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The Soul Thief
As a graduate student in upstate New York, Nathaniel Mason is drawn into a tangle of relationships with people who seem to hover just beyond his grasp. There's Theresa, alluring but elusive, and Jamie, who is fickle if not wholly unavailable. But Jerome Coolberg is the most mysterious and compelling. Not only cryptic about himself, he seems also to have appropriated parts of Nathaniel's past that Nathaniel cannot remember having told him about. In this extraordinary novel of mischief and menace, we see a young man's very self vanishing before his eyes.
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First published January 1, 2007
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About the author
Charles Baxter
94 books428 followersCharles Baxter was born in Minneapolis and graduated from Macalester College, in Saint Paul. After completing graduate work in English at the State University of New York at Buffalo, he taught for several years at Wayne State University in Detroit. In 1989, he moved to the Department of English at the University of Michigan--Ann Arbor and its MFA program. He now teaches at the University of Minnesota.
Baxter is the author of 4 novels, 4 collections of short stories, 3 collections of poems, a collection of essays on fiction and is the editor of other works. His works of fiction include Believers , The Feast of Love (nominated for the National Book Award), Saul and Patsy , and Through the Safety Net . He lives in Minneapolis.
Baxter is the author of 4 novels, 4 collections of short stories, 3 collections of poems, a collection of essays on fiction and is the editor of other works. His works of fiction include Believers , The Feast of Love (nominated for the National Book Award), Saul and Patsy , and Through the Safety Net . He lives in Minneapolis.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 349 reviews
January 16, 2009
Ooooooh, I liked this.
First of all, let me say that I fell in love with the font. The little twisted question marks, barely reaching halfway up the back of a 'd' and nearly squished into the size of a semicolon. The capitol letters have the look and feel of a 1940s diner menu.
Baxter's descriptions are uncannily sparse in their ability to convince. It took more than 70 pages to really get into this story, well into the first section, but when I did, it was hard to tear my eyes off of the page to make a piece of toast or boil some water for tea.
What a perfect story for consuming on a cold, dreary January day. The story neatly wraps around itself like a snake eating its own tail, and what an apt metaphor that is for this story of deception, lies, and trickery.
While reading I was struck with the urge to reread A Passage to India and upon finishing was smugly pleased to discover in the author's notes that one of the main characters "has a habit of quoting, without attribution, passages from ... the novels of E.M. Forster."
Each of the four parts reads as a distinct tale, as each reflects a different perspective on the same life. The passages of memory and reflection read as convoluted as recalling a fading dream, while the passages that occur in real time have a stark and vivid, perfectly attuned perspective on the sadness of modern life.
I was particularly tickled with the parts on Los Angeles and the LAX airport. As my eyes moved through those pages I was chuckling to myself "exactly! He sees things as they really are" and then pages later I was disoriented, upset at having aligned myself with the narrator - for reasons you must read this book to understand.
There is so much derision about this book in the reviews I've read here on GoodReads that I just don't understand. Perhaps if I had first read Baxter's The Feast of Love, a near winner of the National Book Award, I may have been disappointed by this one. However, as I'm unacquainted with his previous work I had no standard against which to judge this. This, a pretty accumulation of images and phrases was a perfectly unsettling tale, the sort of story that will undoubtedly infuse my dreams tonight.
First of all, let me say that I fell in love with the font. The little twisted question marks, barely reaching halfway up the back of a 'd' and nearly squished into the size of a semicolon. The capitol letters have the look and feel of a 1940s diner menu.
Baxter's descriptions are uncannily sparse in their ability to convince. It took more than 70 pages to really get into this story, well into the first section, but when I did, it was hard to tear my eyes off of the page to make a piece of toast or boil some water for tea.
What a perfect story for consuming on a cold, dreary January day. The story neatly wraps around itself like a snake eating its own tail, and what an apt metaphor that is for this story of deception, lies, and trickery.
While reading I was struck with the urge to reread A Passage to India and upon finishing was smugly pleased to discover in the author's notes that one of the main characters "has a habit of quoting, without attribution, passages from ... the novels of E.M. Forster."
Each of the four parts reads as a distinct tale, as each reflects a different perspective on the same life. The passages of memory and reflection read as convoluted as recalling a fading dream, while the passages that occur in real time have a stark and vivid, perfectly attuned perspective on the sadness of modern life.
I was particularly tickled with the parts on Los Angeles and the LAX airport. As my eyes moved through those pages I was chuckling to myself "exactly! He sees things as they really are" and then pages later I was disoriented, upset at having aligned myself with the narrator - for reasons you must read this book to understand.
There is so much derision about this book in the reviews I've read here on GoodReads that I just don't understand. Perhaps if I had first read Baxter's The Feast of Love, a near winner of the National Book Award, I may have been disappointed by this one. However, as I'm unacquainted with his previous work I had no standard against which to judge this. This, a pretty accumulation of images and phrases was a perfectly unsettling tale, the sort of story that will undoubtedly infuse my dreams tonight.
February 12, 2012
The first half of the novel follows the brief arc of Nathaniel Mason's graduate career in 1970s Buffalo, N.Y., which centers on his two girl friends and a man named Jerome Coolberg, a virtuoso of cast-off ideas. Coolberg, obsessed with Nathaniel, begins taking his shirts and notebooks, and claiming that episodes from Nathaniel's life happened to him.
In the novel's second half, decades after these events have occurred, Coolberg enters Nathaniel's life again for a final, dramatic confrontation. Baxter has a great, registering eye for the real pleasures and attritions of life, but the book gets hung up on meta-fictional questions of identity. (Publishers weekly).
At best this novel is extremely well written and ambitious. At worse, it is filled with pompous self pontificating characters that are next to impossible to identify with and like in any sort of way. The characters were all vague, indifferent, pseudo-intellectual mere silhouettes of people. It’s hard to figure out what happened at the end, the book the book is that obtuse.
In the novel's second half, decades after these events have occurred, Coolberg enters Nathaniel's life again for a final, dramatic confrontation. Baxter has a great, registering eye for the real pleasures and attritions of life, but the book gets hung up on meta-fictional questions of identity. (Publishers weekly).
At best this novel is extremely well written and ambitious. At worse, it is filled with pompous self pontificating characters that are next to impossible to identify with and like in any sort of way. The characters were all vague, indifferent, pseudo-intellectual mere silhouettes of people. It’s hard to figure out what happened at the end, the book the book is that obtuse.
February 1, 2009
The Soul Thief reads more like a short story or novella than a novel. There’s an unfinished quality that works well in the first person narrative; you could envision the narrator sitting in a coffee shop, focusing on the story, choosing his words carefully, but inevitably leaving our details and framing the narrative as he speaks.
