Ripley Bogle (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Rating:
Summary: No Holden Caulfield
Review: After reading very favorable reviews, I got the impression this book would be about an "Irish Holden Caulfield." (Catcher in the Rye.) There were some similairities. They are both young men narrating the story of their own demise from formal education to homelessness. Both speak directly to the reader, telling us what we would think of something, then reiterating. (you'd love it, you really would.) But I found Ripley Bogle to be a difficult book to get through. The author uses such extreme vocabulary, there were times I wish he'd put away his thesaurus and just tell the story. There were some very witty passages and extremely detailed descriptions, but a lot of excess. This is just my humble opinion, but I don't care for the books where the writing is a lot more noticable than the story.

Rating:
Summary: No Holden Caulfield
Review: After reading very favorable reviews, I got the impression this book would be about an "Irish Holden Caulfield." (Catcher in the Rye.) There were some similairities. They are both young men narrating the story of their own demise from formal education to homelessness. Both speak directly to the reader, telling us what we would think of something, then reiterating. (you'd love it, you really would.) But I found Ripley Bogle to be a difficult book to get through. The author uses such extreme vocabulary, there were times I wish he'd put away his thesaurus and just tell the story. There were some very witty passages and extremely detailed descriptions, but a lot of excess. This is just my humble opinion, but I don't care for the books where the writing is a lot more noticable than the story.

Rating:
Summary: As good as Eureka Street
Review: I was simply astonished by the fact that he was this good at the start. Ripley Bogle is no worse than Eureka Street, although maybe a little more juvenile. It does not have the happy end of Eureka Street, and it is much more cynical, in the way young and precocious writers often are. However, as literature it is even more innovative than Eureka Street, and often it feels much more immediate and honest.

Rating:
Summary: Unabashed love of language
Review: I'm on a constant search for books smart enough to keep me until the end. Literary pompousity irritates me beyond belief, yet so does poor work. Not since Johnathon Coe's "House of Sleep" have I been able to read in such contentment. I loved the energy of Wilson, the great journey he takes us on through the eyes of a tramp inflicted with genius in a world where thought doesn't belong. It was wonderful to read a novel so honest, by a writer whose intelligence was never usurped by arrogance.

Rating:
Summary: Thank God, a writer who WRITES!
Review: McLiam Wilson shows his youth in this first novel, but his Dickensian attention to detail is usually a thrill to behold. I'm so sick of writing being a by-the-way of telling stories. Though not without the wit present in Eureka Street, the operative adjective here is "beautiful:" every word is where it should be, every sentence is in its rightful place, and the book leaves one thinking of the author, "how does he DO that?" For readers who want to read a book written using language to benefit a plot instead of just convey it, Ripley Bogle is a godsend. The end will make your jaw drop.

Rating:
Summary: buy this book now
Review: robert mcliam wilson dropped out of college to live on the street and write this book, and i think it's safe to say that was a brilliant move. ripley bogle makes almost none of the mistakes first-time-novelists tend to make. it stretches the intellect of the reader, the author, and of bogle himself. this (along with wilson's second novel, eureka street) is among the best books written by my generation. if you think all the great literary masters are dead and gone, you're sadly mistaken. you should read ripley bogle. your friends should read it. and everyone else you know, for that matter, should read it too.