Rating: 
Summary: Independence Day was a Chore to Read
Review: Tiresome and uninspiring reading. The plodding characterizations and descriptions become very predictable after the first two or three chapters. What was the point of the book? That there is no point and one can simply drift through life amid countless observations and canny remarks?
Rating: 
Summary: FRIGHTENING
Review: This says what we all say, pretty much nothing
Rating:
Summary: A trip for those who don't mind a bit of thinking
Review: After reading a number of previous reviews I hope any potential reader realizes that there is no accounting for taste. If you like a book that makes you think and at the same time transports you lock, stock, and barrel to another place then this book is for you. If you need to have everything explained to you - AKA Clancy - then you might pass.
Rating: 
Summary: An ezhausting novel with points of enlightenment
Review: As I read through Richard Ford's Independence Day, I found myself constantly asking the question, "on what basis did they award this book the Pulitzer Prize?" Though I found some sections to be entertaining and/or enlightening, the effectiveness was hampered due to the dull material preceding it. It was an exhausting journey to the end of the book, and I now rest, relieved to have finished. It is not my belief that this novel holds no enrichment. The high points include an abundunce of of great vocabulary as well as numerous words of wisdom, which I found to be intriquing. For example, the narrator, Frank Bascombe, at one point starts rambling about different types of winces and the situations where they appear- "There is the 'grief wince,' the one you experience in bed at 5 a.m., when the phone rings and some stranger tells you your mother or your first son has 'regretfully' expired." One bit of knowledge that I found to be exceptionally useful was his advice on changing residency, seeing that the time is drawing nearer for me to leave the home that I have spent the majority of my childhood in, and move into the fast-lane, the life of higher learning- "Best to just swallow back your tear, get accustomed to the minor sentimentals and shove off to whatever's next, not whatever was. Place means nothing." I am not completely dissatisfied with the contents of Independence Day, however; I did not see it as being a worthy recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, and it does not top my list of "books to suggest to others." It now goes on my bookshelf, where it will probably remain, collecting dust for quite some time.
Rating:
Summary: S Riden claims this is JUST NOT ENOUGH
Review: I read Ford because he's the son of our 38th president, my personal favorite. But Ford (the author) just not up there with the Clancies and the Krytons. Firstly, this is no companion piece to Born on the Fourth of July (Kovacs), whatever anyone says. That's misleading. That's just a lot of chin music, nothing else. Ford gets compared to Hemingway sometimes, but Independence Day is nowhere near as good as The Sun Rises, too. Just hooey with a capital H. Absolute hooey.
Rating: 
Summary: For Readers Tolerant of Blameless Men
Review: 44-year-old Frank Bascombe is in a phase of his life he calls the "Existence Period," which seems to mean he observes everything from a great distance. The only thing this makes him good for is his job--he is one of the most sympathetic realtors on the planet. He drives his clients to more than 40 houses, observing patiently while they stew, bicker, and hurl insults. He studies trends in real estate as if they have a kind of spiritual quality, connecting him to his fellow man in a way nothing else can. While Frank describes his world with lyrical beauty and grace, we soon tire of a character who avoids engagement. His girlfriend asks him how long he intends to date her without getting serious. "'The good mystery's how long anything can go on the way it is...' The Existence Period par excellence," 167. In a pivotal moment between them, Sally asks what he would mean if he told someone he loved them. "It's provisional," he says. "I'd mean I see enough in someone I liked that I'd want to make up a whole person out of that part, and want to keep that person around," p168. Wrong answer. Frank doesn't stay over that night. Luckily Frank's son Paul gets arrested for shoplifting condoms and has to go to court after the Fourth of July. Frank takes Paul to two Halls of Fame over the weekend for an "ur-father-son experience" where he hopes to fix whatever is wrong. The father-son tension provides the drama we've been waiting for. But even the crisis is distanced. Paul suffers the physical tragedy instead of his father. Frank doesn't have to admit he goaded Paul into the act, or that all along, his inability to accept the divorce has caused his son to act out. Frank uses his son's tragedy to seek attention from his ex-wife Ann, as if Frank's the one who's injured. He tells Ann he knows why Paul hurt himself, that he felt the same way when their first son died, and when they divorced. Frank's ambivalence about relationships suddenly seems rooted in his unfinished business with his ex. Frank has been obsessed with her opinion of him, even re-proposing, 251, despite the fact she'd remarried four years ago. With his son waiting in the helicopter, Frank won't let Ann go until she forgives him for handling himself badly. And she does, because she also believes that "children are a signature mark of self-discovery and that what's wrong with Paul is nothing but what's wrong with us," 285. Even though the novel seems to neatly wrap up from here, I am left with the feeling that Frank doesn't deserve his resolution. He has been unlikable for so long that the sudden need to sympathize with him comes too late.
Rating:
Summary: wondrous writing-modern day Ulysses
Review: Originally, I felt this book was worth only 3.5 stars, but the language keeps coming back to me. This is a book that at first glance seems boring and superficial, but a second look reveals that Mr. Ford's writing captures life in the late 20th century ... life not as wild events, but life though the experiences of several Americans who are "normal" people. The writing is delicious.
Rating:
Summary: Who are these "Judges" that hand out the Pulitzer?
Review: I admit it. I read a mere hundred and fifty pages of this book which I feel is as heroic a gesture as I'm capable of. A hundred and fifty pages of epilogue. A novel in which the major events have already taken place, leaving one the feeling of getting to the ball park just after the last pitch is thrown. Reading this gobbler is like listening to a lousy comic explain why his mirthless jokes are funny. Dull events, lifeless people. Another middle aged man's apology for the boredom and confusion he inflicts on himself and others.Humorless and filled with pointless observations. Life is too short for this kind of "literature". I quit.
Rating: 
Summary: A long weekend.
Review: I listened to this book on unabridged tapes. At times, the writing is poetic, at other times jarring. These virtues aside, I do not think this book will still be in print in forty years.
Rating:
Summary: Richard Ford you crook! Return my money!
Review: Why doesn't Amazon have a zero star rating? This book certainly merits (demerits?) a big fat zip. Although technically accomplished, Mr. Ford has absolutely nothing at all to say. To use baseball (hey, why not! Bascombe likes it!) as a metaphor, this book's plot development (and resulting reader interest) is as flat as a as baseball diamond, with a little mound of action in the middle. I was astounded that this book won a Pulitzer. Who voted that year? Chimpanzees throwing darts? A complete waste of time and money. Hey Richard, send me a refund!
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