Baxter’s novel on identity and psychological breakdown succeeds on the micro level. His description of Buffalo is beautiful (no, really, I’ve been to Buffalo maybe ten times, my wife’s family is nearby, and the city embodies a kind of broken down charm, along with the terror that your car might break down and you’d have to stay forever) and the emergence from mental illness is gripping. The startling and realistic evolution that can take one person from hippy poverty to routine work for a gas company is addressed without drama. The dialogue is controlled to the point of Zen simplicity. The Soul Thief seems to be, more than anything, about a man trying to find peace and stability despite his fractured past.
The novel doesn’t succeed as well on the macro level. Baxter veers into Fight Club territory too conveniently both with plot points and character relationships. I’m not sure why any of that was necessary; while Baxter writes with confidence sentence to sentence he seems to lose faith in his own storytelling when the big picture emerges.
I’d read more Baxter. I get the feeling he couldn’t quite get a hold on this novel but needed to get it out of his system for a reason beyond the casual reader’s comprehension. I can respect that. The Soul Thief is pretty good, but I doubt it’s Baxter’s best.
Baxter’s novel on identity and psychological breakdown succeeds on the micro level. His description of Buffalo is beautiful (no, really, I’ve been to Buffalo maybe ten times, my wife’s family is nearby, and the city embodies a kind of broken down charm, along with the terror that your car might break down and you’d have to stay forever) and the emergence from mental illness is gripping. The startling and realistic evolution that can take one person from hippy poverty to routine work for a gas company is addressed without drama. The dialogue is controlled to the point of Zen simplicity. The Soul Thief seems to be, more than anything, about a man trying to find peace and stability despite his fractured past.
The novel doesn’t succeed as well on the macro level. Baxter veers into Fight Club territory too conveniently both with plot points and character relationships. I’m not sure why any of that was necessary; while Baxter writes with confidence sentence to sentence he seems to lose faith in his own storytelling when the big picture emerges.
I’d read more Baxter. I get the feeling he couldn’t quite get a hold on this novel but needed to get it out of his system for a reason beyond the casual reader’s comprehension. I can respect that. The Soul Thief is pretty good, but I doubt it’s Baxter’s best.
April 3, 2021
(3.5) I found The Soul Thief via a recommendation on another book site, and – having never heard of it, or the author, before – was drawn in by the premise. A group of graduate students in New York state, a tangled web of relationships, a ‘mysterious and compelling’ figure at the centre of it all... It sounded like my cup of tea. The opening pages can’t fail to snag the reader’s attention, with the narrator’s confession that they are concealing their identity, and a hint of dramatic events to come:
Most of the story is about the narrator, whose chosen name is Nathaniel Mason, becoming involved with three people: Theresa, who becomes his lover; the maddening but fascinating Jerome Coolberg, who is possibly a genius but also a pretty terrible person; and Jamie, with whom Nathaniel begins a relationship, despite the fact that Nathaniel is ostensibly a man and Jamie is ostensibly a lesbian. (This is mentioned a lot, so I have no idea what to make of the narrator’s claim of ‘turning myself into a ‘he’’.) Conflict emerges when Nathaniel discovers Coolberg has appropriated the story of his (Nathaniel’s) past, including his parents’ deaths and his sister’s mutism, and has been passing it off as his own.
The style is old-fashioned and fussy in a way I enjoyed. (The main events take place in the early 1970s, and the book feels more like it was written then than in 2009.) The dynamic between the narrator, Theresa and Coolberg, meanwhile, reminded me of nothing more than M. John Harrison’s deeply strange The Course of the Heart. There isn’t any better way to put it than to say that everything simply feels off. It’s compelling; it can also be quite frustrating.
I’m unsure how to recommend this, because who would I recommend it to? If you want it to be compelling literary fiction about people and their entanglements, you may be put off by all the inexplicably peculiar behaviour. I feel like it might appeal more to those who enjoy lightly speculative/slipstream fiction... but nothing in it is actually supernatural or science-fictional, it just feels that way because it’s so idiosyncratic. It’s an oddity alright: I don’t know what this book is, exactly, but I did like it.
TinyLetter | Linktree
Here I have to perform a tricky maneuver, because I am implicated in everything that happened... I must turn myself into a ‘he’ and give myself a bland Anglo-Saxon Protestant name.
Most of the story is about the narrator, whose chosen name is Nathaniel Mason, becoming involved with three people: Theresa, who becomes his lover; the maddening but fascinating Jerome Coolberg, who is possibly a genius but also a pretty terrible person; and Jamie, with whom Nathaniel begins a relationship, despite the fact that Nathaniel is ostensibly a man and Jamie is ostensibly a lesbian. (This is mentioned a lot, so I have no idea what to make of the narrator’s claim of ‘turning myself into a ‘he’’.) Conflict emerges when Nathaniel discovers Coolberg has appropriated the story of his (Nathaniel’s) past, including his parents’ deaths and his sister’s mutism, and has been passing it off as his own.
The style is old-fashioned and fussy in a way I enjoyed. (The main events take place in the early 1970s, and the book feels more like it was written then than in 2009.) The dynamic between the narrator, Theresa and Coolberg, meanwhile, reminded me of nothing more than M. John Harrison’s deeply strange The Course of the Heart. There isn’t any better way to put it than to say that everything simply feels off. It’s compelling; it can also be quite frustrating.
I’m unsure how to recommend this, because who would I recommend it to? If you want it to be compelling literary fiction about people and their entanglements, you may be put off by all the inexplicably peculiar behaviour. I feel like it might appeal more to those who enjoy lightly speculative/slipstream fiction... but nothing in it is actually supernatural or science-fictional, it just feels that way because it’s so idiosyncratic. It’s an oddity alright: I don’t know what this book is, exactly, but I did like it.
TinyLetter | Linktree
June 12, 2008
Quite disappointing. This whole novel (perhaps more a novella) essentially breaks down to a story of one man screwing with another man's life, ostensibly to teach a lesson about identity. Fine, OK, it's not a hopeless premise, but Baxter fails to follow through, providing the readers only with undeveloped characters working within a weak framework. Indeed, the framework, which shapes the fundamental point of the book (people keep calling the framework "metaphysical," though this is a misuse of the word to describe what is actually a very physical, underlying basis of the story) is ultimately discovered by the reader to be glib and dissatisfying.
What this book has going for it is a quick pace and a moderately interesting introduction to the plot. That got me into it and kept me reading. But when I reached the conclusion, I was disappointed by what felt like a gimmick--worse, a gimmick that failed to answer a number of questions that have come up along the way. My guess is, Baxter thought his ending was going to floor his readers and make them rethink the whole book. Well, I'm rethinking the book, and the more I think about it, the less worthwhile I think it was. It's sentimental without being insightful, and it only mocks profundity without possessing it--in quite the same way that Jerome Coolberg (a central character) does in the story.
