Empire Falls

Rating:
Summary: a chick book for guys
Review: this is an extremely well written book. the prose is excellent and the characters, along with their thoughts, emotions, and actions, are as well understood as they would be if the reader did indeed know them. a guy who likes mystery stories and enjoys more than just a bit of eroticism in those mysteries, and deems himself above watching a chick movie and reading love stories, and family "stuff", I nevertheless enjoyed this non mystery and non erotic book beyond most I have read for a very long time. I have given it to my wife and suspect she will like it as much as did I.

Rating:
Summary: Empire Falls
Review: This was my favorite novel of the summer of 2001. It was funny and thoughtful and surprising. I read it once and listened to it on tape two more times. It gets better and better. The only down side is I have not found a book I like as well this summer.

Rating:
Summary: Elegance in Simplicity
Review: In dire need to catch up on contemporary letters scene, I purchased Russo's rural epic of small town-Maine. Empire Falls is populated by characters you would expect to find in a town like this - underachiving dreamers like Miles Roby, ignorant hicks like James Minty, mystical moguls like Francine Whiting who seem to be pulling the strings of fate for the less fortunate, insecure but precocious girls like Miles's daughter.

The seductive, cunningly written text draws the reader into ordinary lives and makes them care about the characters. To achieve this affect, Russo deployed the multi-perspectival third-person omniscient. This allows him to channel his own multi-faceted meditations through the inner voices of people of various ages, genders, and social stations. Externally, the dialogue is well-written: deadpan funny at times, absolutely touching at others.

One deep theme in the book is the passive personal perdition that gets lost in the sands of time. Things like ambition, love, and happiness are forgotten somewhere along the line when individually mild, but ultimately consequential compomises are made. Russo explores the human basics - spirituality, lust, envy, fear, anger, irrationality, failure, impotence, frustration, greed, power, hate, insecurity, et al. He is interested in what makes us who we are and memory - omniscient introspective chapters figure into the narrative between the progressing plot.

The conclusion, perhaps striving for a neorealist unreconcilability, is somewhat unwieldy considering the gargantuan effort the author put into his buildup and characterizations. Overall, however, this book stands out as proof that simple stories are richer for good writing. The mighty pen exalts the unexceptional.

Rating:
Summary: Small Town Lives Again
Review: Miles Roby is an unassuming leading man for a book, his soon to be ex-wife says he is transparent. Perhaps he is, but he is also sensitive and aware of the effects of life's struggles on those with whom he shares the town of Empire Falls. Character development is not one of Mr. Russo's weaknesses, I thoroughly enjoyed Miles, Tick, Janine, Max, Bea and all the other folks of Empire Falls. Why you may ask, I think because it was a believable story. Having driven through many towns such as Empire Falls and wondering why anyone would stay there, this book answers the question thoroughly from various view points. A terrific read it will be in my top 10 books of the year.

Rating:
Summary: hard to read
Review: I read all the time and there are lots of books that I have enjoyed, but this is not one of them. I thought it might be interesting because I grew up in Maine, but I found the book extremely hard to read. It was much too wordy and kept jumping around from the present to the past. The ending eventually pulled together the mystery of the book, but it could have been written with less words and in a way that was more captivating. The book had me mildly interested, but this writer will never be an author that I will go back to reading in the future.

Rating:
Summary: "That's Not Supposed to Happen Here."
Review: Set in a small town of rural Maine, this story focuses on about a dozen of its citizens, young and old, most of whom work at or frequent its somewhat greasy spoon of a diner; and it is not an overstatement to say that the novel's appeal and strength derive from their attentive development by their creator. One needs only to read to a page midway before the key feeling hits, the feeling that you, too, are in the diner, and that you could easily contribute some dialogue of your own to the conversations, simply because you really are getting to know these people. Thus, this reviewer is in agreement with others who applaud the book's numerous characterizations. But I disagree with those reviewers who see the story's ending as rushed and indicative that Russo was unsure how to bring an end to his story. More, I suspect that a fine piece of craftsmanship was overlooked by these readers. Remaining outside the diner and community would make it appear that the ending is rushed and that the author is guilty of a terribly impatient act. But immerse oneself in the verisimilitude and the descriptive word becomes "surprising." And isn't that what the ending is to every character? Isn't that what similar events are to real people in real small towns? When Russo introduces the characters germane to the ending, its possiblity comes into play then and there. Moreover, the author switches tense from past to present in the chapters that empathasize these same people, as if to say that while there is lesson in the first, there is warning in the second. To miss this suggests a complacency of perusal.

Rating:
Summary: A Master of Characterization
Review: Chances are, in Richard Russo's "Empire Falls," there is someone in this story that you can either empathize with or someone that reminds you of someone you once knew. Russo is a master of characterization and in "Empire Falls," you cannot help but fall under the spell of at least a few of his characters in this engaging story. This is a story that could be actually taking place/have taken place anywhere in Smalltown USA. Russo's story is believable and the characters all have flaws that anyone could have, and that's probably the best thing about this story. It's not pretentious and it's believable, yet comedic and dramatic at the same time.

