For Kings and Planets

by Ethan Canin

From the celebrated author of The Palace Thief and Emperor of the Air, comes this stunning novel about the relationship between two very different men. Orno Tarcher travels from a small town in Missouri to New York City to attend Columbia University, where he begins a new life feeling unsophisticated and insecure. He soon strikes up a friendship with Marshall Emerson, a seductive and brilliant New Yorker whose sophistication dazzles Orno. As time passes, Marshall is revealed to be bent on destruction, and Orno's involvment with Marshall's worldly sister further complicates their friendship.

Carefully crafted and skillfully informed by the works of Fitzgerald and Waugh, For Kings and Planets is a remarkable novel. A New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, and Minneapolis StarTribune bestseller, and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature, American, Contemporary

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Highly regarded as both a novelist and a short story writer, Ethan Canin has ranged in his career from the "breathtaking" short stories of Emperor of the Air to the "stunning" novellas of The Palace Thief, from the "wise and beautiful" short novel Carry Me Across the Water to the "epic" America America. His short stories, which have been the basis for four Hollywood movies, have appeared in a wide range of magazines, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, The Paris Review, and Granta, and have been selected for many prize anthologies.

The son of a musician and a public-school art teacher, he spent his childhood in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California before attending Stanford University, the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and then Harvard Medical School. He subsequently gave up a career in medicine to write and teach, and is now F. Wendell Miller Professor of English at his alma mater, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he has been privileged to teach a great number of talented new writers. In his spare time he is very slowly remodeling two old houses, one in the woods of northern Michigan and the other in Iowa City, where he lives with his wife, their three children, and four chickens.

Reviews

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last month when lists of great books made headlines, "The Great Gatsby" scored high with the old fogies from Random House and the hipsters at Radcliffe College. Though it enjoyed only modest sales when published in 1925, nowadays everybody loves Fitzgerald's brief novel about a glamorous gangster and his doomed quest for status and love.

I kept thinking about that masterpiece as I read Ethan Canin's new novel, "For Kings and Planets." This is another story about an introspective Midwesterner who goes to New York and gets caught up with a dazzling, deceptive friend. Like Fitzgerald, Canin has developed a luxurious style that risks being maudlin, and he romanticizes narcissistic young men so beautifully that you almost forget how pompous they are.

The novel opens in 1974 on the day Orno Tarcher arrives with his parents at Columbia University. He wanders around New York City in awe of its grandeur. Desperately aware that he's left the simplicity and morality of his home in Cook's Grange, Mo., he's delighted when another student introduces himself and gives him access to a world of wealth, brilliance, and sophistication.

Marshall inspires awe in everyone who knows him (including, unfortunately, the author). Forced to study throughout his childhood by a brilliant, but loveless, father, Marshall can recall everything he's ever read, and he's read just about everything ever written. He never studies for tests, but aces every one.

He's ironic and brooding, alternately ingratiating and critical. In a cloud of drugs and alcohol, he reigns over a group of cafe intellectuals in black pants and T-shirts who gather each night to trade pseudoprofundities. At 20, "Marshall had already lived a life of spectacular worldliness," and for Orno, who considers himself a hopeless hayseed, he offers escape from a world of dull responsibilities and routines.

For reasons Orno can never understand, Marshall is equally drawn to him. He's impressed by how diligently Orno works just to earn average grades. He's charmed by Orno's simple faith in the decency of people. But finally, he envies Orno's homespun morality and takes a wicked delight in contaminating his Midwestern friend with his own malaise and degenerate values.

The narrator observes, "For Orno it was as though he were watching himself; or, not watching himself but watching a young man he partially recognized, taught one way his whole life but now behaving in another; he was adrift in ecstasy.... Marshall laughed, deeply pleased by this kind of moral ruin."

When his father takes a train from Missouri to visit him in the Big Apple, Orno is filled with shame for his common origins, but Mr. Tarcher slices through his son's pretensions: "I see you've become a dandy.... Your grades are poor. You're wearing a velvet jacket. There's an ashtray in here." Orno reacts angrily to this reproof, but a growing awareness of his own aimlessness gradually forces him back on task. While Marshall drops out of school and pursues a corrupting but prosperous Hollywood career, Orno trudges reluctantly through dental school.

Unfortunately, these characters never move beyond this simplistic dichotomy between glamorous amorality and stodgy respectability. The third-person narrator records their midnight riffs about the emptiness of life without a touch of irony. At times, hearing these two well-off young men lament the difficulty of their lives is like listening to models whine about their weight.