What this book has going for it is a quick pace and a moderately interesting introduction to the plot. That got me into it and kept me reading. But when I reached the conclusion, I was disappointed by what felt like a gimmick--worse, a gimmick that failed to answer a number of questions that have come up along the way. My guess is, Baxter thought his ending was going to floor his readers and make them rethink the whole book. Well, I'm rethinking the book, and the more I think about it, the less worthwhile I think it was. It's sentimental without being insightful, and it only mocks profundity without possessing it--in quite the same way that Jerome Coolberg (a central character) does in the story.
April 23, 2008
VERY disappointed! Whatever I appreciated about this book was completely obliterated by the bullshit ending. Seriously, I liked it most of the way through, but now I can't remember why. Since the entire storyline was preparing for, and resting on some revelatory ending, the fact that the ending fell flat on its overly-schematic, overly(& poorly)-conceptualized face completely sabotaged whatever parts of the novel I had liked in the first place.
I'm still in shock.
O.K. I know I'm being harsh. I actually really like Baxter's writing, and had been achingly looking forward to this book. But man, it just didn't work.
Although I will say that the quasi-hallucinatory Gertrude Stein fairy-godmother narrations made me smile a bit. As did his studied mockery of the pretensions/superficialness that can sometimes sprout amongst self-proclaimed intellects.--Funny, I can't tell if he meant to be ironic or not.
I'm still in shock.
O.K. I know I'm being harsh. I actually really like Baxter's writing, and had been achingly looking forward to this book. But man, it just didn't work.
Although I will say that the quasi-hallucinatory Gertrude Stein fairy-godmother narrations made me smile a bit. As did his studied mockery of the pretensions/superficialness that can sometimes sprout amongst self-proclaimed intellects.--Funny, I can't tell if he meant to be ironic or not.
June 28, 2017
This story gave new meaning to the word obsession. The story pulled me in from the very beginning and I wanted to keep reading just to assure myself that Nathaniel, the protagonist in the story, would finally lose his naivete and figure out that the people he had attracted to his life were nothing more than 'emotional vampires'. This story reminded me somewhat of 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' in its creepy obsessiveness. The only thing I disliked about it was the ending. To be honest, I'm still thinking about it and I'm still not sure I KNOW how this story ended. The book did raise some interesting questions... just what IS identity? Is it a person's biography.. or something more?And if someone takes those things from you, what does that do to your sense of self?
A thought provoking and at times uncomfortable book for me to read...
A thought provoking and at times uncomfortable book for me to read...
October 10, 2016
*2/5 stars
I feel like there is a good concept of a story here. But, i just couldn't grasp the writing. I kept trying to roll with it and get into it and it seems like it never connected me. However, it is an original and interesting story.
Xo,
Rach
I feel like there is a good concept of a story here. But, i just couldn't grasp the writing. I kept trying to roll with it and get into it and it seems like it never connected me. However, it is an original and interesting story.
Xo,
Rach
May 15, 2017
DNF at 50 pages.
What a complete and utter waste of my time.
Well, no, that's not exactly true. A friend of mine read and reviewed this book and I was so intrigued by how terrible it sounded that I wanted to see for myself. And in that respect alone, this book did not disappoint.
This book is like if someone covertly wrapped the very essence of pretentiousness and pomposity into a tidy, trade cloth format and deceived you into thinking that, with a title like "The Soul Thief", it might be interesting and worth your time.
Don't be fooled. Whatever you think it's about, it's not that.
The characters are unlikable. The dialogue is unbelievable. I nearly threw the book across the room when someone was referred to as "very queer... well, in the good way". As in, strange, not homosexual. NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT, HE'S NOT QUEER IN THE BAD, GAY WAY. OMG RAGE. There is absolutely no reason why this exchange needed to occur, especially in a book written in the last decade. I know it's supposed to take place in 1970's Buffalo, but it added *nothing* except an early introduction into several instances of homophobia.
The party that Nathaniel and Theresa eventually find together at the beginning of the book is overrun with graduate students who are trying so hard to be intellectual that it is literally painful to read. None of them are actually talking about anything. They're spending so much time trying to impress and outdo each other that they become caricatures. They are the kind of people that make you never want to leave your house again, because being alone forever is actually preferable.
The "soul thief" himself, Jerome Coolberg, is apparently supposed to be this boy genius: enigmatic and interesting, magnetic and compelling, brilliant and frustrating. The author tells me this over and over again, so it must be true. I saw, instead, that he is a stalker, a liar, a thief of ideas, possessions, and more. He is gaslighting personified. None of these things are secret. Why does anyone care about him?
In short, this book is insufferable. It is an exercise in literary masturbation. It is the worst 50 pages I've read in a long time.
February 18, 2008
The Soul Thief begins the way all good books set in college do: with a party. And if you liked The Feast of Love, you are probably prepared (read: greedily ready), to follow Nathaniel Mason for 209 pages of nothing more than early 1970s college life: drinking too much; spontaneous, aimless road trips; and the kind of sex-by-arrangement or even sex-by-proximity arrangement that can happen when you are exploring the world of newfound adulthood and your sexual boundaries simultaneously. As common as the experiences are, Charles Baxter could make the college antics of any one of us worth that much paper, but The Soul Thief aspires higher.
More Saul and Patsy than The Feast of Love, The Soul Thief ruminates on darker themes. Identity and obsession become intertwined with the exploration and college-aged intellectualization of emotional motives — in effect, this is the academic experience of deconstruction applied, unwittingly and unwillingly, on the self, and in places the effect is chilling. What I won’t say is that I loved the ending, and this is a book where the ending makes or breaks your ultimate experience. But all of Charles Baxter's trademarks are here, especially in the introduction of his achingly unforgettable characters, and that is a trademark worth experiencing again.
There are a slew of related novels that might help triangulate this one. The Secret History and Intuition to one side, and the ridiculous Arts and Sciences on the other. Ultimately, however, nothing is going to prevent a Charles Baxter fan from reading another Charles Baxter book. Even if you don't quite think he's the best writer of thrillers in the world, or if you feel there is something you may have missed, The Soul Thief has enough substance to leave you wondering not just how thoroughly the novel's ruse was constructed, but about all the pieces of these characters' lives that you are made, so suddenly, to miss.
More Saul and Patsy than The Feast of Love, The Soul Thief ruminates on darker themes. Identity and obsession become intertwined with the exploration and college-aged intellectualization of emotional motives — in effect, this is the academic experience of deconstruction applied, unwittingly and unwillingly, on the self, and in places the effect is chilling. What I won’t say is that I loved the ending, and this is a book where the ending makes or breaks your ultimate experience. But all of Charles Baxter's trademarks are here, especially in the introduction of his achingly unforgettable characters, and that is a trademark worth experiencing again.
