Customer Reviews

The Runaway Soul.

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Like other products of obsession - Henry Darger's work, for example - this novel has a peculiar, rather unwholesome authority. There's no mistaking that every line is "poetry written with a splash of blood", to use Yukio Mishima's phrase. I have to agree with Salman Rushdie when he gallantly claimed that this book was "worth ten safe well-written little novels."

Nonetheless, "The Runaway Soul" has to be shelved alongside other years-in-the-writing would-be masterpieces like "The Rosy Crucifixion" and "Ancient Evenings" as a noble failure. It's possible that Brodkey just chewed his cud a few years too long. (The "sketch versions" of this material collected in "Stories in an Almost Classical Mode" are substantially more rewarding, in my opinion.) Whatever the reason, he fails to transmute his suffering into literature on anything like a consistent basis. Brodkey would have done well to heed the editorial advice of an old Danish queen: "More matter and less art."

When a novel starts out with a young boy masturbating and his thoughts during(not what you'd imagine) and after, you know something big is coming. Whether it's going to be shocking or if it's going to be something else is hard to tell. But the author's got your attention. And he keeps it for the most part. The novel encompasses the life of Wiley Silenowicz. And it's almost like experiencing every thought, feeling, and sense that he has.

What a book! Brodkey's intimate portrayal of his characters remains true. This streaming-conscious book is a challenging work of prose that begs the reader to take it slowly, savor the words, feel the emotions, understand the characters. Brodkey executes this book beautifully, forming a triumphantly orignial and poignant story. I'd find myself, after reading a few chapters, putting the book down to revel and contemplate the viewpoints of the characters and my own. Time reading this book is time well spent.

This story about Wiley Silenowics, adopted and raised with his cousins, takes place in the 1930s and I think Brodkey nails the period and the characters. Though it was hard for me to get into at first, after about fifty pages or so I found I was enjoying myself. I like the author's use of language.