Rating: 
Summary: A manic mid-life crisis
Review: Grady Tripp, narrator of Chabon's funny and frantic second novel, is a fortyish writing professor mired in the swamp of his latest novel, a 2,600-page mess called Wonder Boys, and wrestling with a serious attack of mid-life panic.The story takes place over the course of WordFest weekend, an annual Pittsburgh writer's festival put on by Tripp's university. The event's main attraction, a famous author identified only as "Q.," bemoans and celebrates his "doppelganger, a malignant shadow who lived in the mirrors and under the floorboards and behind the drapes of his own existence, haunting all of Q.'s personal relationships and all of his commerce with the world." This mischievous double would pop up occasionally "to ensure that human misfortune...continued unabated in Q.'s life. Otherwise, of course, there would be nothing to write about." After his opening speech, Q. is never again seen in anything but a state of alcoholic catatonia. But Tripp finds much to sympathize with in this speech, calling his own version "the midnight disease." Tripp's own role at the festival is nebulous and seems to consist mostly of providing entertainment for his old college chum, current editor and flamboyant homosexual Terry Crabtree, who arrives towing a transvestite he met on the plane, but soon dumps her in favor of Tripp's darkly tormented and talented student James Leer. As the festival opens, Tripp is terrified Crabtree will demand to see his novel. At 2,600 pages it has five unsuitable endings. And his third wife, Emily, has left him - although it takes him a full day to absorb the signs, having consigned them to paranoia generated by his perpetual marijuana fog. When his girlfriend, Sara, the college chancellor, tells him she is pregnant, thereby issuing an ultimatum on their relationship, Tripp dives into the bourbon he had forsworn four years earlier. In a haze of pot and alcohol he spots his possibly suicidal student James Leer with a gun and takes him under his wing. Tripp is no stranger to suicide demons - his own father was a suicide as was the first writer he ever knew, and the first he ever plagiarized. Hoping to distract Leer, Tripp leads him deep into the chancellor's house, into her bedroom and her husband's closet where his prized memorabilia collection is housed, including the jacket Marilyn Monroe wore when she married Joe Dimaggio. Sara's guests leave and Tripp and Leer are alone in the house. Tension and inevitable disaster loom over the audacious comedy of the scene.
When the chancellor's dog comes snarling, Tripp is attacked and bitten. "I was afraid, but not too afraid for it to occur to me that dying torn to pieces by blind, mad dogs had a certain mythic quality that might work well in the section of Wonder Boys...." And the roller coaster ride is begun. Leer's little gun goes off and the dog is dead. Tripp loads the dog into his trunk and heads off to tell Sara. But he can't quite. Things get worse and he consumes more pot, more bourbon. Lies to the police, grabs James Leer and abandons WordFest, heading off to join Emily's family for the Passover Seder, then turns back to confess all to Sara, chickens out - no surprise - and resumes his pursuit of Emily and a family to belong to. Seeing Emily, he is again unable to get a morsel of truth to pass his lips and resorts to using family members as chancy go-betweens. All of this manic and downwardly spiraling activity is conducted amidst a monologue of what it has meant to consciously cloak oneself in the writerly personna and, after everything, to face the specter of failure. Tripp and Crabtree are the old "wonder boys," running uphill to stay that way, while James Leer is the newest "wonder boy" with a passable novel in his knapsack, a made-up identity and a whole baggage of self-loathing and despair. In James, Tripp sees himself but even his attempts to rescue Leer are formless and misguided. Tripp returns to WordFest in time for its finale and his own nadir of self-destruction. Although images and prospects of suicide haunt the narrative, there is never any expectation that Tripp will choose that fate. He loves life, he just doesn't like the present version much. His approach to relationships and events is an often contradictory mix of guilt, self-preservation and a writer's reflective curiosity. He's addicted to the sensation of pot which "makes me feel like everything already happened five minutes ago." He's a collector of interesting people. Emily, a Korean refugee, is the adopted child of a Jewish couple whose biological son died in an accident. Emily is as self-contained and austere as Tripp is sloppy. Which doesn't mean she hurts any less. Tripp follows her, not so much with any idea of resuming his marriage (he's already anticipating a dalliance with the 20-year-old student who lives in his house), but to recollect her odd and endearing family and introduce them to James. These rather chilly motivations are, however, well wrapped in layers of emotional yearning. Sara is a woman with a well-constructed life, carefully built up a step at a time with education, career advancement and prudence - until, having accomplished her goals, she falls in with Tripp. Tripp, naturally, is hoping she'll decide on abortion, although he'd never say as much to her. Chabon's writing is sharp, barbed and appealing, as contradictory as his hero. His images are crisp and complete, offering boldly sketched characters which come near but never succumb to caricature. Tripp, though he shouldn't be, is likable and the reader roots for him to get out from under the weight of his novel as if it's that and not himself which prevents a fresh start. Chabon enjoys his contradictions. Academia is staid and stuffy, childish and wild. It's at the heart of Tripp's life but remains on the fringes of the novel. The tone is melancholy while events are antic. Tripp revels in sensation for the sake of something to write about and is so overcome by sensation he cannot write coherently. And while the story of male mid-life crisis is not new, Chabon's voice is entertaining and thought-provoking. Amidst all the humor and bite is a meditation on what it means to strive too hard to be a writer. Although perhaps it's not anything quite so stuffy as that.
