Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Revolutionary Road
Book Review: An American Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
To find a book as prescient as this so terribly neglected is truly a shame. This is undoubtably a classic work of American Literature. Like all truly great books it anticipates the hordes of suburban writers that would follow him and yet Yates always surpasses the best of them. This book should stand along side "Lolita", "The Recognitions" and "Desperate Characters" as the the greatest American novels of the past 50 years.Book Review: Brilliance to Banality
Summary: 5 Stars
Yates is brilliant in the first two sections of this book. In these sections, some of my marginalia reads: "A terrific description of a tender memory experienced through the hazy pain of a hangover." "How a loving conscientious father blows up at the kids." "Terrific paragraph with the well-intended Frank moving from consoling to attacking his wife." Here is one quick example of the painful neutralizing internal life of Yates's characters. "Frank took two wrong turns in driving Mrs. Lundquist home, and all the way back, alone, he rode with one hand pressed to his mouth. He was doing his best to reconstruct the quarrel in his mind but it was hopeless. He couldn't even tell whether he was angry or contrite, whether it was forgiveness he wanted or the power to forgive. His throat was still raw from shouting and his hand throbbed from hitting the car-he remembered that part well enough-but his only other memory was of the high-shouldered way she had stood in the curtain call, with that false, vulnerable smile, and this made him weak with remorse."
Nonetheless, the third section of "Revolutionary Road" moves from the internal life of the characters to a drama between the characters. This drama, while poignant, wasn't especially involving, at least to me. Even so, read this book if you want to learn about your last fight with your spouse or your behavior in the office.
Book Review: Brilliant
Summary: 5 Stars
So many good things have been said about this work. An author referenced this book in his own work and I thought I would read it. At first, it seemed as if this was a typical tale of suburban angst, but I quickly realized that there was something far more insidious here. The characters' neurosis begins to manifest itself and you realize what is truly at work in this ostensibly insipid setting. People have often compared this book to the Great Gatsby; I would have to say that this is a far better novel. Nothing is easy in this book, every character, setting, conversation etc... Is wrought with contradictions. Read this book.Book Review: Classic Novel of Suburban Malaise
Summary: 4 Stars
Revolutionary Road is a masterpiece of a genre that's largely considered played out--the novel of suburban malaise. It's a social novel about The Way We Live Now, only in this case Now is over 40 years ago and Yates' take on the plight of the poor souls marooned in corporate/suburban America has long since been digested and superseded. It still persists to some degree--in films like American Beauty, novels such as Tom Perotta's Little Children, and the brilliant TV show Weeds. But, American Beauty aside, contemporary takes on suburbia tend to be much less tragic and portentous.
Frank and April Wheeler, Yates 20-30-something protagonists are, in their own misguided way, dissidents struggling against certain stereotypically oppressive aspects of American life in the 50's: conformity; the tedium and banality of life in the suburbs and the mid-century corporate workplace (they live in Connecticut, Frank works in New York); in April's case, against a life of homemaking and childrearing. The problem is they don't seem to have very good intellectual resources for waging the struggle. The practical, material resources are probably there--they are well educated (at least Frank is), intelligent, they make a good impression, while not rich they are far from destitute. But they are hampered by all kinds of romantic illusions, illusions that keep them from coming up with a plausible escape plan, or making the most of the hand they are dealt. They are tormented by the idea that they are not living up to their best selves (and this is true) but they have utterly self-deluding notions about what their best selves are or how to bring them into being. They are so afraid of being corrupted by their environment that they hold themselves aloof from the life around them. Their aversion is largely aesthetic, but the pop psychological and sociological theories they use to explain to themselves why they are alienated are inadequate to the task. They want to lead lives of significance, but the best they can do is to concoct a vague and implausible scheme of moving to France, where the plan is for April to work as a secretary while Frank sits around the apartment trying to figure out what to do with himself. I mean, if they want to do something worthwhile with their lives, Frank could become a teacher, or, at the other end of the scale, go to work for the kind of high-powered advertising firm portrayed in Mad Men (he graduated Columbia and has a way with words). April could have, at the very least, volunteered to work at the NAACP.
Yates is an extremely accomplished prose stylist. He's a master of the vivid, transparent prose style that is the gold standard for writers of realistic fiction. He nails the details of life among the white middle class in the mid-to-late 50's, while at the same time painting it as a more complicated and conflicted time than popular stereotypes would have you believe. He has an extraordinary ability to make you feel like you are deep inside the consciousness of his characters while at the same time watching them from a great distance. And the central dilemma his characters face--how to live a worthwhile life in a world that often conspires against it--is not one that will go out of fashion any time soon.
Book Review: Classic tale of the suburban nightmare.
Summary: 5 Stars
Richard Yates' 1961 novel, "Revolutionary Road", is a classic that has taken far too long to get the recognition it deserves (considering Yates died in 1992).
With the Hollywood version coming out the best way to describe this haunting novel in cinematic terms would be: "American Beauty" meets "In the Bedroom" meets "The Ice Storm" and set in 1961. Even with the 1960 sentiments throughout this novel still rings true for modern times and is completely accessible with its theme of unrealized dreams and feelings of being trapped in a life out of your control.
The Wheeler's are the perfect symbol of suburbia on the surface - but to look deeper you see the turmoil just out of eyesight. The most pivotal character in the entire novel is that of John Givings, the institutionalized son of the Wheeler's realtor who hits to the core with every insightful barb that flies from his mouth.
I can only hope the movie version can come even close to the vision Yates has created in this classic tale.