There are a slew of related novels that might help triangulate this one. The Secret History and Intuition to one side, and the ridiculous Arts and Sciences on the other. Ultimately, however, nothing is going to prevent a Charles Baxter fan from reading another Charles Baxter book. Even if you don't quite think he's the best writer of thrillers in the world, or if you feel there is something you may have missed, The Soul Thief has enough substance to leave you wondering not just how thoroughly the novel's ruse was constructed, but about all the pieces of these characters' lives that you are made, so suddenly, to miss.
April 8, 2008
If you like Charles Baxter, read this book, but I hardly think it will turn any newcomers on to him, or entertain fans that much either.
As slight as it is, this book seems to not only stumble over it's own plot, but it's own vague metaphysics which, in the end, seem to be suspect anyway.
I'm not sure whether this novel is vaguely allegorical or autobiographical, if it's a critique of pseudo-intellectualism, if it's a trite spin on the current fear of "identity theft", or a tragic character study which ultimately deflates, or what. Whatever the thrust of this book may be, it seems like little more than a mess of itself, and underwhelming.
Most people will find the "twist" of the ending eye roll inducing at best, and that the prose, even when it's most lucid, reads more like a syndicated column than a good novel. It's riddled with highfalutin musings of non-issues and the breathy wax-nostalgic description of adolescent sex that feels inevitable from the Focus Features like novel writing of middle-aged intellectualism.
And this is from a Charles Baxter fan.
Also, I hate to say it again, but I find it incredibly annoying how Charles Baxter incessantly weaves in music references. In 'Saul and Patsy' it was jazz. In this novel it's classical music. Everyone from Vaughn-Williams to Bartok to Schumann to Mahler. I feel like these references (Ian McEwan does it, too) are there to illuminate the interests of the writer, not inform the characters.
So yeah, I was disappointed. I really liked 'Feast of Love' though. If you happen to like this book and haven't read that one, read it next. His short stories are good also. 'Through the Safety Net' and 'A Relative Stranger' are good. I also read 'Burning Down the House' a few years ago. A collection of essays. It's decent.
As slight as it is, this book seems to not only stumble over it's own plot, but it's own vague metaphysics which, in the end, seem to be suspect anyway.
I'm not sure whether this novel is vaguely allegorical or autobiographical, if it's a critique of pseudo-intellectualism, if it's a trite spin on the current fear of "identity theft", or a tragic character study which ultimately deflates, or what. Whatever the thrust of this book may be, it seems like little more than a mess of itself, and underwhelming.
Most people will find the "twist" of the ending eye roll inducing at best, and that the prose, even when it's most lucid, reads more like a syndicated column than a good novel. It's riddled with highfalutin musings of non-issues and the breathy wax-nostalgic description of adolescent sex that feels inevitable from the Focus Features like novel writing of middle-aged intellectualism.
And this is from a Charles Baxter fan.
Also, I hate to say it again, but I find it incredibly annoying how Charles Baxter incessantly weaves in music references. In 'Saul and Patsy' it was jazz. In this novel it's classical music. Everyone from Vaughn-Williams to Bartok to Schumann to Mahler. I feel like these references (Ian McEwan does it, too) are there to illuminate the interests of the writer, not inform the characters.
So yeah, I was disappointed. I really liked 'Feast of Love' though. If you happen to like this book and haven't read that one, read it next. His short stories are good also. 'Through the Safety Net' and 'A Relative Stranger' are good. I also read 'Burning Down the House' a few years ago. A collection of essays. It's decent.
October 1, 2009
I didn't really like this book. The ending was supposed to be revelatory and creepy, but either it was really obvious to me or I just didn't get it. It says something that I liked the later part of the book (when the author supposedly has had his soul stolen, or etc.) more than the former part. Even in the introduction, I'm not sure which character is being discussed. Ugh. I wonder if it's worth trying to read The Feast of Love, which everyone seems to agree is better than this.
October 16, 2012
If ever there was a book I was meant to fall in love with, it was this book. I mean, it's called The Soul Thief people!!! If that's not perfection then I don't know what is. The Adele marathons I imagined this book would prompt! I could see myself not going to work trying to finish this book. Missing my bus stop. Forgetting to eat dinner. Putting my phone on silent. All that good stuff. Never have I swooned so hard over a title.
But much like everyone else that I have sworn I was destined to fall in love with before hardly a word was uttered, what this book delivered instead was a rude fucking awakening. This book made me question what I had done in a former life to be so desperately heartbroken by the complete nothingness held inside these pages.
It opens with what I think is the perfect metaphor for the whole book. (Actually it opens with a prologue that was never explained, and never returned to, but never mind that). Nathaniel is a grad student in Buffalo in the 70s. He's trying to find his way to some party, but loses the address/the directions or whatever. To top it all off, it's pouring down rain, so he's completely soaked. Eventually he gets there, but the party is nothing but a bunch of grad students who are so devoid of personality and interests that all they are doing is standing around talking about their theses, debating philosophy, trying to discover the meaning of life. It's like they have no idea how to have a good time, only that they think they should have a good time, so they do the same thing they do all the rest of the time, except they added some beer and some weed. Nathaniel soon finds himself wondering what he's doing there and why he stays.
And so it was with this book. You know what this book is? An ironic hipster. I don't mean that redundantly. I mean someone who decides to become a hipster, but does so ironically. Like a hipster squared. This book is the hipster that has moved out of Williamsburg because he's so over it and is now living in Harlem. This book is the hipster that tries to rally the people to rise up and demand fair wages at the local factory, all while literally stepping over the homeless man begging for change.
Case in point, when Nathaniel gets to the party, remember he's dripping wet because it's raining. Someone asks him "Did you do that on purpose?"
me: NO ASSHOLE!!!!! Not everything in life has a higher intellectual purpose. Sometimes you just get caught in the rain!
Fucking sigh...
This book is so hyper-intellectualized, straining to show off its knowledge, and its "deepness", so layered in philosophy and poignancy, that it forgets to tell a story. You ever meet someone that cannot let a moment of life pass by without reminding you of how smart they are and how much they know? About everything? You know how at first you get a twinge of an inferiority complex, but after a while the only knowledge you seek is how to get away from this person? Now you know how I felt about this book.
But despite the author beating me over the head with how smart he is, and how achingly stupid I am in comparison, I did learn one thing. Never judge a book by it's cover. Even a book with the greatest title in literature.
Who is the soul thief? I only think I know. But worse than that. I'm sure I don't care.
But much like everyone else that I have sworn I was destined to fall in love with before hardly a word was uttered, what this book delivered instead was a rude fucking awakening. This book made me question what I had done in a former life to be so desperately heartbroken by the complete nothingness held inside these pages.
