Moviegoer

Book Description

Critics

• The Moviegoer

  The quarterlife crisis is having a moment. And as such, I'm going to need a moment myself to figure some things out and pin down just what I'm trying to get at here. (You'll have to excuse me. I'm going through some stuff.) But if that book and that ... (read full critics)

  bookslut published on Tue, 5 Oct 2010

2 Reviews

• 1 person find this helpful

  Dichte Atmosphäre und Lebensweisheit

  It's interesting to look over other readers' reactions. For someone who has never felt lost or depressed, and has never suffered from the lack of a sense of purpose, I can see how this book would be incomprehensible. Walker doesn't dot all the i's in describing his characters' inner world, and the c ... (continue)

  It's interesting to look over other readers' reactions. For someone who has never felt lost or depressed, and has never suffered from the lack of a sense of purpose, I can see how this book would be incomprehensible. Walker doesn't dot all the i's in describing his characters' inner world, and the changes they undergo are gradual and subtle. In fact, I sometimes wished he had filled in the blanks a little more, but perhaps doing so would have turned Binx into a very different, more intellectual and articulate character.

  First, in a world where depression has been largely medicalized, it's liberating to read a novel which describes it as a spiritual condition, and a natural reaction to meaninglessness. Binx's aunt and everyone else treats Kate as sick, but Binx understands her despair as a more acute version of his own malaise. He is the only one who takes her words and actions at face value, as expressions of who she is, and so the only one who can help her.

  Throughout the book, people offer their own value systems, their own solutions to the search. Binx listens to them attentively, but he has too much self-knowledge to settle for something that doesn't feel like truth to him, even if he cannot explain why. He admires his aunt and her old-fashioned, aristocratic ethos, but he does not accept it. Yet he is so self-effacing that it is only at the end of the book that she discovers this. That scene is beautifully written, and rings very true.

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  Best Moves said on Feb 17, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• One of my favorite books.

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  Jl 3030 said on Aug 6, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
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• English Books
• Mass Market Paperback 10 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0804102902
• ISBN-13: 9780804102902
• Publisher: Ivy Books
• Pub date: Mar 12, 1988
• Dimensions: 1097 mm x 710 mm Just how big is that?
• Also available as: Paperback, Hardcover, Audio CD, Audio Cassette, Library Binding and Others
• In other languages: other languages 繁體書, Libri Italiani

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