Nevertheless, with this book Canin may have a runaway bestseller on college campuses. Students often imagine they're choosing between "two roads in a yellow wood" that will determine the rest of their lives. This beautifully styled novel romanticizes that stark choice too sentimentally for anyone over 30. But Orno's recovery is a welcome show of resistance to the moral decay that seems so alluring to him throughout the novel.

http://www.csmonitor.com/1998/0917/09...

[Roger DeBlanck · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Canin’s novel For Kings and Planets, he examines the friendship of two very different young men trying to find their way in the world. Marshall is a brilliant mind, but he suffers from a penchant for self-destruction. His torn relations with his father have him channeling his genius towards acute destructiveness. Marshall’s wounded soul is balanced against the wandering spirit of Orno, an intelligent, hardworking young man with scholarly qualities. Their friendship is bridged by the women they love, the families they try to understand, and the stability they seek to establish. Yet they both battle against emptiness. Orno fills his void with the need for finding a strong foundation, while Marshall surrenders to dangerous whims to fill his needs. Their morals and lifestyles, along with the sharp divide between them, present a clear picture of extreme choices, the need for caution, and the difficulty of finding one’s calling in life. This is a story of two men faced with challenges, desires, and the looming presence of the past, which both haunts and drives them. Canin addresses the willingness to find happiness against the struggles, the hard work, and the years required to become a mature human being. In charting the decisions both young men make, Canin illuminates two lives that battle through pain, confusion, and deep emotional rifts to find their respective selves. The novel is a fine depiction of how life, family, love, forgiveness, and understanding can be more complicated and challenging than one wants to admit.

[Parkert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hardly an aphorism, For Kings and Planets rehashes the age-old parables about wealth, status, lineage, and regionalism, and yet Canin does pretty well standing on the shoulders of giants, here. His language isn't as lyrical as the bookjacket suggests, but he does have beautiful moments. Most of his strongest writing is in sentences that aren't vividly limned, but succinct and smart, encapsulating the worlds he's trying to describe.

The book's plot obviously rests in its characters, not in loud events. In Orno and Marshall we have interesting characters. Orno becomes more believable as the book progresses, though Marshall sometimes falls flat. It's believable that there are special people, friends that are somehow greater than us in almost every aspect, but the "flaws" Canin inserts to ground Marshall don't suffice, and at a certain point, become irritating. The other characters go on and on about how amazing he is, which is realistic if he intended it to be absurd in that way, but the reader may get frustrated with this. I've read extremely flawed characters and not been frustrated by their actions, and yet every character hyping up Marshall, saying "But he's so amazing," frustrates me, because I'd expect better judgment from Columbia and Bard graduates. Sure, Orno is naive, but it seems his revelation about Marshall's true character comes about 80 pages late. Orno and Simone are believable enough. Orno's stock country bumpkin deepens as he struggles to make choices about his career and love life.

As far as how things progress, Canin's pacing is impeccable for much of the book. He catalogs months' time in an economic manner, never drawing out, but always making the reader feel as if the time really has passed.

The scope of the book feels reasonable. The characters are prestigious and rich, but it's believable in the same way the Gilded Age's protagonists were. The Emersons struggle to keep up and Drake Tarcher's dismay with Orno's momentary fuck-ups solidify stakes for the reader.

Spoilers ahead, now: The scope and pacing of the book REALLY hiccups when, during a kind of false climax, Marshall drunkenly leads Orno to a shack where their old flame Sofia is waiting. So far, the book has drifted by, granting moral conflicts and imposing its themes in little ways. Marshall has gotten a little crazy at this point. But his chagrin with Orno's "betrayal", and just magically making Sofia appear (and then wait in a shack?), makes the reader wonder if they've stumbled into a thriller instead of a literary novel. The suddenness and hostility of the moment doesn't make for the plot twist Canin wants it to. The ensuing search is, also, irritating. There are clear signs that Marshall is a little deranged throughout the book, but this just doesn't vibe with the rest of the work's pacing.

I know I've just complained about something eventful happening, but ultimately, it does seem the character-based events are few. I like character-based fiction, but the psychological stakes and conflicts don't often seem as high as they could. There are idiosyncratic troubles that could be taken farther with these characters. They're not quite as full as they should be after 300 pages. Ultimately, For Kings And Planets is good, especially in its dialogue and in its two main characters' relationship, but feels as if it's got nothing new to say. Like an aggregated reimagining of many more important texts that came before it. The messages feel as if they're important and the story skirts on being important and, of course, Canin is undoubtedly talented, but it feels as if he's trying to write somebody else's book, at times, and not his own.