It opens with what I think is the perfect metaphor for the whole book. (Actually it opens with a prologue that was never explained, and never returned to, but never mind that). Nathaniel is a grad student in Buffalo in the 70s. He's trying to find his way to some party, but loses the address/the directions or whatever. To top it all off, it's pouring down rain, so he's completely soaked. Eventually he gets there, but the party is nothing but a bunch of grad students who are so devoid of personality and interests that all they are doing is standing around talking about their theses, debating philosophy, trying to discover the meaning of life. It's like they have no idea how to have a good time, only that they think they should have a good time, so they do the same thing they do all the rest of the time, except they added some beer and some weed. Nathaniel soon finds himself wondering what he's doing there and why he stays.
And so it was with this book. You know what this book is? An ironic hipster. I don't mean that redundantly. I mean someone who decides to become a hipster, but does so ironically. Like a hipster squared. This book is the hipster that has moved out of Williamsburg because he's so over it and is now living in Harlem. This book is the hipster that tries to rally the people to rise up and demand fair wages at the local factory, all while literally stepping over the homeless man begging for change.
Case in point, when Nathaniel gets to the party, remember he's dripping wet because it's raining. Someone asks him "Did you do that on purpose?"
me: NO ASSHOLE!!!!! Not everything in life has a higher intellectual purpose. Sometimes you just get caught in the rain!
Fucking sigh...
This book is so hyper-intellectualized, straining to show off its knowledge, and its "deepness", so layered in philosophy and poignancy, that it forgets to tell a story. You ever meet someone that cannot let a moment of life pass by without reminding you of how smart they are and how much they know? About everything? You know how at first you get a twinge of an inferiority complex, but after a while the only knowledge you seek is how to get away from this person? Now you know how I felt about this book.
But despite the author beating me over the head with how smart he is, and how achingly stupid I am in comparison, I did learn one thing. Never judge a book by it's cover. Even a book with the greatest title in literature.
Who is the soul thief? I only think I know. But worse than that. I'm sure I don't care.
May 5, 2008
All right, this one's a toughie. The writing is definitely there, as you would expect from Baxter, though at times it drifts into sort of trivial name-dropping where richer details would be better (however, the characters here are academics, and show-offy academics to boot, so there is some contextual justification). Still, he has a knack for poetic passages and truly beautiful sentences and phrases, and he gives his characters distinctive views of the world.
What bothers me about the book is the meta-fictional frame for the story. The story itself doesn't call for this type of storytelling (if anything could warrant a different "meta" approach). This frame leads to a strong sense throughout of the writer very directly manipulating the story, to the point where it becomes a treatsie on individuality. Or something. And there's the rub: The "meaning" of the novel, such as it is, is fuzzy. And I feel like there's supposed to be a clear meaning. So, is it about individuality? The integrity and vulnerability of our souls? The very existence of our souls? I'm not so sure and, at least in my reading, neither is the novel.
The result, I think, is a novel that feels superficial, skimming the surface of the characters within as it hurtles toward a predetermined (and ultimately disappointing) finale. I really felt like Baxter wrote the ending first, or at least decided on the concept, and then let the middle fill in.
This isn't the place to start if you've never read Charles Baxter (try 'Feast of Love'). It was, however, captivating for me, a fan, because it's a chance to see an accomplished writer trying something new. I'd say he gets most of the way there (and again, the writing along the way is mostly very sharp), but in the end all the bits and pieces add up to a messy and mostly empty conclusion.
What bothers me about the book is the meta-fictional frame for the story. The story itself doesn't call for this type of storytelling (if anything could warrant a different "meta" approach). This frame leads to a strong sense throughout of the writer very directly manipulating the story, to the point where it becomes a treatsie on individuality. Or something. And there's the rub: The "meaning" of the novel, such as it is, is fuzzy. And I feel like there's supposed to be a clear meaning. So, is it about individuality? The integrity and vulnerability of our souls? The very existence of our souls? I'm not so sure and, at least in my reading, neither is the novel.
The result, I think, is a novel that feels superficial, skimming the surface of the characters within as it hurtles toward a predetermined (and ultimately disappointing) finale. I really felt like Baxter wrote the ending first, or at least decided on the concept, and then let the middle fill in.
This isn't the place to start if you've never read Charles Baxter (try 'Feast of Love'). It was, however, captivating for me, a fan, because it's a chance to see an accomplished writer trying something new. I'd say he gets most of the way there (and again, the writing along the way is mostly very sharp), but in the end all the bits and pieces add up to a messy and mostly empty conclusion.
January 5, 2023
Month of November 2022 - The Thief Books
“The Soul Thief” by Charles Baxter (2007; 2009 ed.) 210 pages.
Setting: 1970’s New York
I’m not too sure what I just read. The author writes in a way as if we should be reading between the lines and understand his meaning, but does not give us any real information to go on. I felt the story was all over the place about nothing, really. But, I kept reading, thinking the ending would help pull it all together. Notta! If I can’t figure out what you are writing about, you get a 1-star.
College students, Nathaniel Mason
and Jerome Coolberg, an odd genius who thinks he can acquire everyone’s soul (by driving them crazy??), have met at a geek’s party for artists. Jerome develops a weird obsession and life-long interest in Nathanial’s life.
He starts by stealing Nathanials clothes…and wearing them, then his furniture. Nathanial’s crush is found to be Jerome’s girlfriend. Then, when Nathanial falls in love with a lesbian he has been sleeping with, she is raped and beaten by, I think, Jerome’s orders, to a group of thugs. I still don’t see the relevance of this to the story at all.
But, Jerome twists all the stories around of what is going on with Nathanial until he has a mental breakdown and doesn’t know what’s real and what isn’t.
Nathanial moves on and gets married and has children. Jerome keeps track of Nathanials whereabouts, and every milestone of his life. Some years down the road, Jerome contacts Nathanial, and asks him to meet him in San Diego, where he will reveal the big secret to Nathanials past life.
Jerome hands Nathanial this book, “The Soul Thief”….Nathaniel’s life.
🤷🏻♀️
“The Soul Thief” by Charles Baxter (2007; 2009 ed.) 210 pages.
Setting: 1970’s New York
I’m not too sure what I just read. The author writes in a way as if we should be reading between the lines and understand his meaning, but does not give us any real information to go on. I felt the story was all over the place about nothing, really. But, I kept reading, thinking the ending would help pull it all together. Notta! If I can’t figure out what you are writing about, you get a 1-star.
College students, Nathaniel Mason
and Jerome Coolberg, an odd genius who thinks he can acquire everyone’s soul (by driving them crazy??), have met at a geek’s party for artists. Jerome develops a weird obsession and life-long interest in Nathanial’s life.
