The Road to Wellville by T.C. Boyle
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Book Reviews of The Road to Wellville
Book 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.
Book Review: The road to what???
Summary: 1 Stars
After seeing the movie a few years ago (and thinking it was quite odd) I decided to take a shot at the book. At first it started out great and I was really interested in the storyline. The idea of 4 time a day enemas and cleansing the colon had me hooked! However then the book got going and I realized there was more to the story than the cleansing of the colon. About halfway through the book I started to get bored. I took a look at my to-be-read book pile and longed for something else. WELLVILLE did not have a plot that I could see. The book was all 'story' and very little climax. Once I finished it I was disappointed and glad for it to be over with at the same time.
Book Review: What If Fiction!
Summary: 1 Stars
I believe the author of the Road to Wellville would have accomplished a lot more if he had written a historical, instead of a fictional account of the BattleCreek Sanitarium.Dr. Kellogg did not DIE at age seventy of a heart attack, but lived until 1943 and died at the age of 91 years. having been born in 1852.
Book Review: utter garbage
Summary: 1 Stars
I didn't find this funny, satirical or humourous in any way. Poor drivel and a waste of time and brain matter.