." Of course this one dates back to 2002, so perhaps I'm being unfair, but its musings about the intersection between art and commerce, in this case advertising, were inch-deep. Appreciative references to a tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde ("I felt I was in the presence of something powerful") smell stale, and perhaps books with passages like
Since their incompetence in the kitchen was so general, they tried fancy things as readily as the most basic: vichyssoise, steak au poivre, crème caramel. The latter was doomed from the start, since Molly thought "egg white" meant the white part of the egg, i.e., the shell. John made fun of her; she picked up the phone, ordered a pizza from Domino's, and bet him that she could make him come twice before the pizza arrived.
should have a warning sticker on the cover, maybe "Stupidity".
April 6, 2015
This is my second Jonathan Dee novel, following the glorious Pulitzer-finalist The Privileges, and I find myself wondering why he isn't a household name. His prose is masterful, and he writes with a humanist's compassion and a satirist's sharp eye. His characters are vivid, his dialogue pitch-perfect, his observations trenchant. His novels are funny yet wise--they make you laugh but make you think.
Palladio, a satirical look at the world of advertising and the intersection of art and commerce, made me wonder if "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner consulted it when thinking about the show. Though set in contemporary America (and not in the '50s), it follows pitches and campaigns and the sometimes hokey, sometimes brilliant insights of ads. I loved the elusive figure of Molly Howe, her intersection with the very different John Wheelright, and the story of Palladio, a start-up firm meant to revolutionize advertising. I love how these stories join and together serve as a meditation on the search for meaning. That rare novel that manages to be provocative and ideologically rich without sacrificing or simplifying its characters, Palladio is an absorbing, beautiful read. I suspect not all readers will "like" its ending, but who said the artist's job was to please?
Palladio, a satirical look at the world of advertising and the intersection of art and commerce, made me wonder if "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner consulted it when thinking about the show. Though set in contemporary America (and not in the '50s), it follows pitches and campaigns and the sometimes hokey, sometimes brilliant insights of ads. I loved the elusive figure of Molly Howe, her intersection with the very different John Wheelright, and the story of Palladio, a start-up firm meant to revolutionize advertising. I love how these stories join and together serve as a meditation on the search for meaning. That rare novel that manages to be provocative and ideologically rich without sacrificing or simplifying its characters, Palladio is an absorbing, beautiful read. I suspect not all readers will "like" its ending, but who said the artist's job was to please?
July 1, 2011
Palladio begins as a couple of different plot lines that converge about 150 pages into the book. It a book about a guy in advertising and the interesting relationship he develops with one of his bosses, and a book about a girl who comes from an unhappy family and is unable to make emotional connections because of that. The two stories merge, separate and merge throughout the book in sometimes surprising, sometimes farfetched and sometimes over-the-top events. The girl's antics wear thin toward the end of the book and to me she moved from being a sympathetic character to a tiresome woe-is-me type who I hoped would never be happy.
Dee's writing was clean and entertaining, but for a book whose story depended so much on avant garde advertising I would have liked to read about more examples of the advertising. It would have been nice if he would have described the end product of the work the artists were doing instead of just saying they were doing work. That's the major deficiency in the book.
Overall, it's an entertaining book and the first one I read by Dee. I liked it enough that I'll go back to him in the future.
385 pages.
Dee's writing was clean and entertaining, but for a book whose story depended so much on avant garde advertising I would have liked to read about more examples of the advertising. It would have been nice if he would have described the end product of the work the artists were doing instead of just saying they were doing work. That's the major deficiency in the book.
Overall, it's an entertaining book and the first one I read by Dee. I liked it enough that I'll go back to him in the future.
385 pages.
June 19, 2018
I work at the library, and I picked up this book because I liked the cover. I was very surprised by how good it was. I was disappointed in the ironic ending, but it was about what I expected. The book really went downhill after the first two-thirds. Character development is awesome, as is the structure of the first part of the book.
"She holds herself so cheaply, her sense of her own worthlessness is so profound, that she's drawn into situations she knows are bad for her; and then when they don't work out, when things fall apart, she says to herself, See, see what you've done, you knew it all along, you've left it worse than you fond it. Then it's on to the next disaster."