He starts by stealing Nathanials clothes…and wearing them, then his furniture. Nathanial’s crush is found to be Jerome’s girlfriend. Then, when Nathanial falls in love with a lesbian he has been sleeping with, she is raped and beaten by, I think, Jerome’s orders, to a group of thugs. I still don’t see the relevance of this to the story at all.
But, Jerome twists all the stories around of what is going on with Nathanial until he has a mental breakdown and doesn’t know what’s real and what isn’t.
Nathanial moves on and gets married and has children. Jerome keeps track of Nathanials whereabouts, and every milestone of his life. Some years down the road, Jerome contacts Nathanial, and asks him to meet him in San Diego, where he will reveal the big secret to Nathanials past life.
Jerome hands Nathanial this book, “The Soul Thief”….Nathaniel’s life.
🤷🏻♀️
Read
February 5, 2009Charles Baxter's ability to play with his own identity consistently impresses reviewers. Author of the 2000 National Book Award finalist Feast of Love, he has proved adept as a novelist and short story writer, as well as an inventor of forms somewhere in between. The Soul Thief is one such example. It is almost short enough to be a novella, yet it spans 30 years. Its plot hinges on a short story kind of "twist," yet its characters are intriguing enough to have novels to themselves. Critics' reactions depended on how well they tolerated this inventiveness. Those who enjoyed it found The Soul Thief a compelling investigation into how identities are lost and found over a lifetime. Those who were less patient with Baxter's narrative devices were also intrigued by the theme of identity, but they left the novel feeling robbed of solid characters.
This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
February 29, 2008
whoa. this is like a mirror looking into a mirror looking into a mirror -- which is funny, because i forgot that there is a scene where this happens early in the book. i'm not sure what to think. the gist: nathanian mason becomes absorbed into a new group of friends, falls in love with two women and in the meantime is having his life story stripped away and claimed by the creepy jerome coolberg.
the end is a sort of punchline.
i'm not sure that plot will ever really matter in a charles baxter novel. i read "feast of love" years ago and all i remember is that i loved it. i couldn't name a single plot-point beyond a man going for a late night walk. i'm pretty sure that happens in the first chapter. but he writes great sentences. and mini stories within stories. and hypotheticals.
the end is a sort of punchline.
i'm not sure that plot will ever really matter in a charles baxter novel. i read "feast of love" years ago and all i remember is that i loved it. i couldn't name a single plot-point beyond a man going for a late night walk. i'm pretty sure that happens in the first chapter. but he writes great sentences. and mini stories within stories. and hypotheticals.
May 24, 2012
Has a book ever knocked you out? Paralyzed you? Most people read for pleasure and never get to experience something akin to getting the wind knocked out of them. That's what the Soul Thief did to me. I highly recommend it. It's about the fluidity of identity. I could give you a lot of cheap English essay buzzwords to describe the fluidity of identity as seen in the novel, but I think that would cheapen it somehow.
Don't read this if you like happy endings. In fact, just don't read this, you won't like it no matter who you are.
Ok, I change my mind. Read this book if you think you are strong enough. Then I will give you a prize.
Don't read this if you like happy endings. In fact, just don't read this, you won't like it no matter who you are.
Ok, I change my mind. Read this book if you think you are strong enough. Then I will give you a prize.
December 15, 2020
This is my first Charles Baxter so I wasn't comparing it like other reviewers to his other works. I thought it was pretty good, though I thought the ending was overdone. Nothing really sticks with me though and the characters feel a little washed out though that might be by design given the ending.
March 4, 2024
Impressive narrative style and fixation on details. The storyline in the first part of the book was captivating. After that I felt rushed towards end of the book. Neverthless, this book convinced me to explore more of the works of Charles Baxter.
April 9, 2025
The main characters are insufferably “intellectual” in that they spew smart sounding things that say nothing at all. The writing also has a dramatic/suspenseful quality to it that is not warranted for how banal the plot actually is
Read
March 29, 2024I was hoping for a bit more from Charles.
May 24, 2018
Very interesting story. One of self-identity and if we really are who we think we are, or are we just adopting another's persona. Beautifully written.
October 17, 2014
The Soul Thief, a novel by Charles Baxter, focuses initially on two guys and two girls living in Buffalo, New York. One of the girls is a lesbian cab driver. The other girl and the guys are students at a Buffalo university. Guy number one, Nathaniel, first falls for good-looking girl number one, Theresa, when they help each other find a party they’re going to. She’s a knock-out, flip, provocative, and Nathaniel thinks immediately he loves her. Waiting at the party is guy number two, Jerome, who has some mysterious appeal to everyone, including Theresa, and apparently has decided he’s going to haunt Nathaniel, assume his identity, work something out with Theresa, and generally make an eccentric asshole of himself in the service of art . . . or philosophy . . . or soul-work.
The setting is early 70s. I was in college then. The references are generally accurate, if overblown, as is the entire short novel. The idea is that the receding tide of the 60s still kept people turned-on, enlightened, and so forth. Well, sort of, yes, but not with the phony pomposity of this crew.
For reasons that aren’t clear, Nathaniel decides Theresa is just a physical wonder and drops her. Instead, he falls in love with Jamie, the lesbian cab driver, who tells him it’s not going to work but sleeps with him anyway.
All the while Jerome is in the background, engineering personal problems for Nathaniel, such as having his apartment burglarized and, ultimately, having Jamie mugged and raped.
The chattering and very normal style of the narration buckles under these events, as does Nathaniel. He has some kind of break-down and drifts off campus into a series of mindless jobs that ultimately lead to satisfaction with a wife and two kids--very bourgeois.
Nothing is very well-developed but fortunately the story moves quickly into a recap of Nathaniel’s recovery and, years later, an invitation from Jerome to visit him in L.A., where he hosts a radio program called American Evenings. Long story short: Jerome pursued Nathaniel because of a gay attraction. He also wrote a manuscript that detailed the ins and outs of what happened in Buffalo, pretending that Nathaniel was the narrator. Nathaniel hates this. What he loves, by now, is the endearments of his very average family life. He doesn’t care about Norman O. Brown or Nietzsche anymore. He just wants to climb out of Jerome’s sick narrative
What ultimately happened to Theresa and Jamie? In various ways, they don’t make it through the story. Jamie left Nathaniel a goodbye letter, but he chose not to open it. To me this is a bit of authorial negligence, if not cowardice. There are a number of Baxter’s literary jokes embedded in this text; maybe this is one of them. If so, it falls as flat as the others. We don’t need strange intrusions by Jane Austen’s fiction. Nor do we need Nathaniel’s sister, who has been mute for years, suddenly regaining her voice when she rushes to him after his breakdown. Really?
I think this is a kind of soft novel about people like you and me having more interesting and devious lives that we’ve actually lived. It’s verbally squishy and needed rethinking before publication. One man’s opinion. On to the next book.
