Customer Reviews

Starting Out in the Evening

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book sat on my bookshelf for nearly five years, and I cannot believe I allowed it to. It is one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. It is deep and sentimental in topic, and yet it reads like a fast paced novel.

The characters are intense and mulit-dimensional: Leonard Schiller, a seventy something writer who's life has been dedicated to his art; Ariel, his forty year old daughter in search of her life's meaning and someone to father a child; and Heather, a twenty something aspiring writer and critic who decides to write a master's thesis on Schiller's work.

The relationship of the two women will Schiller is incredibly portrayed, as with Ariel Schiller is a loving and nurturing man, and with Heather, his passions are reignited and she makes him feel young. Also interesting is the way Heather and Ariel portray Schiller, and also the way these two women change as Schiller's life circumstances change.

The parallels drawn between the three characters is fascinating, especially since each person is so different, and at such a different place in life. Ironically, even though each feels so different from the other, when the older two are compared to Heather in their memories, it seems they are more similar then they think.

At the end of this beautiful book, one cannot help but wonder what happens to the characters. Schiller's life goal at the end is to complete his final novel, and I so wish he were a real person so that I could read it. He is a beautiful charcter that brings memories of Morrie Schwartz from Tuesdays With Morrie.

If you are looking for a touching, moving, beautifully written book, don't wait any longer. Pick this book up and you will not put it down. Even when you are finished, the characters live on.

I should think hundreds of people would have written in praise of this novel. I am 65 years old and was in wonder how an author could so accurately portray both youth and old age.

I give it 5 stars because of the joy it brought to me. Am buying paperbacks to give to friends. Sometimes it seemed a bit choppy to me - but this is just my opinion - it still is a wonderful novel and I hope the author thinks about a sequel.

Though much positive already appears here, sometimes you have to add yourself to the crowd. I am a writer and teacher of writing. This prose is truly beautiful and luminous. The clear loving portraits of his characters are unique in that they never veer into the sort of touchy-feely take that so many books do. His characters are distinct and cantankerous, broken and striving for connection, doomed and lovely and by this somehow more whole and human than is at first, seemingly possible. This is a writer who writes a book until it is finished, not until deadline is met. A beauty. Something he can have as a triumph of his own art -- always -- no matter sales, no matter what may come.

Brian Morton's novel deals with some undeniably attention-holding conflicts, such as old academe vs. new, youth vs. age and spiritual resiliance vs. inevitable death and decay, but the end result, sadly, turns out to be pretty forgettable stuff, much like a kleenex, to be used only once and immediately discarded. A major problem afflicting this book is one Henry James anticipated when he advised novelists above all to get themselves out of the way, saying it is far better to dramatize than to narrate excessively. Morton, however, is unable to resist explaining rather than showing, regularly following every few lines of dialogue with a philosophical or psychological summation - often an unwitting cliche- thereby suggesting his is more a chatty commentator's interest in "ideas" than a first-rate novelist's in character and action. His chief characters - a surviving 1950's New York intellectual, a contemporary Brown University academic careerist, and a non-intellectual daughter - are all promising figures and deserved a development enabling them within the fiction to stand on their own two feet and move convincingly about. Morton's commenting tendency interferes with this, while at the same time making his fairly lengthy story unduly thin on implicative richness, and after midway a tiresome read. While Morton's heart is always in the right place, his habitual intrusions, in short, take unwarranted precedence over a novelist's chief interest in creating characters of depth or a memorable action which would merit rereading.

This is an astonishing book. My only disappointment is that it ended. The characters are wonderful, unique, warty, tender and assertive. The insights into the daughter/father relationship and the lover/lover relationship are memorable and profound. From the first sentence to the last, this novel is a reader's fondest dream--a book one cannot put down, for it crystalizes ordinary life so lyrically, so adeptly, so lovingly that leaving it is like leaving a lover whose persona makes daily life a joy.

Sometimes a book delights; occasionally one enlightens; but rarely is there a book that delights and enlightens in equal measure like Brian Morton's Starting Out in the Evening. It provokes laughter, evokes tears and inspires insight.

With humor and poignancy, Morton ponders the "fleetingness of life, and therefore its holiness". The passage of time is as inexorable as a comet hurtling through space, and Morton's characters "need to live out [their] passions, even if they were futile passions, to the end."

The writing is clear, crisp and bright, like an early-summer's day, perfect for a stroll along a stream of consciousness. Morton writes from the point of view of four characters. Experiencing the consciousness of each isn't like stepping into a steadily flowing stream; it's like wading in the gentle wash of waves along a shoreline. Morton captures the ebb and flow of thought; he suggests an ocean of sensibility.

Heather Wolfe, an aggressive, self-assured graduate student in English, sets out to write her Master's thesis on the novels of Leonard Schiller. She sees herself in the same role as Malcolm Cowley. Her Faulkner is Schiller; an aging, self-deprecating novelist whose unacclaimed, out-of-print novels, she serendipitiously discovered. They meet, "He came toward her, smiling. Old, fat, bald, leaning awkwardly on a cane. The man of her dreams."

