Customer Reviews

Sunnyside

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

It's always refreshing to go into a book or movie with low expectations and come out finding that it not only was better than expected, but actually really good. On the other hand, it is always disappointing when you have high expectations - in fact, you're positively inclined to the book even at page one - and then find it is actually not so hot. Sadly, Glen David Gold's Sunnyside fits into this latter category.

Gold's first novel was the wonderful Carter Beats the Devil, a book that made me want to see what'd he do next. It took years for Sunnyside to appear, and it wasn't really worth the wait. The title refers to a movie by Charlie Chaplin that was being made during the bulk of the story. Chaplin, in fact, is the central character of the book, though I'd be hard pressed to call him the main character; he only appears in around a third of the book and much of the rest of the time, the story has little to do with him.

In fact, it's unclear what Sunnyside is supposed to be about. It seems to be several very loosely connected stories (often tied together only tangentially to Chaplin), none of which are all that interesting. Probably the best plot line in the book follows Lee Duncan who is forced into fighting in World War I and winds up saving a couple puppies from death. In another storyline, Private Hugo Black (apparently no relation to the prominent Supreme Court justice of the mid-Twentieth Century) gets tangled up with the American attempt to squash the Bolsheviks in Russia. Chaplin, meanwhile, tries to make movies, romance women, bolster the war effort and fight the studios.

In other words, there is a lot of activity going on, but it really doesn't add up to much. The plot - what there is of it - is muddled. Unlike Carter Beats the Devil, almost all the characters seem remote (except maybe Lee), so it's hard to really identify with them. Only in his description of the story setting - in particular, WWI-era Hollywood - does Gold do okay. On a technical level, Gold writes well, but Sunnyside is like a long hike: you may start out energetic and enjoying it, but in the end, you're trudging along, just waiting for it to all be over.

In 2001 a magical (in more ways than one) first novel by Glen David Gold, entitled "Carter Beats the Devil" was published. It immediately heralded the arrival of a major new writer and caused those of us who read it to begin to wait eagerly for Gold's second novel. We knew, of course, from the outset, that A) it would be well-written since Gold demonstrated the kind of mastery of language that wasn't going to disappear, and B) it couldn't POSSIBLY recapture the magic of "Carter". And we waited... and waited... and, just when we were resigning ourselves to the possibility that Gold would become a sort of Harper Lee for the new millenium, he brought forth "Sunnyside". And we discovered that A) was correct, the language, the style, the characters, were every bit the equal of "Carter". AND B) was correct as well; "Sunnyside" isn't anywhere near "Carter"... it's SO MUCH better. As with "Carter", Gold focuses a lot of attention on a real person, only, where magician Howard Carter was a somewhat obscure character (indeed, I had to look him up to be sure he WAS real), this time it's no less a personage than Charlie Chaplin. And, as with "Carter" Gold blends fact, fiction, and outrageous speculation, into a whole. But, whereas "Carter" essentially became a marvelous anecdote, "Sunnyside" creates an epic world. More I will not tell you, because you MUST read and discover this world for yourself... or you'll regret it for a long time to come.

It's not exactly a novel, but rather a collection of astonishingly well-written scenes in roughly chronological order. This should bother me, except that the scenes are, as I said, astonishingly well-written.

If you check out the distribution of ratings here, you'll see this is probably one of the most evenly spread set of ratings for anything on Amazon. People either love it, hate it or somewhere in between, so i have no idea whether you're going to like it. But I loved it. Gold's writing, from the craftsmanship in the prose to the super-fine detailing of the characters to the originality of the plotting, is exactly the sort of polished, inventive storytelling I crave. It's just unusual to find such a fine storyteller writing such a fine novel without telling us a larger story. There's no cohesion here, but there is brilliance.

Are you going to like it? Who knows? I sure don't. I'd guess that if you're a fan of his first novel, "Carter Beats the Devil", you're probably more likely to enjoy this. And if you read, say, Les Miserables and loved it because of its digressions and tangents rather than despite them, you're probably in the right place. And if you simply like silent era Hollywood, you'll probably have a good time here as well. For everyone else: just avoid trying to think about how it will all tie together (spoiler alert: it won't) as you read it and you'll probably be in the right frame of mind to appreciate just how good a novel Sunnyside is, despite not actually being a novel.

