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The Calloway Trilogy #2
Good Life
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368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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2366 people want to read
About the author
Jay McInerney
70 books1,098 followersJohn Barrett McInerney Jr. is an American writer. His novels include Bright Lights, Big City, Ransom, Story of My Life, Brightness Falls, and The Last of the Savages. He edited The Penguin Book of New American Voices, wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film adaptation of Bright Lights, Big City, and co-wrote the screenplay for the television film Gia, which starred Angelina Jolie. He is the wine columnist for House & Garden magazine, and his essays on wine have been collected in Bacchus & Me (2000) and A Hedonist in the Cellar (2006). His most recent novel is titled The Good Life, published in 2006.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 311 reviews
December 1, 2015
All the low ‘starred’ reviews of this novel that feature first on Goodreads have agitated me to the point that I cannot properly formulate my own full review.
I can tell you this: I read this novel and felt achingly sad when it ended, not for the story’s end but because I’d finished the novel. I roamed the house unable to settle with a new novel and finally gave up. Picked up The Good Life again and started to re-read it. Yes, I read the book, and then read it again, straight away! I think that might tell you how much I enjoyed the book, loved the characters and the setting and lives McInerney constructed for them.
James Frey (whose novel, Bright Shiny Morning, I did not like) says about The Good Life: “People wonder what kind of writer F Scott Fitzgerald might have been had he lived. McInerney, his closest successor, is starting to show us… […] A very subtle, incredibly insightful, heartbreaking story about life in New York.”
Keir Graff of Booklist says “ McInerney is a master at finding truths we barely even admit to ourselves: without moralising, he explores the ways we use disaster to our own emotional ends, and above all, whether we’re really capable of change. A day that most people said would change us forever seems now to have provided only vacation from our bad habits… There have been a number of 9/11 novels lately, as writers grapple with what that terrible day means to us. This one is essential.”
Remember Kier Graff's last sentence "This one is essential'. Do not be swayed by the 2★ and 1★ reviews. I recommend you read this novel. 5★
January 12, 2016
Like his obvious influence, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay McInerney has always been an astute social chronicler. His previous novels, one about the coke-filled club scene of the early 80s, for example, and another about the post-boom stock market mini-crash, seem almost trivial next to the loaded setting of The Good Life: the day before and the months after September 11, 2001.
The story centres on two contrasting couples, familiar from some of McInerney's earlier fiction. Gracefully aging hipsters Corrine and Russell Calloway are raising their twin kids in TriBeCa, while socialites Luke and Sasha McGavock barely see their troubled teenager daughter in their Upper East Side co-op.
When Corrine and Luke, who have both taken themselves out of the rat race to pursue more meaningful work, meet in the debris-filled aftermath of the attacks and consequently start working in a relief-effort soup kitchen, they find an emotional bond that's lacking at home. What to do?
Like John Cheever, quoted in one of the book's epigraphs, McInerney dissects encroaching middle age and marital infidelity with special care. He brings a whiff of glamour to adultery, but he knows that it exacts a price. His people have made choices and, when faced with catastrophe, must examine whether they're the right ones.
Written in lyrical, almost elegiac prose, the book begins well, covers the WTC disasters with understated tact and also delivers some rich satire about Manhattan's pretty people. The denouement is exquisite.
But there's something missing at the book's heart. McInerney is a good satirist, but I'm not sure he's a fine portraitist. We know where his characters went to school, what they wear and who they know, but they never jump off the page. This is fine for a pop novel like Bright Lights, Big City, but here he's trying for something more and doesn't quite succeed.
Originally published in NOW Magazine: https://nowtoronto.com/art-and-books/...
The story centres on two contrasting couples, familiar from some of McInerney's earlier fiction. Gracefully aging hipsters Corrine and Russell Calloway are raising their twin kids in TriBeCa, while socialites Luke and Sasha McGavock barely see their troubled teenager daughter in their Upper East Side co-op.
When Corrine and Luke, who have both taken themselves out of the rat race to pursue more meaningful work, meet in the debris-filled aftermath of the attacks and consequently start working in a relief-effort soup kitchen, they find an emotional bond that's lacking at home. What to do?
Like John Cheever, quoted in one of the book's epigraphs, McInerney dissects encroaching middle age and marital infidelity with special care. He brings a whiff of glamour to adultery, but he knows that it exacts a price. His people have made choices and, when faced with catastrophe, must examine whether they're the right ones.
Written in lyrical, almost elegiac prose, the book begins well, covers the WTC disasters with understated tact and also delivers some rich satire about Manhattan's pretty people. The denouement is exquisite.
