Rating: 
Summary: An Interesting Tripp
Review: I'm one of the club members who believe that novels are just about almost always much better than their film adaptations. However, I found the movie was stronger than the novel. I watched the movie before I read the book, and don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book, but the movie inspired me more.
I'm not going to go through the plot, but I will state that this was my first time reading Chabon, and he has quickly become one of my favorite writers. James Leer and Terry Crabtree were my favorite characters and there were moments I found myself laughing out loud in the quietest section of my school library.
The novel did drag on a bit for me whenever Tripp went to visit his ex-wifes family for the Passover Seder, but other than that, the story flowed pretty well.
I loved these characters and became attached to them pretty quickly. Chabon has the ability to make you care for certain characters, even if you know you would never be able to get along with them if they truly did exist. With this novel, he created a simple story about ones man situation which would, at moments, get worse than it was before but everything eventually works itself, even if it's through publishing bribery as was one instance.
While this isn't Chabon's best work, I am actually considering re-reading it if I ever get the copy I loaned out to a friend of mine back.
Rating: 
Summary: This is Good Reading
Review: I read this book after I saw the movie, so I am judging it a bit backwards. I read with a vision in my head of the way the characters were portrayed in the film, and tried to envision them the way Michael Chabon wrote them. For example, in the book, Grady Tripp is a large, imposing man, and his friend and editor, Terry Crabtree, is the same age as he is, and they have been friends since college. Of course, in the film, the slender Michael Douglas plays Grady, and Robert Downey, Jr. plays Crabtree, making him about 20 years younger. But, things always change when books are adapted to film. I think the screenwriter did a fine job adapting this novel to the screen, and keeping it fairly faithful to the book.Michael Chabon is a very descriptive writer, as far as feelings, sensations, smells and the like. He focuses mainly on Grady Tripp as narrator here, and a lot on Crabtree and James Leer. He is also more open about Crabtree's sexuality in the book, although it wasn't exactly hidden in the movie. There were also some changes, like the name and breed of the dog, which seemed kind of unnecessary. All in all, I found this book a well-written page turner, with a very interesting protaganist, the confused, dope-smoking, blocked writer, Grady Tripp. There is much more about his estranged wife and family in the book, and the ending isn't quite as uplifting as the film, plus, I would have liked an epilogue of what happened to the characters after the novel was over. Although, the ending of the book is more realistic and ambivalent than the film. I couldn't wait to finish the book, and then view the movie again. It's rare that a film is so accurate to the novel and so well-casted. Especially since the author himself did not adapt the screenplay, it is amazingly like the book in almost every way. I couldn't wait to finish the book, because I was really caught up in the lives of the characters. Michael Chabon is definitely a very good writer, and I want to read his other novels, so that I can read them without the pre-existing condition of having seen the film.
Rating: 
Summary: Tripp's trippy trip through Pittsburgh's academic underworld
Review: Grady Tripp--professor, pothead, philanderer--is not all that likable; the type of egotistical pretender who rarely examines his own feelings, "an activity never far removed from looking for a dead rat in a spidery crawl space under the house." But, then again, none of the cast of characters who comprise his limited universe and massage his enormous ego are all that admirable: his underperforming and pliable editor, his suicidal and mendacious star student, his two-faced and newly pregnant mistress, his credulous and demoralized Jewish Korean American wife, his bubbly and flirtatious boarder. What makes Chabon's novel so wonderful is not that you'll meet characters you'll admire or like or identify with--you won't, one hopes--but that, even though it's a satire of academic life, this horde of misfits is so thoroughly believable. And it's one of the funniest books I've read: a protracted comedy of errors and pure boneheadedness. Several years late with his fourth novel, Tripp plays host to his editor, who has arrived for a college symposium on writing and who hopes that Tripp, against all odds, has completed his long-promised magnum opus. With the help of their wayward companions, the undynamic duo collect in Tripp's 1966 emerald green Ford Galaxie 500 convertible: a dead blind dog, a tuba, a rather hefty bag of marijuana, a boa constrictor, a jacket once worn by Marilyn Monroe, 2,611 manuscript pages of an unfinished (and unfinishable) novel, an assortment of pharmaceuticals--all of which are pursued through Pittsburgh by a street tough packing a German nine millimeter. It's a Peter Bogdanovich farce for the literary set. On top of its ludicrous yet somehow plausible plot, Chabon flaunts an enviable ability to construct perfectly crafted sentences and drolly concise depictions, sprinkled liberally with references to highbrow and lowbrow culture from the last century. About a voracious reader: "Once I had come upon the spectacle of Sara, finished with a volume of C. P. Snow while only partway through one of the long baths she took for her bad back, desperately scanning the label on a bottle of Listerine." About a free-spirited sister-in-law: "...it would certainly be typical of Deborah to decide that the best possible way of preparing for a family Seder was to drink Manischewitz and lie around half naked reading 'Betty and Veronica.'" Chabon is a writer's writer whose prose can distract critics and colleagues to a begrudgingly awed full stop. Fortunately for readers, however, he aims his novels at a much broader audience.