[KrisAnne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know a thing about this book when I picked it up, which is nice: no baggage. I think I checked it out because Sarah Haskins said she liked it in an interview and I pretty much take book recs wherever I can get them (if the recommender seems intelligent, that is). So anyway, allow me to load some baggage on you in case you're interested in reading it.

Apparently Canin has a thing about midwestern straight men and charismatic others who draw the stolid ones into their orbit. There are some familiar themes in this book, if you've ever read anything about any outsider going to the East Coast, or any book about a student going to college and getting his or her mind blown. But I still liked it, especially the beautifully atmospheric descriptions of the different landscapes these characters inhabit: rural Missouri, small town Maine, Istanbul, LA, and most of all the love song to New York.

This might be a little spoiler-y, but the main character's experience of figuring out who he is and what he wants--well, it seemed like it happened too quickly, even though the book doesn't move at a snappy pace. Maybe that's just my ridiculous arrested development talking, but does any dude really have it figured out before the age of 30?

This would be somewhere between 3 and 4 stars if I could get more specific.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fine novel, with marvelously complex characters, always surprising, always inscrutable, yet always believable characters I really cared deeply about. It's a pretty simple story, but full of surprising turns that always bring a new revelation about the meaning of character. In the end, it's another coming-of-age story, but a very unusual one because of its focus on character. It's a celebration, in some ways, of good old-fashioned midwestern virtues of sturdiness & diligence, loyalty & duty, but with such a grave sense of doubt about them, in a setting so fraught with a kind of decadence, that there's not an ounce of sentimentality about it. It's also a story of loyalty, friendship, & betrayal--and loyalty in spite of betrayal--and, finally, a story of learning to love and be loved, of learning to be bound to those you love, of learning to be surprised by life, of learning character.

[Peter Allum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Addictive reading, though perhaps too tidy in its resolution.

Reminiscent of A Separate Peace, which I finished just a week ago, and also of Brideshead Revisited. As in these precursor novels, a conventional student falls under the influence of a charismatic peer whose rebellious behavior and attitudes influence, for good and bad, the protagonist’s path to maturity.

In this case, Orno, from rural Missouri, arrives at Colombia University in the mid-1970s. He meets fellow freshman, Marshall, gifted with photographic memory (thus acing his exams), urban sophistication, and an aptitude for rebellion (via drink, drugs, sex, and a back-biting clique of literary poseurs).

Orno is torn between loyalty to the ethics of stolid hard-work espoused by his Missouri father and the excitements of New York and the bohemian lifestyle charted by Marshall. Canin succeeds in making us care for Orno, and his repeated temptation provokes considerable anxiety. While this makes for gripping reading, it is not completely convincing: the ease with which Orno initially falls under Marshall’s sway suggests a lack of character inconsistent with the maturity he displays later in the novel. Perhaps this coming-of-age story is too formulaic, too engineered to be fully credible.

That said, the novel had me in its grips for a couple of days and I look forward to reading more by Canin (this was my first introduction to his writing).

[Evi Koehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book in its prose, which is mostly what I enjoy about reading (if we're going to name biases right off the getgo). I found the story of the two young men compelling, relatable. As promised on the cover, I did find the passages quite lyrical in an "East coast nostagic and romantic" kind of way. This won't suit everyone though. Canin comments on the everyday events of living through times of right of passage through frank and descriptive depictions of (city and country) landscape.

I will say that the story isn't original. Canin used others' foundational aspects of plot to create his narrative (perhaps unknowingly). However, I this this novel still comments on the human struggle of seeking meaning and purpose through two close characters who are fundamentally different and wondering after the life of the other.

Ultimately, this is a book about how our attitudes (more than inner identity) shape our satisfaction and willingness to engage with life. Not a new idea whatsoever, but executed in a satisfying, John Irving-esque way.

[Sean Kinch]

“Years later, Orno Tarcher would think of his days in New York as a seduction. A seduction and a near miss, a time when his memory of the world around him—the shining stone stairwells, the taxicabs, the sea of nighttime lights—was glinting and of heroic proportion. Like a dream.”

