Customer Reviews

The Little Book: A Novel

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I am a self-admitted book-a-holic, and for a book to keep me up and guessing - that's saying a lot. For a book to completely surprise me - that is saying even more. For a book to challenge me intellectually and make me laugh out loud in parts - to be cerebral and totally cool at the same time - sheer delight! How did Selden Edwards pull THAT off? This book makes me want to sit down with the writer and ask a hundred questions about the obvious craft of turning such an outrageous idea (and it is that) into a cohesive story. I didn't want the book to end, and I miss the characters already. My book club is reading it, and I can hardly wait to hear everyone's favorite passage/character/scene/line. It's clearly my favorite book of the summer, and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't a terrific movie in a summer to come; it plays (and stays) in the mind like the best kind of film.

The Little Book is impossible to describe and impossible to forget. The characters that Edwards creates- and the insights about different cultures and eras- are nothing short of remarkable. Just like Pat Conroy says on the cover, it forever changes you. I finished it and immediately began re-reading- and was still sad when it was over. It is a perfect book club choice, vacation read, or book to recommend to a friend. You won't be able to put it down!

Time travel is a tricky theme for writers to tackle. It's difficult to make the events and reactions feel real and natural, and to tie up all the loose ends of the plot. It's even harder to do all this and still explore other ideas in the story, giving the fantastic aspects a foundation and relatability. First-time novelist Selden Edwards's tale, THE LITTLE BOOK, presents readers with the story of an amazing family, two members of whom have become dislodged from linear time.

Beyond the incredible lives of three generations of the Burden family, Edwards paints a picture of Europe on the brink of a new age. In 1897 Vienna holds all the promise of a fully realized and splendid civilization. But, as history has shown, collapse and violence were on the horizon.

Wheeler Burden --- famous American college baseballl player, rock star and author --- suddenly finds himself in Vienna. It is the end of the 19th century, and the city is full of artists, philosophers and musicians. It is the time of Mahler, Klimt and Freud, and the youth of the city are part of a social, artistic and intellectual revolution. Because of his prep school mentor, Arnauld Esterhazy (known as The Haze), whose memoir he edited and published, Wheeler knows all about Vienna. He steals some clothes and money and sets off to see the city. But that theft leads to an incredible chain of events that plays out over almost the next 100 years and then circles in on itself starting all over again.

In Vienna, Wheeler comes to meet his war-hero father who died when he was just a small boy. The two, Wheeler and Dilly Burden, agree not to interfere in history (as Dilly has time traveled to Vienna as well), but Wheeler falls in love with the beautiful Bostonian writer Eleanor Putnam. The biggest problem with their affair is that she is his own grandmother.

This incest, though explained away by Edwards, is problematic. Wheeler and Eleanor are supposed to be having a monumental love affair, but the duality of their relationship is hard to get past. This is not the only flaw in Edwards's book. Full of big ideas and interesting characters, a blend of fantasy and historical fiction, THE LITTLE BOOK is often a victim of its own devices. The loops of time are occasionally confusing (which relationship came first: Wheeler and Eleanor as lovers, or as family?), the characters are more heroic and perfect than is realistic and their motivations are sometimes unclear. Whole sections of narration read like Freudian therapy sessions, which isn't surprising since Freud (along with Mahler, Hitler and other famous Austrians) is an important figure in the story. Edwards owes just as much to Joseph Campbell and his theories on the hero's journey as he does to Freud in telling this ambitious tale.

In the end, while much of what Edwards attempts in THE LITTLE BOOK is compelling, the main characters, especially Wheeler, seem to lack any real humanity: they are beautiful and talented, brilliant and influential, and, for some reason, stuck in a time warp moving from California in 1988 to Vienna in 1897, all using a set of books (who wrote what first and inspired by whom? It gets lost in the narrative shuffle) to navigate their way around.