Rating:
Summary: Fully Realized Characters
Review: It is unfortunate to discover a fine novel after seeing it as a fine film. I did not know about Michael Chabon until after seeing Curtis Hanson's film adaptation of Wonder Boys (robbed of a Best Picture nomination), and did not read Wonder Boys until much later, coming across several other Chabon works first. That said, it is hard to know how I would have reacted to Wonder Boys if I did not know the story in advance. Unlike the broader Kavalier and Clay, which is in all a better book, Chabon does not slip into occasional caricature here. Yes, the "doped-up novelist with writer's block" and the "spooky, haunted young genius" are archetypes, but Chabon's Grady Tripp and James Leer come off as original inventions due to Chabon's skill with subtlety. While revealing characters through a road trip is hackneyed, it comes off better in the novel than on the screen. Chabon's uniqueness lies in his combination of the mundane and the bizarre -- well-crafted characters wandering through a strange landscape. Wonder Boys is not the choice for a reader who wants just one Chabon experience -- Mysteries of Pittsburgh is odder and funnier, and Kavalier and Clay is bigger and better. But for a Chabon fan, Wonder Boys is an excellent diversion.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful "Boys"
Review: Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon deftly avoided the sophomore slump with "Wonder Boys," a followup to the unique "Mysteries of Pittsburgh." A wickedly funny and weirdly satirical novel, this is the story of a writer's frenetic midlife crisis, and the looming whale of a book that overshadows everything he does. Grady Tripp (a "wonder boy") is a onetime-lauded author who is slowly being sucked down into the quicsand of his 2000-plus-page book "Wonder Boys." The middle-aged professor is standing in the wrecks of two marriages, a stagnant career, and a pregnant married mistress. Amid his rapidly deteriorating life, he befriends a morbid young student, James Leer. Not to mention his endangered agent Crabtree, who hopes that "Wonder Boys" will salvage his career. Things go rapidly awry when James and Grady are looking at a jacket that once belonged to Marilyn Monroe. Suddenly a blind dog attacks Grady, and James shoots the dog. Grady sneaks the dead dog out of the house, unable to tell his girlfriend the truth. The sudden disappearance of the jacket, the death of the dog, and the sudden deterioration of Grady's personal life all mesh together... Chabon litters "Wonder Boys" with references to pop culture and high culture, the literati and Marilyn Monroe in the same breath. The result is even smarter than either alone would be. And despite the label of a "cool" writer, Chabon's elegant prose proves that he's more than just a wonder boy. Grady may be suffering from a hideous case of writer's block (although the result is that he actually writes too much), but Chabon clearly wasn't. He manages to grab hold what could have been a horrendously silly caper, and turns it into a wry work of art. His writing is sharp, bright and full of little points like a pinecone. Grady is not a likable guy -- he's a coward, a philanderer, and he's in the throes of a very ugly midlife crisis. But he seems real, and somehow appealing. The flamboyant gay editor Crabtree and the death-obsessed James are nice supporting characters -- Crabtree and Grady are the "wonder boys" of the past, and James is the wonder boy of tomorrow. The supporting cast -- including a perpetually sozzled author, a sultry transvestite, and a sultry boarder -- add plenty of extra flavor. Clever and incisive, "Wonder Boys" is a vivid look at aging, writing and the academic life. In his second fantastic novel, Chabon proves that he's no wonder boy -- he's just a wonder.
Rating:
Summary: A thought provoking and addictive work or literature
Review: In Michael Chabon's best work yet, he demonstrates his remarkable ability to write. This novel, though racy at times is not only entertaining, but relevant and semi-educational. From pot-smoking authors, to pill-popping publishers, to dedicated students, and slightly insane students, with a nice jewish family at the end, this book truly does touch on everything. I would definately reccomend it, even thought it does have a few flaws. Towards the end, a variety of bizaare twists left me confused, and I didnt quite understand the ending. I also feel that the blatant drug use, was a little excessive, seeing as almost every character was intoxicated at some point. This is definately a five-star book.
Rating:
Summary: D.A.R.E.
Review: So, first things first: Chabon is, right now, simply the world's best living writer of English prose. The only really fair question to ask given this fact is how _Wonder Boys_ stacks up against his other work. Answer: it lacks the sheer jaw-dropping magnificence of _Kavalier and Klay_, but it's a step forward from both _The Mysteries of Pittsburgh_ and the short stories. There are at least three dozen chokingly funny one-liners, the plot is an utterly ingenious picaresque, and the hero, Grady Tripp, is totally believable. I've had friends who were similarly gifted but who used just enough pot or booze to cause their lives to spin that little extra bit beyond their control, and Chabon shows this happening with surgical and unsentimental precision, without ever sacrificing the novel's lightness of tone. I saw the movie first, and think this was a mistake, although it does have many charms. There's a lovely pair of performances by Tobey Maguire and Robert Downey Jr. Also there's a wonderful scene near the end, involving a retired boxer and a jacket that once belonged to Marilyn Monroe, that's not in the book at all - surprising, given how sweet and apt it seemed to me to be in the film. But one only gets to witness the slow disintegration of Tripp's literary talent from the inside (so to speak) in the novel, and Tripp's drug use is also treated as being just a cuddly and insignificant eccentricity in the film, in that way that Hollywood people foolishly prefer to think of such things. The novel is much more of a cautionary tale, and a far superior work of art as the result.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, and so is the movie
Review: Oh, what's not to love about this book about a middle-aged author and professor in a fading marriage, suffering a prolonged bout of writer's block, living in a large house with students crashing in every other spare corner - and one young man full of promise and angst and confusion and coming from a difficult and privileged background. Some terrific set pieces, such as the transporting of the dead dog, the header over the balcony, the manuscript blowing, blowing, blowing away.
Wonderful. No wonder he went on to win the Pulitzer for Kavallier and Clay.
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.
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