A Box of Matches

Rating:
Summary: pretty minute detail ... but also just plain pretty
Review: I will agree with some reviewers here, that the topics NB covers are border on the mundane and forgettable - but how can they be forgettable with NB's style?

Yes, I would agree that NB would do better to spend less time contemplating his navel (he really did this, at least through Emmit) next time out. But if you are really put off by this attention to detail, then do a search for books by Tom Clancey or Danielle Steele ... they are certainly more obvious.

Rating:
Summary: not his most brilliant book
Review: I'm a big fan of Baker having read all his previous books. I do appreciate some of the day to day instances that make up our lives (I even laughed a lot while I read them -- the piece on peeing standing up at night is quite funny) and love Baker's writing, but overall I found this a rather trite literary exercise in making small details central. Again, Baker manages to be witty and clever in spots, but as a novel, albeit a short one, this one falls short of his other books. Maybe it was the ranchy plots of Fermata and Vox that made those short novels more interesting than this one? In any case, you'll feel that you're reading Baker's real life thoughts as he lights the fire every morning at roughly 4am and that's less interesting that you might think. On the bright side, it won't take anyone more than an hour or so to read this novella, so you can't get too angry at the author for taking up your valuable time.

Rating:
Summary: Good Baker, but not great Baker
Review: I'm glad other reviewers enjoyed this book, and after reading it I still have much respect for Baker's introspective and experimental way of writing. The earlier review that listed a series of choice nuggets from this book made me smile; they're all very fine.

On the other hand, I really hope that readers who enjoyed this book will give a try to _The Mezzanine_ if they haven't already. It's the same kind of fictional experiment as _A Book of Matches_, but written by a younger Baker, who was prone to fits of enthusiasm that seemed slightly naive but were also lots of fun for the reader, and very funny as well. The nutty, over-the-top quality that inspired _The Mezzanine_ is missing in this work.

Rating:
Summary: Plotless yet Brilliant!
Review: If you think a plotless novel can't be a success then you should read Nicholson Baker's A Box of Matches. With his highly charged, almost poetic language, Baker captures everyday experiences and injects them with new found significance. Through Emmett's character, Baker casts a humorous light on the simple things that cross our minds on a daily basis, yet we never talk about. His desriptive language paints a vivid picture which pulls the reader right into Emmett's living room, where you can almost feel the heat from the fire on your face. This is a story like no other I have ever read. It was refreshing and new. If you're looking for a simple read with great wisdom behind it, read A Box of Matches.

Rating:
Summary: WHAT MAKES UP A LIFE?
Review: In the case of Nicholson Baker's gentle narrator, Emmett, it's a lot of small things - but things that are wonderfully meaningful to him in their way, and things which add up to happiness and contentment. It's the same for any of us, actually, if we take the time, as Emmett does, to sit and - effectively - meditate on them. Emmett is 44, a successful - but not 'driven' - editor of medical textbooks. He lives in what appears to be a small town in New England with his wife Claire, their two children Phoebe and Henry, a cat and a duck. Emmett is having what might be considered to be a mild midlife crisis - but instead of rushing headlong into some sort of second childhood, pursuing an affair or buying a sports car, he decides to make a simple adjustment in his daily routine. He resolves to arise before dawn each morning, when everyone else in the household is still asleep, make himself a cup of coffee in the dark and sit in front of a fire in the living room - and he thinks. The things Emmett considers - and commits to what amounts to a journal - are not gigantic, earth-shaking discoveries...or are they? His ruminations on the small, mundane things that enter his mind during this early morning ritual are amazingly revelatory - as they accumulate it becomes clear that these small things are indeed the things that make up a life of contentment. They are important, each and every one, in making his life what it is - and without making any loud pronouncement, as he works his way through the box of matches in the title, morning after morning, Emmett settles into the comfort of realizing that he has hit upon the meaning of life - at least his life.

