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| Title | : | [ The Brothers K By Duncan, David James ( Author ) Paperback 1996 ] |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | - |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1992 |
| Awards | : | Oregon Book Award Fiction (Finalist) (1993), Casey Award (1992) |
[ The Brothers K By Duncan, David James ( Author ) Paperback 1996 ] Reviews
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With an average rating of 4.40, it’ll be hard to argue that this book is under-appreciated. But that’s precisely what I intend to do. To bolster my case, I’ll be using graphs to display falsely precise measures in an attempt to gain credibility. The real goal (apart from the gimmick) is to highlight the mix of traits this gem of a novel possesses, the combinations of which are rare and enticing. For instance, many books are either strong on plot or strong on character development, but not so many are good at both. In the figure below, note where The Brothers K ends up.
Duncan gives us some of the most memorable characters in recent history. Four brothers are front and center, as you might guess. They have younger twin sisters, too, who play more than just bit parts. Their parents have interesting stories, as well, stemming from Papa’s minor league pitching career and his wife’s repeated chugs of Seventh-Day Adventist Kool-Aid. First born, Everett, is quick-witted, sarcastic, irreverent and outspoken. Much of the book was set in the 60’s and early 70’s, the perfect time for one born to be a campus radical. Peter is the contemplative one with a talent for abstraction. His skill on the ball field is somewhat at odds with his bookish mindset and obsession with Eastern religions. Next in line is the biggest of the brothers, Irwin. He’s slow to understand things, but earnest in his beliefs and genuine with his laughs. His loyalty, kindness and good intent could give Christianity a good name. Kade is the youngest brother, and the narrator for much of the book. Ironically, we learn the least about him. He’s the ordinary one against which the extraordinary traits of his brothers stand in contrast – a sort of benchmark, and an unbiased observer.
A lot happens to drive this epic family saga. I don’t want to give much away, but there are fall-outs, crushing blows, young love, and moral issues to sort through. In those days, Vietnam was a point of contention, too, as some of you might have heard.
Back to my visual aids, you see that I’ve put other books onto the plots, too. They’re meant to provide context. A book doesn’t have to be in the upper right quadrant from me to like it (Angle of Repose and The Martian are prime examples), but it’s a notable accomplishment when one does well in both dimensions. The Art of Fielding may be worth special mention. Not only does it share great characters and baseball as a metaphor, but it was edited by one Michael Pietsch, who is known for having worked with David Foster Wallace on Infinite Jest as well as with the other three-named David of note. In an interview, Duncan mentioned a bond with Wallace, citing a quote by the latter: “Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what’s wrong, because they’ll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. Irony’s gone from liberating to enslaving…” This shared bravery in the face of perceived sentimentality shows up in The Brothers K.
The next plot points to another trait the two Davids share: a willingness to tackle weighty issues. Neither wanted pure gravitas, though, recognizing that humor can not only co-exist with it, but also enhance it. The mature and subtle wit in Duncan’s work was a nice complement, I thought, tickling the same temporal lobe.
I’ve only ever read the Classic Comics version of The Brothers Karamazov, but even that pointed to total heaviosity. I can’t speak much to the parallels between the Duncan and Dostoevsky books, aside from the fact that they both featured dissimilar brothers and metaphysical themes. As it is, though, my lack of knowledge about the older work did not lessen my appreciation for the newer one.
In the third plot I’m drawing a distinction between feelings (love, pathos, and matters of organs below the brain) versus more cognitive pursuits. The more abstract our thinking becomes, the further it often strays from the gut and/or heart. I thought this novel did well, as it ventured down certain rather philosophical paths, to keep it relevant to our flesh and blood world. Angels on pins were not nearly as important as the better angels we might enlist to make ourselves tolerable. Duncan was no doubt shaped by a boyhood experience with a religious jerk who told him that his hospitalized older brother died because young David hadn’t prayed sincerely enough to prevent it. In an interview he said, “I think a lot of fundamentalists are wounded people whose hurt makes them want the world to be much simpler than it really is. They want something that is absolutely secure, that never waivers, that does not require hard decisions. When you can cling to a dogmatic system, the gray areas disappear.” This statement might seem a little condescending to some, but certainly less so than the too-bad-you’re-going-to-Hell-for-your-wrong-beliefs” world view that those wounded folks promote. Duncan thankfully takes this unkind and narrow-minded brand of religion to task.
I like to think I’m one of those people who can handle negativity and bad behavior when a writer presents it honestly. But if the brush stroke is too wide, and the dreck is too pervasive, I often think the author is trying to appeal to a bias we may have in equating cynicism with realism. Granted, when it comes to politicians and televangelists, that view is mostly right. : ) But when it comes to my own circle, I’m not seeing it so much. I think this relates to that non-redemptive irony the Davids discussed. Anyway, a well-positioned book in the upper right of the following plot can be refreshing. The Brothers K gets there by way of imperfect, but striving characters who are reminded by the wise ones among them that respect and love by themselves can make for a pretty good religion. As for the rest of the church experience – the rituals, the rules, and the fellowship – it’s not so different from baseball.
I haven’t said anything yet about the writing. It’s a long book, but well-paced; it’s creatively structured, but not to the point of distraction; and it’s semi-literary, but never flouncy. The top-right quadrant in this final plot speaks to its flair and invention in tackling complex issues without being cryptic or obscure.