The setting is early 70s. I was in college then. The references are generally accurate, if overblown, as is the entire short novel. The idea is that the receding tide of the 60s still kept people turned-on, enlightened, and so forth. Well, sort of, yes, but not with the phony pomposity of this crew.
For reasons that aren’t clear, Nathaniel decides Theresa is just a physical wonder and drops her. Instead, he falls in love with Jamie, the lesbian cab driver, who tells him it’s not going to work but sleeps with him anyway.
All the while Jerome is in the background, engineering personal problems for Nathaniel, such as having his apartment burglarized and, ultimately, having Jamie mugged and raped.
The chattering and very normal style of the narration buckles under these events, as does Nathaniel. He has some kind of break-down and drifts off campus into a series of mindless jobs that ultimately lead to satisfaction with a wife and two kids--very bourgeois.
Nothing is very well-developed but fortunately the story moves quickly into a recap of Nathaniel’s recovery and, years later, an invitation from Jerome to visit him in L.A., where he hosts a radio program called American Evenings. Long story short: Jerome pursued Nathaniel because of a gay attraction. He also wrote a manuscript that detailed the ins and outs of what happened in Buffalo, pretending that Nathaniel was the narrator. Nathaniel hates this. What he loves, by now, is the endearments of his very average family life. He doesn’t care about Norman O. Brown or Nietzsche anymore. He just wants to climb out of Jerome’s sick narrative
What ultimately happened to Theresa and Jamie? In various ways, they don’t make it through the story. Jamie left Nathaniel a goodbye letter, but he chose not to open it. To me this is a bit of authorial negligence, if not cowardice. There are a number of Baxter’s literary jokes embedded in this text; maybe this is one of them. If so, it falls as flat as the others. We don’t need strange intrusions by Jane Austen’s fiction. Nor do we need Nathaniel’s sister, who has been mute for years, suddenly regaining her voice when she rushes to him after his breakdown. Really?
I think this is a kind of soft novel about people like you and me having more interesting and devious lives that we’ve actually lived. It’s verbally squishy and needed rethinking before publication. One man’s opinion. On to the next book.
November 16, 2011
The Soul Thief by Charles Baxter
Pantheon Books, 2008
The term “soul thief” makes me think of beings who steal your “soul”, as if it were a solid entity, something that can be sucked out of someone, much like a Dementor from the Harry Potter series sucks the souls of wizards right from their mouths. Once I read the book, I realized it was very different from what I had been expecting, as Charles Baxter explores the idea of a “soul thief” in a much more dark, complex, and mentally disorientating way. In the form of a relationship between Nathaniel Mason and Jerome Coolberg, “The Soul Thief” shows the way interest in and imitation of another’s life can be taken too far, and result in negative consequences.
Nathaniel is introduced to Coolberg at a party by Theresa, a girl whom he has met on the way to the party and instantly become attracted to. He has heard that Coolberg is very arrogant about his intelligence, and seems to be a compulsive liar. Though Nathaniel does not like Coolberg very much, he uses his invitation to go with him to Niagara Falls as a way to spend more time with Theresa. After they all drive to Niagara Falls, Nathaniel and Theresa start dating. Nathaniel also starts seeing Jamie, a lesbian he has become friends with through working at a soup kitchen, because she feels that he “deserves” to have romantic relations with her because of his innocence as a man. Throughout this time, Nathaniel notices that things in his apartment start to go missing, and realizes that Coolberg and Theresa are behind the thefts. They tell him Coolberg is writing a book, and is using Nathaniel as a character, and therefore needs some of his clothing and personal items to get a feel for his life. Nathaniel is angered by this incident, but doesn’t do anything about it, though it makes him realize he is in love with Jamie and not Theresa. Nathaniel then finds out Jamie has been assaulted and raped, and has a mental breakdown. The rest of the story proceeds to document his adult life many years later, until one day he receives a phone call from Coolberg who invites him out to Los Angeles, and Nathaniel revisits his past but also gains some closure on that time in his life in a plot twist that left my head spinning.
Baxter clearly defines his “soul thief” in the form of Coolberg as someone who feels the need to imitate others in order to feel they have some importance and substance, but also as a way to hide himself behind their characteristics. At one point, Theresa tells Coolberg to “speak for [him]self”, and Coolberg replies “Oh, I never do that”. It’s as if Coolberg wants to spend his entire life acting out another person’s life, because his own is too boring for him to stick to. Ultimately, Coolberg tries to have his entire life imitate something else, whether it be another person’s life, a movie, or a book. He says to Nathaniel “We’re all copycats. Aren’t we? Of course we are. How do you learn to do any little task? You copy. You model. So I didn’t do anything all that unusual...” Though Coolberg feels his imitation is natural, it leaves Nathaniel with a broken mind and a broken heart.
Pantheon Books, 2008
The term “soul thief” makes me think of beings who steal your “soul”, as if it were a solid entity, something that can be sucked out of someone, much like a Dementor from the Harry Potter series sucks the souls of wizards right from their mouths. Once I read the book, I realized it was very different from what I had been expecting, as Charles Baxter explores the idea of a “soul thief” in a much more dark, complex, and mentally disorientating way. In the form of a relationship between Nathaniel Mason and Jerome Coolberg, “The Soul Thief” shows the way interest in and imitation of another’s life can be taken too far, and result in negative consequences.
Nathaniel is introduced to Coolberg at a party by Theresa, a girl whom he has met on the way to the party and instantly become attracted to. He has heard that Coolberg is very arrogant about his intelligence, and seems to be a compulsive liar. Though Nathaniel does not like Coolberg very much, he uses his invitation to go with him to Niagara Falls as a way to spend more time with Theresa. After they all drive to Niagara Falls, Nathaniel and Theresa start dating. Nathaniel also starts seeing Jamie, a lesbian he has become friends with through working at a soup kitchen, because she feels that he “deserves” to have romantic relations with her because of his innocence as a man. Throughout this time, Nathaniel notices that things in his apartment start to go missing, and realizes that Coolberg and Theresa are behind the thefts. They tell him Coolberg is writing a book, and is using Nathaniel as a character, and therefore needs some of his clothing and personal items to get a feel for his life. Nathaniel is angered by this incident, but doesn’t do anything about it, though it makes him realize he is in love with Jamie and not Theresa. Nathaniel then finds out Jamie has been assaulted and raped, and has a mental breakdown. The rest of the story proceeds to document his adult life many years later, until one day he receives a phone call from Coolberg who invites him out to Los Angeles, and Nathaniel revisits his past but also gains some closure on that time in his life in a plot twist that left my head spinning.