Edwards is obviously a talented writer with a knack for history, art, philosophy and even baseball. Here he tackles not only time travel but also cultural change, anti-Semitism, the birth of psychoanalysis, modern European history, the perfect baseball pitch, the emergence of contemporary feminism and much more. Here's hoping that his next book will be published with a firm editorial hand.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

I am a historical novel junkie, especially ones that include time travel (see Allen Appel, Jack Finney, etc.). I have visited Vienna, my grandfather was Austrian, and I dig Secessionism and anything having to do with fin de siecle Europe. That said, I was very disappointed with this book, especially when reading how it took 35 years to write. Oh, what a tangled, stilted, unintentionally funny story! The characters are wooden at best, they bob along like the marionettes at Schönbrunn Palace from one chapter to another. Despite all the Freudian discussions (yawn) of the Oedipus complex and sex, which provides the outline of the story, the actual intimate encounters are only coyly suggested by "sudden releases" and much clothing adjustment, as if the author was afraid his grandmother might pick up the book and read it. The narrative is confusing; ostensibly it is done by Wheeler's mother, but it contains many conversations, thoughts and details that no one, not even Proust, would have included in a journal. Edwards' encyclopedic (or shall we say Wikipedic?) references to 1897 Vienna are dropped in like sticky notes, and rarely fit the context of the story. And for Pete's sake, what's with the Frisbee??? Frisbees were the darling of postwar, flying saucer hyped America when baby boomers and play time were in great abundance. What happens when Wheeler discovers the grieving Empress in the Imperial Art Museum? He mumbles apologies about the death of her son and then solemnly gives her his wooden Frisbee! Why? So she can kick back, forget her troubles, grab a bottle of Boone's Farm and throw a few to old Franz Joseph in the Wienerwald? The Wham-O corporation should thank Edwards for the endorsement. Later, she appears while Wheeler and his dad are playing with yet another Frisbee, and solemnly hands him her son's ring wrapped in a handkerchief. Why? Maybe he didn't have enough bling for the fin de siecle. The twists and turns of the murky plot, the encounters with famous people and the hopelessly bland characters just went stale midway through the book, and I had to force myself to finish it. Too bad. Good thing it was a library book!

...this ain't it.

I'll admit it up front: that's what I was hoping this would be. A magical reading experience that enthralled, bewitched, captivated. Word-of-mouth, blurbs, advance press seemed to indicate a chance of this...but in the end, Mr. Edward's novel suffers from the malady that many of the books I've read this year have been felled by: 'editor interruptus'. (Don't harrangue me for my Latin; I'm the only student in the history of my high school to have failed the course.)

I'm not sure what Mr. Edwards is. He's a novelist, yes...but he's not a tried-and-true storyteller. He's an entertainer...but more one that performs simple card tricks than genuine magic. He can carry a tune well enuough...but he ain't no singer.

'The LIttle Book's premise is fascinating. The storyline threads are woven with a credible workmanlike execution. But there is no flair. (Which is surprising, considering the subject matter.) There are no moments of remarkable literary flourish. (Additionally surprising, considering the author's writerly heroes...and his profession.) And most all...there is no magic.

This book will please some while frustrating others. (For the record, I would have scored it three-and-a-half stars, were I able) It is a wholesome, earnest effort, and I congratulate Mr. Edwards for completing the task, after so long a time.

My wish for him is that the gestation period for his second novel be not quite as long...and that he corrals some faerie dust along the way.

I was led to acquire "The Little Book" by a laudatory review that emphasized its setting in fin-de-siècle Vienna, a long-standing interest of mine. Having read the book, I can report two disjunct reactions to it:

1. "The Little Book" offers an intriguingly convoluted time-travel story, centered on 1897 Vienna but jumping repeatedly into and out of the twentieth century. The plotting is ingenious, but the characters are simplistically exaggerated and, hence, less interesting than they might have been.

2. The fin-de-siècle Viennese setting is described only superficially. There is a Kaffehaus circle of young intellectuals unhappy with their city and its culture; Sigmund Freud plays a major role, and Gustav Mahler, a minor one; the city's Mayor in 1897, Karl Lueger, has a background presence that emphasizes his anti-Semitism; and a bloody street demonstration in November 1897 is witnessed by some of the novel's characters.

Unfortunately, the unfamiliarity of the author (and, apparently, also the editor) with Austrian culture and history is revealed by some atrocious typographical errors. The author twice refers to an archetypal Viennese delicacy, pastry with whipped cream, as "torte mitt Schlagg" (not as the correct mit Schlag); a composition of Mahler's is called "Lieder Eindes Fahrended Gesellen" (instead of the correct Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen); Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser is misspelled "Tannehausen"; a fin-de-siècle Viennese artist is mentioned in the story as "Egon Sciele", though the Author's Note at the end of the book has it correct as "Schiele"; Karl Lueger's nickname is given as "die shone Karl", roughly translatable as "pretty [woman] Karl", instead of der schöne Karl "handsome [man] Karl"; and, finally, throughout the book what should have been Fräulein appears as "Fraulein".