What another reviewer below found 'boring' I found absorbing - and this is due in a large way to Baker's prose. Without being pontifical in the slightest, without trying to impress the reader with his vocabulary, Baker has quietly allowed his narrator's character to take the lead. With all of Emmett's personality quirks, with both seriousness and a sense of humor, this man's mind and life are opened for us. He is an unpretentious man who has paused along life's road to ponder the meaning of things - mostly small things, but they build up rather quickly into the structures of a life.

I've read a bit about some of Baker's other books - and I think I stumbled upon just the right one for me. THE EVERLASTING STORY OF NORY looks interesting as well. A BOX OF MATCHES suited me to a 't' - it's a comfortable, unhurried read that left me smiling and nodding (in agreement, not boredom) - and one that I'll remember for some time to come.

Coincidence or design: there are thirty-three chapters in the book, representing thirty-three mornings with Emmett in front of his fire - and there are thirty-three matches on the cover. Just an observation, and small one, but...

Rating:
Summary: Burn through this one.
Review: Nic Baker has returned to his roots. Not since, "The Mezzanine" has his proto-Seinfeldian pouring over minutia been so satisfying. With "A Box of Matches," he muses on haircuts, a pet duck and coffee-making all while building fires early in the morning. Plus, at a sleek 178 pages, you can tell your friends you read a book in one afternoon.

Rating:
Summary: Relaxing Summer Read
Review: Nicholson Baker's
A Box of Matches is based on a very simple premise. Emmett, a text-book editor nearing middle age, decided that every morning, he will wake up very early just to think. He ponders his life, and life in general, while burning a fire in his fireplace. When the box of matches used to light the fire is finished, so is his habit of waking up early just to think.

Sound simple? It is. Sound too simple? It isn't. This deceptively simple plot actually makes for an exciting, yet relaxing read. The novel flows smoothly and quickly. While the reader reads about Emmett's thought, she or he also learns intimate details about his personal life. We see his close relationship with his wife Claire. We see his daily interactions with their teenage daughter, young son, and pet duck. Baker also adds funny comments to Emmett's thoughts, which allow us to get to know his quirky and witty personality.

The novel is short, which adds to its eligibility as a summer reading choice. Admittedly, no one would want to read a 400 page book about one man's thoughts. As a short novel, however, the book is a well-written literary portrait of one man's life and character. The book also tends to inspire readers to get up earlier, to read and write more often, to enjoy life, and most importantly- to simply stop and think.

If you are looking for an enjoyable and relaxing book to read this summer,
A Box of Matches is one book you are sure to like. It is a perfect book to read while at the beach, in the bathtub, on an airplane, or simply during your own early morning "think time."

Rating:
Summary: Provocative & creative,celebrationof life ordinariness
Review: Nicholson Baker's A Box of Matches is a novel that has no plot. It's a creative and provocative book that has to do with nothing but also everything. Emmett is a 44-year-old medical textbook editor who has a wife Claire, two children Phoebe and Henry, a cat and a duck Greta. Now Emmett contemplates an interesting idea. Inspired by Claire who took him to see the first emerging blade of sunrise on New Year's day, he decides to get up very early before dawn, when the sky is still a conceivable blue and pitch-dark, strikes a match and lights a fire and meditates before the kicking off of the day.

The book has no plot but hinges on a theme: Emmett wants to know what life is about. Sitting in front of the orange cavern, in a bathrobe, eyes barely lubricated, Emmett thinks. Nothing really compelling about the daily petty anecdotes, the paltry conversations, and the inveterate, perfunctory house chores. What makes the book so compelling is Emmett's fiery zest with which he relays his most ordinary anecdotes.