"Of course he didn't love her. He was just looking for something to borrow that would approximate what he felt. It was as if, having stripped away all the outer layers of his self - the ingratiation, the fear of ridicule, the sense of his misfortune, the layers which were himself, the rest of the time - in order to discover what was essential in him, it had turned out that there was nothing there: he still said what he thought he was expected to say. Nothing at the core of him - at least not yet. That was okay. He was sixteen years old."
"Living away from home simply meant a different relationship to food; meals came not according to relentless schedule but only when you felt hungry enough to get up and do something about it."
"The worst, most humiliating part of any failed love affair is the suspicion that maybe it never meant as much to the other person as it did to you."
"Jealousy: well, maybe. But also, if those two people find what they need in each other, then, I think, I become truly superfluous in the world."
"She holds herself so cheaply, her sense of her own worthlessness is so profound, that she's drawn into situations she knows are bad for her; and then when they don't work out, when things fall apart, she says to herself, See, see what you've done, you knew it all along, you've left it worse than you fond it. Then it's on to the next disaster."
"Of course he didn't love her. He was just looking for something to borrow that would approximate what he felt. It was as if, having stripped away all the outer layers of his self - the ingratiation, the fear of ridicule, the sense of his misfortune, the layers which were himself, the rest of the time - in order to discover what was essential in him, it had turned out that there was nothing there: he still said what he thought he was expected to say. Nothing at the core of him - at least not yet. That was okay. He was sixteen years old."
"Living away from home simply meant a different relationship to food; meals came not according to relentless schedule but only when you felt hungry enough to get up and do something about it."
"The worst, most humiliating part of any failed love affair is the suspicion that maybe it never meant as much to the other person as it did to you."
"Jealousy: well, maybe. But also, if those two people find what they need in each other, then, I think, I become truly superfluous in the world."
July 8, 2019
I think this is my fourth Dee novel, and it might be the way I was reading it, on a Kindle and traveling, so I was reading, then not reading, etc., but I found myself not particularly engaged in it. The structure is interesting: we are with Molly Howe in Ulster NY, with her family, why they live there, how the family functions, as Molly grows up, and as a high school senior, Molly becomes an outcast with her family and town. We follow her to Berkeley and into the rest of her life. We are also with John, a graphic designer at a NYC ad agency. He lives with his lawyer-girlfriend until he's given an offer by one of the partners at his agency and his life moves in another direction. Until about page 215, the connection between Molly and John is kept hidden. There's much interesting thought about advertising, etc., and although I was intrigued by both the main characters, the way I read this novel is why I probably never really fell into it fully.
April 1, 2010
I picked this book up after reading "The Privileges" by Jonathan Dee. I almost never read books by the same author back to back, but I enjoyed "The Privileges" so much that I just wanted to immerse myself in another Jonathan Dee novel, and I found myself enjoying this book just as much. He is my kind of writer. I love his style, his craft. He focuses on emotions and the subtleties in human interactions, and this book held an additional interest for me in that I found the relationship at the heart of the story very compelling.
That said, I -- like many of the reviewers on Amazon ;) -- did not understand or enjoy the last ~10% of the novel. It wasn't even that I didn't like the way the plot wrapped up... Stylistically the last 10% was very different from the rest of the book, and I just didn't understand why Dee switched modes and what he accomplished, if anything, in those last pages. The first half of the book was written in the third person, and it mainly followed the lives of two characters whose lives intersected, separated, and intersected again. The next 40% of the book was written in the first person by one of those characters -- an interesting shift in point of view, the rationale behind which I'm not entirely sure I understood. It almost felt like Dee was experimenting with the voice in which he wanted to tell the story, and he decided he liked both... or that for a certain part of the narrative, the third-person voice worked, but for another, he wanted to zoom in and write in the first person. The final tenth of the book was a third-person round-robin between all of the characters, major and minor -- interspersed with some sort of "message" motif that was clearly related to advertising, one of the major themes of the book. I realized in this last part of the book that the minor characters that I had found interesting enough during the rest of the book were not interesting enough to hold my exclusive interest for the pages that we followed them exclusively. And ultimately I didn't find that anything interesting -- personality-wise or plot-wise -- developed in this last part of the book.