But there's something missing at the book's heart. McInerney is a good satirist, but I'm not sure he's a fine portraitist. We know where his characters went to school, what they wear and who they know, but they never jump off the page. This is fine for a pop novel like Bright Lights, Big City, but here he's trying for something more and doesn't quite succeed.
Originally published in NOW Magazine: https://nowtoronto.com/art-and-books/...
March 9, 2008
So, I've got this little disorder. Just this one: Once I begin reading a book, I am compelled to finish it. Regardless of how much I dislike it, I continue to pick up the book... continue to read.
After finishing Brett Easton Ellis' excellent Lunar Park (see previous post), I wanted to read something by Jay Mcinerny. Jay is a character in Lunar Park and is best known for his breakthrough novel Bright Lights, Big City. Not sure what posessed me, but rather than going for the easy bet and reading BL, BC, I made the error of picking out The Good Life, Jay's latest.
Bleh.
The Good Life reads like Bridges of Madison County for the middle-aged urbanite. Set in NY, NY around the time of 9/11, the novel tells the story of a couple of priveledged New Yorkers too lazy to work at their own marriages that fall easily into illicit love amongst the Ground Zero soup kitchens. If "illicit love" makes you think "Harlequin Romance", then you've got the right idea: there's enough trashy bodice-ripping in there to satisfy the requirements of the genre.
There's also a large helping of grief porn if you're into that sort of thing. The jumpers, the flee-ers, the diggers and the body bags... Jay's got it covered.
Learn from my mistake. Read Bright Lights, Big City. It really is as good as you've heard.
After finishing Brett Easton Ellis' excellent Lunar Park (see previous post), I wanted to read something by Jay Mcinerny. Jay is a character in Lunar Park and is best known for his breakthrough novel Bright Lights, Big City. Not sure what posessed me, but rather than going for the easy bet and reading BL, BC, I made the error of picking out The Good Life, Jay's latest.
Bleh.
The Good Life reads like Bridges of Madison County for the middle-aged urbanite. Set in NY, NY around the time of 9/11, the novel tells the story of a couple of priveledged New Yorkers too lazy to work at their own marriages that fall easily into illicit love amongst the Ground Zero soup kitchens. If "illicit love" makes you think "Harlequin Romance", then you've got the right idea: there's enough trashy bodice-ripping in there to satisfy the requirements of the genre.
There's also a large helping of grief porn if you're into that sort of thing. The jumpers, the flee-ers, the diggers and the body bags... Jay's got it covered.
Learn from my mistake. Read Bright Lights, Big City. It really is as good as you've heard.
February 11, 2021
Segundo libro de la trilogía de los Calloway.
En el primero la historia concluye a finales de la década de los 80. Este segundo inicia en el 2001, año del atentado terrorista en Nueva York. Russell, Corrine y sus hijos gemelos de seis años, viven en Tribeca, a pocas cuadras de la Zona Cero.
Solo había leído un libro de crónicas acerca del 11S. Pero nunca una novela que contara el sufrimiento de las familias de las víctimas y el apoyo de los voluntarios después de la caída de las Torres Gemelas.
Sin embargo, la complejidad moral a la que se enfrentan los protagonistas ante los problemas convencionales de un matrimonio de clase media, me pareció superficial a ratos. Surgen también nuevos personajes que ciertamente no me fascinaron. En lugar de todos esos avatares matrimoniales, me hubiera gustado leer más acerca del 11S.
En el primero la historia concluye a finales de la década de los 80. Este segundo inicia en el 2001, año del atentado terrorista en Nueva York. Russell, Corrine y sus hijos gemelos de seis años, viven en Tribeca, a pocas cuadras de la Zona Cero.
Solo había leído un libro de crónicas acerca del 11S. Pero nunca una novela que contara el sufrimiento de las familias de las víctimas y el apoyo de los voluntarios después de la caída de las Torres Gemelas.
Sin embargo, la complejidad moral a la que se enfrentan los protagonistas ante los problemas convencionales de un matrimonio de clase media, me pareció superficial a ratos. Surgen también nuevos personajes que ciertamente no me fascinaron. En lugar de todos esos avatares matrimoniales, me hubiera gustado leer más acerca del 11S.
May 27, 2009
Jay McInerney, Brat Pack novelist, Manhattanite extraordinaire and famed party goer, got the urge to step up to the plate and write a Great American Novel, a work that would raise him finally from the middle rungs of the literary ladder and allow him to reach the top shelf where only the best scribes--Hemingway! Fitzgerald! Thomas Wolfe!-- sit and cast their long collective shadow over the fields of aspiring geniuses, furious scribblers all. McInerney has selected a large subject with which to make his reputation, the catastrope that was and remains 9/11. Acutely aware that the minor league satires and soft coming of age stories that made his name were less commanding than they had been because "9/11 changed everything" (a phrase destined to be the characterizing cliche of this age) he offers us The Good Life, a mixed bag of satiric thrusts, acute social observation, two dimensional characterizations and wooden generalizations about the sagging state of society, of culture, of our ability to understand one another, locally and globally.
