Customer Reviews

Saul and Patsy : A Novel

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is so extraordinary -- I am a fan of Charles Baxter's and was waiting for it, but had no idea what a massive, exciting, heartrending, and gripping story it would be. This is much more than a family story, or a love story, or a beautiful, complex portrait of a marriage, though it's all those things. It's the story of our time and our embattled world. It's an examination, via the lives of a few small-town characters, of a world where terrorism and the spirits of mischief run wild. Love and destructiveness, the desire for happiness and the desire to do damage, the longing for the perfect lives we imagine others to have, and the harm we are willing to do them because of these imaginings...it's all in here.

The characters are so human, the observations about them so wonderfully written and so full of depth and surprises. This novel is a masterpiece, a permanent work of literature. It makes demands on you, but is incredibly gripping. It also has a brilliant, inventive structure that reinforces the themes and events of the book. I was up very late with it, and finished it with such happiness that I had to tell someone (you, whoever you are, who are reading this!) I'm writing this because I long to discuss it with someone, but don't want to give away any of the intricate turns of plot and the great connections.

Oh, lucky readers who get to experience this for the first time, lovers of great fiction, do yourself a favor and read this book!

Yes, I agree with the other reviewers that Baxter displays a keen sense of language and there are occasional light touches that made me snicker. However, the problem for me is that I don't give a hoot for Saul and this feeling remains unchanged by the end of the book. When I turned the last page, I was just glad to be done with a boring book.

I have no doubt that Charles Baxter will be noted as one of our most thoughtful and philosophic American writers of this time period. He has moved impressively from short story collections (my experience with his work started with _A Relative Stranger_) to a full-blown novelist. Even from his first novel, _First Light_, Baxter has shown a great mixture of a kind of old-school character depth, with high school teachers able to discuss railroad companies and quote classics in normal conversation, mixed in with a clearly modern sense of the world. His characters remind me somewhat of people who occupy Tony Hoagland poems--people who seem to be stuck in a netherworld of intelligentsia and down-home simplicity. _The Feast of Love_ was a good choice as a finalist for an NBA--perhaps it should have won, but I haven't yet read the competition and winner.

But this novel doesn't ring out like other works, and it seems to spend too long mulling about with little engagement. I almost regret saying these things, and almost feel that I need to rethink my priorities, that maybe I've become a jaded or oversimplified reader, for I very nearly put down this book after about forty pages because I was feeling that Baxter was a little more invested in the young couple that is the primary focus of this book than he was able to convey to me.

To tell the truth, the only thing that really brought me back to this book to gut it out and read through the rest is that the back cover promised some violence, something I would not have predicted from my initial experience in the reading.

Now I really feel ashamed. Baxter is such a wonderful writer, who is able to take the oft-used gimmick of quirkiness and use it to his advantage. Usually, his characters engage me me solely for their oddities that bring out their humanity rather than display their eccentricities. But even with the promised violence of this book, I remained unengaged to the end.

I think Baxter is a wonderful writer. Really. And it is the truly fantastic writer who gets the job done, who finishes a work even though lightning hasn't struck yet and do his job and get his efforts out there into the world.

But unfortunately, this one just wasn't one of his best efforts. But I shouldn't be the one to talk--after all, HE is the one who later put out _The Feast of Love_ and very nearly got one of the big prizes, and I just sit here typing this review.

Charles Baxter is a writer whose books I have seen in bookstores, but until recently I had not read, with perhaps the exception of one of his short stories. Friends suggested some of his books, particularly THE FEAST OF LOVE, and I purchased a few titles, including his most recent novel SAUL AND PATSY. I had heard from some of these friends that SAUL AND PATSY was not as good as some of his other works, but now that I have started THE FEAST OF LOVE, I think I am seeing that "not as good" Charles Baxter is better than much of what is available.

