I balk at giving this novel the full four stars, but i don;t feel that it deserved only three. i think that much of the humor in the book was muddled and mired and played more to an audience of one, the writer himself, than anyone else. most of the time when it was supposed to be comedic it just seemed terribly pathetic (not the writing, but the actual happenings). this book is ridiculously self-indulgent and has none of the poignancy of his other books such as if i die in a combat zone and things we carried. this is however light years beyond his first novel, northern lights. i can see that this is supposed to be more of a black comedy but it comes off as an old man trying to make sense of his midlife crisis in a mocking and terribly self absorbed way. the only thing that really saved it for me and earned the four stars was that the writing, although choppy in its narrative, was perfect and once every hundred pages he floored me with some sentence or other about life or love or women or femenism or what have you.

did not like the character
had to keep reading, hoping it would redeem itself
but no

O'Brien always seems to dig into these nooks and crannies of the psyche that go unexplored by most authors. Here, the awful, awful titular character dwells on the unique characteristics words take on when coupled with experience. It's unnerving in a way that I'm having trouble describing (just like some parts of The Lake of the Woods chilled me in some fundamental way that I still can't unpack, years after reading it).

Anyway, this is a really well-written book, and as loathsome as Chippering is, I think O'Brien turns a mirror around a bit to point it back at the reader. The satire works, too, though I can't figure out how some reviewers pegged this as a straight-up ha-ha comedy. It's a comedy in the classic Greek sense, I guess....

Rare is the gem I rate 5 stars. This book is a brilliant tale of love, betrayal, dark academia, obsession, and a second chance. I plan to recommend it widely. Very well written, witty, and wise. Had an interesting twist or two at the end. RRAD IT!

This is a clever, often hilarious book, about a ridiculous and clueless misogynist. It was written well before #metoo movement, but the character seemed to be as unaware of his actions as a Harvey Weinstein. The difference is that this guy was so unselfaware as to be almost cute. The language and constructing of sentences with as many unique words as possible and it NOT a
Fast read! In fact, I soon tired of the verbiage. Still, I enjoyed the ending where he gained some awareness

I'm very divided about this book. It's definitely timely. It's also often funny, and sometimes horrific. But it does go on just a bit too long.

I was on a long-distance drive recently, and, not surprisingly, the idle time and the tedium of the drive got me to thinking about a lot of things, most of them incongruous and possibly hallucinatory. Including, inexplicably, a passage in this book where the narrator grudgingly recounts a card game he lost in which an eight-year-old girl (he petulantly says) cheated, and then mocked him. And the memory of that scene made me laugh hard, and I was able to focus on the road again for - I don’t know - like at least another a mile or so, and I’m grateful for that. It’s a small passage in my favorite book by Tim O’Brien, and while I know he’s written literary masterpieces, and I’ve read them and loved them, this is the only book of his I’d want to read again. And I have.

Sometimes good writers write bad books. It would have been a kindness if someone could have told O'Brien on about page 50 to give it up. By p200, I didn't see how this nonsense could continue, but somehow it did right up to p370.

This was a roller coaster comedy with many more downs than ups. It didn't build to a sensational finish but just seemed to run out of steam at the end. And then everyone got off, went their separate ways and all was quickly forgotten. It's difficult to take an unlikeable schmuck of a character, put up with all of his pretensions and smile at his many humiliations when he's mostly oblivious to them and remains undeterred in his obsessions. In other words, you'd like him to get it and then shut up and leave us alone. In truth, there was probably only one really good chapter, some above average that served to move things along and an awful lot of sludge to plow through. An agreeable book but I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone I liked.

DNF.

Comprei este livro há anos, numa feira do livro, mas ficou na estante, "para ler depois".
Bom, por causa de um desafio, finalmente peguei nele e infelizmente deve ter passado tempo demais para eu ter paciencia para ele, porque não consegui apreciar o que li. Cheguei à página 157 quando decidi que não ia continuar, afinal tenho mais que ler! :)
Do que li, posso dizer que até achei o estilo do autor interessante e astuto, mas o conteudo é que me perdeu, que enredo mais confuso e trivial e com um protagonista irritante!

This book is insanely well written but a challenge to get through because I'm not sure I've ever experienced a more frustrating and infuriating protagonist. I needed breaks from him. But Tim O'Brien is an incredible writer and the book is worth it if only to experience his talent at creating such a thoroughly believable and detestable character.

Austensibly, this is O'Brien's book that "isn't about Vietnam." But his main character still manages to be vet. Still, it is very different from O'Brien's other books, and is my favorite. An excellent book for anyone who has ever dated/married someone who is crazy. (And I mean genuinely mentally ill, not like "that bitch is crazy" crazy.)