Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780312140946
ISBN number: 0312140940
Label: Picador
Manufacturer: Picador
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 384
Printing Date: December 15, 1995
Publishing house: Picador
Sale Popularity Level: 167618
Studio: Picador
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Product Description:
Grady Tripp is a pot-smoking middle aged novelist who has stalled on a 2611 page opus titled Wonder Boys. His student James Leer is a troubled young writer obsessed by Hollywood suicides and at work on his own very first novel. Grady's bizarre editor Terry Crabtree and another student, Hannah Green, come together in his wildly comic, moving, and finally profound search for an ending to his book and a purpose to his life.
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Rated by buyers 
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The story goes that Chabon composed Wonder Boys in a few weeks, after getting stuck on a 1,000 page tome. Turning his predicament around, he decided to write about being bogged down with an unfinishable 1,000 page manuscript.
I never understood why writers think writing itself, or their misdemeanours when they can't engage in it, should be of such great interest to the public. But this aside, one can't expect a work produced in a few weeks to live up to one that was matured over years; so fans of Kavalier & Clay are likely to be disappointed by Wonder Boys. The WWII, comic-book-inspired epic was a rich and deeply-felt adventure tale, but this is mostly about parties and the hangovers that follow them, and it takes the reader no further than a few miles outside the university campus. Even Chabon's normally lush, elliptical, but evocative style is only ironic in this earlier novel. And it contains minor inconsistencies. Of course, Chabon is never boring, and he doesn't fail to amuse with anecdotes and nice character portraits. But this book seemed to me atypical and unworthy of his awesome imagination.
Rated by buyers 
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Michael Chabon's amusing and insightful novel Wonderboys concerns an aging novelist, Grady Tripp (also the narrator), whose life and 2,600 page novel are quickly spinning onward without him. Other important characters include Grady's long-time agent, Terry Crabtree, and Grady's most gifted and troubled student, James Leer. The novel is divided into parts, of varying length, that move fluidly between present actions, the past, and what it means to be a writer. It is funny, sad, and bizarre in so many ways, but it does seem to capture some of the ethos of writing and reading literature.
Rated by buyers 
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If you've seen the film and loved it, you'll love the book equally if not more. It's not Chabon's most critically acclaimed novel, but it's also not the staid portrayal of academia that it's detractors suggest. Chabon's writing is sharp and full of grey humor. As Gene Shalit would say, "Wonder Boys" is a wonderful literary satire.
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This is a book one can easily read in a day or two. I adored the film and its cast and absolutely could not wait to get my hands on the book. I think the reason I do not award it five stars is because I just got done reading Rex Pickett's "Sideways" beforehand. That book was so wonderfully sardonic and darkly comic, that anything following immediately after was destined to savor of anticlimax.
That being said, however, Chabon's Wonder Boys was also good fun, if perhaps not always thoroughly plausible (admittedly, the thing with the tuba got a little old for me). Moreover, having been a university student for the past six years, the book's view of the academic community is, I dare say, not too far off the mark.
This is a quick read, and if you are like me, you will be totally endeared to the main characters (especially James Leer).
I recommend both the book and the movie.
Rated by buyers -
I adore this gorgeously written, laugh-out-loud funny novel. The very first 70 pages are a textbook example of how to complicate a narrative. And Grady Tripp is one of the all-time great American literary characters. Don't hesitate to buy yourself a copy. This is one of the most purely enjoyable American literary novels of recent years.
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