Readers who enjoy strong character based novels should enjoy SAUL AND PATSY. The plot revolves around a young couple Saul and Patsy who reside in a Midwestern town. Neither are locals and the two have to adjust to a different way of life. We see the couple transition from enjoying the freedom of being a young married couple still in love to the responsibilities of parenthood. We see Saul's somewhat neurotic manner as contrasted to Patsy, who in general is freer to be herself. Saul is aware of prejudices about his Jewishness, even if the prejudice is somewhat disguised. While their lives should change drastically when their first child is born, a series of bizarre events involving a troubled young man are what really change the two.

There are some characters in the book that could probably be deleted, and at times can be somewhat distracting, but in the end they do help us come to know Saul who is the strongest character in the book. Readers who enjoy plot-driven novels should be aware that the pace of the novel is probably its weakest point. In the hands of other writers, the tension would probably have developed earlier, and the resolution would be somewhat clearer. Yet of the action of the novel was faster paced, the richly developed characters would probably be less developed.

Charles Baxter delivers yet again with a remarkably heartfelt and disturbing novel. Baxter easily crafts a blend of both the everyday and extraordinary into a witty exploration of the human condition. The detail is flawless, the dialogue is exceptional, the experience of Saul and Patsy almost unmatched by any other writer (with the exception of perhaps William Maxwell). Through twists and turns Saul and Patsy turns into a haunting ghost story that will resonate with readers of today's society. Another amazing achievement from one of our finest writers.

There is wonderful writing in SAUL AND PATSY. Here, for example, are two quick observations about Saul, which spill from Baxter with continuous and apparently effortless grace.

"Cloud, mud, wind. Joy and woe, mad happiness and rue lived side by side in Saul with very few emotions in between. Even his gloom was thick with lyric intensity, like a brass band playing a funeral march all day and having a good time doing it."

"His typical despairs were beginning to look like luxuries to him. He could be a despair junkie and a virtuoso of fretfulness but probably not anymore, not with a daughter around. Somehow he would have to discard his friends, the long-term discontents, those houses of metaphysical yearnings where he had once made his home."

Such elegance and texture is ubiquitous in SAUL AND PATSY, making this book a pleasure to read and a fully involving journey of discovery, with Baxter finding new depth, complexity, and, usually, decency in all his characters, right up to the novel's end. The book, by the way, is about a young, loving, middle class couple in Michigan, surrounded by crazy people who are either isolated, delusional, or immature and violent.

At the same time, I would say that SAUL AND PATSY is more true to life than it is a literary machine. You see, early in this novel, Baxter presents his characters and their relationships as subtle variations on each other. To name just two, the perfect and successful Howie is the antithesis of the weird Gordie; and Delia, a mother and affluent widow, contrasts with Brenda, an ugly waitress and single parent. But as the story evolves, Baxter drops such facile positioning and lets a humane messiness evolve in his story and enter his characters. Not everyone will agree. But this reader actually admired Baxter for his choices, with him capturing the messy connections of life in this novel, not just the symmetry of literary fiction.

A final thought: In SAUL AND PATSY, Baxter gives Michael Chabon a run for the money and shows that he might be the metaphor champion of the Baby Boomers.

Okay potential reader looking at this review...please don't take my word for it. Read this book yourself and come back and let me know how you found it. People seem to dislike any negative reviews on this web-site. But isn't that the whole point of reviewing books...to share what your own perception of it was? Then you can look at what I like and say 'Hey I loved that too... maybe I'd like some of these other books that she liked as well'...? Right?

I'm not you, I'm me and this is what I thought of this book. It's my opinion, my perception, my feelings about it. It's certainly not the gospel truth. It makes me think about when I was back in high school and I would ask my best friends Lenore and Annie what their opinion was about my shoes...did they go with the outfit or not? (Very serious stuff back in the big 80s) And when they said they didn't like the shoes I often wore them anyway...because I liked them so much that it didn't matter what other people thought about them. I just had to test the theory, that's why I asked them what they thought. So it is the same with books. Just because I don't care for a particular book doesn't mean that you won't love it anyway.

To me a great book is like a marriage. That same wonderfully perfect and adored book can be someone else's dud. Part of what makes that book wonderful is what the reader brings to it, who you are is some of what makes you love that book, it speaks to you (and sometimes not to me).

So, I think you can see from my stars, just one, where I am going with this. I really did not like this book.