Rating: 
Summary: chabon is a wonder boy
Review: I read _Wonder Boys_ immediately after finishing _Oryx and Crake_ by Margaret Atwood, and was shocked that I'd had an easier time keeping up with the latter. When I was initially getting into Chabon's book, I felt as though I had to run to keep up with the narrative, and I even felt out of breath, continually referring back to remember who had said what to whom to provoke an action. However, once I had become accustomed to the speed of the narrative, I was thoroughly entertained by the adventures of Grady Tripp, his unfortunate student James Leer, and the editor Terry Crabtree. There were many moments when I laughed out loud and read lines to my husband because they were so witty (usually in the voice of Grady). Most of the plot seemed to focus on Grady's failing marriage and also his failing affair, and his failing book which he'd been working on for 7 years. Some items seemed unnessecarily confusing, such as Grady's extreme attraction to a nymphette student who was inexplicably living in his basement; the picture in James' room that matched one Grady's wife had (which was never explained), and who exactly was involved and why with the somewhat violent climax. And at the end, you wonder: what is going to happen to James Leer, who was so important to this story? I did love the descriptions of writing and the personalities of writers ("the night disease"), the interesting inclusion of the Marilyn Monroe jacket, and the willy-nilly escapes and cover-ups. The ending seemed a bit inconclusive, but all in all a very entertaining and enjoyable novel.
Rating: 
Summary: A rare case...
Review: I believe this is one of the rare instances where the film was stronger than the novel. This book is thematically inconsistent and, in many of the scenes that did not appear in the film version, pretty boring. The characters are great and Chabon is a good author - but, much to my surprise, I would advise one to rent the film before reading the book.
Rating:
Summary: The mark of great skill!
Review: I've barely finished this book and I already feel like a swan diving off the roof; Mr. Chabon is that good. The story of an eccentric novelist whose life turns upside down in the midst of a writer's block is insightful, entertaining and thought provoking. The dark humor is second to none. Granted, Grady Tripp isn't the most pleasant character ever read, but his off-kilter personality had me in stitches throughout the novel. I haven't seen the film yet but I hope Michael Chabon made pots of money off its release. What a skillful and brilliant novelist. You must read this book immediately.
Rating:
Summary: Writers in Pittsburgh on a bizarre weekend bender
Review: Michael Chabon's "Wonder Boys" is a darkly funny literary novel about a writer lost in a marijuana fog, tapping away at an endless fourth work that has taken over seven years of his life, and how his life finally unravels over the course of a weekend during "Wordfest" at the small college where he teaches.
On a Friday, writer/teacher Grady Tripp has his wife leave him, learns his lover, the college chancellor, is pregnant, and has a young writing student living in his basement, who may have more in mind than just reading his work in progress.
Enter James Leer, a sort of Amish Goth student of Tripp's, and we have a kind of Fear and Loathing On The Road in Pittsburgh.
There are a number of interesting characters, including Tripp's editor, the sexually ambiguous Crabtree, the transvestite, Antonia Sloviak, one Vernon Hardapple, aka Pea, and all of Grady's women.
Chabon has a way with a phrase and I found myself rereading sentences and passages because the prose was so beautifully executed. He turned some fresh similes, and while the story was mostly character driven, there was tension and conflict throughout that kept the story moving.
I felt that it did sag a bit in the middle when Grady and James went to Grady's in-laws to celebrate the Jewish holiday Seder, and it's funny because that entire part was written out of the movie version.
