- Hardcover: 835 pages
- Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre / Not Applicable (Oct 1 1991)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0374252866
- ISBN-13: 978-0374252861
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 17 x 6.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 1.4 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
The Novel We Have All Been Waiting For turns out to be a sometimes brilliant evocation of the condition of being, pulsing with sensory imagery and with flashes of insight about the inherent qualities of good and evil and the presence of death in life. Brodkey's prose is supple, playful, often lyrical, but his obsession with words and the sensations they evoke is a detriment to dramatic tension. Thus the novel is also flabby, bloated, overwritten, overwrought, often tediously self-indulgent. Exquisitely sensitive and introspective Wiley Silenowicz looks back over a painful childhood and youth spent with his foster parents, Lila and S.L., and his slightly crazy half-sister, Nonie. His stream-of-consciousness narration is an attempt to resolve his relationships with all of them, especially with obnoxious, manipulative Nonie, whom he may have cheated of her parents' love. In a series of vignettes, slowly (too slowly) accruing into the story of his life, Wiley's neuroses are examined and explained, most of them attributable to the suppurating wound of his natural mother's death. In some respects Brodkey is a master of his craft. His ear for dialogue is beautifully tuned, especially in capturing Lila's insistent, cliche-laden, brassy voice. His meditations on language and his attempts to express the essence of an experience are provocative (although in some nearly interminable chapters, such as one called On Nearly Getting Laid, the repetition of minute detail renders sex virtually unerotic). Moreover, since these characters have already appeared in Stories in an Almost Classical Mode , much of the time the reader feels a sense of deja vu. In the end, the sheer wizardry of words tumbling on the page, the turbulent torrent of memories and desires, contribute to an intriguing fugal meditation on existence but do not amount to a compelling novel.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The most famous unpublished work in America, Brodkey's eagerly anticipated novel has finally arrived--dense, ambitious, and over 800 pages long. Its hero is Wiley Silenowicz, adopted in 1930 and raised by his cousins S.L. and Lila Silenowicz in St. Louis. Not quite as crafty as his name, but possessed of a fiercely observant intelligence that unfolds experience endlessly like a flower, Wiley must abide a glamorous, self-absorbed mother, an obnoxious sister, and a smooth-talking father who says things like, "I won't wear another man's shoes . . . but I'll tell another man's jokes. . . . I'm the father to another man's child." In the course of the novel, Wiley grows up, observes his parents, suffers his sister, experiences sexual longing and then sex. In short, nothing much happens except language--Brodkey's lush, carefully observed antidote to minimalism that will alternately enthrall and exasperate readers. The result? Brilliant, maddening, and essential for readers of good literature everywhere. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/91.
- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Unreadable, but unignorable,
By Polly-o (Salt Lake City, UT United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Runaway Soul (Paperback)
Like other products of obsession - Henry Darger's work, for example - this novel has a peculiar, rather unwholesome authority. There's no mistaking that every line is "poetry written with a splash of blood", to use Yukio Mishima's phrase. I have to agree with Salman Rushdie when he gallantly claimed that this book was "worth ten safe well-written little novels."Nonetheless, "The Runaway Soul" has to be shelved alongside other years-in-the-writing would-be masterpieces like "The Rosy Crucifixion" and "Ancient Evenings" as a noble failure. It's possible that Brodkey just chewed his cud a few years too long. (The "sketch versions" of this material collected in "Stories in an Almost Classical Mode" are substantially more rewarding, in my opinion.) Whatever the reason, he fails to transmute his suffering into literature on anything like a consistent basis. Brodkey would have done well to heed the editorial advice of an old Danish queen: "More matter and less art."
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.5 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews) 7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Unreadable, but unignorable,
By Polly-o - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Runaway Soul (Paperback)
Like other products of obsession - Henry Darger's work, for example - this novel has a peculiar, rather unwholesome authority. There's no mistaking that every line is "poetry written with a splash of blood", to use Yukio Mishima's phrase. I have to agree with Salman Rushdie when he gallantly claimed that this book was "worth ten safe well-written little novels."Nonetheless, "The Runaway Soul" has to be shelved alongside other years-in-the-writing would-be masterpieces like "The Rosy Crucifixion" and "Ancient Evenings" as a noble failure. It's possible that Brodkey just chewed his cud a few years too long. (The "sketch versions" of this material collected in "Stories in an Almost Classical Mode" are substantially more rewarding, in my opinion.) Whatever the reason, he fails to transmute his suffering into literature on anything like a consistent basis. Brodkey would have done well to heed the editorial advice of an old Danish queen: "More matter and less art." 5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
It's almost too much.....almost.,
By Jesse S. Walker "doomjesse" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Runaway Soul (Paperback)
When a novel starts out with a young boy masturbating and his thoughts during(not what you'd imagine) and after, you know something big is coming. Whether it's going to be shocking or if it's going to be something else is hard to tell. But the author's got your attention. And he keeps it for the most part. The novel encompasses the life of Wiley Silenowicz. And it's almost like experiencing every thought, feeling, and sense that he has.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Savory Journey,
By Vanessa - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Runaway Soul (Hardcover)
What a book! Brodkey's intimate portrayal of his characters remains true. This streaming-conscious book is a challenging work of prose that begs the reader to take it slowly, savor the words, feel the emotions, understand the characters. Brodkey executes this book beautifully, forming a triumphantly orignial and poignant story. I'd find myself, after reading a few chapters, putting the book down to revel and contemplate the viewpoints of the characters and my own. Time reading this book is time well spent.
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