- Audio CD
- Publisher: Phoenix Audio; Unabridged edition (Sep 1 2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1597771449
- ISBN-13: 978-1597771443
- Product Dimensions: 14.7 x 13 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 181 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (132 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Among literary cognoscenti, Charles Baxter has a well-deserved reputation as one of America's finest writers. Best known for his short stories, Baxter has also produced three novels. His fourth, The Feast of Love, combines the best of both genres--with a light dusting of metafiction to sweeten the dish. The book begins with Baxter himself waking from a nightmare and going for a moonlit walk through his hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan. While sitting on a park bench, he is joined by an acquaintance of 12 years--and, incidentally, one of the main characters in the novel. It is Bradley who gives Baxter the name for the novel he's currently struggling to write, and even offers himself as a character:
You should call it The Feast of Love. I'm the expert on that. I should write that book. Actually, I should be in that book. You should put me into your novel. I'm an expert on love. I've just broken up with my second wife, after all. I'm in an emotional tangle. Maybe I'd shoot myself before the final chapter. Your readers would wonder about the outcome.But why stop there? Bradley goes on to suggest that he send people to Baxter, "actual people, for a change, like for instance human beings who genuinely exist, and you listen to them for a while. Everybody's got a story, and we'll just start telling you the stories we have"--a sly tip-off to the reader of this elegant, quirky, and wholly engrossing novel that the writer may be no more reliable than his narrators.
What follows is a chronicle of love--the mad kind, the bad kind, and the kind that sustains us when everything else is gone. In addition to Smith, we meet Chloé, a young waitress at Bradley's espresso bar, and her ex-junkie boyfriend, Oscar; Bradley's next door neighbors, Harry Ginsburg, an elderly professor of philosophy, and his wife, Esther; and Kathryn and Diana, Bradley's two ex-wives. The characters take turns narrating, often commenting on and correcting versions of events mentioned by other characters in previous chapters, and occasionally advising Baxter on the progress of his novel: "Don't threaten people, especially lawyers" legal eagle Diana warns "Charlie" shortly before she launches into her own story. "Don't threaten your own characters. It's for your own good. You'll wind up in a mess of litigation and... subplots." But in The Feast of Love, God is in the subplots--Oscar and Chloé's involvement in the porn industry; Esther and Harry's agonized relationship with their mentally ill son; Bradley's travails in love, art, and dog ownership. As the novel progresses, these separate strands gradually merge, and not even an unexpected tragedy can dim the luster of this moonstruck romance. For by the time Baxter brings his tale of love and loss and redemption to a close, his characters have all found their way to the feast--bittersweet though some of the dishes may be. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Baxter (First Light, Harmony of the World, Believers) has for too long been a writer's writer whose books have enjoyed more admirers than sales. Pantheon appears confident that his new novel can be his breakout work. It certainly deserves to be. In a buoyant, eloquent and touching narrative, Baxter breaks rules blithely as he goes along, and the reader's only possible response is to realize how absurd rules can be. Baxter begins, for example, as himself, the author, waking in the middle of the night and going out onto the predawn streets of Ann Arbor (where Baxter in fact lives). Meeting a neighbor, Bradley Smith, with his dog, also called Bradley, he is told the first of the spellbinding stories of love--erotic, wistful, anxious, settled, ecstatic and perverse--that make up the book, woven seamlessly together so they form a virtuosic ensemble performance. The small cast includes Bradley, who runs the local coffee shop called Jitters; Diana, a tough-minded lawyer and customer he unwisely marries after the breakup of his first marriage to dog-phobic Kathryn; Diana's dangerous lover, David; Chloe and Oscar, two much-pierced punksters who are also Jitters people and who enjoy the kind of sensual passion older people warn will never last, but that for them lasts beyond the grave; Oscar's evil and lustful dad; philosophy professor Ginsberg, who pines for his missing and beloved son, Aaron; and Margaret, the black emergency room doctor with whom Bradley eventually finds a kind of peace. The action takes place over an extended period, but such is the magic of Baxter's telling that it seems to be occurring in the author's mind on that one heady midsummer night. His special gift is to catch the exact pitch of a dozen voices in an astutely observed group of contemporary men and women, yet retain an authorial presence capable of the most exquisite shadings of emotion and passion, longing and regret. Some magical things seem to happen, even in Ann Arbor, but the true magic in this luminous book is the seemingly effortless ebb and flow of the author's clear-sighted yet deeply poetic vision. 30,000 first printing; 10-city author tour. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
