The Frame

When class started the week we discussed this novel, most of us looked at each other and whispered, “Did you like this?…No, me neither.” Really, out of fourteen of us pretty much all of us disliked it, including the professor. I’ve never read a book for class that I hated before. Lots that I didn’t love, or didn’t particularly like, or wouldn’t read again, but there was not a single thing I liked about this book, not its characters, not its story, not its technique. Yet it’s apparently got a really good reputation, and Ford won a Pulitzer for a later book. People are weird. The main character is a failed writer turned sportswriter, and he basically whines for 400 pages. His oldest son died from a childhood disease, he’s not been able to really get over the death (though he’s not grieving, which is probably the problem), his wife has left him, though they still live near each other, he goes through a series of girlfriends, and finally he decides to accept himself the way he is. Whatev, dude, you’re a jerk, and none of us in the classroom were willing to accept him the way he is. Someone suggested that he is basically the adult that Holden Caulfield became when he grew up–which is a good description. I also hated Catcher in the Rye.