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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An understated masterpiece about an intensely intimate friendship,
By
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This review is from: The Folded Leaf (Paperback)
Long before he was editing the likes of Nabokov, Updike, Salinger, Welty, and Cheever at The New Yorker, William Maxwell had established himself as a moderately successful novelist and story writer. Although "The Folded Leaf" is not his most acclaimed or famous novel, it probably has the most devoted (indeed, nearly cult-like) following. Its charm is its utter simplicity; a coming-of-age story, it is also a passionate tale about love--between two men. Yet this is no classic of "gay fiction" (although it will certainly appeal to gay readers); instead, "The Folded Leaf" tells about the intensely intimate, innocuously physical, yet almost entirely platonic relationship between two boys who don't quite fit in with the crowd and who grow up to be very different men. Published in 1945, this is the type of novel only the bravest of straight male authors would be comfortable writing today--and, in a way, that's too bad.Lymie Peters is the ectomorphic and studious introvert who meets Spud Latham, a dim yet muscular teenager who serves "as a kind of reminder of those ideal, almost abstract rules of proportion from which the human being, however faulty, is copied." Latham is new in town--his father has lost his job, and he lives with his family in a cramped apartment--and he inexplicably gravitates towards Lymie. At first Lymie's own feelings about Spud's attentions are ambivalent: "He couldn't help noticing the scales of fortune were tipped considerably in Spud's favor, and resenting it." What the boys have in common, though, is an undercurrent of barely suppressed fury that the people they know and the world around them aren't the stuff of their daydreams. Maxwell is compelling in his ability to transform what should be two excessive stereotypes into recognizable and believable flesh and blood. Even though Lymie almost sycophantically fawns over Spud (even serving as his towel boy at the gym), Spud in return offers emotional protection, social acceptance, and true friendship; in spite of Spud's increasing popularity, it is a relationship of equals, and the pair is inseparable. Maxwell has re-created the ideal friendship, which many of us once had, if only briefly in our youth--or in our imaginations. Ultimately, however, as with any relationship this close, the snare of jealousy and the fear of being alone gradually introduce crises that build to a startling crescendo. Although there is enough going on to move the story along, Maxwell's concern is psychological portrayal--and several of the pivotal scenes (even how the two boys meet) are completely left to the reader's imagination. But what makes this book memorable is Maxwell's lyrical and understated prose. This is a novel that invites hyperbole: the descriptions are disarmingly beautiful and the revelatory passages are quietly powerful. Lymie and Spud are so lifelike and, at the same time, so idealized that, when you've regretfully reached the last page, you'll be hungry to know even more about these two friends.
36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A truly exceptional book. Very few books are this perfect,
By Paul Burton (Reading) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Folded Leaf (Paperback)
This book is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read.Such is the quality of writting that some part of it will have resonance for evryone. The story is engaging and rewarding to read, the writing is intelligent and elegant. Maxwell can capture the subtleties of both verbal and non verbal communication and convey them with startling accuracy. His ability to identify the fragile and unredeemed features of human existence is both powerfull and moveing. Every boy & man should read this book, it will leave them richer than it found them.
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of my all time favorites,
By
This review is from: The Folded Leaf (Paperback)
This is the best William Maxwell novel I've read and one of the best novels I've ever read. I found the writing in this book to have the quality of a daydream and for the situations to ring true to life. The novel unfolds as life does and the details fall right into place. The characters themselves often engage in daydreams, which helps give it that life-like quality. Anyway, with most novels you get a sense of a strong authorial voice behind the words, as if someone is telling you the story. With Bellow or Cheever or Nabokov, for example, Maxwell's contemporaries, all of whom I like, you get a strong sense that their voice is theirs alone. With Maxwell, the authorial voice is much more gentle, almost as if the author were vanishing and his words were rising up off the page like vapor. It's interesting that Maxwell's voice seems somewhat different, novel to novel. There are some stunning passages in So Long, See You Tomorrow, but this is my favorite of the Maxwell I've read. It captures time and place so well. The midwest in the 1920's. It's very endearing - Sally says things like, "in a pig's ear" - yet still mysterious and, finally, heartbreaking. I've read it three times in the past nine months and it is a book I'm sure I'll return to again.
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