The Road to Wellville by T.C. Boyle
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Book Summary Author: T.C. Boyle Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 1994-05-01 ISBN: 0140167188 Number of pages: 476 Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) |
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Book Reviews of the The Road to Wellville
Customer Review: Rubes, Idiots, Pawns, and Fools
Summary: 2 Stars
Boyle should be praised for the fluidness and the glorious imagery that saturate his prose, but the main overtones of "The Road to Wellville" seem to be anger, contempt, and sheer mockery. Contempt for his shallow, naive characters -- all dupes, pawns, rubes, and idiots, who get exploited, manipulated, tricked, cheated, and conned. 2/3 of the way into Boyle's novel, no one is happier than when the book opens -- one character (Charlie Ossining) gets scammed out of $35,000 and has stockholders waiting to kill him, another (Mr. Will Lightbody) has been brainwashed into months of celibacy and poisoned with health food (and has consented, like an idiot, to a potentially dangerous colonic operation); like a bubblehead, the lead female character (Mrs. Eleanor Lightbody) has --in an excruciating scene-- agreed to let a German doctor sexually molest her under the guise of an "experimental" treatment. It is difficult to stand all the dirty tricks Boyle plays on these characters, or the lack of self-assertion that Boyle gives them. He comes across like Michael Moore, utterly condescending and completely hypocritical. Satire, indeed. True satire (see Warren Beatty's "Bulworth") always (inevitably) proposes an alternative. Boyle's novel fails to do so and thus can only be called a mean, occasionally tasteless invective.
Don't misunderstand: there are some incredibly inventive, funny, and exciting sequences in this book. But the overall attitude is off putting. We know we're in trouble when Mr. and Mrs. Lightbody (Kellogg's patients) finally share a series of intimate moments after several months of sexual abstinence; Mrs. Lightbody tells her husband erotically, "Give me a daughter," and Boyle has some moronic staff person from the Sanitarium burst into the room and initiate coitus interruptus. During moments like this, when we feel the disappointment in our gut, we may realize just how careless Boyle is with his tone.
As for historical detail and sheer breadth, T. Coraghessan Boyle's work can't even touch Pynchon. Consider forgetting "Wellville" and going straight for "Gravity's Rainbow" instead. It is a far more interesting, farther-reaching, and infinitely funnier novel.