I agree that Jay McInerney is a better writer than he's been credit, but history will judge his novels as minor efforts at best. Witty and observant, yes he is, but the manner in which he conveys his best lines, his choicest bon mots have the thumbed-through feeling of a style borrowed. Fitzgerald, Capote and John Cheever are his heroes, true, but there's nothing in McInerney's writing that honors his influences with the achievement of a tone and personality that is entirely his own, an original knack of phrase making that makes a reader wonder aloud how such wonderful combinations of words are possible. His influences, alas, are visible and seem to be peering over his shoulder. Even what one would praise as sharp and elegant observations from his keyboard creaks not a little. The style sounds borrowed, and our author sounds much, much too dainty to make it really cling to the memory:
"The hairstylist was aiming a huge blow-dryer at his wife's skull, which was somewhat disconcertingly exposed and pink--memento mori--in the jet of hot air ... "
"He developed an interest in the arts as well as a taste for luxury and was never hence quite able to make the distinction between the two, so that his ambitions oscillated between the poles of creation and connoisseurship."
McInerney is compared to Fitzgerald relentlessly since his career as a professional writer began, in so much he, like F.Scott, was bearing witness to a generation of conspicuous consumption and waste, but one notices that any random paragraph from The Great Gatsby
contains more melody by far. The writing genius of Fitzgerald, when he was writing at his absolute best,was his ability to make you forget the fact that you're reading elegant prose and have you become entranced by it. It was a means to put you in a different world altogether. It's this simple, really; you didn't see him writing, you didn't see him sweat. Able craftsman as well as peerless stylist when he was performing best, Fitzgerald's prose seemed natural, buoyant, unstrained. McInerney's writing reveals that strain, that slaving over phrase and clever remark,and often times the effect seems calculated.In his best moments, he rarely sheds the sophomore flash; after all these years our Manhattan golden boy still writes like the most gifted student in a Kansas City composition class. After all these years he is still trying to outrace the long shadows of those who brought him reading pleasure.
I agree that Jay McInerney is a better writer than he's been credit, but history will judge his novels as minor efforts at best. Witty and observant, yes he is, but the manner in which he conveys his best lines, his choicest bon mots have the thumbed-through feeling of a style borrowed. Fitzgerald, Capote and John Cheever are his heroes, true, but there's nothing in McInerney's writing that honors his influences with the achievement of a tone and personality that is entirely his own, an original knack of phrase making that makes a reader wonder aloud how such wonderful combinations of words are possible. His influences, alas, are visible and seem to be peering over his shoulder. Even what one would praise as sharp and elegant observations from his keyboard creaks not a little. The style sounds borrowed, and our author sounds much, much too dainty to make it really cling to the memory:
"The hairstylist was aiming a huge blow-dryer at his wife's skull, which was somewhat disconcertingly exposed and pink--memento mori--in the jet of hot air ... "
"He developed an interest in the arts as well as a taste for luxury and was never hence quite able to make the distinction between the two, so that his ambitions oscillated between the poles of creation and connoisseurship."
McInerney is compared to Fitzgerald relentlessly since his career as a professional writer began, in so much he, like F.Scott, was bearing witness to a generation of conspicuous consumption and waste, but one notices that any random paragraph from The Great Gatsby
contains more melody by far. The writing genius of Fitzgerald, when he was writing at his absolute best,was his ability to make you forget the fact that you're reading elegant prose and have you become entranced by it. It was a means to put you in a different world altogether. It's this simple, really; you didn't see him writing, you didn't see him sweat. Able craftsman as well as peerless stylist when he was performing best, Fitzgerald's prose seemed natural, buoyant, unstrained. McInerney's writing reveals that strain, that slaving over phrase and clever remark,and often times the effect seems calculated.In his best moments, he rarely sheds the sophomore flash; after all these years our Manhattan golden boy still writes like the most gifted student in a Kansas City composition class. After all these years he is still trying to outrace the long shadows of those who brought him reading pleasure.
June 28, 2007
This book was chock-full of McInerney's self-important bullshit. All names and brandnames. Hated the two main characters and felt gross after I read it.
June 20, 2007
It was trite fast reading.
You never really care that much for the characters and they all seem pretty miserable.
And then using the Sept. 11 disaster as a reason to launch into an affair is just kind of a cliche.
You never really care that much for the characters and they all seem pretty miserable.
