Larry's Party

Rating:
Summary: A truly unique book with lots of depth
Review: This book amazed me at how well a woman (Carol Shields) captured so many essences of the male psyche. This truly fascinating book chronicles the life of Larry, and has many brilliant moments of prose that make the read worthwhile. As other reviewers noted, it doesn't really 'go anywhere', however had far more direction than a lot of 'modern literature' does these days. CS is a great writer, and this book is a great addition to her portfolio!

Rating:
Summary: A/mazing!
Review: An elderly friend recommended Carol Shields to me many years ago - I wish I'd listened earlier. This woman writes like I imagine angels sing.

While on their honeymoon trip to England with his wife Dorrie, Larry, a Canadian florist becomes inspired by the lush English hedges. During a visit Hampton Court Palace, Larry becomes totally besotted by mazes, and thus is born a life calling.

Besides being about mazes, this book is a maze. Each chapter jumps forward to a new point in Larry's life, but keeps twisting and turning and reflecting back on previous episodes; some that were life-shattering at the time, become mere asides when viewed from a different angle. As Larry meanders through life, two marriages, fatherhood, career changes, etc., he remains beset by same inadequacies, failings and fears of his youth. His life just seems to happen around him. But since this book is a maze, we know it must have a goal, and when achieved, it is surprising, poignant and triumphant. Then you realise he still has to get out of the maze.

I feel I might have some chance of understanding men better having read this book. Carol Shields has obviously studied men intensely to come up with his incredibly believable character, an ordinary man. All of the characters are well constructed and the dialogue is real. The words melt together into flawless storytelling; a gem of a book.

Rating:
Summary: A story of a life lived and observed
Review: Carol Shields has a way of writing about the ordinary that elevates it to the sublime. We follow Larry, an ordinary guy, through his life through jumps in time of several years at a leap. Through the chapters, we follow him through a callow youth, through a first marriage and parenthood, divorce, his parents and sister's relationships with him and each other, remarriage and re-divorce, and most central to the book, his mundane job and rise to stellar status in his field of maze designer, of all things. But of course the maze is a metaphor for the complexities of life, trying to find ones way in the world. The dinner party at the end is clearly meant to represent the 'goal,' the center of the maze, but it's left to the readers to decide if Larry is likely to find his way out again.
A lovely tour de force.

Rating:
Summary: Larry just stood there and let life happen to him
Review: John Lennon once wrote "Life is what happens while you're making other plans." Lennon never met Larry Weller, a man drifting down the river of life with no rudder and no destination in mind.

Larry Weller is a male character dreamed up by a female author, and save for one passage on genital slang, Larry's interior monologues are about as interesting as two-day old Wonder Bread. Good thing men aren't really as dull as Shields makes out; I'd have to give up and move to Mars.

Only the final scenes -- Larry's Party -- give a glimmer of the talent this woman holds in reserve.

Like so many other people, I was annoyed and frustrated by the gimmicky structure of the book. There was no need to continually reintroduce background material. I wondered if the chapters were not in fact intended to be short stories. Certainly the Larry's Party chapter could stand on its own as a story.

A disappointing read.

Rating:
Summary: A Whiner's Bible
Review: Warn[...]P>The main character, an affable Canadian named Larry Weller, is in a constant state of acute bemusement. We meet him as a young man, we see him (via flashbacks) as a teenager, and we follow him all the way to his late 40s, and the bemusement never changes, never alters, and frankly my dear, grows VERY OLD very quickly. Gosh, people, Larry is a person on this earth! Everything causes him wonder...from his choice of words to his hair, to his brain, to his penis. Nevermind that this sweet naif has a very successful life as a landscape artist who specializes in intricate mazes (oooh! a metaphor!). He is simply a bewildered soul.My third strong objection to the book is in its style. At first, I liked it. As Shields starts each new chapter of Larry's life, she explains, as though we do not already know it, who the main characters are, and where Larry has come from. By the middle of the book, this was annoying in the extreme. By the end, it was hard to take...but was only one of the things I couldn't stand.

My final objection is Larry's constant minute attention to the aging process, which begins long before he even reaches his thirties. Show me a man in his sixties, who perhaps has real problems with aging, and I might pay attention. This just got on my nerves.

I rarely react this strongly to a book, but the only reason I finished it was so I could write an honest review, and because Carol Shields is so very highly regarded. I guess I simply missed the point.

Rating:
Summary: Party Crasher
Review: It seems that I have to disagree with the majority about "Larry's Party". This book is not exceptional, great, or even good. It's a dull, plodding read with a bland central character. The few interesting things Larry Weller does are glossed over to make room for him to whine about every facet of his existence.

