Rating: 
Summary: Clear potential
Review: "Tour de force" is no doubt an adequate label for this book. Kurt Andersen's first novel is a gigantic feast on "the modern" in the high lanes of today's American business. It is constantly entertaining indeed in a "Tom Wolfish" way. But you can sense a certain freshness in Andersen's book that you can't find in works like A Man In Full. The dialogue is more catchy and somehow it's structure has greater appeal to a young reader than myself than that of an (please excuse me) old-timer like Tom Wolfe. If you were to use a musical expression you could say that this book consists of a magnificent longwinded accelerando. The intensity rises for some 700 pages +. But there are things that Tom Wolfe juggles smoothly and sometimes bites vigorously that Andersen doesn't really try to take hold of in "Turn of The Century". The milieu is portrayed slightly superficially and the social critique seems a bit vague. A harsh judgement would be that this is more entertainment than fiction. But that would also be too harsh. Kurt Andersen has written a very smart, VERY entertaining and very long book. It marks a very impressive debut - but I await even greater nourishment from his hands. I give it three big stars.
Rating:
Summary: At Arm's Length, with the Occasional Chuckle
Review: Anderson has done some admirable heavy lifting to present a just-in-time, high concept, bullet train of mild satire and cleverness. It takes awhile get used to and wade through the topical references to events, people, places, and things, both real and vividly imagined, that five years from now will make this novel seem like it was written in a dead language. Readers seem to have widely differing opinions about whether the characters are compelling,it's funny, etc. If you don't have any interest and affinity for the Fast Company/Hollywood/Web culture you'll hate it. I'm familiar enough with the worlds of the novel (at the grunt level anyway) to get the jokes and admire the imagination. But if you want a book that deals deeper with whether we lose our "soul" and connection to others by what we do for work, try JR, by William Gaddis (an author whose movie rights Anderson's character Ben Gould buys up in one of his "charitable" schemes). Overall, Turn of the Century is a too-long, although often amusing piece that relies so heavily on a reader's existing knowledge of the scene that I found myself holding the characters at arm's length. I prefer being a little more intimate.
Rating: 
Summary: best book on cultural mores since Count of Monte Cristo
Review: Anyone who worked on the net or in media will relate in a big time way, especially if they can keep up with the cultural references - Incroyable...even better the second time through.
Rating: 
Summary: complete inability to move the story along!
Review: forget the tom wolfe comparison. this book is simply BORING! i'm half through reading it, but i'm still waiting for something interesting to happen. if nobody tells me that the second half is much, much better than the first, i'm going to throw it away (which i rarely do). how could i believe this excellent book review (in a swiss newspaper)?
Rating:
Summary: What was all the fuss about?
Review: I bought Turn of the Century because of the good publicity. The publicists exaggerated somewhat! I really can't see what all the fuss was about. I tried, and I tried and, in the end, I just had to give up on it.Sorry but this book was definitely not for me.
Rating:
Summary: A meditation and satire on America's media culture
Review: I picked up Andersen's long novel with hesitation but found it all but impossible to put down. His plotting is intricate but impeccable in terms of plausibility and every thread was quite satisfyingly resolved. His characters, down to the marginal bit players, are nailed in three dimensions. Finally, as a contemporary morality tale it will stand the test of time.
Rating:
Summary: A meditation and satire on America's media culture
Review: I picked up Andersen's long novel with hesitation but found it all but impossible to put down. His plotting is intricate but impeccable in terms of plausibility and every thread was quite satisfyingly resolved. His characters, down to the marginal bit players, are nailed in three dimensions. Finally, as a contemporary morality tale it will stand the test of time.
Rating:
Summary: A Truly Inventive Satire
Review: Kurt Andersen's got one heck of an imagination. Some of the scenarios he comes up with for the not-so-distant future are just downright neat! I also enjoyed the almost soap-operatic feel of watching George and Lizzie's day to day lives progress, both at the office and in their home. It was interesting to watch how different they were to each other in the world of business and the world of matrimony/family. (Brings to mind the saying, "One never really knows anyone.") I've heard that perhaps the book doesn't appeal to people who live too far outside large urban centers, but I can't see why that would be true. Most of us are attached to the Internet these days, most love "modern conveniences," and most would like to have more money than we do. Seems like that would be enough to make this a book that could appeal to anyone, despite geography. I mean, yes, it might appeal to New Yorkers MORE, but that's because we're reading about our hometown here. I also love Motherless Brooklyn (which takes place in the neighborhood where I grew up), but just because I can recognize what deli Letham's talking about doesn't mean it isn't worthy of its National Book Critic's Circle Award, ya know? In summary, I loved the book. I also loved the end, which a lot of people seem to think was a disappointment. The book might run on a bit long, but for me it was an extremely satisfying read, and one that I've personally recommended -- especially to people who DO like books based in New York.
Rating:
Summary: There's nothing I like better...
Review: There's nothing I like better than a nice thick book, unless it is this particular one, which could lose 150-200 pages; then the story might be tight enough. As it was, I heard BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES comparisons mentioned frequently in reviews, and those references are what ultimately captured my interest. The only real comparison of the two books is that both were rife with dislikeable char'ters; however,while BONFIRE cooked from beginning to end, CENTURY often made me question why I was continuing to read this snoozer. The two stars are for the two things I learned most about... namely, the insane and fickle stock market game, and the finesse of hacking into major computer systems to create havoc in the market, or just because... But the characters were stifling in their one dimensional personalities. Like human paperdolls, George Mactier was just a lucky goof w/ too much money, and his wife, Lizzie, was just as flat. Too many greedy people w/ too much disposible income and time, adding nothing to the quality of modern life, but showing a generational lack of values that is truly frightening. I would say, and this is a compliment, that if only I were younger, I would love to be a hacker. Younger readers in the computer marketing quest, or tv development, might enjoy this book, but so far Kurt Anderson is no threat to Tom Wolfe.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't believe the hype
Review: This 600+ page endeavor in tedium has quite a few clever and witty observations about the current state of media, technology, etc., but is undone by the author's endless tone of self-congratulation and his complete inability to MOVE THE STORY ALONG. The plight of George and Lizzie is secondary to all of Andersen's cheeky observations and endless descriptive dreck. There's no sense rehashing the plot because there really isn't one. For a story intending to portray life in the modern fast lane, so little seems to actually happen, and it's hard to care about any of the characters since they serve mainly as props and time-killers in between the author's next clever zinger. Most of the time, the author's supposedly keen insight into the 21st century is no more than well-dressed but thinly-veiled cliches (this is particularly prevalent - and annoying - when the author shifts the setting out of New York City to the West Coast and shows his complete ignorance of anything outside the 212 area code), and you get the distinct impression that the author is writing just to hear himself talk. Fresh and invigorated at the start, it doesn't take long for Turn of the Century to wear thin and dwindle to a boring, lethargic crawl. All in all, a very disappointing read, since I was always a fan of his work in Spy Magazine. This is precisely the kind of "hip, cutting edge" fiction - with it's media barbs and heavy handed approach to social satire - which would fool critics into thinking the author really had something to say.
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