I’ve finished Charles Baxter’s Feast of Love, and I enjoyed most of it. His writing style reminded me of Paul Auster’s.
One of the things that drew me to the book was its critical praise (it was a National Book Award finalist in 2000), but what made me actually buy it was that it was set in Ann Arbor, city of my dreams, city of my heart…. Baxter was a UofM English professor for a time, and he gets the feel of the city spot on. He also uses the setting pretty cleverly. One of the characters is a university professor who refers to Michigan as the Amalgamated Education Corporation.
The problem with Baxter’s novel is that it runs out of steam. He introduces several very interesting characters and connects them all to each other and tells us their stories of love and love lost, but there’s also a menacing undertone hinting that something bad is in the works for these characters.
Without giving away what that bad thing might be (or what I thought it was going to be), I’ll say that the plot failed to deliver the knock-out punch I sensed was winding up. Something happens, and it’s bad, but it’s not bad enough. To continue with the boxing metaphor, Baxter pulled his punch.
That said, it was a good story, and the characters were a pleasure to read about. I am probably in the minority in my sense that something worse should have happened to the characters. What does happen is plenty bad enough, and what follows is exactly the response you’d hope for from the group of friends Baxter develops in his story about love.
1 response so far ↓
1 NanMel // Jun 9, 2008 at 4:51 pm
In a way, I hate to keep leaving these kind of book v movie posts. But in another way, I’m just telling you what I know. So, anyway…
Don’t bother with the movie. First of all, the movie was NOT set in wonderful Ann Arbor. Therefore, no charm.
Secondly, it was narrated by Morgan Freeman for no reason whatsoever. As one of my esteemed colleagues pointed out “Just because Morgan Freeman is in your movie, doesn’t mean you have to have him narrate your movie.” The narration was pointless.
Thirdly, the bad thing I think you might be talking about was laughable in the movie. It wasn’t supposed to be of course, but it was set up so badly, laughter was the only appropriate response.
On film, it was not a good story. I would recommend holding on to the characters you enjoyed from the book and not tainting their memory by watching the dreadful film.
Leave a Comment