Customer Reviews

Bowl of Cherries: A Novel

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3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I had high hopes for this book, as I loved the book McSweeneys pushed hard this time last year, "The Children's Hospital" (Chris Adrian). They gave "Bowl of Cherries" the same sort of push at Book Expo America that "The Children's Hospital" received, even giving out thirty-odd page excerpts, which is how I first learned of the book. And if the McSeeneys folks are excited, I'm excited.

While "Bowl of Cherries" starts out strong and enjoyable, almost gleeful, at the half-way point it changes direction and really loses something. The likeable and interesting characters (our narrator, Judd, and his increasingly less believable love interest, Valerie) at the beginning of the story don't seem to grow, and the ending seems kind of false and needlessly drawn out.
That's not to say, though, that it's not a worthwhile read. Though not as prevalent through the second half, there are plenty of excellent turns of phrase and little insights and incidents throughout that'll make you smile.

Social satire in the grand tradition of Voltaire. Written with a vocabulary that has the precision of a surgeon's knife. A book for the cerebrating person.

I don't think it's any coincedence that a 90-year old reminds me of Vonnegut, but this is a terrific book that a lot of my friends are getting from me for the holidays.

Very funny, very satiric, very good.

I've read this wonderful novel three times - first when it was published, again about half a year ago, and now this third time, and I've found that my enjoyment only increases with each reading. And sadly, it's with this latest reading that I've discovered Millard Kaufman passed away, on March 15, 2009, at 92 years of age. I was floored to read that he's survived by his wife...of 66 years! I mourn his passing, but still...that's one full life, so at least we can be assuaged by the fact that Kaufman left us a lot of great material. (Including a second novel, "Misadventure," which McSweeney's will publish in Fall of 2009. I've been unable to discover what this novel will be about, but you can be sure I'll be pre-ordering it.)

Reviews for this novel are split right down the middle here on Amazon, so I want to set the record straight: Bowl of Cherries is a novel for writers. This is a novel that shows what wonder still survives in the English language. In our increasingly dumbed-down vernacular, here is a book that boldly unleashes a host of ten-dollar words without even recoursing to explaining them; how refreshing it is to be in the hands of an author who trusts in the intelligence of his readers.

The novel's narrated by Judd Breslau, a 14 year-old prodigy who attends Yale, his focus of study an obscure Romantic poet. In the course of his research he meets Phillips Chatterton, a crackpot who operates a rundown house of fellow crackpots. After a series of misadventures, Judd's kicked out of Yale and ends up in Chatterton's rundown house. His main reason for being there is Valerie, Chatterton's gorgeous, 16 year-old daughter, whom Judd swoons for at length. ("All else is trumpery," as he puts it.)

I would've been happy if the entire novel took place in Chatterton's house. The situation comes off like a funnier version of "Rattner's Star" by Don DeLillo, with an incredibly smart teenager holed up in a mansion full of quacks and kooks. Kaufman could've elaborated this into two hundred more pages easily, maybe even evolving it into a "Gormenghast"-like tale with inner rivalries and treacheries and plottings.

And he does this, to some extent, but once Judd's gotten as close to Valerie as possible, he takes his leave and moves on into the world. This leads into an enjoyable sequence of events, with Judd working at a horse ranch, getting a job as an obituary writer, and finally visiting a porn studio (beneath the Golden Gate Bridge). There he meets Valerie again, and after another set of misadventures, Judd and Valerie end up in Assama, Iraq, where the entire second half of the book takes place. And this is the main problem: the second half of this novel pales in comparison with the first.

I have found that with successive readings you don't mind the final half of the novel as much (probably because you're expecting it), but still, after the madcap adventures of the first half, you feel like you're stuck in a mudpit as you trudge through the seemingly-endless descriptions of Assama culture and architecture and customs. How I wanted Judd to flee back to Chatterton's manse! But we're in Iraq for the duration. Judd's old pal Abdul is now king of Assama, he's gotten hold of Valerie, and he tosses Judd in prison on cooked-up charges. It all leads to a rousing finale (probably what the NYTimes reviewer was thinking of with his lame "Catcher in the Rye meets Die Hard" tagline), with all the divergent plot threads coming together.

