Straight Man: A Novel by Richard Russo Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Straight Man: A Novel
Book Review: A must for anyone in academia
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm not sure those outside of academia will appreciate this book--those in academia (especially state universities) will love it. The nonsense that gets in the way of scholarship is skewered in this wickedly funny book. Russo has it just right....this book lead me to laugh outloud many times--I couldn't put it down! Wonderful!Book Review: A must read
Summary: 5 Stars
This was a book I read only reluctantly, as it was touted as "funny" and I generally react unfavorably to contemporary comedy. HOWEVER, once in my hands, I couldn't put this book down. Fast paced and engrossing, Straight Man is deliciously cynical, while somehow also managing to be humane. I found myself chuckling aloud on the train as a read it, much to the consternation of my fellow passengers. I highly recommend adding this to anyone's "must read list".Book Review: A novel that works with the stuff of real life
Summary: 4 Stars
Don't let Richard Russo's charmingly disarming prose mask his many moments of profundity. Beneath the quick quips and witty asides of Hank and other minor characters lie astute observations on the oddities, ironies and beauties of this life. The comparisons to John Irving are well-founded. Like Irving, Russo develops characters made of the stuff of real life. Russo's characters are not literary types, but rather the friends, neighbors and family of readers everywhere. And like Irving, Russo elicits a powerful feeling of compassion and empathy for his characters.
In the sense that this novel is about a middle-aged white male character struggling to make sense of the changing culture around him, a comparison to John Updike's Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom may also be in order. Like Rabbit, on the surface Hank's tacit dismissal of "political correctness" reeks of sexism. But also like Rabbit, a closer examination of Hank's relationship with other characters reveals not so much ignorant sexism as perhaps unadorned straightforwardness. Granted Hank is a more self-conscious and sophisticated character, but in this writer's opinion, in the end we as readers profit by the author's refusal to indulge in the common oversimplification of the question of a middle aged man trying to make sense of a modern world.
Delightfully witty with a consistent, even pace and not a trace of self-righteousness, Straight Man is a great read.
Book Review: A novel with character
Summary: 5 Stars
This afternoon, I finished Richard Russo's "Straight Man," not only one of the funniest books I've read in years, but also a story bursting with some of the roundest characters I've ever seen. Almost everyone in this delightful satire of college politics is just unpredictable enough to keep you caring throughout, with even the least likable characters rarely allowing themselves to be pigeonholed. It's the mark of a great writer like Russo that he can paint his figures, both major and minor, in such varied shades of gray, rather than the two-tone monotony that plagues so much of what passes for "best" on today's best seller lists. Indeed, to paraphrase Ben Stiller in the film "Zero Effect," there are no good guys and bad guys in "Straight Man," just a bunch of guys (and gals), sporting all the choirboy virtues and midnight-dark flaws of the people we know in our own lives, from sensitive leches to violent innocents to a loving, lovable bigot to the protagonist himself, an average schmoe teaching at a below-average school who gives the impression of knowing everything but, comically, hasn't the foggiest.Book Review: A now Russo fan...
Summary: 5 Stars
I read The Risk Pool and enjoyed it, but I really LOVE Straight Man. The characters are ones we can relate to and can find a counterpart in our own lives. It gives the academic life the perfect satirical pitch, you laugh at the characters' own sense of importance at this university that few care about outside its own realms, yet you also pity them for finding themselves stuck in this place they once thought would be a stepping stone for greatness but is now just familiar and a life of going through the motions, something Hank realizes and gives a great voice to. Hank's voice is funny yet wise and this book has some great lines: "Always understate necrophilia" "there are lots of boring professors. You can't make them all deans." This is a very funny book and I dare you not to laugh or to learn something.