Theophilus North

Rating:
Summary: Goody Two-Shoes
Review: At once a nice travelogue of Newport, Rhode Island, in the 1920's and a novel of human interaction, "Theophilus North" is a well-written and engaging (at first) book. It's just hard to understand why Wilder wrote it. There is so little of it in the way of dramatic or comic invention. The protagonist is a bodhisatva (a saint on earth) who spends his days doing good. All the time. You keep expecting some rising action - after 100 pages you yearn for it - but it never comes. Just one good deed after another. It isn't a bad read, and it might even be a good thing to put into the hands of teenagers (if you can get them to sit still for it). But there's no inner struggle going on in this first person narrative. And that makes ultimately for a weak plot. The book was something of a hit when it first came out, but it has since sunk to the obscurity it probably deserves. That saddens me, because I thought the author's "Our Town" and "Skin of Our Teeth" to be some of the finest writing this side of Heaven.

Rating:
Summary: It creeps into your heart
Review: At once a nice travelogue of Newport, Rhode Island, in the 1920's and a novel of human interaction, "Theophilus North" is a well-written and engaging (at first) book. It's just hard to understand why Wilder wrote it. There is so little of it in the way of dramatic or comic invention. The protagonist is a bodhisatva (a saint on earth) who spends his days doing good. All the time. You keep expecting some rising action - after 100 pages you yearn for it - but it never comes. Just one good deed after another. It isn't a bad read, and it might even be a good thing to put into the hands of teenagers (if you can get them to sit still for it). But there's no inner struggle going on in this first person narrative. And that makes ultimately for a weak plot. The book was something of a hit when it first came out, but it has since sunk to the obscurity it probably deserves. That saddens me, because I thought the author's "Our Town" and "Skin of Our Teeth" to be some of the finest writing this side of Heaven.

Rating:
Summary: It creeps into your heart
Review: I read this book more than 20 years ago as a college student and I still find myself thinking about it now. I was a persnickety English student and I wouldn't have imagined the book was making much of an impression on me at the time. Maybe I needed to age considerably before I could appreciate Wilder's idea that you do get everything you wish for -- just not on your schedule, and seldom packaged as you may have hoped or expected.

Rating:
Summary: A NICE READ, BUT POINTLESS
Review: this author, which has written books so beatiful, has given the world this one which is also beatiful, but pointless, i guess that the main character is himself. the book does not have a plot or at least is not going anywhere, but it is not boring, and it is a good read. i just loved it, even though when i finished i had the sensation of not being told anything new. the book has gone into oblivion and will propably stay there, the one i read i took it from the library and i was the only one who got it from the shelf in more than a decade, i guess it is there in the shelf at the library, waiting for another ten years until some reader will take it down, and write another pointless review about it....

LUIS MENDEZ [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Spend a delightful summer in Newport, RI
Review: This is a great gift for a recent graduate with creative aspirations; a good "pondering where to steer your life" book. Wilder describes multiple "cities" living under each others' noses in the same geographic venue. It's a look at people with widely varied resources. Those with economic or social resources do not necessarily come out fulfilled. Those without impressive resources sometimes turn out to be wonderfully resourceful.