1.The toe-hole in the sock of his foot becomes intolerable at night.
2.The double-flush plunger with a narrow tip comes in rescue to lunge the bathtub drain and clears the clog.
3.Greta, the duck, makes whimpering noise when she pecks at some snail stuck in the bottom of a log.
4.Absent-minded Emmett loses his key, which is later found frozen under a piece of raw meat in the freezer.
5.Hose winder spares the hands from the mulchy things and snail slime attached to the hose when being winded manually.
6.Emmett prefers a soap that is not brain-shriveling with perfumes but heavy with soap material.
7.His toes learn, by trial and error, to arch and lift up from the tub to avoid the impact of collision when the bar of soap slips out of his hand and drops.
8.The most effective method to clean a baking pan that previously holds a casserole is to let it soak overnight, squirt and trail soap in the baked-on atolls and the suds will give away.
9.The fire should be made by feel, feeding slab of junk mails, supermarket circulars, and pieces of pizza box into the slot made by two logs.
10.In an inquisitive state, one should never turn over a cup and see if the Hollerbee chinaware logo is imprinted, and thus sending a gush of hot tea onto the trousers.
11.Men should sit on the toilet for their business in the middle of the night should they have bad aiming.
12.Be careful with cutting apple woods. They could leap up and whack in your face in a nick of second.

Of course you will have to join Emmett's early-bird ritual and take joy in his life meditation. The book is graciously divided into 33 short chapters and each chapter represents each of the 33 matches from the box Emmett strikes every morning. He always starts off with "Good Morning, it's _:__am" and he would rebuke himself for getting up late in a couple mornings.

The amazing thing about this book is however thorough the observations and wise the subjects Emmett observes, the narrative always confines in his home, in front of the fireplace and moves no further than the backyard where Greta the duck takes residence in a doghouse. This is a celebration of life ordinariness. The writing is daft, thoughtful and crisp. Beautifully written. 4.1 stars.

Rating:
Summary: The ordinary becomes extraordinary.
Review: Nicholson Baker, author of "Double Fold"-winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award-has written a compelling, quirky novel on everyday life in "A Box of Matches."
The plot is simple: Emmett, a medical textbook editor, who lives with his wife, two children, a cat and a duck in the country, plans to awake before dawn to make a cup of coffee, start a fire in the dark and "be conscious when nobody else is conscious." The time alone in his armchair besides the hearth affords the protagonist time to think. Baker opens the novel with, "Last night my sleep was threatened by a toe-hole in my sock." The chapter goes on in clear, exacting details about his inane conflict and we see Emmett as ourselves struggling with a toe-hole in the sock and have to let out a little laugh.
Brief chapters, many only four to five pages long, comprise the novel that often reads like a long humorous soliloquy. Baker's writing is so adept at showing Emmett's world that one will believe a photo album was placed in the reader's hands. We journey through Emmett's entertaining eccentric thoughts on unplugging a bathtub, the mournful sound a train whistle makes, the grandfather who "believed that what the world needed, above all, was more autopsies" and so on. However, an underlying pain underscoring the novel is most evident as Emmett casually describes several suicide fantasies. He suddenly starts one chapter, "I am the only passenger on a roller coaster that is fitted out with a horizontal blade at the top of one of its turns." Despite a subdued melancholy presence, this novel, without being preachy, affirms life to be both meaningful and joyous by illuminating the ordinary to be something extraordinary.


Rating:
Summary: Nicholson, NO!
Review: Oh Nicholson Baker, just when I'm about to crown you my favorite and grudgingly pass all of your books along to my best friends, I read "A Box of Matches," a novel which is less novel than a writing exercise legitimized as literature by a printer. I was shocked by "VOX" and fawned over "The Fermata," I even loved "Double Fold," his non-fiction turn on the assault on paper. But this book will make most of you feel like you are wasting your time.

A man wakes up every morning around five, lights a match, and thinks. That's it. His thoughts range from piquant to gross to nostalgic to melancholy. I'm not the kind of reader to expect world-changing events to take place in my literature. But I do like to care about my characters -- and this guy didn't cut it. Pick up one of Baker's other, more worthwhile books.