Customer Reviews

The Delectable Mountains

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

 

 

Mrs. Amanda Thurston stands out as one of my all time favorite characters. Her stoic love and strength allows the reader to enjoy the craziness of the other characters as they swirl around her.

This book is a kick to read with the quirkiness from the 1970's shining through, yet it is written against the background of the shootings of President and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King and the war in VietNam. The characters in the book are searching how to make a life in the face of such violence and national upheaval. The Chapter "The Beginning of a Longer Journey" could have been written in 2003 instead of 1976. Not much progress made at all since then.

This was my first Michael Malone book and I loved it. I'm not even going to get into reviewing the story, I'll just say that it was a fun book to read. I'd put it up there with all the "great coming of age novels" I've read. In fact if I had to choose between Catcher in the Rye, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, On the Road, and The Delectable Mountains.... I'd choose this book.

The characters are engaging, the story is truely American and Moore keeps you entertained with all the twists and turns. Well woth reading.

Now that Michael Malone's books are finally becoming available again, you'll want to add this one to your collection. As usual, the characters are wonderfully off-beat and no one does characterization quite like Michael Malone. Not as great as "Handling Sin" but still not to be missed.

Malone, Michael. Dingley Falls (1980). The Delectable Mountains, or, Entertaining Strangers (1976).

One mature novel and one early one-that's what we have here in these lovely novels by Michael Malone. I came to Malone through the back door. I picked up two of his novels -Handling Sin and Uncivil Seasons-- in a used book store. I thought "What have I got to lose?" Then I let them sit for over a year. One night, on a whim, I started reading Handling Sin. Once inside Malone's comic world, bursting with life, joy and intelligence, I was utterly hooked. A month ago, I ordered five more of his novels from Amazon.com. The first two I've read are Dingley Falls and The Delectable Mountains.

Dingley Falls (1980) is a beautiful novel, which is at once comic and tragic. When you enter Dingley Falls, you are in a self-contained universe. It's not Pollyanesque, not at all, for dark and tragic things happen there. There's a rape and a killing. Several people die earlier than they should have because a secret government base nearby is experimenting with no controls on biowarfare and deadly pathogens are released from time to time into the neighboring community.

Among the wonders of this book is the ease with which Malone spins off an amazing number of real comic grotesques. There is also his abundant love for all his characters, even those who are flawed, even those who are evil. (One of the characters in this book is a repulsive neo-Nazi rapist.) His characters are flawed but they are flawed in human ways: you can love (most of) them once you get past their tics. This book is so life affirming! Bad things happen in it -really bad things occasionally--but they're part of Life's Mixed Bag, the bad coming with an awful lot of good. Malone stated in an interview that he felt that with Dingley Falls he had finally hit his stride. I believe him. I love this book!

Entertaining Strangers is Malone's second novel, published in 1976. It is nowhere near as accomplished as Dingley Falls (1980) but is a diverting read nonetheless. It shows Malone's considerable promise as a writer, in particular his skill in juggling a large cast of characters and in depicting humorous grotesques. (There is a crazed, pot-ridden and drunk activist named Spurgeon Debson who outdoes even Hunter S. Thompson, something I never thought I'd say about anyone real or fictitious.)

Strangers is narrated in the first person by Devin Donahue, who is just out of college and lacking direction or purpose. It is 1968, a time when many things were screwed up and a lot more people than just Devin were seriously confused. (The narrative starts: "Like the country, I was really fouled up when summer started in 1968.") Devin's older brother has just become engaged to the love of Devin's life. Devin can't handle it. He cops out, heads to Colorado, to serve as set designer for a terminally disorganized summer theater run by his high school flame, Leila, and her not at all talented husband Mittie. The reader's hopes for disaster are soon abundantly fulfilled in this funny but essentially trivial novel. By the end of the novel, Devin has found a direction, however tentative, for his life. The novel closes on the up beat, a little too tidily but still satisfying.

With the great American comic novelist Stanley Elkin dead, I am glad we still have Michael Malone around.

I recently moved to Colorado (and am living about an hour where this book took place) and was excited to start reading just based on the things we'd "have in common"! But sadly, I wasnt crazy about the author's writing style. He didnt really get you "close" to what they were feeling. He gave the charachters quite interesting personalities...but I think it takes more than that. I really wanted to get to know them. I kept reading along, hoping the storyline and plot would come to a climax or become somewhat exciting...but really when you read book jackete description, well, it doesnt get much more indepth that that. I grew up in the 80s so I didnt relate to this author's accounts of early-70s history. Besides he used them so sparingly that they never seemed to quite flow with the story as a whole, and almost felt like the author was "name-dropping," but with historical facts.

I gave the book three stars, because it wasnt horrible, I just think it takes the right reader to appreciate it. If you really like getting to know characters and solid story lines this isnt the book for you. The cover looked really cool (I'm an artist, okay) which is what first caught my eye. Hey, Kudos on the book cover.