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shzn's review
informative
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
htoo's review
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I enjoy the writing more than I thought I would. The writing straddles the line of effective and ostentatious purple prose very well. The plot itself was very forgettable, maybe I’m just not the target audience. For a book about poets, there were no discussions on poetry aside from broad generalizations on what poetry is. As the story progress I felt like Roman and Bernard were supposed to be stand ins for the MFA vs NYC debate. If Bernard wanted to be a recluse, he could’ve done it in a city with affordable rent (I suggest the Midwest). I don’t get the idea of the starving artist, especially for characters who had so much privilege.
shirleytupperfreeman's review against another edition
2.0
I read this because the author is coming to the Festival of Faith and Writing but I discovered that not only do I not get poetry, I don't really get novels about poets. At least not this novel about poets. I still don't understand what motivated the characters to do what they did, think what they thought, be who they were.
sash512's review
challenging
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
ridgewaygirl's review against another edition
5.0
This is a quiet throwback of a novel. Although it was published in 2010 and the story begins in 1986, it has the feel of something taking place a half century earlier. Although the main characters are very different, this reminded me of [Stoner], with its tight focus on one man's adulthood spent in academia.
Roman attends a prestigious MFA writing program in the midwest, where he attends a seminar led by a prominent poet, Miranda Sturgis. He doesn't participate in class and only turns in work before the final meeting. He's critical of Sturgis and her air of detachment as well as her often cutting remarks about his fellow students' work. Nonetheless, he shows up at her house late one night demanding more and to his surprise, she invites him in.
Later, his joy in winning a writing prize that leads to his getting a tenure-track teaching job is marred by discovering that she was on the selection committee. He marries, has a child, settles down to teach, but also to write, to produce something that will out-shine his one published collection in a way so decisive as to lay to rest his own insecurities, as well as taking him back into the limelight.
He dug a trench into the process and stayed inside of it, waist-deep, sweating out the individual monologues, piecing them together. From inside the trench, there was no way to think of anything else: not marriage, not fatherhood. There was only the strength of voice, of words.
This novel is a look at the life of a man whose insecurities and arrogance shaped his life. It looks at his marriage to a fellow MFA graduate, his long friendship with another member of that program and at his own blindness in seeing how his own behavior affects those around him. It's beautifully written, with a melancholic edge.
Roman attends a prestigious MFA writing program in the midwest, where he attends a seminar led by a prominent poet, Miranda Sturgis. He doesn't participate in class and only turns in work before the final meeting. He's critical of Sturgis and her air of detachment as well as her often cutting remarks about his fellow students' work. Nonetheless, he shows up at her house late one night demanding more and to his surprise, she invites him in.
Later, his joy in winning a writing prize that leads to his getting a tenure-track teaching job is marred by discovering that she was on the selection committee. He marries, has a child, settles down to teach, but also to write, to produce something that will out-shine his one published collection in a way so decisive as to lay to rest his own insecurities, as well as taking him back into the limelight.
He dug a trench into the process and stayed inside of it, waist-deep, sweating out the individual monologues, piecing them together. From inside the trench, there was no way to think of anything else: not marriage, not fatherhood. There was only the strength of voice, of words.
This novel is a look at the life of a man whose insecurities and arrogance shaped his life. It looks at his marriage to a fellow MFA graduate, his long friendship with another member of that program and at his own blindness in seeing how his own behavior affects those around him. It's beautifully written, with a melancholic edge.
audaciaray's review against another edition
1.0
UGH.
Characters are all over-privileged self-important douchebags with a heavy dose of misogyny thrown in for the main character. Story is supposed to be heavy and about love and betrayal, but I just didn't see it. Blech. Also: novels about writers? Over it.
I'm so done with fiction for a while now. Back to my regular diet of non-fiction!
Characters are all over-privileged self-important douchebags with a heavy dose of misogyny thrown in for the main character. Story is supposed to be heavy and about love and betrayal, but I just didn't see it. Blech. Also: novels about writers? Over it.
