Rating: 
Summary: Few times has social commentary been so hard to put down
Review: Revisionist history is typically cynical, intellectually dishonest hindsight. What makes Yates' dark, decidedly cynical look at the '50s in "Revolutionary Road" so compelling is that it was written just a few years after the era it portrays.Despite the book's obvious attack on various institutions and conventions of the time that contribute to the Wheelers' disintegration, Yates' most poignant focus is on individual morality and choice: Frank and April Wheeler are clearly products of their own grim, misguided and abortive motivations, rather than victims of their repressive, tacky, dead-end suburban existence. Despite the author's rather vicious, excessively lurid character development, despite his emphasis to the point of overkill how poorly adjusted Connecticut suburbanites were in the '50s, despite the sometimes preachiness of the narrative, this is nevertheless a "lost" classic, very much worthy of being compared to "The Great Gatsby." While the general tone of "Revolutionary Road" is one of hard-nosed realism, it is at some points remarkably touching, an aspect of the novel about which I've yet read little. There's even a little supernatural intimation toward the end that -- out of place in this stark book as it may seem -- is further indicative of how complex, contemplative a work this is.
Rating: 
Summary: A Shakespearean tragedy
Review: I spent more than one night staying up past
my bedtime reading this novel. I found it to have the structure of a Shakespearean tragedy, complete with a fool, in the form of an institutionally
committed ex-mathematician, who provides some
humor as well as honesty.
I think the novel is much more than a tale of
suburban angst. It is about how easy it is to
make decisions, or more accurately not make decisions, that ulitmately accumulate into
living a life that is much less than what it
could have been. It is about how easy it is
to fool ourselves and those around as to what our real motives are. And how difficult it is to know what our real motives are, and
how to act on them if we did. The writing is direct, but compelling, and not
without beauty.
Rating: 
Summary: A book of bored people..
Review: This book was unforgettable to me also. I read it back in the 70's when I was very much interested in having a different life than my parents(IBM!). And what is unforgettable is that this book, although highly recommended, was very boring and disappointing. At one point the characters are looking at their extensive book collection, remembering that it was supposed to have made all the difference, as though the books would jump off the shelf and live their lifes for them. It's just sad and depressing and mad me feel bad about books for quite some time since I had been looking for change in this bland tome.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing Spectacular
Review: In a nutshell, I found Revolutionary Road to be a book about people who have trouble dealing with everyday life. The problems that the characters deal with are not earth-shattering, just things that could happen to anyone. I think that is why the book seems depressing, because the more I read, the more I thought, "Why can't they just deal with this"! This was an easy, fast read, but there are a lot of books that I would recommend before this one.
Rating:
Summary: A shallow look at 1950s America
Review: Richard Yates' "Revolutionary Road" has received such an enormous amount of acclaim and renewed attention since his death in 1992 that you might think that his novel is truly an undiscovered gem. But the limp prose, tepid plot, and silly characters that constitute this alleged buried classic refute this. The language is plain-spoken, which would be fine if the characterization and plot dazzled, which they don't. Frank and April Wheeler and their irritatingly precious children never grow, but always whine. They repeat themselves until they dissolve themselves. Anatole Broyard, as Richard Ford points out in this edition's introduction, was irritated by an ambiguity of presentation in the novel; he asked whether we're to take the Wheeler's travails as tight-lipped realism or scathing symbolism. It's clear why Broyard would wonder this, as Yates himself doesn't seem to know. Yates' idea of irony is so creaky and silly one wonders how its self-consciousness slipped past the reviewers. The Wheelers see themselves as bohemians, though they are ostensibly suburban and most of all when they protest against suburbia. The Givings boy is "crazy" and institutionalized, yet he's the only one who speaks the sane "truth." Hum, hum. Yates' intentions are so transparent and vapid that by novel's end you'll want to unearth your copy of J.D. Salinger's "Nine Stories" to remind yourself that compelling and thoughtful prose on 1950s America does exist.