And then using the Sept. 11 disaster as a reason to launch into an affair is just kind of a cliche.
to-buy
July 22, 2018One of the book Felix recommends to Diane on her trip to Ireland... Happy People Read and Drink Coffee brought me here.
June 19, 2008
As a New York writer, McInerny attempts his obligatory 9/11 novel. I have never read any of his other works, but here he rerpises some characters from an earlier, more famous work. His sense of place is strong: This story takes place between New York and Nashville (the latter only in the last few chapters), two places I happen to know well, and he captures the locations well. His writing is graceful, and overall the book was pleasurable to read. The main drawback is thematic. A "9/11 Novel" should probably address some weighty themes. Don DeLillo does so in a book I found barely tolerable (Falling Man), and Jonathan Safran Foer does so magically is a book that is an all-time favorite (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close). Probably because this book is in some ways a sequel, McInerny fails to get at the deeper implications of the tragedy, making the central tension two characters who want out of their lives and spend a lot of time trying to justify the affair they end up having with each other. However, given the at times vacuousness of the themes, I would reread this book over DeLillo's in a heartbeat for the following reason: The story is set in the months after 9/11, the time when I lived in New York, and his settings in the city overlap with places I went. At times, I wondered if maybe I had crossed paths with these characters, before remembering that they are fictional. That kind of fluidity in storytelling trumps theme to me every time.
March 6, 2018
I guess I expected a lot more from this novel, and who can blame me after reading Bright Lights, Big City? I read this because I’m interested in post-9/11 fiction and whilst this book deals with this as an event, the real focus of this novel is the characters and their relationships. Whilst that was fun to read about, I don’t really enjoy domestic dramas especially in the time period it was set in.
I was underwhelmed by this simply because I expected it was going to be something else. But McInerney has still proved himself as a wonderful writer of humanity and it’s complexities.
I was underwhelmed by this simply because I expected it was going to be something else. But McInerney has still proved himself as a wonderful writer of humanity and it’s complexities.
July 22, 2014
I actually liked the book in the beginning. But there were a growing number of developments that really bothered me. Most of all the fact that the moral of the novel is, that it's important to stay with your reping husband "for the childrens sake". To keep tha holy entity of family intact. WTF?!
September 4, 2021
I’d previously started this book and stopped after about 60 pages. I just must not have been ready to read it, or I was overly engrossed in something else. Extremely thought-provoking novel about marriage, raising kids, September 11th, New York, infidelity, and life. Moving and excellently written. Makes me remember why I loved McInerney from the beginning. The Literary Brat Pack. This was a really good book. First in the series I’d say was average. Then this one. And finally one left in the trilogy.
April 27, 2012
Life in TriBeCa in the late summer and early fall of 2001 seems precarious to Corrine and Russell Calloway, whose marriage may be on the skids.
Corrine has returned to her career, while still juggling motherhood and other commitments; Russell seems detached and distant, arousing all of the suspicions that have accompanied the two of them since their separation a few years previously.
"When she had yearned to be a mother, imagining what it would be like to be a parent, it had been easy to conjure the joy...the scenes of tenderness, the Pieta moments. What you don't picture are the guilt and the fear that take up residence at the front of your brain, like evil twins you didn't bargain for. Fear, because you're always worried about what might go wrong, especially if your kids were born, as hers were, three months early."
In the opening pages of "The Good Life," we sense who these characters are, with their privileged lifestyle that should make them the objects of envy. However, we can also see the fraying seams of their existence.
Suddenly and totally out of the blue, their worlds are shattered by the events a few days later. The 9/11 events that turned a city into a shocking inferno, and the rest of the world into a frightening place to live.
In the aftermath, Corrinne happens upon a man near Ground Zero. "Staggering up West Broadway, coated head to foot in dun ash, he looked like a statue commemorating some ancient victory, or, more likely, some noble defeat--a Confederate general, perhaps. That was her second impression...."
And she thus meets Luke McGavock, a man who will become a central part of her life in the weeks ahead. His life, too, is unraveling.
In these moments when the two of them connect, the tragic events seemingly open them to new possibilities. A little while later, they become connected further when they volunteer at a kind of soup kitchen for the rescue workers.
What will next happen between them? Will their common goals lead to something more? Will they reach out for the comfort of each other to assuage the ills of their marriages? Or will the baggage of their lives prevent a fresh start?
The author's prose captured my attention and kept me turning pages. I soon came to care about Corrinne and Luke, and less so about their spouses, Russell and Sasha.
I wanted the journey to continue, with everyone learning valuable lessons from what had happened. But in the end, would the old habits and expectations cling to them all like the ash from the inferno? Would only a residual of the experience remain to remind them of what could have been? A story that seemed to promise much, but didn't quite deliver what I hoped for. Four stars.