I'm so done with fiction for a while now. Back to my regular diet of non-fiction!
briandice's review against another edition
4.0
All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost is not a book lost in a title's paradox. It is the opening salvo in a war of letters - a book that needed to be penned, asking the questions about what makes a writer write, can art be taught and what is the standard by which we call a written work good?
Yes, it may look like an oxymoron, this "All forgotten, nothing lost" - but that's looking at it from the perspective of human memory and not from the writing itself. Once committed to paper that memory becomes a fossil for archaeologists - the reader - to unearth and to judge relative worth, one person at a time. Chang guides us through this theme via the characters of Roman Morris and Bernard Sauvet, two poets that travel very different paths in their life long endeavors to create worthwhile art. The author points to all of the signposts along the way to make the reader ask: Does commercial success equate to art? What about the enduring relationship between the potter and the clay - and why are humans so interested in the person responsible for the work of art? Must anyone read a poem, a manuscript for it to be considered beautiful, considered art?
There's this lovely scene in the middle of the book where Roman looks to comfort from his wife Lucy and she tells him, "You will forget what you forget, whether you impress it upon your memory or not." Because this is all going away at some point whether we want it to or not. We won't be able to hold it for all time, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen, it wasn't beautiful or that it is lost.
-----------------------------
UPDATE 6/29/16
I was approached by a member of the National Advisory Council of the American Writers Museum to submit this review to run alongside an upcoming interview they will publish with Lan Samantha Chang. (http://www.creativeprocess.info/new-blog-1/2016/6/30/all-is-forgotten-nothing-is-lost-review)
Their website is a fantastic repository of important discussions with some of the world's best writers and their creative process. Visit them please at www.creativeprocess.info
Yes, it may look like an oxymoron, this "All forgotten, nothing lost" - but that's looking at it from the perspective of human memory and not from the writing itself. Once committed to paper that memory becomes a fossil for archaeologists - the reader - to unearth and to judge relative worth, one person at a time. Chang guides us through this theme via the characters of Roman Morris and Bernard Sauvet, two poets that travel very different paths in their life long endeavors to create worthwhile art. The author points to all of the signposts along the way to make the reader ask: Does commercial success equate to art? What about the enduring relationship between the potter and the clay - and why are humans so interested in the person responsible for the work of art? Must anyone read a poem, a manuscript for it to be considered beautiful, considered art?
There's this lovely scene in the middle of the book where Roman looks to comfort from his wife Lucy and she tells him, "You will forget what you forget, whether you impress it upon your memory or not." Because this is all going away at some point whether we want it to or not. We won't be able to hold it for all time, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen, it wasn't beautiful or that it is lost.
-----------------------------
UPDATE 6/29/16
I was approached by a member of the National Advisory Council of the American Writers Museum to submit this review to run alongside an upcoming interview they will publish with Lan Samantha Chang. (http://www.creativeprocess.info/new-blog-1/2016/6/30/all-is-forgotten-nothing-is-lost-review)
Their website is a fantastic repository of important discussions with some of the world's best writers and their creative process. Visit them please at www.creativeprocess.info
mnboyer's review against another edition
4.0
This is a book about two students in a poetry seminar at a prestigious college. I've seen a lot of reviews on here talking about their privilege and, I'm not going to disagree. That deffinitely comes out throughout the novel and makes the main character, Roman, quite unlikable. But I'd like to suggest that he gets his in the end. And to be fair, I'm actually not sure that I really enjoyed any of the characters or felt much for any of them.
Here's what I did find very appealing and also haunting--I took several poetry courses during my BA experience, and this does a very good job of summarizing the students and the feelings within those rooms. As someone that experienced this type of interaction I think I came into the novel with a different lens than some. I was a fan of this first section.
The second and third section were, honestly, less captivating, but I still had a desire to figure out what happened to Roman and Bernard. I don't like Roman. Bernard I'm just "meh" about. Overall its a well developed story--but is one that I think it help to lure you in if you've ever experienced poetry workshops. In that sense it might be a little exclusive and may actually push some general fiction readers away.
Overall, a 4-star captivating story, just doens't have remarkable characters.
Here's what I did find very appealing and also haunting--I took several poetry courses during my BA experience, and this does a very good job of summarizing the students and the feelings within those rooms. As someone that experienced this type of interaction I think I came into the novel with a different lens than some. I was a fan of this first section.
