Customer Reviews

Fade

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

this book is awesome. it had me spellbound the entire time i was reading it. i gave out about a dozen copies of this book for christmas because it was so amazing.

When the average person thinks about 'super-powers', what likely comes to mind is the usual conglomeration of superhero comic books, cartoons, movies, and television shows; a muscular gentleman in tights and a cape, not unlike a professional wrestler. But far more intriguing, and satisfying, are the more literal takes on the theme, whereby ordinary people react in a realistic manner to powers they have no possibility of comprehending. I think of novels such as Stephen King's THE DEAD ZONE (telekinesis), Paul Auster's MR. VERTIGO (levitation), and Jim Munroe's FLYBOY ACTION FIGURE COMES WITH GASMASK (transmogrification), or the Bruce Willis/Samuel L. Jackson movie UNBREAKABLE; examples of day-to-day people struck down by the impossible. Into this more rarefied genre enters a sterling example of the hazzards of the unknown, FADE, by Robert Cormier.

FADE follows the life of Paul Moreaux, a young boy growing up in early 20th century America. His family is constantly struggling with the labour and union problems of the time, and Paul himself has learned from his similarly inflicted uncle that he is cursed with a gift that is not what it seems; Paul has inherited the ability to 'fade', to disappear into nothingness on a whim. While at first appropriately thrilled at the prospect, Paul soon realizes the dilemma that comes with such a gift. His juvenile thrill-seeking leads to discoveries of a sexual nature both exciting and perverse, and deeply unsettling. And as his father becomes enmeshed in the violence of the labour revolts, Paul finds himself compelled to commit an act that will haunt his every move for the rest of his life.

To give away any more of the plot would be to ruin the pleasures that such a novel provides. As Paul's story progresses, it is contrasted with a modern-day account of his life by his niece. Playing the innocence of youth off the wisdom of maturity gives FADE a poignant, and sometimes more horrific edge. Cormier plays his hand close to this chest, never revealing more than the reader needs to know, yet constantly imparting a foreboding sense of unease as the story unfolds. His presentation of Paul's early life, the nature of youth, is both nostalgic and realistic. Paul is just at that age where the seriousness of life has become evident, yet the thoughtlessness and frivolity of immaturity still pulls strong on his psyche. Every person has that one event in their life that separates childhood from adulthood, and it is just Paul's misfortune that 'fading' is his introduction to the complexities of the world. The power of invisibility is never presented as the 'cure-all' that some people would like to believe. It is a power for which there is no practical purpose, yet is a power that can extract a terrible toil upon those unfortunate enough to possess it. Paul's adult persona, after swearing off the use of his fade, learns the perils that such a path provides, as he discovers the next generation of the gift.

Cormier's true gift in this narrative is to never lose sight of the way the world works. A person with a power has to adapt to a world unprepared for such an event. The knowledge of his difference serves to affect his every waking moment; his refusal to travel, or have his picture taken, or even associate beyond his close circle of family and friends. The insular nature of being different is a universal theme that everyone copes with on one level or another. The popular child who realizes that he or she has nothing to offer beyond appearance. The powerful executive who cannot cope with people on a less-than-professional basis. Look at the afflicted Johnny Smith of THE DEAD ZONE, living as a target for every weekly news-rag and sad-sack, because he had the bad idea to go public with his gift. Being different than everyone else leaves you a target for the uninformed, the uncaring, and the ignorant. Cormier knows this, perhaps as a byproduct of all the 'young adult' novels he has written. Everyone has a fear of being different; it's how we handle this fear that helps define who we are.

FADE is a truly fine novel, a memorable exploration of the tried-and-true theme, "With great power comes great responsibility". Paul's life is a testament to this idea, and his failures to fully comprehend this credo leads to some terrible consequences. God forbid someone less able to cope should be afflicted with such a power. As Paul comes to realize, the world itself would never be safe with such a threat.

