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3.17 AVERAGE
3.17 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
With its Austin setting and tumultuous finale, I must admit that Next left me more than a little unsettled for a few days. Definitely an ending to remember.
This book is so boring! The protagonist is wholly unlikable, nothing happens in the plot, and any sort of greater commentary on social life or the world isn’t interesting enough to keep reading.
The concluding 30 pages redeemed the book, but only to a degree. The nude model of Mrs Dalloway bothered me. The arc's return was deft and I didn't expect that.
Next should've had an enormous impact. Stray meteors in the tundra turn more dirt than this. It did garner the best novel from The Believer.
I suppose the dodge heralds an auspice.
Next should've had an enormous impact. Stray meteors in the tundra turn more dirt than this. It did garner the best novel from The Believer.
I suppose the dodge heralds an auspice.
The ending was particularly interesting. The story was a bit ramble-y, but the ending was worthwhile.
this book took a long time to grow on me
I wasn't enjoying the multiple flashback storytelling of the main character - though I eventually got into the rhythm of the narration
it's worth it to keep reading this book for the conclusion
really stuck with me
I wasn't enjoying the multiple flashback storytelling of the main character - though I eventually got into the rhythm of the narration
it's worth it to keep reading this book for the conclusion
really stuck with me
When thinking about future reads in 2011, I had in mind James Hynes' Next, a book that had been out for a while but which I had relegated as a wait-for-the-paperback purchase. And to this I can only ask myself, after reading this stupendous book:
Why?
I also didn’t grasp the plot—I’ve known Hynes for his academic absurdity, and automatically assumed there’d be more of it in Next. While there is a hint of academic pretentiousness, it neither dominates nor is that relevant to the plot. And after enduring nearly six years of academics in another environment, I’m almost glad I misconstrued Hynes’ plot and ended up reading something infinitely more poignant and amazing than academics in full-bitch mode—though that’s not to discredit Hynes’ earlier works because they are still hilarious and worth the read. No, it is that Next is so powerful for what it is—a day in the life of a man wracked by midlife uncertainties, haunted by past loves and failures, and held in fearful breathlessness by the time and place which he inhabits.
Kevin Quinn is a 50-year-old executive editor, stealing down to Austin, Texas, from Ann Arbor, Mich., for a job interview. His coworkers thinking he’s out sick for the day, his girlfriend unaware that he’s thinking of moving away (without her, might I add?), Kevin descends into Austin, and so begins his day. Arriving for his 2pm interview at 9:45am, he decides to kill time in a Starbucks when he spots his flight seatmate, a woman who moves like one of his former flings. So Kevin begins to follow her through the heat of the Austin day, reminiscing about the woman she reminds him of, the women who came before, during, and after, and contemplating what his future holds should he win the job in Austin or decide to return to Ann Arbor. On his mind is also the most recent terrorist attack, a coordinated bombing of six European cities on June sixth—666, the media is terming the event.
So the reader follows Kevin, wondering what comes next. What comes next are many things, but what the reader feels most is Kevin’s anxiety as he struggles through his day, making it to interview time, wondering alongside him if the interview is even worth it. Should he just pack it up and catch an earlier flight to Detroit? Is it possible to remake his life in this city with the vast sky, where everything in pinned against it, splayed in the background of blue? As he runs through his memories of the women he’s loved, or the women he didn’t, or the women who didn’t love him, what direction should he take next? And what is this—and Kevin, to an extent—about?
Next is about falling and rising. There's a lovely symmetry among the beginning and end of each section—if you go back and reread, you begin to see a pattern that's descriptive of Kevin's life and of the end of the novel. For example, Part Two, Can't You Hear Me Knocking, begins: "Don't sit up." It ends: "Please sit down." Hynes uses one phrase repeatedly to describe Kevin meeting a new reality as he makes his way through the hot Austin day (and giving away the phrase, I believe, would ruin the book). What Hynes has created are lovely linkages, hidden until the end when the novel trips you and you realize what you've been reading all this time. It makes you pause, think, wake up in the middle of the night, and then reread the last section and the endings to all the sections and then the beginnings because you begin to tease out those symmetries. It really is quite breathtaking, what Hynes has created here, and it is a lit geek's (and snob's) dream to be able to delve into a contemporary novel this deeply. There is always something next in Next, even after you've finished reading the book. It’s so tightly woven and so expertly executed—I am in envy and awe of Hynes here.
Since reading Next, I find I make more observations and connections and am astounded. Rare is the book that makes me dig, truly dig, like an overeager English lit student, but the thing is this: I have nothing to gain from digging except the sheer joy of it. This is the kind of book you finish, look at the cover closely, and exclaim “Holy shit!” This is the kind of book where you struggle to begin a review, wanting to just say, “Dear Mr. James Hynes: Holy shit! And yes, that means five stars from me.” The end of the novel is unlike anything I’ve read in recent times, and I must say that it must have taken some guts to not only write, but imagine and construct.
And I will add this: Kevin’s memories of the University of Michigan, of Ann Arbor, aren’t my own—his time is the mid-80s, while my time was the late-90s. Neither Kevin nor I are much enamored of Ann Arbor as it stands in 2009-2011, but it’s still an apt, funny, and loving portrait. While Ann Arbor wasn’t mine in the mid-80s, southeast Michigan was, so I do remember Farmer Jack(‘s), and yes, sacrificing yourself to save someone else in a Whole Foods-like store would probably just be quintessential Midwestern good manners. As Kevin flits back through time and drives through Stockbridge and Mason, as he contemplates Saline, as he thinks about his drive to DTW that morning, I can say that Hynes telegraphs it all perfectly: Michigan mine, my Michigan. It’s all in there, including the inner bitchiness that every Midwesterner possesses: “A Michigander can be every bit as prickly as a New Yorker, just not out loud. The Midwesterner's credo: keep it to yourself.”
