Customer Reviews

Dreamland: A Novel

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I couldn't make up my mind if it had no plot or too many plots. As a series of character studies or a glimpse into New York City history, it was a great book. I could've done without Jung and Freud visit America, and still am not sure what they added to the story, but I really got caught up in Esther's story. I have seen the "Coney Island" program by Ric Burns that was mentioned in the sources section, and this kept bringing me back to memories of that show.

Dreamland is a bit of a paradox for me...I liked it and didn't like it...was intrigued, and bored...so many contradictions, I don't know what to think....

Dreamland starts in a dark, hypnotic swirl of smoke, promising shadows and magic...and quickly becomes something else...something more...real. Kid Twist, immigrant and self-appointed savoir of children running free in the streets rescues a dwarf disguised as a newsboy and a a young man in danger of having his back broken by the dreadful Gyp the Blood, extortionist and pimp, by brandishing a shovel which he uses to knock Gyp out cold, and then runs, knowing he has incurred the wrath of a dangerous and powerful enemy.

His flight takes him into the arms of...Gyp's sister, Esther...a proud seamstress who is torn between duty to her family and a desire to stand up for herself. Her affair with Kid Twist; carried on in the hindquarters of a Tin Elephant hotel, quickly confirms for Esther her burgeoning womanhood, and the fact that it is time for her to start living as such, despite the protests of her father.

Add in an American visit by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, plenty of political intrigue, and numerous glimpses into the world of Coney Island at the turn of the 20th century...this novel is chock full of content.

So why only four starts? Because throughout the 500+ pages..I failed to find a centralized plot line, other than the danger of Esther and Kid Twist's affair being discovered by her brother.

Kevin Baker delivers a very well realized portrait of blue collar people, circus freaks, and Bowery Bullies, but fails to pull all of them together tightly enough to really wow me.

Worth the read to explore the world of Coney Island that will never be again....I hope that future novels of Kevin Baker will have a better realized plot.

I've seen several movies and read several books about life in New York around this time, but none of them are as full of life and wonder as Kevin Baker's "Dreamland".

Baker's description of turn of the century New York and Brooklyn, as well as the people who populate them, is full of color, intrigue, and emotion. All of the people he describes are fully realized individuals, from Trick the Dwarf and Gyp the Blood (don't you love those names?) down to Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, who did indeed visit the US around that time for a series of lectures.

My personal favorite in Baker's collection of characters is Big Tim Sullivan, one of the high muckety-mucks in New York's Tammany Hall political machine - and boy, does he have character. To be sure, Baker's description of him is full of a lot of the old Irish stereotypes - but you still can't help liking the guy, for the simple reason that his heart is in the right place (well, most of the time, anyway).

The only flaw in Baker's tale is his description, toward the end of the book, of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. That lacked much of the emotion and punch of the rest of his story.

I'm eagerly looking forward to Baker's next book.

Read this book if you have eclectic tastes, love saucy descriptions, and want to revel in the work of writers who clearly love their work. It's rare that I read a book by someone and think, "I'd love to meet this guy." This is one of those times.

The historical details of Coney Island, New York, and the labor movement in in the early 20th century are masterful, not only in their (mostly) accurate portrayals, but in Baker's ability to keep it lively, centered, and completely entertaining. I wish this book would have spanned twice the page count.

Only four stars because there are lots of loose ends here and some scattergun artistic license (especially in the end), but I dare you to not have a good time with this book. I know I did, and I can't wait to read "Paradise Alley" next!

I bought this book after I finished reading Gangs of NY by Asbury and I was a little disappointed but not mad. The only reason I'm a little disappointed is it wasn't what I was expecting after reading Gangs of NY. This book only focuses on 6 or 7 main players and not the huge bag you read about in Gangs of NY.
It was still a very interesting book that I felt seemed to read more like short stories then history. I found myself very interested in all the subjects of the book except Freud. I don't understand where that fit into timeline of early NY.
The author did keep my interest enough that I still wanted to read everyday until I finished.
It is a long book that reads at average speed.

This was an incredible book, filled with fascinating details of the early 20th century and set in lower Manhattan and on Coney Island. All the characters were intriguing, from the cruel Gyp the Blood to the romantic but cynical Trick the Dwarf to the stoic yet ill-at-ease-in-America Freud. The stories were different and yet similar, starting off apart and weaving together in time. Yes, the book was long, but I wish it could have been longer. Kudos, Kevin Baker!

I was so excited when I found this book. I have always had a fascination for old New York, it's culture and it's people. While some of the parts describing Coney Island and the lower east side were very interesting, the author lost me when he introduced Freud and Jung to this story. I found myself saing "oh please" more than once while reading these parts. If you find this book in your library, take it out. Otherwise you may want to save your money.

Like the best epic historical novels, Kevin Baker's Dreamland is rich in both history and compelling characters. I can't think of a better way to understand New York in 1912 than reading this book. Dreamland gives us a look at carnivals, tenements, unions, crime, women's issues, immigration, working conditions and more.
Dreamland follows a group of characters (many based in on actual people) unraveling their stories and bringing them together for a satisfying climax.
Dreamland is long but only because it has to be, there's not a bit of excess here.
Baker is both a skilled historian and writer of prose.
Great fun.

Baker's Dickensian epic history of turn-of-the-century New York captures the essense of our identity crisis...we are poor, rich, kind, ruthless, assimilated, ethnic...and we're all jostling for our place in the sun. The author ingeniusly links two major fires in the city's history: the fire that destroyed the Dreamland amusement park (a sign of our lost innocence), and the fire that killed hundreds of young immigrant seamstresses in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, a fire which (ironically) hardened the working poor's steely resolve to sieze their constitutionally guaranteed right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are big ideas, communicated through the eyes and experiences of a huge cast of both real and ficticious characters, all well-rendered, and human in their foibles, heroic in their strengths. To read it is to see the fabled melting pot for what it really is, an immense collision of old and new, haves and have-nots, pure and corrupt, innocent and jaded, orthodox and iconoclast. A fascinating, touching, and well constructed diarama of America at her most volatile.

At it's best, Dreamland reveals that Baker knows his New York, can spin a scene, repel or fascinate. Unfortunately, the best of Dreamland comes to a sum total of about 70 pages in a novel closer to 700 pages long. It's a sprawling, lazy book, the author attempting to throw everything into his stew pot and getting thoroughly confused in the process. I've never read a work of historical fiction so well researched, so determined to show you the ins and out and anecdotes of a period, that then steps away from the plot itself. I quote from the final pages, "You want an epilgue, but who knows where people go?" Baker seems to miss the point entirely. These aren't people. They are his characters. Therefore, the author should know where they go. To drag a reader through 700 pages and then offer them a definitive absence of resolution reeks of literary trickery in a book that has purported to being big, open and honest. What a disappointment. If the author and editor had sat down and taken their time, perhaps something great might have been carved from this fat turkey. Too often, the reader jars to lines like, "a tram swooped down on them like a bird of prey." Ok, so I haven't taken many trams in my life, but they don't tend to "swoop". Mr Baker hasn't learned to take his foot off the accelerator. He speeds along, obviously without the faintest clue of where he was going. How can that do anything but disappoint?