Rating:
Summary: What the reader brings to a book
Review: Before purchasing Revolutionary Road, I actually read the reviews that were posted on this web site, and I found them all quite interesting. I even read what the "critics" had to say about the book. My own reading of the book was a very personal experience: it was something between the author and me. As I read the book, it reminded me of my first visit many years ago to a fine art photography gallery, which exhibited absolutely beautiful black & white photographs. I walked up to one particular photograph and remarked to the gallery owner, "That's kind of depressing." He responded, "It could be." I actually bought that photograph and now view it as a remarkable, beautiful rendering of fallen sequoias in Sequoia National Park. Those sequoias exhibit all their "majesty" despite their continuing and, eventually, total decay. Unlike many of the posted reviews and comments about Revolutionary Road, I did not view the book as a sort of depressing depiction of life in 50's suburbia. Perhaps that is because I grew up in 50's - 60's suburbia, and as a 50+ year old can now look back on the day-to-day experiences described in this book as hilarious. Only one other reviewer apparently saw what I did. While many people lived their daily lives like this, you learn to roll with the punches, to persist, to rise above your circumstances, and even to look back with nostalgia. It was a much simpler time. Sound incredible? Remember what the gallery owner told me before I purchased my first photograph! Perhaps it is what we bring to the reading that matters.
Rating:
Summary: A classic novel of 1950s America
Review: I read this novel with the same kind of horrified fascination with which you'd watch a car wreck in slow motion. You know these characters are ruining their lives and you can't tear yourself away from the spectacle of an awful tragedy in the making. There are many things to admire about this book. Yates takes on an ambitious, resonant theme - American failure and disillusionment - and dramatizes it brilliantly. You'll wince at the all too convincing portrayals of marriages gone sour (complete with bitter, epic, to-the-death marital brawls), inane cocktail parties, and absurd, soul-deadening office jobs. And you'll savor this novel's pungent dialogue; the finely crafted, and often disturbing, characters (John Givings is my personal favorite); Yates' graceful, fluid prose style; and his gripping, extremely well-constructed narrative. Every element of this novel is remarkably well-integrated. I must confess that (to me) it came as a shock when one of the characters died. But in this novel, for once, death doesn't seem like melodramatic ploy, or an arbitrary ending for a novelist too lazy or stuck to come up with a more artistically satisfying conclusion. In "Revolutionary Road," the death is completely in keeping with the novel's themes and seems like a logical outcome of the character's particular situation/condition. There is one level, though, on which I found this book to be especially fascinating, and that is as social history. This is a quintessential 50s text, and Frank Wheeler is the quintessential 50s male - it's all there, from Frank's post-war disillusionment (he had a "good war"), to his rants about everything from conformity to "togetherness" to picture windows, to the way that he holds up peculiarly oppressive version of psychoanalysis as a tool to manipulate his wife into "proper" female behavior. In fact, this novel should give pause to those who idealize the 1950s. In that decade, people were under heavy social pressure to marry early, have lots of kids, and conform to rigid gender roles. Abortion was illegal and dangerous and existing contraceptive methods were unreliable. "Revolutionary Road" documents the unhappy results: ill-advised marriages and career choices, people having kids whether they wanted them or not (and whether they were good at parenting or not), an entire generation mourning the sexual, educational, and career opportunities that they passed up in order to marry young and be "good providers" (male version) and "happy housewives" (female version). Whether Yates intended it or not, "Revolutionary Road" stands up as remarkably prescient social criticism. It is a rich and satisfying novel on many levels, and it thoroughly deserves the status of an American classic.