I imagine Hynes has done the same with Austin because while I’ve never been, the city was vivid in my imagination. Buildings shimmering in the heat, long blocks with direct exposure to the sun, natives and long-term transplants gamely sweating and working and playing through it all. But it remained just as foreign and disorienting as it needed to be for Kevin, as it is for the reader, up until the very end.
Highly recommended. Final verdict: whoa.
Why?
I also didn’t grasp the plot—I’ve known Hynes for his academic absurdity, and automatically assumed there’d be more of it in Next. While there is a hint of academic pretentiousness, it neither dominates nor is that relevant to the plot. And after enduring nearly six years of academics in another environment, I’m almost glad I misconstrued Hynes’ plot and ended up reading something infinitely more poignant and amazing than academics in full-bitch mode—though that’s not to discredit Hynes’ earlier works because they are still hilarious and worth the read. No, it is that Next is so powerful for what it is—a day in the life of a man wracked by midlife uncertainties, haunted by past loves and failures, and held in fearful breathlessness by the time and place which he inhabits.
Kevin Quinn is a 50-year-old executive editor, stealing down to Austin, Texas, from Ann Arbor, Mich., for a job interview. His coworkers thinking he’s out sick for the day, his girlfriend unaware that he’s thinking of moving away (without her, might I add?), Kevin descends into Austin, and so begins his day. Arriving for his 2pm interview at 9:45am, he decides to kill time in a Starbucks when he spots his flight seatmate, a woman who moves like one of his former flings. So Kevin begins to follow her through the heat of the Austin day, reminiscing about the woman she reminds him of, the women who came before, during, and after, and contemplating what his future holds should he win the job in Austin or decide to return to Ann Arbor. On his mind is also the most recent terrorist attack, a coordinated bombing of six European cities on June sixth—666, the media is terming the event.
So the reader follows Kevin, wondering what comes next. What comes next are many things, but what the reader feels most is Kevin’s anxiety as he struggles through his day, making it to interview time, wondering alongside him if the interview is even worth it. Should he just pack it up and catch an earlier flight to Detroit? Is it possible to remake his life in this city with the vast sky, where everything in pinned against it, splayed in the background of blue? As he runs through his memories of the women he’s loved, or the women he didn’t, or the women who didn’t love him, what direction should he take next? And what is this—and Kevin, to an extent—about?
Next is about falling and rising. There's a lovely symmetry among the beginning and end of each section—if you go back and reread, you begin to see a pattern that's descriptive of Kevin's life and of the end of the novel. For example, Part Two, Can't You Hear Me Knocking, begins: "Don't sit up." It ends: "Please sit down." Hynes uses one phrase repeatedly to describe Kevin meeting a new reality as he makes his way through the hot Austin day (and giving away the phrase, I believe, would ruin the book). What Hynes has created are lovely linkages, hidden until the end when the novel trips you and you realize what you've been reading all this time. It makes you pause, think, wake up in the middle of the night, and then reread the last section and the endings to all the sections and then the beginnings because you begin to tease out those symmetries. It really is quite breathtaking, what Hynes has created here, and it is a lit geek's (and snob's) dream to be able to delve into a contemporary novel this deeply. There is always something next in Next, even after you've finished reading the book. It’s so tightly woven and so expertly executed—I am in envy and awe of Hynes here.
Since reading Next, I find I make more observations and connections and am astounded. Rare is the book that makes me dig, truly dig, like an overeager English lit student, but the thing is this: I have nothing to gain from digging except the sheer joy of it. This is the kind of book you finish, look at the cover closely, and exclaim “Holy shit!” This is the kind of book where you struggle to begin a review, wanting to just say, “Dear Mr. James Hynes: Holy shit! And yes, that means five stars from me.” The end of the novel is unlike anything I’ve read in recent times, and I must say that it must have taken some guts to not only write, but imagine and construct.
And I will add this: Kevin’s memories of the University of Michigan, of Ann Arbor, aren’t my own—his time is the mid-80s, while my time was the late-90s. Neither Kevin nor I are much enamored of Ann Arbor as it stands in 2009-2011, but it’s still an apt, funny, and loving portrait. While Ann Arbor wasn’t mine in the mid-80s, southeast Michigan was, so I do remember Farmer Jack(‘s), and yes, sacrificing yourself to save someone else in a Whole Foods-like store would probably just be quintessential Midwestern good manners. As Kevin flits back through time and drives through Stockbridge and Mason, as he contemplates Saline, as he thinks about his drive to DTW that morning, I can say that Hynes telegraphs it all perfectly: Michigan mine, my Michigan. It’s all in there, including the inner bitchiness that every Midwesterner possesses: “A Michigander can be every bit as prickly as a New Yorker, just not out loud. The Midwesterner's credo: keep it to yourself.”
I imagine Hynes has done the same with Austin because while I’ve never been, the city was vivid in my imagination. Buildings shimmering in the heat, long blocks with direct exposure to the sun, natives and long-term transplants gamely sweating and working and playing through it all. But it remained just as foreign and disorienting as it needed to be for Kevin, as it is for the reader, up until the very end.
Highly recommended. Final verdict: whoa.
I really enjoyed this book, probably because it mirrors my situation - it's a "day in the life" of an insecure, middle-aged man considering a move to Austin, Texas. I enjoyed his thought processes, and mini (they are mini) adventures as he arrives several hours early for a job interview. There are a number of flashbacks, some interesting, some tedious. In all, I think it's a story of regrets, and attempts at redemption. The last 50 pages are completely unexpected; I won't say any more for fear of spoiling it!