I've already read The Chocolate War, and it's sequel and I loved them both. So I automaticallly had high expectations for this book (which was assigned for school). It's starts out great but as I read more and more it started to get choppy and lose quality. Infact the whole Ozzie chapter seems to be rushed threw, like he was in a rush to finish the darn thing. My favroite charecters (Susan and Rosanne) don't even have big parts. But just in case your still intrested here's a summary of the book.

Paul has the ability to fade away into nothing, become invisable. In every generation of the Moreaux family there is someone born with the fade and this time it's Paul. But the fun of the Fade is soon spoiled when Paul sees things he shouldn't see, and dose things he shouldn't do. How will the next generation deal with the fade?

I'd like to start by saying i'm over 13! I'm 15! But this book was great - I loved it and so did the large number of friends inc. my mum that I recommended it too. Anyway about the book - i have to admit I started to get a bit confused at first but I kept on with it - I couldn't put the book down! (It is now just slightly soggy from when I took it to read in the bath!!!). I can't really say much about it as nothing I said would bring it justice, apart from it IS his best novel so far. Since reading Fade i've read others of his and theyr'e just no comparison (actually Tenderness came close). Anyway it's an absolute must even if you have to get your mum or dad to read it to you!

I thought that Fade was a great story. I have read two other books by Robert Cormier, The Bumblebee Flies Anyway and Heroes, both are excellently written, just like Fade. I felt like I was Paul, that I could fade and that I had to deal with the problems that came with it. I really enjoyed hearing Susan, Paul's editor, and Susan's grandfather talk about their views on the story, and I even felt like they were real people. I was sad about how Paul's nephew dealt with the fade, but I knew deep in my heart that some people would use the fade that way. This story dealt with some issues that are hard to face and understand from the outside, but this book took me inside those issues, therefore I now understand them better. I wouldn't recommend this book to immature people, but to mature people who are ready to face real life issues.

this was My first book by Rober Cormier. and i think it's areallY good book the image is VERY vivid, felt like I was PAUl, reallymade me feel like i was IN the book, doing what he was doing. ...or it felt like watching a movie. i highly recommend this book. but in a way, it gets rather weird at the end but the begining to about middle is REALLY good yet i give 5 stars.

First, the prurience issue...it's SEXUALLY EXPLICIT... A sexually explicit coming-of-age novel from the eighties. Who'd'a thunk it? And when it comes right down to it, if you really think high school kids haven't already thought about this stuff without having read this book... well, let's put it more simply-- if you're the parent of a high school student who HASN'T thought about all this stuff, you may want to consider getting him this one for Christmas. Sheesh.

Because, when it comes right down to it, the first half of this book reads pretty much exactly like the fantasies of many an adolescent. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, and may even be a good thing, in a novel aimed at adolescents (unless the perspective belongs to the parent of the adolescent, who seems to think that sexual thoughts need to be PUT into someone's head, rather than just growing there on their own as a consequence of begin an adolescent. But that's a topic of discussion for the Dr. Laura list. The rest of you, please, just take my word for it). So I'm willing to allow all the latitude necessary given that I've pretty much forgotten adolescence.

When I start whining about Fade, then, I'm not whining about the explicitness of it. And I'm not whining about Cormier's writing style, for the most part; Fade is miles better than his two overrated teen "classics," the wooden The Chocolate War and the cardboard I Am the Cheese. It really flies, in fact, and ended up being my first single-day read of the year. So what's the whining about? The transparent strategy-changing exactly halfway through the book. One could argue that the plot, as set up at the end of the book, demads the things that happen in the middle (we suddenly have a storyline from 1938 interrupted by a storyline fifty years later, with absolutely no foreshadowing at all). This has been done a million times before, of course. The difference here is that in 99% of those cases, it's been handled better. Also, and perhaps this is a minor point, Cormier sets up a rhythm with his headings, and then breaks it towards the end, leaving the reader somewhat confused and disoriented as to what, exactly, he's trying to do.