I found it hard to believe that this Charles Baxter was the same Charles Baxter who wrote The Feast of Love.

I saw that Saul and Patsy was originally two short stories and that's exactly how it felt. It felt like many different short stories that seemed very disjointed. The whole book seemed to have a stumbling rhythm, it wasn't smooth or fluid.

I didn't like these characters and I just didn't get them. I didn't get Saul's feelings, at all.

There were things that I didn't find believable and there was writing that I thought was just plain weird. I don't like to give away details when I review books so let me just offer these innocuous examples;

"He didn't like to fly because airport terminals and their long receding concourses reminded him of giant vacuum-cleaner hoses sucking him and everyone else into nullity."

"They always reminded Patsy of two healthy animals who had mated almost without thinking. Their stories were always stories about the body; they never got past it."

Maybe you will read these same words and find them funny. Maybe you will bring something to this book that makes it your favorite and most loved of all time.

As for me I was disappointed and glad for it to be over when it was.

"Saul and Patsy" starts off very well. Saul and Patsy are both interesting, flawed characters, and their interactions with Saul's intimidating student, who stands outside their house for hours on end, grab your attention. But about halfway through the story, the novel completely loses its steam.

Some of the novel was adapted from short stories about Saul and Patsy, and I think the novel would be more interesting if Baxter had just collected the stories and added a few more. The old Saul and Patsy stories are basically the best parts of the book. For example, Saul and Patsy's car accident and Saul's resulting obsession with an ex-student, of whom Saul becomes jealous. Great story about a flawed teacher not being the role model he thought and envying his student's contentment with life. Great character, great voice, and great internal conflict.

The plot of the novel falls apart shortly after the "act of violence." New, faceless characters are introduced whose only purpose is to give the reader information that I'm not even sure we need. A one-dimensional teenage girl is introduced more than halfway through the book (the first half is told completely by Saul and Patsy) and contributes nothing except meaningless actions and unbelievable teenage sentiment. She's completely useless. I can't believe that people would react this way to the "act of violence" mentioned in the book description. The town's reaction makes the whole story completely unbelievable.

I'd recommend purchasing Baxter's short story collections, like "A Relative Stranger," and sticking to the Saul and Patsy stories contained therein. You'll get the best slices of this novel, as well as some classic Baxter stories like "A Relative Stranger," about a jerk of a man who meets his long lost adopted brother and doesn't quite know how to react, and "Fenstad's Mother," about a conservative night school teacher who's embarassed by his mother's liberal points of view. Baxter works much better with short fiction.

I recently finished the new Charles Baxter book and it is unbelievably brilliant. Baxter is back to his eloquent best. Feast of Love may not have been his best and unfortunately his publishers choose that book to introduce him to the UK. Every single page of this book I love, it makes me soar. You escape, you fly into the relationship of these two lovers and their awkward relationship in a small town in the american mid-west. If I could I would quote huge segments from each page but I can't.

The character Saul is convinced that the world is losing the ability to think and he stops his high flying career to become a history teacher. He is not satisfied with the current atmosphere of fear and prejudice in the USA and notably criticises the current president. A lot of people make a big deal about this, it doesn't affect me. He is simply living his life, we experience his frustrations, his joys and it carries me away, I feel that I am living their lives in my dreams. The writing uplifts me, it gives me joy.

Overall this is a great book, I could not stop reading it. I preferred the start and I did not like the way the plot suddenly changed close to the end but it is one of the best books I have read this year, maybe in the last few years and it definitely deserves five stars.

Hurray! Charles Baxter didn't let me down. Saul and Patsy were really back, a little older, still struggling with life. The thing I love most about Baxter's writing - no big analysis on why a character behaves as he does. He or she just is. Just like life. And no one writes truer about life than Baxter. It doesn't matter why Saul loves Patsy, he just does, totally.

I knew with the first story that Baxter placed these two character in the area of Michigan where I live. And everything and everyone he writes about is pretty dead on. In fact, what he writes about is so true that sometimes it makes me laugh...or cry.

I hope that at some point in Saul and Patsy's lives, Baxter will bring them back to us again.