Larry's Party
by Carol Shields
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Book Summary Information
Author: Carol ShieldsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-09-01
ISBN: 0140266771
Number of pages: 339
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Larry's Party
Book Review: A Whiner's Bible
Summary: 2 Stars
Warn[...]P>The main character, an affable Canadian named Larry Weller, is in a constant state of acute bemusement. We meet him as a young man, we see him (via flashbacks) as a teenager, and we follow him all the way to his late 40s, and the bemusement never changes, never alters, and frankly my dear, grows VERY OLD very quickly. Gosh, people, Larry is a person on this earth! Everything causes him wonder...from his choice of words to his hair, to his brain, to his penis. Nevermind that this sweet naif has a very successful life as a landscape artist who specializes in intricate mazes (oooh! a metaphor!). He is simply a bewildered soul.<P[...].My third strong objection to the book is in its style. At first, I liked it. As Shields starts each new chapter of Larry's life, she explains, as though we do not already know it, who the main characters are, and where Larry has come from. By the middle of the book, this was annoying in the extreme. By the end, it was hard to take...but was only one of the things I couldn't stand.
My final objection is Larry's constant minute attention to the aging process, which begins long before he even reaches his thirties. Show me a man in his sixties, who perhaps has real problems with aging, and I might pay attention. This just got on my nerves.
I rarely react this strongly to a book, but the only reason I finished it was so I could write an honest review, and because Carol Shields is so very highly regarded. I guess I simply missed the point.
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