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Summary: Wow. A "Crossing to Safety" for our age
Review: This is the best book I've read in quite some time. A true literary romp, with some sequences that made me laugh out loud, and other sequences of almost unbearable poignancy.
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Summary: Pull up a Chair and enjoy this Feast
Review: I just came off of the high I had from reading Franzen's Corrections (yes i loved it) and wondered how I would be able to read again after that great book. Baxter's book completely captured my attention and emotions. I loved his settings for some of the scenes; they were so compelling and lyrically beautiful, and suspenseful. The scene after the football game was inspiring, as well as the huge storm when the characters were in a mall. Somehow he captured all the nuance's of all these characters and their voices ring with great truth, humanity, hope and dread. I loved this book and recommend it highly to lovers of character abd setting, as well as ideas. Baxter somehow allows the characters to know themselves just enough and still have them seem in the moment of their lives, caught up in their own ironies and contradictions, and still remain reflective and searcihing at the same time. They never come across simply as a means to promote an idea. Rather they carry their pasts with them, learn from them as much as they can, and continue forward on that "faulty" knowledge, the way we all do. This is a great and compelling book that satisfies.
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Summary: T.G.I.O - Thank God Its Over!
Review: Try as I might, as I sit here to write about it, I cannot think of one pleasant thing to say of this book. At just over 300 pages, it was a chore for me to get through it on over two week's time. Unless you are a serious insomniac who likes to read about one dimensional characters, avoid this book like the plauge. The book opens with the author himself struggling through a bout of writer's block and insomnia and so decides to take a walk. On his walk he encounters Bradley, his neighbor. Bradley offers up the name of one of his paintings, "The Feast of Love" as a title for the book and offers up the subject matter as well - Bradley will supply the author with people who will tell their stories of love. We hear from Bradley's 2 ex-wives, his neighbor, his employees at his coffee shop & Bradley himself. Each person's story is a small vignette that connects to the other people's stories and ends up in a not so neat ball in the end. In retrospect, the stories told from the male perspective were OK. It was the stories from what was supposed to be the female side that were painful and a chore to read. They were written how Mr. Baxter thinks womens think, talk and act instead of how we really think, talk and act. It was all just too hard to digest. I won't be reading anymore of his books.
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Summary: A Delicious Feast For The Heart & Soul
Review: Even the cover of this book is dreamlike and magical. What a wonderful book to end the year with. Charles Baxter has woven together separate stories of longing, regret,passion,and need all bound together by the cord of love. The characters all relate together in some way either a neighbor,a co-worker, a lover, or parent with the stories beginning with one wandering insomniac telling another about his first wife. The characters were fresh and surprising, making painfully honest discoveries and choices.I started the book on Christmas Eve and finished it early the morning after Christmas and it left me with such a wonderful feeling. The book is by no means a sentimental journey, just a collection of wonderfully wrought examinations of the darkest corners of the human heart.
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Summary: The Kind of Book you want to read to believe in love
Review: In an amazing funny way Charles Baxter writes a love story out of simple real things... If you think that real life has nothing interesting to be writen... You have to read this book to change your mind... If you are the kind of reader who thinks that only real things deserve to be read... You have to read this book to believe in MAGIC! But most of all, if you are the kind of person who lost the faith in love, just read this book and you'll love again (at least you'll LOVE this extrange, different, common, simple, exotic story!).
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Summary: Don't bother....
Review: This book was boring and painful to read. The characters were flat and I found myself not caring about them at all. I had to force myself to finish it because I kept hoping it would get better. But it didn't.
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Summary: Extraordinary fiction
Review: "The Feast of Love" might be the most luminous prose I've ever read. It's imaginative and involving and one of those novels that not only made me feel really good after I finished it, but kept me thinking about the characters for a long time after I finished. It also made me seek out more of Charles Baxter's work. His writing, especially this book, is really something special.
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Summary: If you liked Ya Ya Sisterhood, you will love this...
Review: True to his word, Charles Baxter serves his audience a "feast of lovers," passionately exploring life and love. From the uninhibited Chloe who loves sensual-but-scarred Oscar to philosophy prof. Harry, whose love for his family defies reason as it bears the constant strains of his estranged son, Baxter explores love, the search for love, and life without love with subtlety and, most importantly, humor. Baxter's wonderful sense of humor is processed through each character, who describes his/her passion, and is then described by his/her lovers. Baxter manages all these first person accounts deftly and realistically. However, what makes this story stand out is the whimsical storytelling of serious subjects. If you liked The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, you will love this.
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Summary: I recommend it
Review: This is the first book I have read by Baxter. I especially liked the diversity of its characters and their thinking. It is very colorful to read, a delight. I passed the book on immediately.
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Summary: Trappings and revelations of love......
Review: THE FEAST OF LOVE lives up to it's name. This is a discovery of love in all it's many trappings and it's glorious revelations. The story begins with a conversation between two insomniacs, a conversation centering on love. The novel proceeds with stories told by several different people whose lives become slowly intertwined throughout the novel. The people are married couples, ex-couples, father and son, teenagers, and single people. They come from such a variety of backgrounds, financially, racially, and religiously, that it seems impossible to gather them all into one tale. Charles Baxter does it and does it well. Love, being the central theme, is villified, nullified, admired, defiled, wished for, lost, found and sought after. This is an interesting look at love in all it's facets. This novel will surprise you with it's unusual approach and easy going style.
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