The second and third section were, honestly, less captivating, but I still had a desire to figure out what happened to Roman and Bernard. I don't like Roman. Bernard I'm just "meh" about. Overall its a well developed story--but is one that I think it help to lure you in if you've ever experienced poetry workshops. In that sense it might be a little exclusive and may actually push some general fiction readers away.
Overall, a 4-star captivating story, just doens't have remarkable characters.
karieh13's review against another edition
3.0
Going into this book, I thought that the main character would be Miranda, the elusive teacher whose attention is desired by all of her students. On the back of my copy of “All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost” – she is described as charismatic and mysterious. That and the fact that the book is about modern day poets intrigued me.
Interestingly, though, I finished the book thinking nothing about Miranda and having experienced very little poetry.
Roman, the main character, dominates the book, as well of most of the relationships in his life. His complicated relationship with his teacher, Miranda, his relationships with the other poetry students, his friendship with Bernard…all are overpoweringly focused on Roman. Even what remains of his family depends solely on him.
“He understood now, viscerally, something he had only suspected as a child: that he was his family’s aftermath. The most urgent betrayals, the great conflagration that had destroyed his family: all of it had taken place before he could remember, and the last traces were now burning out in the lightning synapses of Emily’s winter dreams.”
The problem with the book being so Roman focused is that he is a character that is so closed off – so inaccessible to the reader (at least this reader) that there is very little passion or fire to this book. I spent the first 1/8 of the book learning about the characters and then the remaining part of the book feeling as if the action taking place was all anti-climatic…with little idea what the climactic event might have been.
The women characters tell Roman at various times in his life that his poetry is guarded in such a way…that “there’s something hidden about the poems. They draw attention and give nothing back.”
It was also interesting that in a story about poets…there is very little poetry. Either actual poetry or poetic prose. There is some, which is lovely and whet the reader’s appetite for more:
“For a moment, he stood sniffing the winter air, the mixture of burning firewood and cold, which had spoken to him since childhood of other people’s easy lives.”
I did like the book…I suppose the problem is that I expected to love it. I expected to have words to savor and emotive ideas to try and wrap my head around. But most of that seemed trapped…somewhere. Actually, my feelings about the book are best summed up – by the main character of the book himself.
“Something he had been waiting for, some powerful transcendence for which he had held his breath, would not take place.”
Interestingly, though, I finished the book thinking nothing about Miranda and having experienced very little poetry.
Roman, the main character, dominates the book, as well of most of the relationships in his life. His complicated relationship with his teacher, Miranda, his relationships with the other poetry students, his friendship with Bernard…all are overpoweringly focused on Roman. Even what remains of his family depends solely on him.
“He understood now, viscerally, something he had only suspected as a child: that he was his family’s aftermath. The most urgent betrayals, the great conflagration that had destroyed his family: all of it had taken place before he could remember, and the last traces were now burning out in the lightning synapses of Emily’s winter dreams.”
The problem with the book being so Roman focused is that he is a character that is so closed off – so inaccessible to the reader (at least this reader) that there is very little passion or fire to this book. I spent the first 1/8 of the book learning about the characters and then the remaining part of the book feeling as if the action taking place was all anti-climatic…with little idea what the climactic event might have been.
The women characters tell Roman at various times in his life that his poetry is guarded in such a way…that “there’s something hidden about the poems. They draw attention and give nothing back.”
It was also interesting that in a story about poets…there is very little poetry. Either actual poetry or poetic prose. There is some, which is lovely and whet the reader’s appetite for more:
“For a moment, he stood sniffing the winter air, the mixture of burning firewood and cold, which had spoken to him since childhood of other people’s easy lives.”
I did like the book…I suppose the problem is that I expected to love it. I expected to have words to savor and emotive ideas to try and wrap my head around. But most of that seemed trapped…somewhere. Actually, my feelings about the book are best summed up – by the main character of the book himself.
“Something he had been waiting for, some powerful transcendence for which he had held his breath, would not take place.”
blkcullensister's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0