The Boom Economy: Or, Scenes from Clerical Life

Rating:
Summary: Last year's best book is one of this century's finest.
Review: "The Boom Economy" tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocricies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and happiness. Beautiful, rigorous and eminently readable, "The Boom Economy" is a monumental achievement, and one that will not likely be equalled for another hundred years.

Rating:
Summary: Last year's best book is one of this century's finest.
Review: "The Boom Economy" tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocricies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and happiness. Beautiful, rigorous and eminently readable, "The Boom Economy" is a monumental achievement, and one that will not likely be equalled for another hundred years.

Rating:
Summary: An unexpected second chance at life, but frustrating.
Review: Dennis Bacchus is a middle aged gay man who did his share of partying in the 70's and 80's, and finally gets the courage up to get tested for HIV in 1991. He finds out he is positive, and resolves to make the most out of what he assumes will be the final years of his life. Then the miracle of protease inhibitors becomes a reality, and Dennis (and his best friend/traveling companion Jimmy, who is also positive) gets into a trial program in which he is one of the lucky ones, finding a drug combination that restores his t-cells and makes his viral count undertectable. What he thought would be the end of his life turns out to be the start of a new life he wasn't expecting or prepared for.

At the same time, he made a promise to God to become a priest, if allowed to live. Dennis makes good on his promise, studying to be one of the Jesuit priests he is assigned to assist. Unfortunately, feelings from his "old" life make this new one tough to deal with, and Dennis has to consider if this is indeed the calling for him.

Set primarily in the San Francisco area during the technology boom of the early-mid 1990's, "The Boom Economy, Or Scenes from Clerical Life" covers a decade in the life of a man who alternately feels grateful and cheated, and his colorful friends and acquaintances through which he tries to put his own life in better perspective. Seems realistic to me, as I have several acquaintances who expressed the same kind of frustrated emotions at assuming the end of their life was near, only to be given a new chance thanks to the antiviral drugs, but still realizing the fix could just be temporary. The religious and spiritual dilemma of such frustrations is a great deal of what this novel is about, and would be of primary interest to those who know others in such situations.

Rating:
Summary: An unexpected second chance at life, but frustrating.
Review: Dennis Bacchus is a middle aged gay man who did his share of partying in the 70's and 80's, and finally gets the courage up to get tested for HIV in 1991. He finds out he is positive, and resolves to make the most out of what he assumes will be the final years of his life. Then the miracle of protease inhibitors becomes a reality, and Dennis (and his best friend/traveling companion Jimmy, who is also positive) gets into a trial program in which he is one of the lucky ones, finding a drug combination that restores his t-cells and makes his viral count undertectable. What he thought would be the end of his life turns out to be the start of a new life he wasn't expecting or prepared for.

At the same time, he made a promise to God to become a priest, if allowed to live. Dennis makes good on his promise, studying to be one of the Jesuit priests he is assigned to assist. Unfortunately, feelings from his "old" life make this new one tough to deal with, and Dennis has to consider if this is indeed the calling for him.

Set primarily in the San Francisco area during the technology boom of the early-mid 1990's, "The Boom Economy, Or Scenes from Clerical Life" covers a decade in the life of a man who alternately feels grateful and cheated, and his colorful friends and acquaintances through which he tries to put his own life in better perspective. Seems realistic to me, as I have several acquaintances who expressed the same kind of frustrated emotions at assuming the end of their life was near, only to be given a new chance thanks to the antiviral drugs, but still realizing the fix could just be temporary. The religious and spiritual dilemma of such frustrations is a great deal of what this novel is about, and would be of primary interest to those who know others in such situations.