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lolhiphop's review against another edition
4.0
New York during the late eighties : the city is blooming with traders, investors and financial animals of all sorts. Russell and Corinne are a successful couple, yet they crave for power. Especially Russell, who is a typical ruthlessly ambitious junior working at Corbin, Dern, a prestigious editor. Corinne, on her side, has became a broker almost without knowing it. Both of them are convinced of their good hearts, Russell because he works in culture (but is obsessed with money and social position), Corinne because she works once a week for a caricative cause, serving food to homeless people (but she will be unable to help one of them when he'll need it). Tensions arise, both inside and outside their couple.
It's very interesting to read a novel set in th eighties and try to find the seeds of the current economic crisis. I thought the story was a little bit long to unwind, but Jay McInerney is a very subtle storyteller. In the end, there will be forgiveness, but also many victims. Should the people who have ruined other people's life have the right to start over again ? That's one of the many questions arisen at the end of the book. In many ways, Brightness Falls can be connected to Franzen's Freedom, for its accurate description of the american middle class and of the feeling of guilt.
It's very interesting to read a novel set in th eighties and try to find the seeds of the current economic crisis. I thought the story was a little bit long to unwind, but Jay McInerney is a very subtle storyteller. In the end, there will be forgiveness, but also many victims. Should the people who have ruined other people's life have the right to start over again ? That's one of the many questions arisen at the end of the book. In many ways, Brightness Falls can be connected to Franzen's Freedom, for its accurate description of the american middle class and of the feeling of guilt.
manwithanagenda's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Going into this review I had this funny little idea about 1991-2 being a year of growing up for the literary brat pack (a marketing and a journalistic invention that would be long forgotten if it weren't for the fact that we reviewers love it), I made a connection between McInerney, Ellis, Janowitz, Tartt, et al. and the rise and fall in fortunes of the teen pop stars of the late 90s in 2002-03: Timberlake, Aguilera and Spears redefined and ramped up their image while others failing to do so effectively, the Carters, Halliwell, Chasez, etc. faded from the spotlight.
Those kind of comparisons are always fun to make and the possibility for debate is endless: How apt is it to compare the by turns serious and comic McInerney to Timberlake, or Ellis, always deviant and a little sexual, by releasing 'American Psycho', always be a good match for the explicit Xtina? And newcomer Tartt with her 'The Secret History', who was she, Avril? I had a whole notebook page scribbled with this stuff, embarrassing myself with the amount I remembered about the fluctuating world of pop music from a time I was an ardent fan of Jimmy Eat World and The Strokes and considered pop music beneath me, when the ridiculousness of the project stopped me. What does any of this have to do with 'Brightness Falls', I asked myself.
Nothing. Well, almost nothing. It's just another case of pop eating itself (ooo, remember them?), feeding on nostalgia and prone to be self-referential to the point of absurdity.
My point was that McInerney, the same way he tried with his second novel 'Ransom', is with 'Brightness Falls' making a bid for a serious novel that couldn't be dismissed as a gimmick as the innovative and affecting 'Bright Lights, Big City' is often talked of as. But 'Ransom' was too-far removed from McInerney's comfort zone and, though not a bad book, was not a 'hit.'
'Brightness Falls' is a fat book and, perhaps just because I've been going over vocabulary a lot this month I notice, makes full use of the English language to convey the subtle nuances of the relationship of Russell and Corrine Calloway, as well as a large supporting cast of friends, family, associates and acquaintances. McInerney has a lavish elegance in his style that threatens to be too flush, too verbose, but he remains in control and the effect is almost old-fashioned in its lyricism. But if the book were stripped down of exposition and the tone modernized it would turn into just another book about pretty rich people with problems.
What really struck me, about two-thirds into the book, was that these people were my parents exact contemporaries, in their early 30s in the fall of '87, and how little their worlds resembled each other. Not that that's a strange thing in fiction, but what exactly draws me to such stories, of the bored or debased wealthy and cultural elites of cities that I barely know? Novelty is a part of it, but mostly it has to do the main pleasure I have in reading - recognition. Whatever the plot or the setting or context of the story in question, I most often enjoy the authors who are able to observe and explicate the common ground people share, wherever or whatever their existence.