That said, I -- like many of the reviewers on Amazon ;) -- did not understand or enjoy the last ~10% of the novel. It wasn't even that I didn't like the way the plot wrapped up... Stylistically the last 10% was very different from the rest of the book, and I just didn't understand why Dee switched modes and what he accomplished, if anything, in those last pages. The first half of the book was written in the third person, and it mainly followed the lives of two characters whose lives intersected, separated, and intersected again. The next 40% of the book was written in the first person by one of those characters -- an interesting shift in point of view, the rationale behind which I'm not entirely sure I understood. It almost felt like Dee was experimenting with the voice in which he wanted to tell the story, and he decided he liked both... or that for a certain part of the narrative, the third-person voice worked, but for another, he wanted to zoom in and write in the first person. The final tenth of the book was a third-person round-robin between all of the characters, major and minor -- interspersed with some sort of "message" motif that was clearly related to advertising, one of the major themes of the book. I realized in this last part of the book that the minor characters that I had found interesting enough during the rest of the book were not interesting enough to hold my exclusive interest for the pages that we followed them exclusively. And ultimately I didn't find that anything interesting -- personality-wise or plot-wise -- developed in this last part of the book.
October 11, 2011
what a total dissapointment this book turned out. i ran through this book for the first half/two thirds and then it faltered and ran out of puff in a major way. exploring molly howes and john wheelrights different worlds was a satisfying ride. characters were well portrayed, however molly and her family had a very odd ring to them and their disfunctionality really didnt resonate for me. both parents sounded as though they were in their mid sixties when they were just entering their forties, was mother kooky just because husband bought her to a small town, to a house that let the wind in through badly fitted windows and the sun didnt shine on after 2pm? she popped pills and she had an unusual relationship with both her daughter and son. the father was disconnected from the children (nothing new in that) and was the senior manager for a branch of IBM, but he too went downhill in a short space of time and tried to top himself. both the son and daughter left home and had virtually nothing to do with their parents ever, the son became a cult leader/preacher and molly drifted from one extreme sexual relationship to another. there was nothing really to explain, by way of behaviour or prior knowledge of things that had gone on in the family, why this family turned out as odd as it did. was it something in the water? to me it was just a device to give us the inscrutable character of Molly. she was in turn the device for the two male characters to clash and fall upon their swords. it all got a bit tiresome in the end, *messages* that were snippets of advertising copy (john wheelright and mal osbourne both worked in advertising) meant and said very little and the whole ending was just not very good. maybe i should have read Dee's other book instead of this one, as he is quite a good writer, its just the plot really gave out in the end. I liked quite a bit of this book, but then it failed in quite a considerable way and looking back on characters motives and actions just makes me question them even more.
April 28, 2010
It can be odd to read books written by people you know. This book had a lot of sex in it, sometimes graphic, even violent sex. I know Jonathan to be a quiet, polite, mild-mannered man, and it was odd to think of him thinking of these things. I was impressed by his intelligence. I am drawn to quiet people for the exact reason that I am always curious to know what they're thinking, and in this case, it turned out that behind Jonathan's quiet exterior, he had a whole world of complex thoughts going on. It made me wish I'd had more opportunities to chat with him when we were working together. It made me feel like we had more in common than I knew. Isn't that, in a way, the mark of a successful work of art? That it makes you feel a kinship with the artist? Some of this was a little bit dated; it was written in the 90s, and the main preoccupation of the story--advertising--gave me flashbacks of Adbusters (does that magazine still exist?) and I wasn't entirely convinced about the character of Molly. She seemed a little too empty, not a real person. But those are my only criticisms, and this left me curious to read his new novel.
November 4, 2014
I'm not sure what to make of this. Jonathan Dee is definitely a gifted writer, and I thoroughly enjoyed around 3/4 of the book (not necessarily the first 3/4, though most of it). The 1/4 I did not like was the way the plot took over from the characters, which were so strong in the beginning of the book. I also had a hard time understanding what was so wonderful about Molly. She has so little going for her and yet all these men fall for her the instant they meet her. The descriptions of her appeal remain just that --descriptions-- instead of bringing her to life and making me fall for her myself. John Wheelwright on the other hand is interesting: he's not the type of guy you'd admire or want to be friends with, yet he seems true to life.
So I guess that's all I have to say about it. Not sure this could be considered a review. I'll be reading THE PRIVILEGES soon because I like Jonathan Dee's writing and it promises to be an interesting read.
So I guess that's all I have to say about it. Not sure this could be considered a review. I'll be reading THE PRIVILEGES soon because I like Jonathan Dee's writing and it promises to be an interesting read.