Corrine has returned to her career, while still juggling motherhood and other commitments; Russell seems detached and distant, arousing all of the suspicions that have accompanied the two of them since their separation a few years previously.
"When she had yearned to be a mother, imagining what it would be like to be a parent, it had been easy to conjure the joy...the scenes of tenderness, the Pieta moments. What you don't picture are the guilt and the fear that take up residence at the front of your brain, like evil twins you didn't bargain for. Fear, because you're always worried about what might go wrong, especially if your kids were born, as hers were, three months early."
In the opening pages of "The Good Life," we sense who these characters are, with their privileged lifestyle that should make them the objects of envy. However, we can also see the fraying seams of their existence.
Suddenly and totally out of the blue, their worlds are shattered by the events a few days later. The 9/11 events that turned a city into a shocking inferno, and the rest of the world into a frightening place to live.
In the aftermath, Corrinne happens upon a man near Ground Zero. "Staggering up West Broadway, coated head to foot in dun ash, he looked like a statue commemorating some ancient victory, or, more likely, some noble defeat--a Confederate general, perhaps. That was her second impression...."
And she thus meets Luke McGavock, a man who will become a central part of her life in the weeks ahead. His life, too, is unraveling.
In these moments when the two of them connect, the tragic events seemingly open them to new possibilities. A little while later, they become connected further when they volunteer at a kind of soup kitchen for the rescue workers.
What will next happen between them? Will their common goals lead to something more? Will they reach out for the comfort of each other to assuage the ills of their marriages? Or will the baggage of their lives prevent a fresh start?
The author's prose captured my attention and kept me turning pages. I soon came to care about Corrinne and Luke, and less so about their spouses, Russell and Sasha.
I wanted the journey to continue, with everyone learning valuable lessons from what had happened. But in the end, would the old habits and expectations cling to them all like the ash from the inferno? Would only a residual of the experience remain to remind them of what could have been? A story that seemed to promise much, but didn't quite deliver what I hoped for. Four stars.
November 20, 2016
Lightweight novel about adultery in upscale America, where no character is sympathetic (well, maybe the six-year old twins) and everybody including the author's cynicism is off-putting. Corinne and Russell Calloway have twins and imagine themselves to be middle class; upper echelon Luke and Sasha have a teen aged daughter, and the not so meet-cute is set amid 9-11 aftermath when Corinne bumps into ash covered Luke and their love, lust and desire threaten to obliterate both their marriages - which are barely holding together anyways, so it's no big stakes.
I used to love reading McInerney, but in light of present political climate and seething against Trump ugliness, I found so much here insufferable:
-"Washington still liked to say that men had four needs: food, shelter, pussy, and strange pussy. Whereas Russell believed there were two kinds of men-those who cheated, and those who felt guilty afterward"
-No one had ever said of Sasha that she was nice, ultimately you knew she wasn't, and this made her dangerously attractive.
-as he savored the unfamiliar taste of marital guilt...
I was outraged at weirdness like allowing ones daughter a splash of champagne upon her release from rehab, or feeling relieved that the boy you caught your daughter sucking off is not her boyfriend, or practical strangers greeting each other with a kiss on the lips, etc. I was irritated by inconsistencies like on page 252 "They say it was a bucket brigade. But the first day, we had no buckets - at least I didn't see any. We used our hands. We formed a human chain, passing along pieces of rebar and concrete, hand to hand... Eventually, I don't know when, we got these plastic buckets. We were going stone by stone across West Street... By the end of the day, I was five feet over the median divider..."
I used to love reading McInerney, but in light of present political climate and seething against Trump ugliness, I found so much here insufferable:
-"Washington still liked to say that men had four needs: food, shelter, pussy, and strange pussy. Whereas Russell believed there were two kinds of men-those who cheated, and those who felt guilty afterward"
-No one had ever said of Sasha that she was nice, ultimately you knew she wasn't, and this made her dangerously attractive.
-as he savored the unfamiliar taste of marital guilt...
I was outraged at weirdness like allowing ones daughter a splash of champagne upon her release from rehab, or feeling relieved that the boy you caught your daughter sucking off is not her boyfriend, or practical strangers greeting each other with a kiss on the lips, etc. I was irritated by inconsistencies like on page 252 "They say it was a bucket brigade. But the first day, we had no buckets - at least I didn't see any. We used our hands. We formed a human chain, passing along pieces of rebar and concrete, hand to hand... Eventually, I don't know when, we got these plastic buckets. We were going stone by stone across West Street... By the end of the day, I was five feet over the median divider..."
October 10, 2007
This book was recommended to me because of my love for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. The Good Life is about love, loss, self discovery post 9/11. Just like ELIC, the focus is not on 9/11 but the characters are dealing with the magnitude of the event.