Historial fiction tends to be either highly engaging or a literary version of one's coat closet--there are assorted items in there that serve a purpose but it feels more like a mess every time you open it. That's how I feel about SUNNYSIDE. It's a long and involved read that is more like a hummingbird, unable to land on a finite concept. There are so many functional parts and characters, and even though one of our most beloved cinematic icons is the featured player in the book, everything else about the novel just doesn't flow together in a cohesive narrative. Doctorow's RAGTIME had a truly emotional center at it you could identify with as the events at the turn of century unfolded. I didn't connect with the characters because they all seemed like cogs in wheel that truly wasn't a genuine circle. Chaplin was indeed an amazing figure in our history, but Gold attempts to pile on way too many incidents and details and without a lot of panache. In all honesty, I barely made it through this book and I was hoping for something to finally capture my attention. But I read fifteen other books while sorting through this one, so that should tell you how enthralling it is!

What is one to make of Glen David Gold's second act, "Sunnyside," which comes more than seven years after his much praised first novel, "Carter Beats the Devil"? As with Carter, Gold again demonstrates his extraordinary gifts - characterization, humor, and perfectly metered prose, as well as exceptional research - are not for this author tricks but sheer magic. Yet where Carter followed a story that was linear and easily deciphered, "Sunnyside" follows not one track but several. And if like most readers you follow these various paths expecting that Gold will eventually bring them together in some tidy ending, you are sure to be disappointed. Instead these separate stories circle each other and occasionally almost, but never quite touch, having in common the period leading up to America's involvement in World War I.

Gold gives us one story of handsome Leland Wheeler, the son of a woman lighthouse officer and a Wild West scoundrel who dreams of Hollywood fame against his mother's wishes; a family of Russian Jewish grifters who dream of riches; Hugo Black, an intellectual who searches for glory but has the misfortune of being sent to Siberia as part of the Allies ill conceived plan to undermine the new Bolshevik regime, and, of course, Charlie Chaplin. One hardly knows what to say about the Chaplin story, as it engages so many other varied plots, sub-plots and characters (and so many characters! Doug Fairbanks, Goldwyn, McAdoo, Zukor, Mary Pickford, Rin tin tin , etc, etc, etc) as Gold attempts to present and critique Hollywood's formation.

I cannot sufficiently praise either Gold's prose or his research. Here is historical fiction presented by a master, who weaves a spectacular tapestry of facts, fiction, and opinion creating a whole that runs through with pathos and humor. His sentences sing and his observations often give a reader pause. So what is one to make of Sunnyside's strange disassociated structure? From the novel's outset Gold makes very clear that he sees in this period the birth of modern mass culture, with Chaplin filling the essential role of that culture's celebrity. Perhaps that is why he organized the novel in this way, to demonstrate how disjointed society has become and reflect the impact of celebrity on its members.

One cannot know for sure what this author intended, and at times one may become frustrated by the novel's seemingly obtuse structure. One thing is certain, in the hands of a lesser writer, the attempt would have sunk into a disastrous morass and it is a testament to Gold's tremendous talent that he can keep this work afloat and his reader engaged. One may puzzle over Gold's intent, but Sunnyside offers no room to doubt his gifts.

By any standard, Sunnyside is an unconventional piece of story telling and I am reticent to attach the word novel to a work so unusually structured. Many readers will find the work to not be their cup of tea and will wonder whether they should dive into its 500+ pages. I suspect even that those who enjoy it will find that it more than once leaves them scratching their heads. One thing is certain, Gold here undertakes something both unusual and memorable and I for one took considerable satisfaction in the trip.