Rating:
Summary: Write Locally, Think Universally.
Review: Empire Falls is a wonderful book I had purchased because I was completely in the dark on contemporary literature. Going low-risk, I bought into its Pulitzer Prize Hype. The prose is pure and extremely seductive in its simplicity; this is one of the most facile yet shrewd narratives that I have ever read.

The story is a provincial epic of Empire Falls, a small Maine town full of people you'd be likely to find in such a town. Promising but underachieving romantics like Miles Roby, a grill manager who never quite made it out. Thrash like Jimmy Minty, a corrupt cop and a bully, perpetuating the cycle of stubborn male ignorance in his family. Mystical blue-blood puppermasters like Francine Whiting, an aging woman whose power and life energy seem to be eternal. Tick Roby, a precocious but insecure teenage daughter of Miles. And many, many more in this ensemble piece.

Reviews of this book have described the prose as 'deceptive.' Not a bad descriptor considering what Russo manages to do: deliver a life's worth of his own meditations and concerns through characters of various genders, age groups, and social statuses. By employing his third-person omniscient in a multi-perspectival flow, Russo gives us a deeper understanding of the often exploited supporting casts. Consequently, we get a better idea of how people become (or remain) who they are, what motivates them to change, and the limitations of human capacity for self-improvement.

Who we are is decided not only by our own will-power, but by other people: young, dear, rich, old, powerful, hateful, debased. It is also decided by circumstances, birth, religion, and social attitudes.

One deep theme in the book is the passive personal perdition that gets lost in the sands of time. Things like ambition, love, and happiness are forgotten somewhere along the line when individually mild, but ultimately consequential compomises are made. Russo explores the human basics - spirituality, lust, envy, fear, anger, irrationality, failure, impotence, frustration, greed, power, hate, insecurity, et al. He is interested in what makes us who we are and memory - omniscient introspective chapters figure into the narrative between the progressing plot.

Russo's literary touch is grounded in realism, and he is masterful in alternating between deapan conversational humor and touching affection in relationships. Russo's narrator is obsessed with memory and the past, moving carefully between memory and unfolding life, properly quoting Fitzgerald and closing with something of a tribute to the great author. He tackles family ties, love, parenthood, faith, ambition, cruelty, greed, anger and angst with the help of his colorful crowd of townspeople. Russo proves that some authors have not lost the ability to be simple and profound.

The conclusion, perhaps striving for a neorealist unreconcilability, is somewhat unwieldy considering the gargantuan effort the author put into his buildup and characterizations. Overall, however, this book stands out as proof that simple stories are richer for good writing. The mighty pen exalts the unexceptional.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing, but hey, it's still Russo
Review: I'm a huge Richard Russo fan. I love his voice, his take on life, his ability to find humor in even the most bleak of circumstances. "Nobody's Fool" and "Straight Man" are two of the most consistently funny books I've ever read. I approached "Empire Falls" with great anticipation, especially after it won the Pulitzer. Having just finished it, I have to say that I found it less successful than its two predecessors. Ultimately, there seems to me to be a lack of consistancy in its tone and focus. Whereas Miles is definitely meant to be the main character, we spend an awfully lot of time in other people's heads. For the most part Russo is right on (more than right on) in his depictions of these people. His characterization of Janine is so insightful, and Cindy Whiting's final speech to Miles is brilliantly to the point. Russo nails the human condition far better than most writers out there, and he does it in consistently disarming ways. The flashbacks are lovely, and there is heart and an emotional richness in this book that are missing from his previous works. (I've read everything but "The Risk Pool.") But Miles is as frustrating for the reader (this reader, at least) as he is for so many of the other characters. Ultimately, somehow, somewhere "Empire Falls" goes just a bit off track, enough to make me, at least, a little puzzled by it. I found the ending both inevitable and unsatisfying, almost as if Russo had boxed himself into a corner and didn't know where to go. A lot seems unresolved, but perhaps that's the author's point...so much in life is just that. Look, if you like Russo you must read this. But a friend who didn't know his work found "Empire Falls" just too long and pointless. I can't say I'm completely surprised, but at the same time, there's enough in there that makes you glad to have someone like Russo around to champion the underdog, the Everyman, and make you think about life and its complexities in a fresh way.

Rating:
Summary: Starts slow, but then captivates
Review: At first, I found Empire Falls a bit plodding, and not as laugh-out-loud funny as prior Russo reads like Straight Man. But about 75 pages in, I began to profoundly care about the Robys and to completely buy the story. It's basically a small-town, mid-life crisis tale, but Russo tells it so masterfully that this doens't feel like the same-old, same-old. That there is a Dickensian villian and a rather tidy ending seems appropriate, since this has been such a saga. It begins and ends on the river, at the Empire Falls, and this recovering English major bought it.