December 28, 2015
There's a lot to think about in this book. In part, it is a love story about a damaged woman and an insecure man. But, alongside this, there's a lot of material about art and advertising, about modern cultural values, about expression of ideas. It is this that gets it 4 stars from me: I found a lot of this really interesting. I was put in mind quite often of "The Blazing World" that I read and really enjoyed last year. The plot that links the ideas in this book is well put together and the characters are, for me, all well written and believable. I've reduced it to 4 stars because the middle section dragged a bit for me so it wasn't perfect! And I need to think a bit more about what the third section was all about with its cryptic messages! Overall, a very engaging and thought-provoking read.
February 10, 2010
I wanted to like this more, as I'd seen him read from his more recent book and liked what I'd heard (I just wasn't going to buy a hardback without knowing more about his writing). I tore through it, which says something, but much of the last half of it was finishing it just to finish it. Perhaps it's to be expected that a book featuring characters who have a pathological lack of personality would feel a little soulless. The clinical and descriptive 3rd personal narration of the first half was not matched by the shift to first person journaling in the second half.
October 7, 2017
Halfway through I'd have expected to give this three stars or less. It seemed trite, but interesting. Then the faint echoes of a life became stronger—they were there before—and I felt a muc stronger connection. Strange feeling.
May 23, 2017
This is a strange little book, especially and maybe most interestingly from a writerly point of view. The first two thirds of the book are told in long alternating sections centered on the two main characters, John and Molly. We see most of Molly's life, from youth (and actually before it) till she's almost thirty, whereas we see maybe three or four years of John's life in the same span of pages and equal number of sections. The writing in these sections is, frankly, luminous, in the well-observed, social documentary way, and both characters are really interesting and slightly twisted and wrong, and the overall posture of the narrator to these characters is empathetic, interested, aware, and thoughtful. And then, we shift into a series of first person sections, all from John's POV, which do this really neat trick-- I think we all think that you get closer to the character when we hear them tell their story in their own words, but within a page of this shift in person, I felt like John was hiding secrets from me, that he was having reactions and thoughts I was being quite deliberately kept from.... It's interesting, the level of control of language required on both sides of the divide to pull this off.
Unfortunately, this shift in style also came with a shift in the narrative, as we focus on the Palladio of the title, a mansion-cum-high brow ad agency, where the plot, up till then pretty traditional, sort of gets silly, with bold statements about art and advertising, and a whole cast of characters who are hard to take, and which Dee fails to really make us care about. Or me, I didn't care about them. This lurched toward something climactic, which felt sort of disconnected from the spine of the book before it (as I understand the themes of the book, at least), and then we get another short section of third person narration, sort of calling together of all the characters we've seen till that point, an almost transparent delaying tactic to not tell us where Molly has ended up till the very end.... It's kind of a mess, honestly.
I think, outside of the often wonderful writing, the themes don't really cohere here. These's a Svengali in the book, Mal Osborne, with ideas about the place of art in the modern world, but it's not all that clear to me that the book ever really explores the righteousness of his claims. There's maybe a paired thread, about Molly's brother, who becomes a religious ascetic, but the connection of this thread also puzzled me. And even Molly and John feel only incidentally connected to whatever thematic aims the book has; their relationship has only an occasional overlap with the ideas that I think the book means to take seriously. Here's my big thought, which surely is wrong but comes out of an attempt to make some sense out of the various elements in this book: Molly is the living embodiment, the avatar, somehow, of advertising? I really don't know.
I loved Dee's book _A Thousand Pardons_. There's a lot to like in this book, especially in the first two thirds. But to me, it doesn't come together in a way that I could wrap my head around.
Unfortunately, this shift in style also came with a shift in the narrative, as we focus on the Palladio of the title, a mansion-cum-high brow ad agency, where the plot, up till then pretty traditional, sort of gets silly, with bold statements about art and advertising, and a whole cast of characters who are hard to take, and which Dee fails to really make us care about. Or me, I didn't care about them. This lurched toward something climactic, which felt sort of disconnected from the spine of the book before it (as I understand the themes of the book, at least), and then we get another short section of third person narration, sort of calling together of all the characters we've seen till that point, an almost transparent delaying tactic to not tell us where Molly has ended up till the very end.... It's kind of a mess, honestly.