I loved Carter Beats the Devil. So much so that I was wary of reading Glen David Gold's new book, Sunnyside. How could he top his brilliant debut? Well, in short, he did. He blew it away. Sunnyside is an extraordinary novel. Rich, complex, funny, moving. Subtle and epic. The plot is too large and finely tuned to recap here, but Gold fearlessly tackles the creation of modern celebrity, the rise of Hollywood, World War I, and the small triumphs and tragedies of normal men and women in the chaotic and unknowable beginnings of the American Century.

I'm sorry that I will have to start off with telling you nothing about the book while saying what will not be in the review, but I feel I have to give reasons for doing so. I don't feel I should mention Gold's 'prior' palpable book floating around in the other reviews because simply; it has nothing to do with this book. If you are zealous in reading Gold's follow up, I doubt a review is going to change your mind.

-REVIEW- (for those who wish to skip ^ )

I was excited for this book, though I have never heard of the author nor his other books, because of Chaplin on the cover. Let me warn those who did the same sort of judgement as me and tell you that Chaplin appears in the book but very lightly so that he could be said to not be a central character. Chaplin is woven in between various plots that amass around the globe from Russia to the U.S. during the war taut years of the early twentieth century. It is a fairly sizable book at 550+ Big pages, so the first question I think you should ask yourself is, "Do more pages equal vivacious detail and imagery, or is the author wordy?" From most of the reviews above me you would think that the lengthy pages are just fluff that amounts to nothing in particular, but I want to contrast those views and tell you that this book is filled with pages of quality story structure.

The plots of this book are many in that it is not necessarily a linear type book where the characters interact and change as they go. This is a book of plot weaving that needs to be done by a seasoned reader that doesn't look forward to the end page in order to gauge how many pages they have to go. Rather, a reader whom is able to get lost in a vast story and is capable of piecing together the meticulously scattered plots in order to reach an end which is coalesced to a much narrower picture of a journey of the character-- this is the reader whom this book is for.

Revealing the bits and pieces of the story that need to be found by the reader, as if in surprise, is something I hope, for your sake, will not happen. I should like to lean you towards reading this book with all of your wits about you as you prepare to take on the journey that this author has written for you to experience. You will feel transported back in the era, with vivid imagery, of jazz, jets, uniforms and alcohol. It will be a party, a plane ride and a glass of champagne, all hosted by Chaplin himself.

I loved Gold's *Carter Beats the Devil* and I love Charlie Chaplin. And I love the time and place in which *Sunnyside* is set. But I put this book down after 100 pages and ran to my Hemingway, desperate for an author who gets to the point of what he/she is trying to say. I remember Glen David Gold as being a more focused writer than this. I wish the editor of this book had the good sense and wherewithal to call Gold after reading *Sunnyside,* simply to say "I'm afraid readers will drift or quit unless you tighten up your narrative. There are too many details and lengthy descriptions that - while sometimes lovely - are about things we don't need to know, and it inhibits your reader's attempt to grasp what you are truly trying to say with this novel."

It's been a long, long time since I gave myself the time and space to read a long novel. I loved that Sunnyside is a delicious exercise in Sunday afternoon laying-on-the bed reading, dog at side, and that when I gave myself enough uninterrupted time to read more than 4 pages at a time that I became totally enveloped in this novel like I was with Faulkner or Carson McCullers or John Irving back when I didn't own a business and had more time. Sunnyside is more than a novel; it's an experience. I was completely wrapped up in the Lee Duncan story and also totally identified with the "marketing issues" in the Chaplin portion---he was in essence a business owner who had to manage his brand, marketing, creative control, passion and balance his work and family life (sound familiar, entrepreneurs?). I can't wait to give this one a second read.

Just as enjoyable as his previous "Carter Beats the Devil," Glen David Gold has written a multi-layered novel about celebrity, the foolishness of war, the growth of Hollywood during the World War I era, and Charlie Chaplin. By turns humorous, tragic, and historical, it should bring forth comparisons with "Ragtime," "USA," "The Given Day," and similar evocations of the United States during the early 20th century. Despite its length, readers will want to stay the course and savor the author's rich style. Highly recommended.
Wm. H. Young