Martin Bauman; Or, a Sure Thing

Rating:
Summary: Have to persevere through the last 50 pages...
Review: ...but it is definitely worth the emotive conclusion.

A huge fan of Leavitt's, I waited anxiously for this book to come out. I most certainly am not disappointed, as some readers appear to be; it's just that the last fourth or so of the book drags a bit, as if the author ran out of the proverbial steam. In fact, the anecdotes about the publishing industry (one of my favorite aspects of the book) give way to more sentimental concerns of friendships, old and new, and the loss that can ensue. I can't pinpoint why my interest wavered because we had come to know the characters in question quite well... I think that the book's major structural problem is that the narrator is telling a story whose events took place twenty years earlier. Through more deeply embedded flashbacks we get many "apercus" of his life *before* the beginning of the narrative, yet at the end of the book I felt that gap left by the critical distance between the events and their retelling was too abrupt: we would like to know what prompted Martin Bauman to write his memoirs, as it were. This frustruation, in my opinion at least, is compounded by the fact that the narration often hits bumps where the narrator says, "I certainly know better now" or "what I didn't know then was..." In sum, the critical distance becomes critically damaging to the book as a whole. Nonetheless, a definite must for Leavitt fans as well as for those who know the wicked world of publishing.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and fun
Review: David Leavitt is known for his powerful, serious novels.

Martin Bauman is not that. It is an (autobiographical?) novel about growing up gay in the 1980s as a writer. The characters are rich and the situations are interesting. It lacks depth, but as a casual read, Martin Bauman does the trick.

Certainly not anywhere near the calibre of what Leavitt is capable of writing, but perhaps this is the book that will gain him a new group of more mainstream readers.

Rating:
Summary: Leavitt can do much better
Review: I'm one of David Leavitt's biggest fans and have read all of his prior books. Doing so has lead me to have very high expectations of his work, and this book disappointed. While I found the underlying commentary on relationships intelligent, the delivery was rather torturous. Martin Bauman may be a minimalist writer; Leavitt, in this book, was the antithesis of minimalism. I found my patience tested by a seemingly interminable string of cocktail parties and other plot events whose value in character development was questionable at best.

If you are a fan of Leavitt's work you will probably still enjoy this book. If you have not read any of his previous work, I wouldn't start here. His short story collections and books like Lost Language of Cranes and While England Sleeps are far better showcases of his talent.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: It took me great perseverence to get through this book. At times I found it utterly uninteresting - this self-obsessed whining about relationships that are going the wrong way, the details about boring parties, all the repeats when describing the characters. I suppose it's a good thing Leavitt didn't make his own life and character look better- but maybe he should have. I don't really like Martin Baumann, nor his friends, nor anyone. Which should not be a problem if you feel that the person is experiencing mental growth. Here, none of that happens. Leavitt used to be good for his pointed, measured sentences. Now he's blabbing along for much too long. The earlier books may have been as he admits here - untrue and gloating - at least they were a better read.

Rating:
Summary: interesting clues about a writer's life
Review: no-one can help noticing that Martin Bauman, albeit its insistence on its being a novel, is only a mere autobiography in disguise, and as such we shoul view it. Not only is it akward to draw comparisons with other Leavitt's works - it is also inappropiate, unless we should will to cast a light on their bearance on actual facts, which Martin Bauman provides us with.
As an autobiography, Martin Bauman is a fine book. It reveals many of its authors preocccupations at the time when he was forging a writing career for himself. It is also an interesting cultural reflection on gay life at the end of the 70's and the beginning of the 80's, a subject matter Leavitt had refrained himself from probing up to this book, at least in such a straightforward way.