It's beyond me how anyone claiming to have spent 30+ years studying fin-de-siècle Vienna and writing this book could be so uncaring about accuracy in details like these, which should have helped him set the scene but which, as they stand, detract from his scene-setting.

My interest in and enjoyment of the book started at a high level, but by the end, I was just tiredly plodding through in order to find out how the author would resolve his many convolutions.

I was disappointed because of high expectations. I'm fascinated by fin de siècle Vienna. I endured four years of prep school. And I listened to Maureen Corrigan's reivew (Fresh Air, 8/20). So I looked forward to reading this. I read the first half to two-thirds of the book with enjoyment, with its evocation of both imperial Vienna and World War Two. Unfortunately, the rest of the book seemed focused on tying everything together -- perhaps too neatly -- and in the end, I was left wondering what was the point, especially if the villain of the piece is never punished. This will not entertain anyone who can't accept how the two heroes, father and son, personify all the virtues and implausibly connect with so much of the cultural life of the twentieth century.

At the outset let me say that I am a lover of opera and classical music. I adore Vienna. It is one of my favorite cities in the world. I have always been fascinated by fin de siecle Vienna with it's amazing wealth of creative geniuses during this period - Klimt, Schiele, Mahler, Schnitzler, Wittgenstein, and Freud. I've read extensively about this period. Consequently, when I saw "The Little Book" I couldn't wait to read it. However, after I began reading, this feeling quickly changed to I can't wait to finish it.

This is the story of the time travel of Dilly Burden and his son Wheeler Burden. Both come from extraordinary wealth. As we are told over, and over, and over, and over again Dilly is an athletic superstar, a brilliant musician, and a war hero who died at the hands of the Gestapo. We are also told over and over, and over and over again that Wheeler is an athletic superstar, a brillant musician and a brilliant scholar. At the beginning of this novel Wheeler finds himself transported from the US in 1988 to Vienna in 1897 at the dawn of the fin de siecle period that will be the birth of modernism and the beginning of the end of the Austro-Hungarian empire and ultimately of Europe at that time. It is hinted at that Wheeler arrived in 1897 Vienna through a traumatic event. While wandering the streets of Vienna Wheeler will encounter the greats of this period, particularly Siegmund Freud whose patient he becomes. There Wheeler tries to convince the great doctor that his theory of the Oedipus Complex is somewhat askew. Wheeler also encounters his young father (younger than he is) who is time traveling from the WW 2 years, and an astounding young woman with whom he falls deeply in love and will become an important part of his life, but in an unusual way.

There is a lot of great material here, perhaps too much and the novel progresses into being a huge muddle. We are told on the cover that the author worked on this novel for thirty years. This seems to be the root of the problem. It would have done well with substanial editing. The same things are repeated endlessly. We are told ad nauseum that Dilly is a hero, a legend. We are told what an astounding moment it is in Viennese history, but we are not shown why and how. Despite the author's life long study of fin de siecle Vienna he doesn't really show us why it is great. If you are unfamiliar with people like Mahler and Wittgenstein you will not know much more about them at the end of the book than the beginning, other than that they were 'great'.

After a short while this book began to grate on my nerves. I must give it two stars because of the author's hard work and good intentions. Unfortunately these good intentions never come to fruition. A terrible disappointment

What was the reason to write this book? What's the message? That the main character is so awesome he can teach Sigmund Freud, charm an Austrian empress, be a rock star bigger than Buddy Holly, psychoanalyze Hitler etc etc? I was heartily sick of Wheeler and his incredible superiority by the end of the book. I kept reading, waiting for the plot twist or explanation which would give some meaning to it all, but at the end, it was just a few hours out of my life for nothing. The characters and even the setting were one-dimensional.

I logged on intending to write a review of "The Little Book", but then I found the Washington Post review had already perfectly captured my sentiments. In a nutshell, I ended up giving up on the book 2/3rds of the way through. I wanted to like it. I even purposely took it with me as my only reading material on a long flight. I ended up reading the in-flight magazine instead.
The problem is the total lack of irony coupled with a choppy, unnatural writing style. For example, the "Venerable Haze". I can't imagine anyone, much less high school students, treating an eccentric professor with such reverence. Every time I read the phrase "The Venerable Haze" my eyes went so far up their sockets I couldn't focus.
The author is to be commended to sticking with the project for as long as he did, but it reads like what it is, a first novel written over many years. In fact, it reminds me of the style of writing I tried long ago when I thought I could write a great novel. Unfortunately I lacked the gift of prose. So does the Little Book.