"Larry's Party" reminds me of another book I read recently, "The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen. Both spend so much time explaining the past that the book never takes off in the present. In the case of "Larry's Party", the book will skip ahead a year or a few years, then go back to explain past events. For example, it starts in 1977, then Shields goes back to explain about who Larry is, where he's going, his relationship with his girlfriend, etc. Then it skips ahead a year and explains how and why Larry gets married. And so forth. To me, this isn't storytelling, it's explaining. It drains the emotion from the story, turning it into a clinical telling of past events.

Too much of the book is devoted to Larry sitting around contemplating the "sad" state of his life. By the end of the novel he has two ex-wives that don't hate him, a son who he's maybe a little distant from, a sister he's close to, lots of friends around the world, a good roof over his head, enough money to be comfortable, his own business...what the heck is he so depressed about? I have ZERO sympathy for a man who has a good life and still finds cause to whine. Sorry, Larry's a nice guy and all, but a lot of people have real problems, not just a pathetic midlife crisis.

The party of "Larry's Party" has to be the most obnoxious scene I've ever read. It's page after page of dialogue that overlaps into noise. I only intermittently knew who was speaking, which made it hard to follow. The party would have worked on the screen or stage, where I could see who's speaking, but not in a book. I've seen other authors who will do this sort of thing for a few lines or a page, but not for the better part of 30 pages.

So much is made of how the story is patterned like a maze, how Larry's life is like a maze, but there's nothing beyond that. It's a literary trick, a gimmick, and nothing more. Sadly, great novels are not made with gimmicks, but with engaging characters and an interesting story. This book has neither.

I'll recommend a couple of items that handle the subject of the male midlife crisis in a more entertaining way. First, check out the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "Independence Day" by Richard Ford. That book's narrator also spends some time whining, but the storytelling is better and more interesting things happen. And I also recommend checking out the movie, "American Beauty" that won some Oscars a couple of years ago. There the central character grapples with a midlife crisis, but the movie is both hilarious and touching at the same time. Both are superior to "Larry's Party".

Rating:
Summary: Get to know your Average Joe - and yourself
Review: I realy enjoyed this book, and am glad a took a chance on something that's not my normal preference.
The book spans 20 years of Larry's life, culminating in his party. After a few chapters you begin to see how many little experiences and conversations shape your life. He passes through loves, jobs, homes and conflicets just like anybody else. But by uncovering his patterns, you see yourself and your own patterns.
Read this book - not to knock your socks off, but to get a better understanding of how every decision you make in every day of your life can be one of many to alter your future.

Rating:
Summary: A gem, emotionally and stylistically.
Review: Like so many of us, Larry Weller finds himself, on occasion, lost. Is that why he is drawn to the arcane profession of maze-making? Or is his fascination with mazes a reflection of his deepening intellect and development as a man?

In the course of fifteen carefully observed chapters, Carol Shields examines the maze-like Life of Larry. Each chapter is like a short film in which Shields refocuses her lens on a specific aspect of Larry's life: "Larry's Words," "Larry's Love," "Larry's Kid," etc. The end result is an in-depth portrait of a multi-dimensional guy, a compendium of details that elevates the seemingly ordinary Larry into someone utterly unique. She follows him through college (actually a trade school for florists), through the courtship of his first wife, through disillusionments and deaths, and finally to the party of the title, in which many of his life's loose ends are resolved.

This is deep, smart, resonant writing, a subtly cajoling book that satisfies and delights.

Rating:
Summary: now an on stage musical!
Review: LARRY'S PARTY has been made into a musical and is currently playing in Toronto, then Montreal,and Ottowa. This is a worthwhile read, especailly the beginning and end. At about p. 140 it gets limp until p.200 (of paperback edition). Those parts seem like writing exercises for Shields - but she can write. Note :P. 279 when "he knew himself to be in embrace of profound tenderness, that second cousin to passionate love." and her comments on "mistakes" p.12. I liked Larry from his white socks on p. 5.and his non-aMAZING life. How do you visualize him? I see him as a grown up Ralphy from THE CHRIRTMAS STORY movie.

Rating:
Summary: Intelligence mixed with warmth
Review: Larry Weller's twenty year examination by Carol Shields is a profound revelation. His life parrallels that of the average late twentieth century man who is constantly searching for meaning and grace. He finds it in his passion for mazes--a perfect metaphor for this twenty year journey.

Shields portrays Larry perfectly. His early choice of work by accident, his doomed first marriage, and the subsequent chances he later takes--Shields writes them in a matter of fact style that almost makes this novel seem like a documentary. Her description of places, and the details she sketches to every other character in the novel are no less than outstanding. The dialogue each brings to the novel is bracingly real. I found myself empathetic to Larry Weller, and hope that eventually Shields follows his story in future novels.