I think, outside of the often wonderful writing, the themes don't really cohere here. These's a Svengali in the book, Mal Osborne, with ideas about the place of art in the modern world, but it's not all that clear to me that the book ever really explores the righteousness of his claims. There's maybe a paired thread, about Molly's brother, who becomes a religious ascetic, but the connection of this thread also puzzled me. And even Molly and John feel only incidentally connected to whatever thematic aims the book has; their relationship has only an occasional overlap with the ideas that I think the book means to take seriously. Here's my big thought, which surely is wrong but comes out of an attempt to make some sense out of the various elements in this book: Molly is the living embodiment, the avatar, somehow, of advertising? I really don't know.
I loved Dee's book _A Thousand Pardons_. There's a lot to like in this book, especially in the first two thirds. But to me, it doesn't come together in a way that I could wrap my head around.
March 3, 2018
This is barely 3 stars....had me semi-interested/engaged during Part 1, somewhat in Part 2, and in Part 3, the whole thing went off the rails and lost me completely.
At first, the alternating perspectives of Molly and John, and the story of how they eventually connect (it's not a spoiler that they connect; it's revealed on the inner flap) are somewhat compelling. John is smart and likable, yet unfulfilled, it seems, as an adult (which is when we meet him). Molly is a detached, self-centered kid (her story starts when she is very young) who makes a stupid, and predictable, series of mistakes. They meet when their timelines briefly intersect in their early 20s - until Molly takes off.
John, it appears, never quite got over Molly.
Fast forward to this crazy last part of the book. Random sayings, song lyrics, inspirational something or others, maybe, ad slogans, and who knows what else pepper this section as we speedily shift from one character to the next, some of whom were so peripheral that I found myself wondering why I even was supposed to care now. I'm left with a big HUH and a sense that I wasted a few hours on this book.
This is the third Jonathan Dee novel I've read. I'm in no hurry to read any others after this one.
At first, the alternating perspectives of Molly and John, and the story of how they eventually connect (it's not a spoiler that they connect; it's revealed on the inner flap) are somewhat compelling. John is smart and likable, yet unfulfilled, it seems, as an adult (which is when we meet him). Molly is a detached, self-centered kid (her story starts when she is very young) who makes a stupid, and predictable, series of mistakes. They meet when their timelines briefly intersect in their early 20s - until Molly takes off.
John, it appears, never quite got over Molly.
Fast forward to this crazy last part of the book. Random sayings, song lyrics, inspirational something or others, maybe, ad slogans, and who knows what else pepper this section as we speedily shift from one character to the next, some of whom were so peripheral that I found myself wondering why I even was supposed to care now. I'm left with a big HUH and a sense that I wasted a few hours on this book.
This is the third Jonathan Dee novel I've read. I'm in no hurry to read any others after this one.
June 24, 2019
Lame story telling not really veiled by a pseudo-artsy collage of different layers of time. Unconvincing switches of perspective from third-person narration to first-person narration (one of the characters taking over by talking to himself + diary entries), bloodless characters, especially the female ones, and, to top it all, really turn-off love-making bordering on rape. Waste of time....
October 16, 2023
I don’t even know why I finished this book. All of the characters were unlikable and I have never read a book that was so complicated. The plot was hard to follow and I was never sure when they switched from one character to another and whose story they were on at any given time. Very confusing and the end was horrible because it didn’t come to a conclusion, it just ended.
July 4, 2024
Well, I kept reading to hear about Molly, the mysterious femme fatal at the centre of this novel, who is really I suppose a bit of a male-gaze fantasy figure. The rest of the characters didn’t really interest me, and the art and advertisement culture seemed old hat (was written in 2002). But Molly kept me reading all 468 pages.
July 28, 2021
So good!
A brilliant X-ray of dysfunctional families and (hence) dysfunctional relationships, reminiscent of Franzen, embedded in a gripping and well-written story that explores the nature of art and advertising, condimented with a streak of love story.
A brilliant X-ray of dysfunctional families and (hence) dysfunctional relationships, reminiscent of Franzen, embedded in a gripping and well-written story that explores the nature of art and advertising, condimented with a streak of love story.
Read
August 6, 2020Didn't like
February 2, 2021
Liked the first half much better than the second; there's a poignant novella in that first half. Reminds me of Jonathan Franzen mixed with Geoff Nicholson.
December 11, 2022
Very flat - couldn't see that it was going anywhere.
August 13, 2021
Interesting story, disappointed by the ending though.
December 12, 2013
I finished reading this book a few hours ago and am still a little perplexed about what to say here. Odd is a word that keeps coming to mind and also thought-provoking.
