For Kings and Planets

Rating:
Summary: Not the best story I've read
Review: In my opinion, Ethan Canin is a good writer. I like his writing style and his development of characters. Though this book was well-written, I felt empty after reading it. The story started out well, and I couldn't put the book down. However, towards the end the story seemed a little dry. I was disappointed Canin didn't explore Marshall Emerson's character further, and the conclusion didn't give me enough closure to be completely satisfied with the book. Yet, the story had some memorable moments. It was still a breath of fresh air about life in general. But don't expect it to be one of the most touching stories you've read.

Rating:
Summary: A writer with no soul is no writer.
Review: For all its artfulness, Mr. Canin's work is ultimately shallow, without soul. Perhaps we should be happy he's writing instead of practicing medicine---some would say he does less damage this way. I'm not sure.

Rating:
Summary: The weakest of Canin's books
Review: Our book group concluded that this is the weakest of Canin's stories. I loved Blue River and Emperor of the Air, as did others in the group who have read them. We agreed that For Kings and Planets starts out well but loses momentum in the second half and sputters to a ho-hum finish.

Rating:
Summary: Poignant, funny, and absorbing.
Review: When the moments come in For Kings and Planets that a character is on the verge of perceiving a wider view of the world or a truth that is more complicated than previously believed, Canin's prose evokes in the reader such intense feelings that it seems as if one were at the side of a good friend who was going through a difficult passage. Canin drew me close enough to Orno, Marshall, and their families that I wanted to speak out, give them an embrace, and help them along. Through chapters by turn poignant and funny, but always absorbing, I watched as they learned to cope on their own. Get the book, take the day off, and enjoy Canin's beautiful writing as it tells a wonderful story of young lives unfolding into adult lives.

Rating:
Summary: best of the breed
Review: "For Kings and Planets" is a great novel, and Ethan Canin is certainly among the best writers of this generation. His ability to combine flawless prose with an inciteful view into what motivates people living in the latter part of the 20th century makes him a treasure. I just wish he'd hurry up and get finished with his next book.

Rating:
Summary: If this were a first novel, it would be unpublished
Review: I suggest an experiment: type out the text of "For Kings and Planets". Now, send it to every literary agent and publisher in America. Results? Not one of them will find this manuscript publishable. Full of cliches, awful dialogue, and utterly soap-opera events...it says on the back that Canin teaches fiction writing at Iowa's esteemed program. I can;t imagine that school will continue to enjoy its reputtation into the next decade.

Rating:
Summary: Mezza Mezza
Review: It's a nicely written, mildly interesting read. It has no great story but yet it is enticing to view. It reads like watching a fish struggle on the deck of a boat in slow motion. You watch with great emotion and little interest. I would have rather read Old Man and the sea for a third and fourth time than to have read this but once.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this book
Review: I bought this book partly because I was intrigued by the comments on this page. People seem to have either loved this book or hated it. (Sign of an important piece of art, if you look back through recent history) And the reviews from major professional reviewers have been equally hot or cold. (I've listed a few here so you see what I mean.) The two best reviewers, in my opinion (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt of the NY Times and Alan Cheuse of NPR) both loved it unequivocally, but Rand Cooper (whoever he is) really hated it in his review in the Times Book Review, and Salon did too. So I bought it (used,I admit, but the paperback wasn't out yet and I spend too much on books). So here is my opinion: I consider myself a well-read person (a book a week for the past twenty years), and I would say that this book is one of the two or three most powerful, intelligent, courageous novels that I have read in as long as I can remember. Others I would put in this category are Philip Roth's "American Pastoral" and Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead". It is gorgeously written, psychologically complex, and emotionally unflinching. I just don't see, in the end, why the reviews seem to be so split. It occured to me that younger reviewers might not like the book because it is not hip. That's okay, but if you are, like me, looking for a mature, thoughtful, character-driven novel, then I would say this is a book for you. I could't recomend it more highly.

Here, for your interest, are some of the contrary reviews:

Cristopher Lehmann-Haupt (The New York Times)   Shimmering...luminous...For Kings and Planets leaves you wounded and healed.   Rand Richards Cooper (NYTimes Book Review)   . . .[A] greedy monster of a novel that swallows up its creator's virtues and leaves only weaknesses on display. . . .[it has a] discomfort with form: a welter of narrative summary; important characters who exist solely as props for the protagoist; a bland and pedantic narrative voice.   San Jose Mercury News "For Kings and Planets" is wide and deep, intelligent, subtle but clear, and profoundly satisfying. A wonderful book by a major American writer.

Newsday  To this year's list of outstanding American novels, we must now add Ethan Canin's For Kings and Planets. Never before has Canin been so surehanded a storyteller. Given the achievement of For Kings and Planets, Scott Fitzgerald himself would have been honored by his company. Canin's novel speaks with a hard-earned grace worthy of the master.

Elizabeth Judd, SALON Magazine "Canin pretends that the fate of Orno's soul is up for grabs, when no one -- not even the world's biggest hayseed -- could mistake which way the wind is blowing. Apparently, the moral of "For Kings and Planets" is not that nice guys finish first or last, but that they speak in clichés and graduate at the middle of their dental school class."

Alan Cheuse (NPR All Things Considered) "The most mature and accomplished novelist of his generation. For Kings and Planets stands head and shoulders above the crowd."

There you have it.

Rating:
Summary: A DISAPPOINTMENT
Review: Sadly, the writer has run out of things to say and has produced a banal novel for commercial purposes. Hopefully, he waits several more years and gains some maturity before he produces his next.

Rating:
Summary: i just finished what i thought was a quick, gripping read...
Review: only to close the book think about it and relize it wasnt even that special...funny how i wanted to like it better but cant. i have read his others, this tries to build charators that arent rich enough...