But it really is a trawl, getting through the second half. The book just comes to a standstill, and Kaufman is very much out of his element (he claimed in an interview that he placed the novel in Iraq because the country "seems to be in the news a lot lately"). It's only here that the overuse of adjectives and adverbs and ten-dollar words - sources of much discontent for other readers - serves to bother me, because they're not supporting anything - they're just there to be there, and the story itself withers away. Things do pick up eventually, with the appearance of a previously-mysterious character, all of it culminating in an apocalyptic finale which seems out of place, until one remembers said mysterious character's fascination with the Adam and Eve story in Genesis.

There are kernels of absolute wisdom buried throughout the text , which is to be expected from a 90-year-old novelist. Kaufman even includes a few sly digs at his own advanced age via his teenaged narrator. But I do feel that some of the dialog falls flat. Young characters talk like they're in the 1950s; I've never in my life heard a kid refer to his dad as "Pop," and I've yet to hear a knockout teenage girl refer to someone as "loopy." Judd himself comes off a bit too idealized; despite his braniac nature and misfit personality, he can still hold his own in fistfights and he can still get the girl. Also annoying is his constant complaining and his refusal to do anything; several times throughout this novel characters will ask Judd to help them with something, or to take part in some activity, and every single time he refuses. It gets to be redundant.

But these are minor inconveniences; the only really challenging part of this novel is the second half, which you might in fact enjoy more than I did. But I love this novel regardless, and I recommend it with enthusiasm.

Special note: Avoid the Grove Press softcover. As another reviewer mentioned, it's missing page 244 of the text. Just pick up the McSweeney's hardcover, which features the entire text and is better packaged to book.

... not too sweet, and not too tart; but a delicious mouthful bursting with both. This novel reads as a fun, satirical frolic with plenty of unexpected twists. I found myself avidly enjoying each chapter like a ripe cherry on a late summer's eve. There is a plentitude of $5 words which can lead you off on fun tangents of exploration in your handy dictionary; or like I did, one can underline them and return like a squirrel to a nut for an autumn's eve of scholarly study. So it is that Kaufman indulges the reader with language that so very unfortunately is no longer enjoyed in these rat-race days of terse and abbreviated, instant-messaging intercourse. With such an eloquent use of vivid language, the lucid nonagenerian author dresses English in its Sunday best and parades it, as if to presage us, the younger readers, to rage, rage against the dying of the light and not allow our language to languish to the pathetic destitution of nothing more than mere pulp fiction and text messages. So, enjoy the show!

To have a little more fun and learn more about Kaufman (and even Mr. Magoo!), you can visit the NPR website and search for a bowl of cherries to find his Weekend Edition interview with Scott Simon.

I just finished this amazing comic novel and it's still reverberating in the back of my mind. Erudite, cosmopolitan and witty, if you loved Catch 22 or A Confederacy of Dunces, you will love this book!

Author of the new historical novel...
[ASIN:1934037397 Judge Fogg]]

At times reading like T.C. Boyle's demented grandfather, or Kurt Vonnegut's bilious blood brother, Mr. Kaufman shows there is indeed a whole lot of life after Bad Day at Black Rock and Mr. Magoo. In "Bowl of Cherries," he has written an exuberant, world-weary, lecherous, political, poop-centric, howl-inducing, thought-provoking novel that does lose considerable steam after the first 100 or so pages, but still manages to pack more of a nonsensical, yet eerily-on-point punch than the work of satirists one third, or half, or any other fraction of his much-publicized age.

People either love or hate this book. While I like Vonnegut, Catch-22, etc, this book is unique. And entertaining. Kaufman's word choice is fantastic (yeah. he uses big words. Get over it and learn something) and he has great characters (a zany egyptologist who only wears dirty bathrobes, for example) and absurdly comical locales (a porn studio, old mansion, etc and the circumstances that get the main character to Iraq are great). Tried to explain this book to my hair dresser and came off sounding like a crazy person. As others have said, the second half isn't as good but I was still more than willing to push through it and get to the end. Over all, I found this book entertaining, thought-provoking, and different.

(And better than his second book,Misadventure)

BOWL OF CHERRIES is a great way to spend your reading time. It's thoughtful, funny, witty, doesn't assume the reading is a dope (yes, some words sent me to the dictionary - I guess the writer figures readers want to be challenged a bit). It actually MAKES YOU THINK! How refreshing.

I was really enjoying the book until I came to page 244 - BLANK! Since page 243 ends in a partial sentence and 245 starts in a partial sentence, there is no doubt that the publisher screwed up and left page 244 blank. This is in the first paperback edition from Grove Press. Extremely annoying, and there appears to be no way to email the publisher about it.