The plot is about as complex as a primitive seesaw. Again, this is not a bad thing, and in fact contributes to what strengths the book has. It doesn't need a complex plot to get its point across. The plot being that a certain family, now living in rural Massachusetts (having emigrated from Canada), has one person in every generation capable of fading-- turning himself invisible. This trait passes from uncle to nephew (a never-explained oddity that ends up being a plot point), and has for at least two hundred years (it has been traced back to the mid-1700s). Paul Moreaux/Paul Roget, the book's protagonist, is thirteen in 1938, when he finds out he's the most recent family member to get the fade. His uncle, a drifter, comes back to town to school him in the ways of the fade. Simple, right? And in the correct hands, this tale and its obvious moral (if you spy on people, you're going to be let down by what they do in private-- well, duh) would be a killer. Has been a killer in many cases. But Cormier suddenly felt the need, halfway through his book, to add a number of subplots and complexities that made me want to rip my hair out. To keep playing devil's advocate, after I got used to the fact that we were going to skip around in time, I almost started enjoying the book again. Paul, once grown, has to continue the chain-- he searches for the nephew who's gained the power as well, and finds that one of the clumsiest pieces of foreshadowing ever written has come true. (Believe me, that's not a spoiler-- you'll know it the minute you read it.) And, through the jarring, clumsy mechanisms of the last half of the book, the most-improved-author status still shines, and I kept reading because here's a guy who's writing a good, fun story-- the work of an inspired but truly talented member of the X-Files fan fiction newsgroup is comparable.

And then comes the last paragraph.

I'm not sure I can give this one to you without spoilers. Suffice to say that the mechanism Cormier adopts in the last paragraph has been done by Stephen King a hundred times over a hundred times better. It's something that needs to be plotted all the way through a tale, rather than being a clumsy addition halfway through. (Two words: Springheel Jack.) If I hadn't been on a crowded train when I closed the back cover on this one, I'd have flung it for the last paragraph, if for nothing else. And there's enough else to warrant flinging before, even if there's also enough else to keep one reading up to that horrid last paragraph.

So what does one do with a book like this? One tries to balance everything out and hope for the best.

I am 14, in the eighth grade, and was assighned to read a book by Robert Cormier for my honors english class. I have read "I Am the Cheese," "Tenderness," "In the Middle of the Night," "Frenchtown Summer," "The Bumblebee Flys Anyway," and "The Chocolate War," besides "Fade," the book I decided to do my report on. I thought "Fade" was the most moving book I have ever read by him. I made a link with Paul's desperite feeling of slow isloation, was horrified by Ozzie's horrible acts toward the bum, and definitely identified with Susan's perspective of the book, and what ran through her head when she was reading it. I think it is the best book i have ever read by Cormier. The end of the book had my eyes glued open and my hands clutching the book, along with all sorts of wild thoughts running through my head like, "what if someone really CAN fade? what if i'm not really alone in this room at all?" speaking from the perspective of the age this book was written for, the book "Fade" may start out slow, but it's worth it. Frenchtown and it's people are now real in my mind. In my oppionion, the whole book is a carefully crafted and manuevered masterpeice anyone my age can wonder and connect with. Cormier is the only author I have ever read who can make the most unbelievable, overdone subject in the world breathtakingly real. So if you are thinking of reading or buying the book, I say DO IT! (I dont think adults would appreciate it though, and it would make a wierd gift.) ...

Do you know what it is like to become unattackable or invisible? Well this volume does a very propitious job of describing it through all of the detailed information he indicates. In the volume Fade, by Robert Cormier, he describes the biography of a young boy, named Paul, who inherits the power of fading from his uncle. The volume goes into details of how and what Paul does when he has faded. If you enjoy detailed, magical, or fading I'd recommend this book for you!

Really, really one of my favorite books. It was written very well, it held my attention and was eerily scary. I don't understand how people can give "Crazy in Alabama" (which was an okay book, but not particularly focused when it came to plots) four five stars and this less than that! This was an awesome book!