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know why this is such a hard novel to read - I had to push myself until about mid-point before it engaged me. And looking back, I'm still not sure how I feel about it. The story is, as several others have commented, rather trite: naive mid-westerner meets New York sophisticate - and at the same time, who else writes a story about a dentist? And if Marshall Emerson creates himself out of whole cloth like Gatsby, how marvelous of him to choose Turkey rather than Long Island. Ethan Canin was my student for a term when he was in high school, so I have followed his career closely as I have those of my other students who have become successful writers. He is the only one, however, whose voice even dimly remembered I do not hear in his writing, that is, I never sense anything autobiographical in either his subject matter (except perhaps a few medical factoids) in his language or in his characters. The language in this novel in particular seems to be somehow flat, and the narrative flows in a straight line without surprises. For me the book's happiest revelation was so quiet I almost didn't recognize it: Orno Tarcher's father's quiet heroism. I think Ethan Canin is a marvelously inventive writer exactly because he writes about distinct types who are not Ethan Canin; on the other hand, romance novelists do that very thing, time and time again. Come to think of it, Danielle Steel was also his high-school teacher briefly. Honest.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that's so gorgeously written that I'm going to like it no matter what the subject matter is. In For Kings and Planets, a small-town Missouri boy moves to New York City for college, and on his first day there meets a fellow student whose powerful personality draws him into his orbit in spite of their differences. The whole thing is perhaps a somewhat typical coming-of-age story that doesn't do a lot to challenge stereotypes about wide-eyed rural Midwesterners vs. world-wise east-coast urbanites. However, the story is told so well that I couldn't stop reading, and it raises some interesting questions about whether we inevitably grow up to become our parents or whether it's possible to become a new person and live out that American Adam dream - or whether we ever even really understood our parents in the first place.

A lot of the GoodReads reviews of this book suggest it's one of Canin's weaker works, which tells me I need to start reading some of his other books pronto.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm still basking in the glow of reading this book. Trying to decide if it was more "Great Gatsby" or "Oryx and Crake." Either way, I loved it.

Maybe after some time passes and I think more about the book -- instead of the nostalgia it inspired in me -- it'll lose a little luster. But isn't that what a good book is supposed to do? Make you reflect on your own life and ponder your choices and where you're headed?

"For Kings and Planets" isn't a different story, but has a different feel than a lot of the other coming of age stories I've read. And it just ... works. I'd recommend this book to anyone (thanks to my wife for recommending it to me!)

[Dan Wool · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a novel -- literature -- of the highest order -- recalls Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway. A beautiful book about the struggles of being ordinary.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this several years ago and I remember that I loved it.

[Jen Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

captivating. loved the writing

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Orno Tarcher goes from Cook’s Grange, Missouri, to Columbia University in New York City. He meets Marshall Emerson his first day, sparking a troubled friendship and a very touching story. The first chapters are uncannily reminiscent of going to Cornell, even down to the little things like leaving the dorm windows open in the winter to counter the overactive heating, though that is probably very common in buildings where the heat is managed by a central control, set equally for everyone.

The only real flaw is typographical. The kerning is horrendous, and even at the end of the book I was still pausing and seeing thoughts ending where there was merely a poorly-placed extra space. The book was published in 1998, and I wonder if they were using some experimental new typesetting system.

The title is nothing to do with history, or fantasy, or science fiction, but the fact that teeth are named merely by their sequential location in the mouth rather than, as are muscles and bones, given often fanciful names. Teeth are slots to be filled, but very important, necessary slots nonetheless.

It surprised him, speeding downtown through the dark park: he had always expected to decide his fate the way his father had decided his; to decide his character, really—upright decisions in an upright life. But instead he merely discovered it, merely stumbled upon the pieces and bits, laid out murkily before him.

[dana brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about how a father is built, what leads to the man that a child will only know as “Dad”. There are other compelling important story lines but in the end, I felt every character was in conflict with, coming to a realization of, the victim of, in defense of, or in love with a father.

This is a beautiful, quiet story. I stumbled on Canin’s work and have continued reading his novels. For some reason, maybe because of the timelessness, I assumed he wasn’t a contemporary author - and I didn’t research because I was so comfortable with his writing (and content with my assumption). I just learn he is younger than me! I like that about his work - I think it will be meaningful forever. There are big truths here.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paced like a screenplay with heavy dependency on dialogue leaves little to subtlety or needing to watch characters to reveal who they are... they constantly tell us. Their lies are interesting and it’s fun to unravel what is true and what isn’t. Some descriptions of New York don’t jive to those of us who have lived here for decades. The relationship of Orno (main character) with his parents is actually the most interesting and real but not given much air time. Marshall is not especially believable, but then again, that’s what he represents (someone who fictionalizes his own biography) so it fits in a weird way.

