Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Revolutionary Road
Book Review: Little Boxes
Summary: 5 Stars
I had to keep looking at the copyright date of this book to make sure it really was published in 1961 instead of 2001; Yates so perfectly constructs its period that it's fun to ponder how brutally honest "Revolutionary Road" must have seemed when it first appeared on bookshelves. In this tale chronicling the now cliched "dark side of suburbia", Yates brilliantly narrates the story of April and Frank Wheeler, characters who exist in 1955 yet whose internal struggles are timeless. Yates casts a wary, but never harshly judgemental, eye on the post-War American rituals of the cocktail hour, bridge games with neighbors, the obsession with having a well-trimmed lawn and turns them inside out, revealing the often ugly truths underneath, much in the way Grace Metalious had on rural life a few years earlier with "Peyton Place".
But Yates does more with the story than write a simple blow by blow account of a family's disintegration; the author's prose is some of the most descriptive and lyrical that I have come across in some time. Yates assigns such tragic weight to the Wheeler household, and the environs of their developing Connecticut suburb, so deeply that the fall of this family could have occurred on Faulkner's watch.
I think almost every generation belives they have been the ones to "discover" the ugly truths of suburban life; that it can be bland and soulless, when more attention is paid to the material needs and the individual triumphs in his own isolation. The truth is that these ideas and more have been a critique of the United States suburban developments since they were first developed en masse in the post-war boom. This novel anticipates books like Betty Friedan's 1963 polemic, "The Feminine Mystique", a book one can easily imagine April Wheeler devouring, and the social tumult of the 1960s.
It is amazing how contemporary this novel *still* feels in the era of McMansions and SUV's. There persists in many that uncomfortable feeling; that though one may think we're above it all, that we are smarter or more cultured than our neighbors, the underlying fear that we are really just the same as everybody else is an unspoken fear that "Revolutionary Road" taps into perfectly. It mights make us a little uncomfortable, but a shake up in our consciousness can always be good.
I enjoyed this novel immensely and am glad Yates is getting some posthumous recognition as an important American writer.
Book Review: Makes Mad Men look like Happy Days
Summary: 4 Stars
As several others have noted, if you like the show Mad Men you'd probably be interested in reading Revolutionary Road. However, this novel makes Mad Men look like Happy Days (but let's hope Mad Men doesn't jump the shark!) It's pretty damned dark. Written in 1961, it starkly portrays a not-so-young suburban couple completely disaffected with their lovely house, comfortable income, adoring friends, affable neighbors, easygoing bosses, unbelievably well-behaved kids, and unprecedented Postwar American peace and prosperity. (Presumably they also have problems with mid-century modern architecture, cool jazz, early rock-and-roll, and a new Alfred Hitchcock movie every year. What a drag.) So disgusted with the godawful daily grind of living the American Dream, all they can do is scream at each other, drink themselves to sleep every night, and plan to move to France. Hello, what's their problem? Well, the Wheelers' problem has nothing to do with living in "Conformist" 1950's Connecticut or any other place and time. It has everything to do with: phenomenal self-delusion, reflexive deception, semi-functioning alcoholism, crappy childhoods, nonexistent parenting skills, and -- most of all -- a truly deeply messed-up marriage. It's A Classic for good reason: extremely well-written, compelling, and brutally honest. Well worth reading, but not much fun.Book Review: Martinis, skyscrapers, abortion, despair
Summary: 4 Stars
You're likely to hear two thing about RR: it's a dark fifties anatomy of suburban emptiness and decay; and that it's a writer's novel, the unofficial progenitor of Richard Ford and Rick Moody. True, and true. If you haven't read it, do; but I wouldn't exactly say rush to do it. Yates hasn't aged all that well; there's an Elia Kazan feel throughout, of exaggeration verging on melodrama, and while Yates is sometimes capable of superb observation, he seems devoid of genuine sympathy. April Wheeler is better than her husband --more vital, more perceptive --but beyond that, emotionally damaged and corrosive. Many of the characters verge on being, though brilliantly drawn, typological cartoons. Nonetheless, there's a certain inexorable fascination in watching Yates send these people lurching into tragedy; and this book is very influential: given the durability of the suburbs, there will always be "suburban prose-poets," and they will always do well to study Yates before plunking away.Book Review: Marvelous
Summary: 5 Stars
Like many folks, it seems, I hadn't even HEARD of Richard Yates before seeing trailers for the film adaptation of this book. How is that possible? How are American letters so bass-ackward that he isn't on 'The List' of greats along with Updike, Pynchon, Fitzgerald and Stegner? I mean, I studied English Literature in college and never read the guy!
Okay, enough astonished protest. I'm also an obsessive fan of 'Mad Men,' which I now understand is so clearly influenced by this work that it's practically an adaptation in and of itself. The bitter world that Yates exposes resonates with us all, whether we are of the 50s, earlier or later generations; the facts remain the same. How Edith Wharton skewered society's tropes in the nineteenth century and Fitzgerald did the same to the 20s, I feel 'Revolutionary Road' does for the 50s. Yates is relentless in peeling back layer after layer of his characters' perceptions until they are left with nothing, and nothing is who they have become - or, perhaps, always were and just didn't know it. In a sense, it's like 50s gothic; this work is populated with wretches, leading wretched existences, only they see everything through the rose-colored glasses of glossy advertising and suburban dreams.
I would unreservedly recommend this work. Having become a fan of Ian McEwan's character studies (which is how I think of his books), I feel that Yates has the same intriguing touch; his observations on human nature are astute and unforgiving. A beautifully executed book.
Book Review: My All-Time Favorite American Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Post-modern realism at its finest. Truthful writing and a story that seems unimaginable, yet close-to-home at the same time.
Somehow, this is what it truly means to be an American as we cycle through new progressions of modernity, fear and hope.