Baxter clearly defines his “soul thief” in the form of Coolberg as someone who feels the need to imitate others in order to feel they have some importance and substance, but also as a way to hide himself behind their characteristics. At one point, Theresa tells Coolberg to “speak for [him]self”, and Coolberg replies “Oh, I never do that”. It’s as if Coolberg wants to spend his entire life acting out another person’s life, because his own is too boring for him to stick to. Ultimately, Coolberg tries to have his entire life imitate something else, whether it be another person’s life, a movie, or a book. He says to Nathaniel “We’re all copycats. Aren’t we? Of course we are. How do you learn to do any little task? You copy. You model. So I didn’t do anything all that unusual...” Though Coolberg feels his imitation is natural, it leaves Nathaniel with a broken mind and a broken heart.
February 18, 2008
The Soul Thief begins the way all good books set in college do: with a party. And if you liked The Feast of Love, you are probably prepared (read: greedily ready), to follow Nathaniel Mason for 209 pages of nothing more than early 1970s college life: drinking too much; spontaneous, aimless road trips; and the kind of sex-by-arrangement or even sex-by-proximity arrangement that can happen when you are exploring the world of newfound adulthood and your sexual boundaries simultaneously. As common as the experiences are, Charles Baxter could make the college antics of any one of us worth that much paper, but The Soul Thief aspires higher.
More Saul and Patsy than The Feast of Love, The Soul Thief ruminates on darker themes. Identity and obsession become intertwined with the exploration and college-aged intellectualization of emotional motives — in effect, this is the academic experience of deconstruction applied, unwittingly and unwillingly, on the self, and in places the effect is chilling. What I won’t say is that I loved the ending, and this is a book where the ending makes or breaks your ultimate experience. But all of Charles Baxter's trademarks are here, especially in the introduction of his achingly unforgettable characters, and that is a trademark worth experiencing again.
There are a slew of related novels that might help triangulate this one. The Secret History and Intuition to one side, and the ridiculous Arts and Sciences on the other. Ultimately, however, nothing is going to prevent a Charles Baxter fan from reading another Charles Baxter book. Even if you don't quite think he's the best writer of thrillers in the world, or if you feel there is something you may have missed, The Soul Thief has enough substance to leave you wondering not just how thoroughly the novel's ruse was constructed, but about all the pieces of these characters' lives that you are made, so suddenly, to miss.
More Saul and Patsy than The Feast of Love, The Soul Thief ruminates on darker themes. Identity and obsession become intertwined with the exploration and college-aged intellectualization of emotional motives — in effect, this is the academic experience of deconstruction applied, unwittingly and unwillingly, on the self, and in places the effect is chilling. What I won’t say is that I loved the ending, and this is a book where the ending makes or breaks your ultimate experience. But all of Charles Baxter's trademarks are here, especially in the introduction of his achingly unforgettable characters, and that is a trademark worth experiencing again.
There are a slew of related novels that might help triangulate this one. The Secret History and Intuition to one side, and the ridiculous Arts and Sciences on the other. Ultimately, however, nothing is going to prevent a Charles Baxter fan from reading another Charles Baxter book. Even if you don't quite think he's the best writer of thrillers in the world, or if you feel there is something you may have missed, The Soul Thief has enough substance to leave you wondering not just how thoroughly the novel's ruse was constructed, but about all the pieces of these characters' lives that you are made, so suddenly, to miss.
May 26, 2014
I listened to this on audiobook. I did not enjoy the manner in which the book was read, and it put me off the book for at least the first third - maybe half.
I was extremely annoyed by all of the characters during the entire first portion of the book. They were completely self-centered and overly-intellectual - although as that part closed, I found myself thinking that was entirely appropriate since they were graduate students. But then it started to seem to me that the book itself was irritatingly overly-intellectual. I had that feeling through the end of the book, but there were some descriptive passages in the second half (specifically the sequence on Los Angeles) that started to win me over. The author did seem heavy handed at times with metaphors that didn't quite work - something I am finding with many contemporary writers I'm picking up these days. I don't like to feel like the author is trying.
I wavered between two and three stars. I thought the writing itself ended up having quite a bit of merit (despite my above complaints), and I definitely think there would be a ton to discuss if this book were read by a book club. Reading it on my own, however, I can say that it didn't touch me very deeply and I will probably forget it pretty quickly.
I also am really sick and tired of stories where the main character "grows up", gets married, has kids and becomes completely boring. And endlessly talking about the vapidity of suburban life. I'd venture to say the main character was way more boring as a single graduate student binge drinking and sleeping around.
Not sure I will seek out this author again.
I was extremely annoyed by all of the characters during the entire first portion of the book. They were completely self-centered and overly-intellectual - although as that part closed, I found myself thinking that was entirely appropriate since they were graduate students. But then it started to seem to me that the book itself was irritatingly overly-intellectual. I had that feeling through the end of the book, but there were some descriptive passages in the second half (specifically the sequence on Los Angeles) that started to win me over. The author did seem heavy handed at times with metaphors that didn't quite work - something I am finding with many contemporary writers I'm picking up these days. I don't like to feel like the author is trying.
I wavered between two and three stars. I thought the writing itself ended up having quite a bit of merit (despite my above complaints), and I definitely think there would be a ton to discuss if this book were read by a book club. Reading it on my own, however, I can say that it didn't touch me very deeply and I will probably forget it pretty quickly.
I also am really sick and tired of stories where the main character "grows up", gets married, has kids and becomes completely boring. And endlessly talking about the vapidity of suburban life. I'd venture to say the main character was way more boring as a single graduate student binge drinking and sleeping around.
Not sure I will seek out this author again.
December 20, 2024
I don't know what I think about this book. It was ok. I didn't really feel like anything happened though. The ending confused me.
March 10, 2008
More Charles Baxter. This is his newest work. It didn't disappoint. This book contains a lot of the same central themes prevalent in his other works--identity, discovery, loss, misguided love. At the heart of this book is a dysfunctional relationship between two grad school classmates. The book is very dark. I'm still not sure I "get it" even after I've finished it and spent a couple days processing it. I think it will be a book I re-read. But not now. You have to be in the right state of mind to immerse yourself into this story. It is filled with characters that are hard to love and easy to judge.
Despite the complexity of the story, Baxter's writing is simply wonderful. So, so beautiful.
The style isn't for everyone. Even though it is a novel, it has a short story feel. Very short chapters, disjointed plot that hides some of the overlapping themes, and some under-developed plot ideas. I've been on a short story kick as of late so it was perfect for my scattered attention span.
Despite the complexity of the story, Baxter's writing is simply wonderful. So, so beautiful.
The style isn't for everyone. Even though it is a novel, it has a short story feel. Very short chapters, disjointed plot that hides some of the overlapping themes, and some under-developed plot ideas. I've been on a short story kick as of late so it was perfect for my scattered attention span.
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