For all its faults the book is a fun read, a dumbed-down and modernized Great Gatsby morality tale.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am actually rating this 3.5 stars. I think some of my Good Reads Friends may really enjoy this novel. It has been compared to The Great Gatsby for good reason. In 1974 Missouri boy Orno starts school at Columbia in NYC. He meets Marshall Emerson a troubled, charismatic and brilliant New Yorker who befriends him and shows him a world that is bigger and bolder than any he has known. The characters are richly drawn if not a wee bit stereotyped. Canin's writing has depth and beauty and he is a master at exposing the human condition. I did find myself becoming frustrated with Marshall's character and the response Orno and his sister had. Curious if others feel the same.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's most likely my fault as much as the author's, but I expected something to happen in this novel, and...nothing does. It's more of a character study between the naive outsider and the debauched sophisticate, but neither one really does anything that dramatic. Dating more than one girl at a time in college? Dabbling in illicit drugs? Dropping out of college? All sound pretty par for the course at Columbia in the 1970s. Even one character's suicide attempts feel more like a plea for attention than an actual bid to end it all. Canin's writing is fluid, and briskly paced, but without much of a plot or interesting characters, it's a road to rural Maine, aka nowhere.

[Julian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved it. A true portal into humanity and the way young adults hope to run from structure but embrace it all the same. It also highlights the destructive nature of individuals and how they cope with it. By attempting to remain a bystander in their life while simultaneously making the decisions. Or making decisions by indecision. The characters and their growth/non growth was stunning. One thing I did not enjoy was Orno's willingness to let his parents fall by the way side and to hardly contact them. Although I hope it was unintentional and Orno's parents were well informed of Orno and Simone's expecting.

[Maddy S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

For Kings and Planets follows Orno's life from college through adulthood and his struggle to figure out who he is. Canin's characters are complex and real; it's easy to relate to Orno's strive for greatness while simultaneously feeling the tug of his ordinary life back home. It's a story that doesn't try hard to be extraordinary, which is a reason why I liked it so much. The romance, the friendship, and the passage of time are all so realistic, it feels as if I was watching a real person who was going through the routine of their life.

I highly recommend if you want an easy read that keeps you engaged while also forcing you to find the beauty in the mundane.

[Dianelw · Rating 4 out of 5]

From my mother's bookshelf ... I was a big fan of Canin years back and was happy to read this novel. It's a thoroughly engrossing story, beautifully told in an old-fashioned way: Canin explores character here through the lives and friendship of Orno and Marshall while also conveying a strong sense of place, from New York City to Missouri to LA. I really enjoyed this book. It stands up well over time, losing nothing and it's reassuring to sense that there really are good, strong people out there like Orno.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Orno Tarcher, poor, from the desolate midwest, meets the sophisticated wealthy Marshall Emerson the first day at Columbia University. There are like oil and water, but they still become close friends. The novel explores with depth and sophistication the conflicts of character at the heart of every life, the desire for grandeur and the lure of normalcy, the tension between rivalry and friendship, fathers and sons, love and betrayal. Brilliantly written.

[Nick Tan · Rating 3 out of 5]

We never truly know the life we want to live until we meet those who have lived our ideal lives at which time we come to realize the life we were given was what made us happy and fulfilled all along. 2 very different lives, 2 very different people with 2 very different aspirations that have life long impacts.

[Adrianna Cobb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the writing of this book. I love the characters and the world the author created. The ending was just so unsatisfactory. It wasn’t as though the story was building and didn’t follow through, it just didn’t go anywhere. The potential was there for the story to grow into more, it was just lackluster. Which is disappointing - the potential was there for me to love this book.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started but could hardly get through to finish. Lovely world for boys and sons of men and their planets. General meh, aside for the insinuated sexual tension here and there

Maybe will pick up again in a bit

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got this as a mystery box book from mill no 5 in lowell. This book was alright. Definitely had some slow parts. Idk 2.5 outta 5 but i rounded up to a three. I like the writing style but i find orno to be overall not that interesting

[Arnie Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book, focused on two first-year students at Columbia who become friends, despite being very different, for a decade or more. I planned on giving it 5 stars, but was disappointed at the end, so 4.5 stars. The writing, however, is terrific.

[Nathan Chen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Hardship made character, hardship broke character; that was the paradox. Character to him was kindness and diligence and a certain social egalitarianism that was fundamental to society, and he still believed somehow that all three were instinctive."

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story of the friendship that develops between two young men who meet on their first day of college - one wealthy and one the son of an insurance salesman from Missouri.