Rating:
Summary: To the Bone
Review: Rev Road was my first Yates, and just like any other first love, I will never forget it. You know what the funniest thing about this book is? It's a friggin page-turner. Rev Road became an obsession -- I thought about it when I wasn't reading it, and if I wasn't reading it or thinking about it, it was because I was telling everyone what an incredible book it is. Rev Road is funny as hell. I mean laugh out loud funny. The support characters are one-dimensional, cartoonish, even, but that's all right because that's what makes them so horrifying. This book is the essence of how we screws ourselves up each and every day and live with ourselves. It's about pain. It's about how much we want to hurt the ones we love. For the fans of David E. Kelley, lemme tell you: Remember how fantastic the first three seasons of Picket Fences were? How the characters would say these things to each other that nobody would ever dare say, things that cut right to the bone? Now imagine that and multiply it by a hundred -- in quantity and quality. Now you have Rev Road. It cuts, it chops, it dices real human emotion. Here's the scary part: I hear The Easter Parade is even a better book. I'm reading it right now. I'll tell you when I'm done. - SJW
Rating:
Summary: I Have Met the Enemy, and He is I
Review: I am so grateful to Allen Smalling, Amazon Reviewer, whose fine review led me to buy and read this excellent story. Much has been made of its 50's, suburban setting; yet the characters are timeless. Frank & April, Shep & Molly, Mr. & Mrs. Givings are alive and not-so-well and among us today. One thing that struck me was the characters have been described as "materialistic." Compared to Americans of the 21st century, they only had the smallest notion of what true materialism is all about. They seem curiously innocent in that respect. Richard Yates is a giant of a writer who will make his way to the short list of great authors of the 20th century. His capturing of the momentary feeling, the basic sham of the faces we present to the world cut very close to the bone. Frank Wheeler receives the worst drubbing from readers and critics, I believe because we all see ourselves in Frank, and do not like what we observe. Frank is a man capable of introspection, and his small façade as an intellectual, brilliant misfit in a dead-end job is not despicable, only mediocre, and he sees his own mediocrity. This is what makes us uncomfortable, and what is painful, we dislike. Shep is the flip side of Frank, but his face to the world is one of a regular guy, straight talking, practical and dependable; he is truly a sensitive romantic who has thrown his life away to be someone he doesn't even like very well. Somehow we forgive Shep, but not Frank. Mr. Yates does not have the same sure hand with the females; they do not come to life like the men. The use of John Givings, the mad man as the catalyst and truth-sayer is a brilliant novelistic device. I thought of John Marquand and John Cheever who were roughly contemporaneous with Richard Yates. They had many of the same concerns, but did not have the incisiveness, humor and depth of Yates. You not only will enjoy the read, but I am sure will want to re-read and reflect upon this powerful novel.
Rating:
Summary: missing the boat
Review: Most reviewers seem to have missed the boat on the intriguing issue in Richard Yates' famous novel REVOLUTIONARY ROAD. What is actually the beguiling feature of this story is the effort Yates made to write an *existential novel*. The story does involve two somewhat pretentious, and lost, young Americans but the real story is: how do you get *unlost*? The husband and wife have two very different answers to this question. the husband, who covets a reputation as a courageous intellectual, is forever pontificating to his wife about quitting the bourgeois scene and committing to a life of meaning, regardless of the penury that is in their future living in Europe without jobs. The truth is, he is a terrible coward, and he sinks ever deeper into his meaningless existence (applied a little heavyhandedly by the author so the point won't be missed). He continues, however,talking ever louder about what he will do. His wife, who finally understands what he is trying to say, takes him at face value and tries to enable his expressed aspirations. She feels the meaning in her life will come by her sacrifice so that he can finally realize his potential as a thinker. She becomes the embodiment of his putative dream and it is really his worst nightmare. As she begins to understand the extent of his weakness it becomes hers as well. The result is true tragedy, in heroic style, for both of them. This is an effort to use the then popular understanding of *existentialism* i.e. Jean Paul Sartre, in an entertainment. the standard notions of *engagement* are used.... This was a difficult task for a writer to attempt and one Mr. Yates came close to managing. It is unfortunate that what he was really up to isn't better understood.
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