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Traveling Sprinkler (2013)

by Nicholson Baker(Favorite Author)

3.65 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0399160965 (ISBN13: 9780399160967)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Blue Rider Press

review 1: Lovely, lovely prose. Mr. Baker does a great job of being delightful and interesting; however, where he fails is at being exciting. There's really no plot to this story, or I suppose you could say there is, but it's so quiet as to barely be worth mentioning. The thing is, I didn't mind this book a single moment that I was reading it: it's like sitting down with a dedicated, old friend. But what I really wanted was escapism, so the whole way through I was slightly obsessing over the page count, disappointed when I saw I wasn't near the end. The fact that I finished reading it has everything to do with the quality of the prose. I enjoyed learning about the bassoon and cigar smoking (less so about Debussy and the war protest stuff) -- the chewing tobacco stuff was quite funny... more. Still, it says something about the novel that the most exciting thing that happened was the collapse of the barn.
review 2: Baker is such an entertaining and erudite writer- a combination not always seen in today's fiction. This continuation of the life of main character poet Paul Chowder, first chronicled in "The Anthologist" meanders through music, dance/trance, classical and pop, the lives of Debussy, Archibald McLeish and other poets and composers minor and major,large mouthed singers, tobacco of the chewing,pipe and cigar sort and Chowder's drive to get back the love of his life. One of my favourite books of the last year. less

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