McInerney has that talent, a talent that is shared by many other writers to be sure, but who display it in the innumerable variations that keep books interesting. I was drawn deep into this story, and I love title by the way, it's the best book I've read by McInerney and I'm looking forward to its sequel, 'The Good Life'. Obviously this book stands on its own and seems to have said everything that could be said about Corrine and Russell Calloway at this point of their lives, so we'll see what happens.
The Calloways
Next: 'The Good Life'
Those kind of comparisons are always fun to make and the possibility for debate is endless: How apt is it to compare the by turns serious and comic McInerney to Timberlake, or Ellis, always deviant and a little sexual, by releasing 'American Psycho', always be a good match for the explicit Xtina? And newcomer Tartt with her 'The Secret History', who was she, Avril? I had a whole notebook page scribbled with this stuff, embarrassing myself with the amount I remembered about the fluctuating world of pop music from a time I was an ardent fan of Jimmy Eat World and The Strokes and considered pop music beneath me, when the ridiculousness of the project stopped me. What does any of this have to do with 'Brightness Falls', I asked myself.
Nothing. Well, almost nothing. It's just another case of pop eating itself (ooo, remember them?), feeding on nostalgia and prone to be self-referential to the point of absurdity.
My point was that McInerney, the same way he tried with his second novel 'Ransom', is with 'Brightness Falls' making a bid for a serious novel that couldn't be dismissed as a gimmick as the innovative and affecting 'Bright Lights, Big City' is often talked of as. But 'Ransom' was too-far removed from McInerney's comfort zone and, though not a bad book, was not a 'hit.'
'Brightness Falls' is a fat book and, perhaps just because I've been going over vocabulary a lot this month I notice, makes full use of the English language to convey the subtle nuances of the relationship of Russell and Corrine Calloway, as well as a large supporting cast of friends, family, associates and acquaintances. McInerney has a lavish elegance in his style that threatens to be too flush, too verbose, but he remains in control and the effect is almost old-fashioned in its lyricism. But if the book were stripped down of exposition and the tone modernized it would turn into just another book about pretty rich people with problems.
What really struck me, about two-thirds into the book, was that these people were my parents exact contemporaries, in their early 30s in the fall of '87, and how little their worlds resembled each other. Not that that's a strange thing in fiction, but what exactly draws me to such stories, of the bored or debased wealthy and cultural elites of cities that I barely know? Novelty is a part of it, but mostly it has to do the main pleasure I have in reading - recognition. Whatever the plot or the setting or context of the story in question, I most often enjoy the authors who are able to observe and explicate the common ground people share, wherever or whatever their existence.
McInerney has that talent, a talent that is shared by many other writers to be sure, but who display it in the innumerable variations that keep books interesting. I was drawn deep into this story, and I love title by the way, it's the best book I've read by McInerney and I'm looking forward to its sequel, 'The Good Life'. Obviously this book stands on its own and seems to have said everything that could be said about Corrine and Russell Calloway at this point of their lives, so we'll see what happens.
The Calloways
Next: 'The Good Life'
litdoes's review against another edition
4.0
Jay McInerney's novel is one of those works which has a setting so firmly set in the eighties you can almost feel shoulder pads growing on your shoulders as you enter the lives of 30ish power yuppie couple, Russell and Corinne Calloway. Although it was published in the early nineties, the story takes place in 1987. There is a kind of retro-chic vibe to reading about Wall Street in Lower Manhattan right before its dramatic crash that same year, in tandem with the downward spiral of the Calloways, the prematurely jaded urbanites who have not entirely left behind their heady drugs-n-booze filled college days.
The Calloways are Hollywoodishly-attractive - Corinne is a runway model-thin blonde stock broker struggling to leave behind her eating disorder. Russell, a would-be-poet who inevitably gave up his literary aspirations and `settled' for a more corporate position as a promising junior editor at the esteemed publishing firm, which he eventually tries to buy over with the help of a shady mafia boss-like player in the industry, Bernie Melman. Russell still retains traces of his manchild persona, but is fast approaching the use-by-date for clumsy oafish cuteness (his nickname is `Crash Calloway' and Corinne knowingly alludes to this lost of appeal when relating to their friend Washington, that he had been crashing less into things these days). Washington leads another story arc that deals with the woes of being black in corporate America. McInerney somewhat succeeds to this end, if only he hadn't made Washington exhibit all the custom shenanigans that ironically make him the very stereotype that McInerney seems to be protesting.