Yes, the movie version was good as well, excellently cast with Michael Douglas as Tripp, Tobey Maguire as James Leer, Robert Downey as the lecherous Crabtree, and Frances McDormand as Sara, Tripp's lover.
Great book that I will probably reread at some point, and I'm looking forward to digging into Chabon's other works.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: I was assigned to read this book by a college English professor, and I'm glad I was because this isn't the kind of book I would normally pick up. As a writer myself, I loved reading about the main character's troubles in bringing his gargantuan novel to a close. The story was full of weird characters and twists, but that made it fun. The things going on around the main character were ludicrous, but that highlighted the seriousness of his situation. The best word I can think of to describe this book: interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: Masterpiece! Brilliant! His best work....better than Kavalier and Clay. T
Rating:
Summary: A Good Story Streched Too Far
Review: Towards the end of "The Wonder Boys the potential next conquest of our novelist hero Grady reads the draft of his Wonder Boys. Her only comment was maybe it would be better if Grady weren't stoned all the time. Funny thing is I had come to the conclusion that Michael Chabon's novel of the same name would have been better if Grady wasn't stoned all the time either. "The Wonder Boys is the tale of a writer in crisis. His third and long overdue novel is at 1000 pages and he is still nowhere near completion. As a result his relationship with his oldest friend Crabtree, who is also his editor, is coming to an end. His wife has left him over his affair with another professor who teaches at the same college as him. Complicating the affair are both her pregnancy and her husband, the Chancellor of the same college. Meanwhile his substance abuse, consisting mostly of smoking enough pot for three sequels to "Up In Smoke has addled his creativity, his senses, and his sense. Over a weekend including both a writer's conference at the school and Passover at his in-laws Grady's life collapses, all his mistakes coming together. At the very end, a reborn Grady rises not like a phoenix but a guy who has it together to start a new life. There are a lot of fun ideas in "The Wonder Boys: the midnight disease, the unbalanced nature of writers, a mentor relationship, uncontrollable womanizing, substance abuse, confused youth, mortality, and on and on. There are some memorable characters, including Crabtree, James Lear a potential writing prodigy, and Grady's mistress. In fact there is one hell of a two hundred and fifty page novel in there. The problem is the damn thing is 350 pages long and it seems like each of the 100 extras is Grady getting stoned and feeling sorry for himself. In fact Grady is the real problem of the entire novel. While the protagonist of a novel about midlife crisis, failure, and rebirth probably won't be very attractive at the beginning (after all, we're talking about someone at the bottom coming up) by the end you should have found something in him that makes his recovery from the mess of his life seem both just and desirable. With Grady I just wanted to scream, "Sober up and open your eyes you stupid pothead." Only after much navel gazing (Grady is a stereotype of the midlife crisis boomer so much it hurts) does Grady finally start to take action and become a character whose side you want to take. While no particular part needs to be removed some healthy editing and trimming to some scenes and sequences would have done wonders. However, the story is interesting and if Chabon does take too long in the middle to resolve the crisis he setups in the end the overall story is good. The sense of coming full circle where Grady returns to his hometown to be moderate successful novelist after opening the book with the tale of a failed pulp writer a la Howard or Lovecraft is satisfying. Chabon has a nice sense of language and his supporting cast shows an interesting eye for character. While I'm not as enamored of it as many were I can see the potential that was apparently fulfilled in "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay based on that book's Pulitzer Prize. Certainly not good enough to make me run out and get his other books, but not bad enough to make me never read him again.
Rating:
Summary: Pre-Pulitzer Grace
Review: Wonder Boys is nothing short of magnificent. While Chabon was awarded a Pulitzer for a Kavalier and Clay, this is a far superior work. Taking place over the short span of a weekend, Wonder Boys manages to embrace the reader and take him along on a tour of middle aged panic, Mid-Atlantic mindset, and fear of mediocrity. As his world crashes down around him, our hero Grady Tripp is forced to make decisions, apparently for the first time in many years. He is at once lover, mentor, failure, last hope and father figure to those surrounding him. Can he pull it off? Read and find out.
Rating:
Summary: Chabon is amazing
Review: Maybe you have to be an English Major slash hopeful writer to really enjoy this book to it's full potential, though I really don't think that is true. Chabon has painted a beautiful canvas in this account of a few days in the life of Grady Tripp. It's a clever, funny look at the world of a burned out novelist. I highly recommend it. With works like this and Kavalier and Clay, Chabon is fast becoming one of my favorite authors writing today, alongside Nick Hornby and Chuck Palahniuk.
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