The novel looks at John Wheelwright, a successful advertising artist living in New York. When John is presented with the opportunity to work for a new firm - one where advertising has no branding and pushes the boundaries of acceptability - he leaves his life to risk this new venture. The novel also follows Molly, a popular young girl who's life I changed forever following an affair with an older married man. When Molly and John date as youngsters and she leaves him clueless and heartbroken, she doesn't anticipate the ending when their lives collide again many years later.
It's a very unusual novel and I think the way in which it is written is intended to reflect the questions in the novel - seemingly, what do we need in life, can we survive without the trimmings and what really is art? The novel is written in three sections - the first in third person really sets the scene, introduces the characters and explains the concept of advertising without branding or any knowledge of the business. It's a really good introduction to the people we are going to meet throughout the remainder of the novel and Dee has created some interesting people, particularly Molly who comes from a disinterested family and is ostrasized when she makes one mistake as a child. For me, the key part in this section was the concept of advertising based around a concept rather than a brand. Dee explains this really well, and I was completely bought into this and think if this were how the whole advertising worked then I would pay a little more interest.
The second section is written from Johns perspective, and it is in this part that Molly re-enters his life and the significance of past actions becomes apparent. It is also where disaster strikes for the firm, and getting this from Johns view really presents this in the best way and gives the reader great insight into the full implications of what happens.
It is the final section of this novel which I found a little strange. The final part of the novel is written in short sections from the perspective of many of the characters we come across in the novel - some who were central to the story and others who were on the periphery. These sections are a little odd and I think it is here where Dee tries to convey his message about the trappings of life and what is the true meaning of art. However, I found the short sections in this part of the novel were what really changed my thoughts about this novel. Through section 1 and 2 I really liked the novel, the characters and where it was going. But sections 3 was a little disjointed, didn't really conclude things in a logical way and left many questions, but unfortunately, none of these were the questions I think Dee intended the reader to be left with. So its a little odd and a little disappointing but has some good sections and interesting concepts which I did enjoy.
The novel looks at John Wheelwright, a successful advertising artist living in New York. When John is presented with the opportunity to work for a new firm - one where advertising has no branding and pushes the boundaries of acceptability - he leaves his life to risk this new venture. The novel also follows Molly, a popular young girl who's life I changed forever following an affair with an older married man. When Molly and John date as youngsters and she leaves him clueless and heartbroken, she doesn't anticipate the ending when their lives collide again many years later.
It's a very unusual novel and I think the way in which it is written is intended to reflect the questions in the novel - seemingly, what do we need in life, can we survive without the trimmings and what really is art? The novel is written in three sections - the first in third person really sets the scene, introduces the characters and explains the concept of advertising without branding or any knowledge of the business. It's a really good introduction to the people we are going to meet throughout the remainder of the novel and Dee has created some interesting people, particularly Molly who comes from a disinterested family and is ostrasized when she makes one mistake as a child. For me, the key part in this section was the concept of advertising based around a concept rather than a brand. Dee explains this really well, and I was completely bought into this and think if this were how the whole advertising worked then I would pay a little more interest.
The second section is written from Johns perspective, and it is in this part that Molly re-enters his life and the significance of past actions becomes apparent. It is also where disaster strikes for the firm, and getting this from Johns view really presents this in the best way and gives the reader great insight into the full implications of what happens.
It is the final section of this novel which I found a little strange. The final part of the novel is written in short sections from the perspective of many of the characters we come across in the novel - some who were central to the story and others who were on the periphery. These sections are a little odd and I think it is here where Dee tries to convey his message about the trappings of life and what is the true meaning of art. However, I found the short sections in this part of the novel were what really changed my thoughts about this novel. Through section 1 and 2 I really liked the novel, the characters and where it was going. But sections 3 was a little disjointed, didn't really conclude things in a logical way and left many questions, but unfortunately, none of these were the questions I think Dee intended the reader to be left with. So its a little odd and a little disappointing but has some good sections and interesting concepts which I did enjoy.
January 3, 2016
Jonathan Dee's book The Privileges was draped across the window of Daunt Books for most of last summer and I knew it was the kind of book I would like: young, privileged American couple fall in love, get married very young, move to Manhattan, and live out a privileged existence, which only starts to spiral out of control once their kids become teenagers. Palladio was written ten years earlier, in 2002, and although the themes are different, the novel has a very similar feel.
