The Meager Life and Modest Times of Pop Thorndale (Paperback)

by W. T. Pfefferle (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Like Prufrock with his thinning hair and meager hopes, Pop Thorndale is a character who, in his very ordinariness, holds up a mirror in which we recognize our fears and follies, our dreams and desires. Pfefferle deftly chooses the moments that illuminate a life, and he renders them in clear and accurate language, transforming the ordinary voice into something pretty like the first chords in any Supertramp song. " --Beth Ann Fennelly, Author of Tender Hooks and Open House

Pop Thorndale is our contemporary American Everyman ironic, mid-life, overweight, suburban, trying, as he ages, to find some meaning in what he knows has been an unremarkable and unheroic life. --From the Foreword by Patricia Fargnoli

The Meager Life and Modest Times of Pop Thorndale explores with great complexity and psychological richness one American man's inner life. Though the details of Pop Thorndale's life may on the surface appear "modest," the language Pfefferle uses is wonderful, weirdly quirky, fresh, and pleasurable. Though Pop Thorndale himself may claim to be "no great man," the poems Pfefferle has crafted about him prove otherwise. --Paisley Rekdal, Author of The Invention of the Kaleidoscope and The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee

Product Description
Pop Thorndale, he of limited ambition and modest dreams, finds himself at 50. With no trophies to show for his life, he wonders about the point of it all. Then three things happen in the space of a year, and those events drive him into his basement to write his memoir ("just memory with a little switch of letters.") This faux memoir in poems follows Pop through meditations on family, love, and death, all of it infused with humor and empathy.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: NFSPS Press; 1st edition (June 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976700654
• ISBN-13: 978-0976700654
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,548,939 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgettable, July 7, 2007

By	David Phalen (Southern Maryland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm a little hesitant to call this collection "poetry."

My hesitation is not because it doesn't include great poems: the four dozen "chapters" in this story about a man coming to terms with who he is and who he isn't as he finds himself "on the edge of 50" are clearly poetry. They're written with lines and stanzas and all the incredible attention to the effects of language that is the defining characteristic of great literature (a hidden son watches his father as he "stood for lifetimes" in their backyard; a wedding ceremony is described as "a minister reading from a mimeographed sheet/stuck in the middle of Deuteronomy"; when Pop meets the woman he will eventually marry, she is "pretty like the first smell of blueberry waffles,/ pretty like the first chords in any Supertramp song...." No, this is clearly poetry of the best kind: not written for a few hundred other poets and literature teachers who might catch vague references and hidden symbolism that would sail by most of us. The allusions in this poetry are to events and situations anyone who has lived through a decent portion of the late 20th/early 21st centuries will find readily understandable.

So my hesitation to discuss this book in terms of its "poetic" merits has nothing to do with any lack it may have in that department. If you're a fan of poetry, rest assured that this is the good stuff.

The reason I don't want readers to approach this book like "mere" poetry is because it offers so much more than the limitations that label may have in some people's minds. This is first and foremost the story of one man's life. Having grown up with an abusive father, gone through the challenges of raising a son of his own, and faced the devastation of a wife's infidelity, Pop Thorndale has earned the kind of perspective that makes what he has to say about life worth listening to. And despite the self-deprecation of the title, Pop's insights are in no way "meager" or insignificant. Reviewers' complimentary comparisons to Prufrock notwithstanding, what Pop is working through is much more heart-wrenching and important than the concern about appearances and perceptions that characterize the night-time ramblings of T. S. Eliot's middle-aged anti-hero. Pop is wondering what all thoughtful people must wonder at some point in their lives: Who am I? How did I become this person? What else am I likely to ever become? Most important, Is it enough?

Don't buy this book just because it's poetry. Even more important, don't NOT buy this book because it's poetry. Because what this really is is a novel about a person like you and me. The fact that this novel is in the form of poems in no way diminishes its clarity and accessibility. The pleasures of that form are merely extra scoops of ice cream added to one of the tastiest, most satisfying pieces of pie I have enjoyed in a long time.

5.0 out of 5 stars a beautiful book, June 28, 2007

By	Curt DeLaforge (Austin TX) - See all my reviews

Great characters and great language keep me interested as a reader, and this poetry collection has a narrator so heartbreakingly human that reading it is like looking in a mirror on your most honest day; as for language, it has a load of brilliant and telling lines that seem prophetic in their impact on the reader. However, the difference between this book and most prophesy is that this book has a sense of humor, a wryness, even when it's being deadly serious. I read a lot of poetry, and this is some of the best I've read in years. Highly recommended.

5.0 out of 5 stars Golden Thread, June 27, 2007

By	JEANNE DEWEESE (Okeechobee, FL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I loved this book. The writing is fresh and honest with no pretense. The first paragraph made me laugh: "I am mad about 5 things today:/the size of my belly,/its shape,/these new freckles on my feet,/my inability to walk long distances,/and the way my fedex guy leaves my packages in plain view." Hillarious. The poems about the father were great because you could feel the pain and guilt. I loved the poems Where it Falls Short, Sickness, Allowances, and Dad; a line in one of the poems, "...wondering how to/twist the memories that remain/into a golden thread..."; finding words to describe what I've been trying to do but didn't know how to say.