A Home at the End of the World: A Novel by Michael Cunningham
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Book Reviews of A Home at the End of the World: A Novel
Book Review: Sometimes the movie is better...
Summary: 2 Stars
I rented the film version of "A Home at the End of the World" shortly after catching the "The Hours" on cable. I was pretty impressed with both. My guess was that "The Hours" had the kind of budget and richness to capture the book, whereas "A Home..." was a small independent film that had more handicaps. I figured the book on which it was based would be a better introduction to Cunningham, because it had a better shot at being stronger than the film. Well, sometimes the film is better....
The film really centers on Bobby and Jonathan. The book includes all of the main characters as narrators and has an overlapping narrative structure. Because of this, the book fleshes out the female characters better and we see why Jonathan's mother was cast with Cissy Spacek rather than someone who seemed Midwestern and why Jonathan's father was so remote. Bobby's character has more sides, although the result is that he is less vivid than Colin Ferrell's portrayal. The three-dimensionality in the book is probably more realistic, but the film version of Bobby captures better that which is important--his odd mix of emotional distance, engagement, adaptability and ambiability. Beyond his sexual orientation, Jonathan doesn't emerge very strongly in either medium.
The book oddly does worse in setting the time and place than the film. I grew-up in the Cleveland of the 60s and 70s and made many trips to New York in the 80s. Neither place fares well in the book. Cleveland was in approaching its nadir--an unhip place beginning a long economic decline, yet also a place with vibrant music scene (that attracted many future "names" for their early tours), racial tension, and the residue of various European ethnic cultures and rivalries---in other words, it had atmosphere and it was a good launching pad to go someplace more "hip". The book protrays a generic place that is more like the inland, second or third string cities of the Midwest--places like Columbus or Fort Wayne that are big on Babbitry and bragging about their chain restaurants. New York also seems oddly unlike itself. The New York of the book's era was filled with menace--crime, fear of crime, grafitti-filled subways, filth, and a general sense of dysfunction, as well as the kind of energy, vitality, and avant garde spirit that have always drawn people to the City. The book could have taken place in the tiny bohemian quarter of Atlanta or some other provincial backwater, for all it matters. The gay world of the book's time also is lacking--it takes place at beginning of the age of AIDS and the end of libertine gay liberation. Yet, talk of AIDS is muted beyond the early denial of its presence and Jonathan has to be most sexless gay man in queer lit. Popular music plays a big role in the book, but Cunningham seems to have drawn a random selection from hits lists of the 70s, rather than combinations of music that fit in time or that would have appealed to a common audience. Although Cunningham grew-up in this era, he clearly participated rather little in the popular culture of it.
The story proceeds like the movie, with the addition of Erich, Jonathan's bartender "boyfriend" (the relationship is undefined and mysterious to both of them). Toward the end of the book, Erich seems to be more of a plot device than a real person. The other characters take care of him as he convalesces, but with an odd lack of commitment.
Few films or books are made about menage a trois relationships and fewer films ask us to buy Collin Ferrell as a twentysomething virgin. Yet, the book came off as something far less than the film. The odd semi-sexual bond between Bobby and Jonathan was believable in the film but not in the book. Cissy Spacek took a truncated script and a thankless role in the film and communicated more about the mother's story than what we get in the book, despite the greater backstory. The film does better without Erich and without the coyness about Jonathan's HIV status. I wish I could have given the book as many stars as most of the other reviews, but by the time I finished, I just was glad that the story had ended.
Book Review: I had to stop reading!
Summary: 2 Stars
I cannot say how much I dislike this book! I hated all the chracters, especially Clare who was never anything other than self-centered. Her "relationship" with Bobby was nothing short of rape, not to mention the betrayal this selfish woman committed by molesting someone her best friend was in love with.
The connections between the characters were not believable in the slightest and there was nothing to like about any of them. Jonathan is the sort of ineffectual, pathetic gay man that we all wish to NOT become. A main character in a book who is never happy, never driven, never willing to say what he wants or feels is pathetic.
It was dismal from the beginning and I couldn't make it past the beginning of section 3. Read something good! Not this!