Molly Howe is a pretty, popular teenager growing up in a small town in upstate New York in the late 1980s, but when the whole town seems to find out about her affair with one of her father's friends, her parents shun her and she skips town to Berkeley to stay with her older brother. There, she meets a history of art student called John Wheelwright and they have a passionate relationship until she skips town again. Through alternating chapters, we meet John in the early 2000s, now a Madison Avenue creative for a top agency and with a successful, intelligent, lawyer girlfriend and, seemingly a perfect life. But when the "advertising visionary" Mal Osbourne offers him the job-of-a-lifetime at Palladio, the eponymous, innovative new agency he is setting up in South Carolina.
I liked the chapters describing Molly's childhood and teenage years, her messed up relationship with her family, especially her mother and her brother, who later turns evangelical Christian and tells her she is damned to hell for her lustful, sinful acts. I also enjoyed the story of John and Molly's relationship (inevitably, their paths collide again in the present day) but the parts of the novel involving Mal Osbourne and Palladio felt like Dee was trying to rewrite The Fountainhead for the advertising industry. The work is satirical in places, of course, but I felt these sections--presumably the cornerstone of the whole novel--didn't grip me or entertain me. I found the ending to be an anti-climax too (the same was true of The Privileges, although I liked that more overall).
Molly Howe is a pretty, popular teenager growing up in a small town in upstate New York in the late 1980s, but when the whole town seems to find out about her affair with one of her father's friends, her parents shun her and she skips town to Berkeley to stay with her older brother. There, she meets a history of art student called John Wheelwright and they have a passionate relationship until she skips town again. Through alternating chapters, we meet John in the early 2000s, now a Madison Avenue creative for a top agency and with a successful, intelligent, lawyer girlfriend and, seemingly a perfect life. But when the "advertising visionary" Mal Osbourne offers him the job-of-a-lifetime at Palladio, the eponymous, innovative new agency he is setting up in South Carolina.
I liked the chapters describing Molly's childhood and teenage years, her messed up relationship with her family, especially her mother and her brother, who later turns evangelical Christian and tells her she is damned to hell for her lustful, sinful acts. I also enjoyed the story of John and Molly's relationship (inevitably, their paths collide again in the present day) but the parts of the novel involving Mal Osbourne and Palladio felt like Dee was trying to rewrite The Fountainhead for the advertising industry. The work is satirical in places, of course, but I felt these sections--presumably the cornerstone of the whole novel--didn't grip me or entertain me. I found the ending to be an anti-climax too (the same was true of The Privileges, although I liked that more overall).
June 16, 2013
Palladio is a satirical novel about the advertising industry and art: it also follows the uneasy relationship between John Wheelwright and Molly Howe, which starts when John is at Berkeley. Molly attends classes but is not enrolled on any course: she has no vocation or career in mind but drifts into lectures.
One day Molly abruptly disappears and John does not see her for ten years. When they meet again, John is working in advertising for the maverick Mal Osbourne who has set up an advertising agency called Palladio; the agency succeeds against all expectations and John is Osbourne's right hand man. In the meantime Molly has formed a new relationship with an avant-garde artist. Their relationship falters and she becomes Mal's girlfriend. John still has feelings for Molly which survive and are stronger than ever after ten years apart but their relationship is doomed never to get off the ground.
The Palladio venture ends badly. Molly disappears again and John finds outlets for his creative talents in voluntary work at a Sunday School.
Palladio started slowly and very little happened in the first half of the book. Setting up and running Palladio was one of the most interesting parts of the novel for me. I hoped that John and Molly would find happiness together but they don't (and I could not really work out why John and others found her so attractive).
I found Molly an exasperating character. Her disappearances and lack of direction are just irritating. There are also many strange characters throughout the book, including Molly's dysfunctional family and an Milo whose artistic installation at Palladio destroys the mansion in a Jane Eyre style fire.
Overall there were too many wasted lives and too much wasted talent and lack of direction in this novel for my taste. I thought the ending was unsatisfactory and disappointing.
One day Molly abruptly disappears and John does not see her for ten years. When they meet again, John is working in advertising for the maverick Mal Osbourne who has set up an advertising agency called Palladio; the agency succeeds against all expectations and John is Osbourne's right hand man. In the meantime Molly has formed a new relationship with an avant-garde artist. Their relationship falters and she becomes Mal's girlfriend. John still has feelings for Molly which survive and are stronger than ever after ten years apart but their relationship is doomed never to get off the ground.