However, unlike ELIC, I did not fall in love with the characters. They were almost too flawed and too complex. Lots of extra storylines that were unnecessary but probably included to fully develop the flawed nature of the characters. At times, the descriptions of love/feelings/loss were really lovely. But other times the writing really dragged. The story kept me moving and anxious to get to the end, but I didn't find it to be outstanding.
I almost gave it 2 stars but ended up going with three because the prose in the last three pages was incredible. Very, very beautiful and moving. The concluding remakrs made me ache for the characters. Unfortunatly, I had to get through over 300 pages to feel that!
However, unlike ELIC, I did not fall in love with the characters. They were almost too flawed and too complex. Lots of extra storylines that were unnecessary but probably included to fully develop the flawed nature of the characters. At times, the descriptions of love/feelings/loss were really lovely. But other times the writing really dragged. The story kept me moving and anxious to get to the end, but I didn't find it to be outstanding.
I almost gave it 2 stars but ended up going with three because the prose in the last three pages was incredible. Very, very beautiful and moving. The concluding remakrs made me ache for the characters. Unfortunatly, I had to get through over 300 pages to feel that!
November 24, 2016
I'm unbelievably grateful this book is over. I know the man was a genius at one time, but here he is truly an embarrassing relic, that obnoxious guy at the party trying to impress you with every uninteresting word he knows as you die inside and scan the crowd for a better conversation to escape to. The dialogue was unbearable, the character names were laughably bad, and the sex scenes were so cringeworthy. Maybe the editor was blinded by his greatness but someone seriously dropped the ball here and it may be the man so clearly in love with the sound of his own voice. I don't even know why I finished it.
July 11, 2017
I really, really loved this book. A far cry from Bright Lights, Big City in writing style, this is a warm and moving story against the backdrop of 9/11. Together with The Emperor's Children, this is the best novel that came in the post-9/11 flow.
March 6, 2008
the only reason i finished this terrible, overwrought book is that i was stuck on a 12-hour flight from munich
March 23, 2008
I've always like Jay McInerney and Bright Lights Big City was an incentive to move to NYC. However, I only read three chapters of this and couldn't read anymore.
November 23, 2020
Al die jaren heb ik gedacht dat ik nooit een beter "9/11-boek" zou lezen dan "Extreem luid en ongelooflijk dichtbij" van Jonathan Safran Foer, maar daar twijfel ik toch wel aan nu. Want Jay McInerney slaagt erin om een nog doordringender inkijk te geven in het New York van rond en vooral na de aanslagen. (naar het schijnt is "Falling man" van Don DeLillo zelfs nog beter, maar dat staat nog op mijn to-readlijst)
Tegen die achtergrond schotelt hij ons het verhaal voor van 2 gezinnen waarvan de moeder uit het ene toevallig kennismaakt met de vader uit het andere, wanneer ze beiden in een soepkeuken voor de hulpverleners vrijwilligerswerk doen (al hebben ze elkaar kort daarvoor, vlak na de aanslagen, al ontmoet). Uiteraard gaat dit boek over zoveel meer dan de aanslagen en de impact, maar ook over relaties, over ouder worden, over dromen najagen en dromen loslaten, over opvoeden, over je plek vinden in de stad, in je sociale context, in je leven. Dit is een prachtig verhaal dat in feite meer hoop geeft dan je zou vermoeden bij een boek over 9/11.
Tegen die achtergrond schotelt hij ons het verhaal voor van 2 gezinnen waarvan de moeder uit het ene toevallig kennismaakt met de vader uit het andere, wanneer ze beiden in een soepkeuken voor de hulpverleners vrijwilligerswerk doen (al hebben ze elkaar kort daarvoor, vlak na de aanslagen, al ontmoet). Uiteraard gaat dit boek over zoveel meer dan de aanslagen en de impact, maar ook over relaties, over ouder worden, over dromen najagen en dromen loslaten, over opvoeden, over je plek vinden in de stad, in je sociale context, in je leven. Dit is een prachtig verhaal dat in feite meer hoop geeft dan je zou vermoeden bij een boek over 9/11.
September 15, 2017
Li uma edição deste livro em português, lançada em 2008 pela Teorema. A tradução e a revisão são uma lástima. Fica aqui apenas um exemplo, neste caso de um erro básico. "Eventually" é sistematicamente traduzido por "eventualmente" em vez de "finalmente", que seria a solução correcta. Os erros e a ignorância da língua portuguesa são inúmeros, como o uso de "haviam" e não de "havia". O livro, sobre a vida e as vidas numa Nova Iorque em estado de choque no pós-11 de Setembro, não merecia ser tratado com tão escassa competência. Fica o aviso. Quem tiver interesse em ler este livro deve optar pelo original. Evitará ter de tropeçar com demasiada frequência nos alçapões de uma tradução indigente.