The context for an exploration of youth and age, living and dying, literary ambition and artistic integrity is provided by the gentle collision between these two characters: Heather, "so young, ... almost an emissary from the future", and Schiller, a survivor of two heart attacks, who still underlines passages from Yeats in his bedtime reading, "...unite stoicism, asceticism and ecstasy."

For his daughter Ariel, ecstasy is the quality that matters. She's a free spirit, who longs for the fulfilling confinement of motherhood. Her passion to procreate parallels her father's passion for art. Casey, a black New York intellectual, who "wanted to make a contribution in the wider world" finally appears, or in the story reappears, as Ariel's lover.

The mixing and mingling of characters, their intentions and aspirations, and their sense of time running out propel the story forward. Tension is created. How can this story be resolved? With the subtlety and delicacy of the ending, Morton demonstrates his mastery. These characters are memorable. They'll carry on.

Wallace Stegner spoke of the relationship between the reader and author having "the intimacy of a connubial chat." This conversation with the witty and wise Brian Morton occurs like a walk in the best of weather,the kind of day that makes life worth living, passions worth pursuing: making the most of the time we have.

Brian Morton has crafted a fine novel that asks subtle questions about art and life, youth and age, father and daughter, love and loss. To his credit, he allows his characters to insinuate a few answers in their choices.

Without giving another summary (others have done well in this regard), I would rather mention the tender complexity of the characters: Heather, the dreamy graduate student, confronts the reality of Leonard Schiller, the author of two novels that left such a lasting imprint on the mind of an impressionable young girl; Leonard, the aging novelist who has committed his life to art, writing four novels and grinding away to complete his fifth and last, enjoys one last lascivious taste of desire; and Ariel, the author's daughter, meanders along seeking meaning in life, in her work and, hopefully, in one romantic, loving relationship.

Not much happens. Heather writes her master's thesis; Leonard's health deteriorates; and Ariel finds increasing comfort in a resuscitated relationship. Their lives intersect and the dynamics leave all wondering (and wandering) about what's important, and about the essence of themselves.

Morton's portrayal of these characters, and of the internal complexity of their choices, is compassionate and forgiving. The novel is delightfully and slyly complex, though its rendering is spare and elequent. I recommend this book to all readers of fine fiction.

It's been a long, long time since I've ready anything that hit me with the emotional impact that STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING had. THE VIGIL by Clay Reynolds (sadly, out of print the last time I checked) was the last book before this that had me singing its praises so loudly.

STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING doesn't use any sort of formula to get the reader involved. Instead, it depends of three-dimensional characters in complicated but life-like situations.

As an aspiring writer, I enjoyed a chance to get a glimpse into the creative process and find out what the inner life of a 'real' writer is like. Although it's a book about ideas, it sure isn't dry.

This is one I'd recommend to any reader of any age.

Bravo.

I would rather read than do anything. I spend my shopping time in bookstores. Why? Looking for a book just like this book: insights and truth, humor, pain. I finished this book at 4 a.m. wondering where on earth I'll ever find another such book. I am not the same person who began Mr. Morton's book and I want to thank him.

Starting Out in the Evening was originally published in 1998 and was the recipient of several awards: the Koret Jewish Book Award, a Publisher's Weekly Best Book of the Year, a Salon Favorite Book of the Year, and a PEN/Faulkner Award Nominee. It was re-issued last fall just before the opening of the movie version in November 2007.

It is both a very literary novel and what I would call a "New York" novel. The main character, Heather Wolfe, is a graduate student at Brown University writing a Master's thesis on the work of a writer, Leonard Schiller, whose two published novels have long been out of print. Heather had read his work as a teen and the books resonated with her so emphatically that she felt compelled to find Schiller and get to know him as part of her research. Schiller is in his early 70s, but in poor health. However, he has known many of the famous New York writers - Saul Bellow, Isaac Rosenfeld and Norman Mailer, but had never achieved anything near their stature. The book is full of small references to lines from other writers as well as what might be considered insider jokes about New York life.

Nonetheless, it is an engaging novel to read - even if some references passed me by. Heather is a likeable character and her efforts to get to know someone nearly three times her age, and understand where his motivations come from, are fascinating. Leonard Schiller is also an interesting old character. His relationships with his writing, his daughter, the doorman at his building, and finally with Heather make him quite complex. His daughter Ariel is also interesting person.

This is not an action-packed mystery or suspense-filled thriller, but a well-constructed study of aging and intellectual life. The title comes from Schiller's first, but unpublished novel and says to him that he is "giving expression to this feeling of being historically late." (p.177)

I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to readers and book groups who are interested in looking a bit deeper than the surface in their reading.

Armchair Interviews agrees.