The Palladio venture ends badly. Molly disappears again and John finds outlets for his creative talents in voluntary work at a Sunday School.
Palladio started slowly and very little happened in the first half of the book. Setting up and running Palladio was one of the most interesting parts of the novel for me. I hoped that John and Molly would find happiness together but they don't (and I could not really work out why John and others found her so attractive).
I found Molly an exasperating character. Her disappearances and lack of direction are just irritating. There are also many strange characters throughout the book, including Molly's dysfunctional family and an Milo whose artistic installation at Palladio destroys the mansion in a Jane Eyre style fire.
Overall there were too many wasted lives and too much wasted talent and lack of direction in this novel for my taste. I thought the ending was unsatisfactory and disappointing.
April 25, 2011
Promising. Barbed satire on commercialization of the New York "art" scene (John) with another strand about growing up different in an isolated town in New York state in the 1980's (Molly) and a third about religious fanaticism (Richard). The strands intertwine in Berkeley, then separate for ten years, meet, and unravel again.
Palladio, an avantgarde ad studio in Monticello, may also refer to Molly, a beautiful cipher and object of desire that like Mr Rochester's home (alluded to) finally burns down. Like Cunegonde, the young Molly earns her living as she learns about the world through sex. At 17, the age of consent in New York, Molly agrees to be seduced by the father of the children she's baby sitting for. Her family and school mates blame Molly, and she goes on the road (no kidding, Kerouac figures prominently) on the edges of celebrity and finally to the anonymity she has perhaps always sought. Like Candide, the naive and good John Wheelwright falls not only for Molly, but also for a charismatic adster, a Panglossian figure called Mal Osborne.
Dee has bitten off a weighty mouthful of American culture. Unfortunately, his critique devolves into John and Molly's doomed and silly love story and the madness of Molly's family of origin that dominate the last half of this novel of ideas.
Palladio, an avantgarde ad studio in Monticello, may also refer to Molly, a beautiful cipher and object of desire that like Mr Rochester's home (alluded to) finally burns down. Like Cunegonde, the young Molly earns her living as she learns about the world through sex. At 17, the age of consent in New York, Molly agrees to be seduced by the father of the children she's baby sitting for. Her family and school mates blame Molly, and she goes on the road (no kidding, Kerouac figures prominently) on the edges of celebrity and finally to the anonymity she has perhaps always sought. Like Candide, the naive and good John Wheelwright falls not only for Molly, but also for a charismatic adster, a Panglossian figure called Mal Osborne.
Dee has bitten off a weighty mouthful of American culture. Unfortunately, his critique devolves into John and Molly's doomed and silly love story and the madness of Molly's family of origin that dominate the last half of this novel of ideas.
December 26, 2013
I find myself unable to give more than three stars to the book overall: the addition of the third part of the book, which I found redundant if not plain boring, ruined it a little for me. Had it stopped after part 2, I would have given it more stars than this.
There are flaws in this book - I found that the addition of the Richard character to be completely gratuitous and irrelevant to the plot - but overall, it is the first book I've read in a while that has managed to captivate my attention. The author is honest, even cruel, in its descriptions. There's no idealization, there's no romanticizing anything. Reality is simply depicted, without the addition of any glamor to hide its blemishes and faults, which is rare. However, sometimes Dee tends to go a bit too far in his cruelty by accentuating it all too much, thus dangerously caressing the line between objectivity and stereotype.
An enjoyable book overall, full of clever satire, that manages to build up to a very intense and more or less surprising climax which is then brutally brought to a close by the final 50 or so pages, leaving you to close the book feeling let down.
There are flaws in this book - I found that the addition of the Richard character to be completely gratuitous and irrelevant to the plot - but overall, it is the first book I've read in a while that has managed to captivate my attention. The author is honest, even cruel, in its descriptions. There's no idealization, there's no romanticizing anything. Reality is simply depicted, without the addition of any glamor to hide its blemishes and faults, which is rare. However, sometimes Dee tends to go a bit too far in his cruelty by accentuating it all too much, thus dangerously caressing the line between objectivity and stereotype.
An enjoyable book overall, full of clever satire, that manages to build up to a very intense and more or less surprising climax which is then brutally brought to a close by the final 50 or so pages, leaving you to close the book feeling let down.
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