June 13, 2014
Eins lässt sich über "Das gute Leben" mit Sicherheit sagen: Man kann gut leben, ohne es gelesen zu haben.
Ein Stern ist zwar etwas hart, weil das Buch auch nicht weiter stört und sich über weite Strecken ganz geschmeidig runterliest. Aber diese Belanglosigkeit des Inhalts, diese klischeehaften, uninteressanten Figuren - nicht mal aus dem Hintergrund von 9/11 in New York holt der Autor etwas Substanzielles raus. Ich erfahre hier auch nicht mehr über jene Tage, als ich verschwommen aus den damaligen TV-Berichten in Erinnerung hatte. Dass die Hauptfiguren bei den Anschlägen Freunde verloren haben, wirkt hier eher nebensächlich, bringt sie jedenfalls nicht aus dem Tritt, liefert höchstens einen Vorwand, noch ein Gläschen Rotwein mehr zu trinken.
Ansonsten ist der Terror hier nur ein erzählerischer Kniff, damit sich die Wege der aus unterschiedlichen gesellschaftlichen Sphären stammenden Protagonisten kreuzen und sich eine ziemlich konventionelle Liebesgeschichte entwickeln kann (wobei die "Unterschicht" hier gleichbedeutend damit ist, in einem etwas heruntergekommenen, aber eigentlich wahnsinnig coolen Loft in Manhattan zu leben und Salman Rushdie zum Abendessen zu empfangen - ein ziemlich müder Abklatsch zum faszinierenden New Yorker Intellektuellen- und Künstlerleben, wie es etwa Siri Hustvedt schildert).
Immerhin schreitet die Handlung zügig, wenn auch vorhersehbar voran, man verfolgt das Geschehen mit demselben matten Interesse und gelegentlichen Amüsement wie die "Bunte" im Wartezimmer des Arztes. Bestenfalls könnte das Buch als angenehm sinnlose Zeitverschwendung mit ein paar Durchhängern durchrutschen.
Einige Passagen sind aber tatsächlich völlig misslungen, vor allem die "erotischen" Szenen. Da stöhnt man als Leser nur noch auf - und bestimmt nicht lustvoll. Tiefsinnigkeit sieht hier so aus, dass die Liebenden abwechselnd versonnen ins Kaminfeuer starren. Dass eine der Hauptfiguren die Schwester seiner Frau attraktiv findet, erklärt der Roman so: "Wenn man Roquefort mag, ist es kein Wunder, auch auf Stilton Appetit zu haben." Käse!!
Ein Stern ist zwar etwas hart, weil das Buch auch nicht weiter stört und sich über weite Strecken ganz geschmeidig runterliest. Aber diese Belanglosigkeit des Inhalts, diese klischeehaften, uninteressanten Figuren - nicht mal aus dem Hintergrund von 9/11 in New York holt der Autor etwas Substanzielles raus. Ich erfahre hier auch nicht mehr über jene Tage, als ich verschwommen aus den damaligen TV-Berichten in Erinnerung hatte. Dass die Hauptfiguren bei den Anschlägen Freunde verloren haben, wirkt hier eher nebensächlich, bringt sie jedenfalls nicht aus dem Tritt, liefert höchstens einen Vorwand, noch ein Gläschen Rotwein mehr zu trinken.
Ansonsten ist der Terror hier nur ein erzählerischer Kniff, damit sich die Wege der aus unterschiedlichen gesellschaftlichen Sphären stammenden Protagonisten kreuzen und sich eine ziemlich konventionelle Liebesgeschichte entwickeln kann (wobei die "Unterschicht" hier gleichbedeutend damit ist, in einem etwas heruntergekommenen, aber eigentlich wahnsinnig coolen Loft in Manhattan zu leben und Salman Rushdie zum Abendessen zu empfangen - ein ziemlich müder Abklatsch zum faszinierenden New Yorker Intellektuellen- und Künstlerleben, wie es etwa Siri Hustvedt schildert).
Immerhin schreitet die Handlung zügig, wenn auch vorhersehbar voran, man verfolgt das Geschehen mit demselben matten Interesse und gelegentlichen Amüsement wie die "Bunte" im Wartezimmer des Arztes. Bestenfalls könnte das Buch als angenehm sinnlose Zeitverschwendung mit ein paar Durchhängern durchrutschen.
