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How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Novel (2011)

by Christopher Boucher(Favorite Author)

3.37 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1935554638 (ISBN13: 9781935554639)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Melville House

review 1: Sure, this was a book about father-son relationships rather than VWs, but still … really? As an absurdist novel it has some merit, as much as absurdist novels go, I suppose. But comparing this to Brautigan? Please. I was reading Bruatigan long before Boucher was born, and while that fails to make me an expert it does, to a point, qualify my opinion. And in one of the reviews posted here Boucher's work was compared to Vonnegut and Pynchon, and that's just wrong. Yes, this was different in its own cute way (I don't know how I could abuse an authors' work more than by calling it cute). A novelty novel. A singing fish mounted on a cheap plaque that you push the button once to hear its song then walk away hoping never to hear it again. I also lived by the original book for ma... moreny years, crisscrossing the county in late-1960s VW vans - complete with tie-dyed curtains and a box of extra parts stashed (along with my stash) under the built-in bed. So, if this is what passes for current cutting edge neo-literature, well, I guess I pass.
review 2: I'm very ambivalent about this book. I struggled throughout to understand what the whole point was. I get that it's different, novel, quirky, unique. I was even surprised at the end when I actually felt emotional about the VW's engineheart or whatever. But despite all that, I still went away wondering what the whole point of the story really was... And more importantly, wondering if this wacky writing added to or took away from the potential power of the core message. less

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