But in case the reader misreads the Calloways as mere caricatures of the opportunistic and excessive eighties, McInerney frames the introduction through (we later find out) the eyes of Jeff, their writer friend, in danger of becoming a one-hit wonder in the literary world, and recovering at rehab. Jeff, qualifies his ambivalent view of them as such: "Begin with an individual and you'll find you've got nothing but ambiguity and compassion: if you intend violence, stick with the type." McInerney fashions Corinne as a somewhat a redemptive figure. While retaining her grip on the gritty reality of New York and its ways, she volunteers at a soup kitchen downtown, but ultimately her view of the underprivileged is still rose-tinted, despite her nobler intentions, as she finds out later in the novel when encountering personal violence. She acts as the voice of conscience, though unsuccessfully, to Russell, whom we see gets drawn into the lure of power and money, even as she backs away from it. Corinne could potentially be an effective character, but she too, is too weak, and eventually succumbs to the trappings of various trademark flailing, betrayed female characters on the verge of a meltdown. In other words, she retreats into her shell and lets her demons take over as Russell flounders.
In a way, having read McInerney's later book about the Calloways circa 9/11 "The Good Life", in which Corinne takes centrestage as a middle-aged woman fighting infidelity, before this novel, may have skewed my impressions of characters and storylines, but it also gives me a feeling of pathos towards these failed characters and their private dramas. As is seen in his other novels, McInerney's prose is sharp and clean, and befitting the brusque and fast-paced life in the city.
The Calloways are Hollywoodishly-attractive - Corinne is a runway model-thin blonde stock broker struggling to leave behind her eating disorder. Russell, a would-be-poet who inevitably gave up his literary aspirations and `settled' for a more corporate position as a promising junior editor at the esteemed publishing firm, which he eventually tries to buy over with the help of a shady mafia boss-like player in the industry, Bernie Melman. Russell still retains traces of his manchild persona, but is fast approaching the use-by-date for clumsy oafish cuteness (his nickname is `Crash Calloway' and Corinne knowingly alludes to this lost of appeal when relating to their friend Washington, that he had been crashing less into things these days). Washington leads another story arc that deals with the woes of being black in corporate America. McInerney somewhat succeeds to this end, if only he hadn't made Washington exhibit all the custom shenanigans that ironically make him the very stereotype that McInerney seems to be protesting.
But in case the reader misreads the Calloways as mere caricatures of the opportunistic and excessive eighties, McInerney frames the introduction through (we later find out) the eyes of Jeff, their writer friend, in danger of becoming a one-hit wonder in the literary world, and recovering at rehab. Jeff, qualifies his ambivalent view of them as such: "Begin with an individual and you'll find you've got nothing but ambiguity and compassion: if you intend violence, stick with the type." McInerney fashions Corinne as a somewhat a redemptive figure. While retaining her grip on the gritty reality of New York and its ways, she volunteers at a soup kitchen downtown, but ultimately her view of the underprivileged is still rose-tinted, despite her nobler intentions, as she finds out later in the novel when encountering personal violence. She acts as the voice of conscience, though unsuccessfully, to Russell, whom we see gets drawn into the lure of power and money, even as she backs away from it. Corinne could potentially be an effective character, but she too, is too weak, and eventually succumbs to the trappings of various trademark flailing, betrayed female characters on the verge of a meltdown. In other words, she retreats into her shell and lets her demons take over as Russell flounders.
In a way, having read McInerney's later book about the Calloways circa 9/11 "The Good Life", in which Corinne takes centrestage as a middle-aged woman fighting infidelity, before this novel, may have skewed my impressions of characters and storylines, but it also gives me a feeling of pathos towards these failed characters and their private dramas. As is seen in his other novels, McInerney's prose is sharp and clean, and befitting the brusque and fast-paced life in the city.
alexbond3's review
5.0
This is one of my favorite books ever. Just brings you right into this marriage, this world.
matthewmansell's review
2.0
If Iris Murdoch wrote Gossip Girl, and I’m a bit on the fence about Murdoch, but this novel really did not need to be 400+ pages; there would have been so much more emotional weight if it were half the length.
gotterdammerung's review
4.0
Wonderful look at a NY couple in the end of the 80s that struggle with work and each other.
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