Rating:
Summary: Martin Bauman, Crashing Bore
Review: Regardless of whether there are actual autobiographical elements incorporated into this story, the point is that it reads as if there are, and that's just darned good writing. If a book sounds true, then that means it's written well! For me, this was Mr. Leavitt's most satisfying book since The Lost Language of the Cranes. Unlike that book, this one is supremely mature and introspective. Oh ...and it's funny and just a great read. I had a hard time putting it down. I don't know whether Mr. Leavitt and his friends are like the characters here (and I don't much care as I doubt I will ever meet any of them!); what's more surprising and entertaining is the biting critique of the world of book publishing. Trust me...it's so achingly dead-on that I am surprised any book publisher would actually publish it. If you still live in the bubble that thinks that most of the book publishing industry is still a craft performed with devotion and love, read and behold. Big corporations make it tougher and tougher for good writing like this to make it to bookstore shelves. Bravo to Mr Leavitt and may his writing continue to be as wise and well-crafted and wonderful to read.

Rating:
Summary: True to life
Review: Regardless of whether there are actual autobiographical elements incorporated into this story, the point is that it reads as if there are, and that's just darned good writing. If a book sounds true, then that means it's written well! For me, this was Mr. Leavitt's most satisfying book since The Lost Language of the Cranes. Unlike that book, this one is supremely mature and introspective. Oh ...and it's funny and just a great read. I had a hard time putting it down. I don't know whether Mr. Leavitt and his friends are like the characters here (and I don't much care as I doubt I will ever meet any of them!); what's more surprising and entertaining is the biting critique of the world of book publishing. Trust me...it's so achingly dead-on that I am surprised any book publisher would actually publish it. If you still live in the bubble that thinks that most of the book publishing industry is still a craft performed with devotion and love, read and behold. Big corporations make it tougher and tougher for good writing like this to make it to bookstore shelves. Bravo to Mr Leavitt and may his writing continue to be as wise and well-crafted and wonderful to read.

Rating:
Summary: Joyless and Smug
Review: Several other reviewers have already commented on how repellent all the characters in this book are, and I wholeheartedly endorse their opinions. Besides being alarmingly juvenile and petulant, these characters, supposedly intellectuals, have only insipid conversations and seem to prefer pop culture like cartoons to the fine arts. Literature is just a career and a cozy milieu for these whining egomaniacs. True, Leavitt often invokes Proust, and when he does one yearns for Proust's narrator's humility and detached self-observation. One senses that Leavitt was trying to show growth at least in his eponymous character, but he fails, and Martin Bauman is the same unformed adolescent at the end of the novel. Leavitt writes at times with skill, but he relies too frequently on tortured metaphors to dress up a sentence. His attempts to place the story in an era also fail. Cultural references of the era are derivative, and sometimes inconsistent or mistaken, as when he describes an IBM Selectric typewriter as being high-tech in the 80s. I was also troubled by several instances where Leavitt gets the who/whom distinction wrong. Example: "...she was thinking of showing the manuscript to Stanley Flint, whom she was sure was going to love it." This is the grammatical equivalent of saying "She was sure him was going to love it." He also writes that Eli is working on a "string trio" that his mother hoped to persuade the Beaux Arts Trio to perform. As far as I know, the Beaux Arts Trio plays PIANO trios, not string trios. I also submit that the ending was arbitrary in its timing, as if even Leavitt had had enough of his dreadful book.

Rating:
Summary: This is an entertaining book.
Review: When I first started reading this story I didn't know whether I wanted to finish it or not, but I forged on and by the time I got to Page 387, I was glad I did. David it is a great story teller, who really knows how to write in great detail. He writes like he's having a conversation with you, and that is very relaxing especially if you don't mind spending a lot of time with him. This story centering around Martin, the narrator, and Eli (his boyfriend) and Liza takes place in the 80's and covers their lives as writers just starting out in the complex publishing world. A lot of the story I believe is autobiographical but that really doesn't matter at all, unless you were part of the New York scene at that time and personally knew these people. I, myself, enjoyed learning a little more about the ins and outs of the publishing world as explained in this story. This story was very touching, and funny at times. I just wish the conclusion would have taken the story a few years more into the future. But who know, maybe there will be a sequel.

If you have enjoyed David's other books (Lost Language of Cranes & While England Sleeps) you'll like this one. I know I did. This is a story that is well written from an author who will be one of our literary giants for a long time to come.