Einige Passagen sind aber tatsächlich völlig misslungen, vor allem die "erotischen" Szenen. Da stöhnt man als Leser nur noch auf - und bestimmt nicht lustvoll. Tiefsinnigkeit sieht hier so aus, dass die Liebenden abwechselnd versonnen ins Kaminfeuer starren. Dass eine der Hauptfiguren die Schwester seiner Frau attraktiv findet, erklärt der Roman so: "Wenn man Roquefort mag, ist es kein Wunder, auch auf Stilton Appetit zu haben." Käse!!
September 9, 2009
The quote from the Times on the cover of this book says that it has more sympathy and depth than McInerney's other fiction. I think that's right - but most importantly, it has more heart. If Bright Lights, Big City is a fast paced, emotionally removed ride through 80's New York City, this is its older, wiser cousin, with its close up view of the lives of New Yorkers post-9/11. McInerney gets at New York in a real way in this novel, and so for that reason the book is a pleasure (especially as someone who lives and works downtown, blocks from both Ground Zero and Tribeca - where most of the book takes place). But I also found that I couldn't put the book down, so lost was I in the emotional world McInerney had created around the characters of Corrinne and Luke and their families. The novel does an excellent job of being about people after 9/11, as opposed to 9/11 itself and an even better job of not looking down upon the characters it creates as something just a bit more than New York stereotypes. I also enjoyed the ending, which nicely sidesteps the cliche.
November 29, 2015
Didn't mean to get the abridged version--was getting ready for a trip and just grabbed all the literary stuff I could find off the library's shelves. Pickings were slim. Anyway, the writing was fine, and the characters convincing and all that, but jeez. 9/11 happens and a bunch of unhappily married couples can only think of what they can do to ramp up their happiness? I mean, it's good that they now want *genuine* happiness, and funnily enough the badder people among them want to come home to their families while the gooder among them want OUT, the children be damned, but Jesus. New Yorkers. Not a one among them EVER pauses to think about the larger global issues, like WHY 9/11 happened, what's going on in the world, what is America DOING out there, etc. Just their own little lives and what personal happiness means and what it means to do the right thing in their own contexts. If that ain't privilege, I don't know what is.
I resented the way the actor read Corinne (if that's how her name is spelled in the book). Her "goodness" was conveyed through her soft, gentle voice. Gag.
I resented the way the actor read Corinne (if that's how her name is spelled in the book). Her "goodness" was conveyed through her soft, gentle voice. Gag.
July 9, 2008
Having been in NYC the morning of September 11th this book brought back so many memories both good and bad of that day. the collective terror and sheer panic. Although I enjoyed the book, had I really known it had all of the Sept. 11th references I am not sure I would have picked it up. Coincidentially, his book "Bright Lights, Big City" was a big part of the reason I wanted to move to NYC after college. I think the book captured the NYC scene really like only an insider could. There were some moments in the book that only having lived in NYC could you truly appreciate how brilliantly he has written this book. One of the final lines in the book where the lead character's daughter says to her mom that there is life outside of of NYC was genius. Sometimes one gets so caught up in NYC as being the center of the universe its hard to imagine life any other way or any other place.
September 24, 2012
Ambitious book about spoiled, unfaithful couples who feel guilty about their privileged, ego-driven lives after 9/11. Some parts of the unflinching dialogue and prose concerning 9/11 was really solid. The rest of it felt like SAT practice for the erudite McInerney and his stellar vocabulary. The characters, with the possible exceptions of Luke and Corrine, came across as whiny, indulged brats. I'd listened to the audio book and was not sorry when it was over, though I didn't feel like I'd wasted my time.
February 10, 2009
The return of the Calloways, stars of Brightness Falls. Interestingly, though BF is set in the '80s and TGL is set in '01/'02, only a few years have actually passed in the lives of the characters. Sadly, it's not nearly as good as the first. The characters are less compelling, you care less what happens to them. However, taken as a reaction to the 9/11 attacks and read solely on that emotional level, it can be rewarding.
September 29, 2016
A powerful novel of the shaken lives of upper class New Yorkers in the 9/11 aftermath. The characters lurch forward in their lives, wondering what the world means now. The horrific fire of terrorist attack on NYC simultaneously blinds and enlightens them, with widely varying effects. McInerney knows his setting and his characters so well, and the conclusion of the novel is wonderfully, achingly Whartonesque. 5 stars.
May 9, 2008
While McInerney has the capacity to write an elegant sentence in American English, in this novel he proves himself to be a slave to the marketplace rather than to the language.
This is surely the worst novel written by a celebrity American author in this decade. Don't believe that hype of the ass-kissing reviews, this is just plain old ass product, waste, poo-poo, shit.
This is surely the worst novel written by a celebrity American author in this decade. Don't believe that hype of the ass-kissing reviews, this is just plain old ass product, waste, poo-poo, shit.
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