"HEY," HE SAYS, "Charlie. What the hell are you doing here? Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
"HEY," HE SAYS, "Charlie. What the hell are you doing here? Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely perfect in every way,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Feast of Love: A Novel (Paperback)
This may be my favorite book that I have ever read. It is absolute magic. Plot is secondary. This story, instead, is an exploration into different kinds of love. It twists and meanders without a clear destination, much like love itself. Along the way, we meet slightly otherworldly characters. Most of all, we get to listen to Baxter write. And he can WRITE! Reading this novel is like reading the most beautiful poetry by Frost and Yeats put into prose form. The words alone would be almost enough, but the words combined with the wonderful stories will simply take your breath away.I found something to identify with in each and every one of the characters in this book. Some characters I actually fell in love with--Chloe and Oscar, with their perfect, intense love; Bradley, with his immutable optimism and his desire to help his lover in every possible way; the Ginsburgs and their perpetual, unconditional love for their children; Bradley's dog, Bradley, who perfectly illustrates why people have pets (or why pets have people). Some characters are certainly less magical, like Diana and the Bat. But they do not qualify as villains. They have a place in this novel, and it is not to be a mere foil to the types of love depicted by Chloe, Oscar, the Bradleys and the Ginsburgs. I really cannot heap enough praise on this masterpiece. I have plans to reread The Feast of Love forthwith.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't be scared off by the title or the cover!,
By
This review is from: The Feast of Love: A Novel (Paperback)
This book is amazing and a 2004 must read for both guys and gals! If you enjoyed movies like Short Cuts or 6 Degree's of Separation you will love this book and understand how it's laid out (i.e. separate characters - living separate lives - somehow connected). This book proved to me that ANY unique thought, personality trait, quirk/tick, phrase/snappy word selection, word choice, vision, day dream, fear, insecurity, issue, event, etc. that I thought was truly unique to ME and made me different from everyone else is/was a big farce. Charles Baxter was able to provide me with a 'grow up' wake up call - prove to me that there is nothing original nor unique about me or how I think or what I say or how I act, etc. My entire 'supposedly unique character/self' is smeared across every character (male and female) in this book. All men over the age of 30 should be required to read this book.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A modern Symposium...,
By JR Pinto (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Feast of Love: A Novel (Paperback)
I see this book compared to Plato's Symposium in the critical blurbs. That's fair enough - Baxter references it himself in the book. I admire any writer who can write about philosophy so effortlessly while not being boring. As soon as one of the characters claimed to be obsessed with Kierkegaard, I was hooked.Yes, this book is a feast of love. It is about romantic love in all its aspects - young and not so young. The most adorable couple in the book are the teenagers Oscar and Chloe (pronounced "Klow-Ay"). They are just punks who spend most of their time having sex, but their dreams are surprisingly traditional. Don't be scared off if you think that a book about love is going to be sappy - it isn't. Baxter breathes life into all of his diverse characters. We come to feel for them - their dreams, their fears, and their frustrations. When tragedy finally strikes, we are so involved we become heartbroken too. Baxter writes in an interview style, effectively giving us multiple first-person narrators. The conversational writing quickly hooks the reader and moves him briskly along. It is like an Altman film - there is no central character, just an interesting journey into the lives and loves of these Midwestern people. A very good read.
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