I could keep going in other dimensions, too (e.g., wisdom, breadth, social conscience), but you get the idea. This book excels in so many good ones. Instead, I’m going to close with a quote that I hope gives more color on the kind of applied philosophy you can expect. It’s from daughter Freddy (Winifred), echoing the words of her father. “He said there are two ways for a hitter to get the pitch he wants. The simplest way is not to want any pitch in particular. But the best way, he said--which sounds almost the same, but is really very different--is to want the very pitch you're gonna get. Including the one you can handle. But also the one that's gonna strike you out looking.” -
Okay. I have spent a lot of time trying to formulate a persuasive review for this book.
I could tell you this: that everyone I've ever recommended it to who has read it has really, really loved it. Many of them have bought extra copies for people they want to recommend it to. Many of them have given this book to their parents, their brothers, and their best friends.
I could tell you this: that it is each of my parents' favorite novel as well, and that one of my most deeply imprinted memories of them as a couple is of them reading this book aloud to each other and often laughing loudly or weeping. At the time, I was overwhelmed and almost scared of the emotion that this book seemed to bring to the surface. After I read it, I understood all of those emotions inside and out and they didn't scare me anymore. They just made me feel more alive.
I could say that it is my choice for the 'Great American Novel.' I could point out that if you scroll through the reviews for this book on goodreads, they are overwhelmingly four or five stars and often use words like 'favorite', 'best', and 'perfect.' I could tell you that my cat is named after a character in this book. I could talk about how I love it when books are ostensibly 'about' something you have little to no interest in whatsoever but you love the book so much anyway, and you love the thing too, because the characters do. In this case it's baseball. I used to recommend this book even more to people I knew loved baseball, but on my recent third re-reading of it I have to say I don't think it matters. You will love (love love love love love) baseball while you are reading this book, whether you did before or will after.
I don't really know how else to tell you that this book is a book that you should read, that I implore you to read it because I think it will make you happy and enlarge your heart and that you will treasure the time you get to spend with it. Just read it, okay? -
It may be different for other people, but we in our green youth have to settle the eternal questions first.
Ivan to Alyosha Karamazov
Let's get clear, The Brothers K struck me out.
There are books which tell a story and then there are others, like The Brothers K, whose story resonates deep inside you in response to a call within the remotest nook of your inner being. Either as an iron hand clutching relentlessly at your bowels or as a scorching eruption of pure and unadulterated love, the novel gets into your system, leaving you breathless, exhausted and in a kind of perpetual stunned awe, even afraid of your own thread of thoughts.
I was born in the eighties, nearly the date of the last chapter of this novel, and now I am here watching my past generation's dreams disappear. Because this sublime story has given me implacable proof of certain things that my dormant conscience already was aware of. That, whether we like it or not, we all are a product of our generation. And that my own generation comes out shallow, bland, devoid of values and lacking spiritual commitment in comparison to our past generations.
The States, the sixties and early seventies.
Take the Chance family.
Their lives are defined by Wars.
The Psalm War, campaigned by Laura, the radically devoted religious mother, tortured in silence by her own particular demons. Her enemy: Satan and her irreverent oldest son Everett.
The Baseball War. Baseball, a new religion. Hugh, the ever idolised father, the indisputable source of inspiration. His enemy: his crushed finger and whatever threatening his family unity.
The 'Nam War, which tears apart the Chances forever in unfathomable ways. Its enemy: Non existent.
And of course, The Brothers K War. Four brothers. Four different, almost opposed, ways to understand the world, four voices to fight injustice, to claim what is right, to make us believe.
Wars. Wars. Wars. Either imposed from the outside or inner wars, or both. Wars which threaten to break the ties between each other and bring out the best and the worst in them. But I couldn't help but admire how they planted their singular thoughts, nurtured and watched them grow and stuck to their own formed believes, using them as the only weapons to fight against these ruthless wars:
Everett, a natural leader, bigheaded, bigmouthed and bighearted. An genial anarchist who defies the system and rebels against oppression.
Peter, with his spiritual balance and outstanding intelligence, searches for answers in the Eastern World, finding his Westernized version of himself on the way.
Irwin, the personification of goodness and innocence, still believes in Jesus after the bad joke 'Nam plays on him.
Kincaid, the faithful and devoted narrator, his unconditional love the balm which eases the pain of this wounded family, his unselfishness and perseverance keeping them united, his words oozing with overflowing sensitivity and tenderness.
But what moved me beyond words was the way these strikingly different voices mingled and danced with each other in apparent discordance. The result, an exquisite piece of music similar to Beethoven's String Quartet, Opus 131, which at heart I believe to be an optimistic masterpiece despite its distressing fugue and march to death closure. And how in Duncan's novel, I also identify something hopeful, something that feels eternal, immortal, divine...otherworldly in the way he shows us the long, unfolding paths these brothers follow and the way they are ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others, giving example of what's the true meaning of courage, honor and ultimately, of love.
I know all these rambling thoughts might sound stereotypical, but believe me, they are not.
This novel has changed my perspective in every possible way, some of its details will always stay with me and either blurred by unshed tears or repressed by fits of laughter, I'm taking memorable souvenirs from this epic journey; although now that I am back home and have time to cherish these new mementos I realize my own generation still has a lot of growing up to do. We can't afford to be drowsy and dispassionate, to commit the same mistakes over and over again, to be carried away on the wave of this void era. Not when some have sacrificed so much in the past.
It's our deed to remember where we come from. And how dear the price of our present was.
Embrace the unknown and let yourself be washed away by the intensity and the unsurpassed beauty of this novel. You'll see how your world spins around and everything shines in a new light, even yourself.
I lost my religion ages ago, but like Everett, I realize that I have never stopped praying and that, perhaps, that's precisely what keeps all my loose pieces together. And for that, I can only be clumsily grateful.
Yet knowing me, my weaknesses, my tedious anger, this tedious darkness, I know I could lose my hold even on you and find some way of flaming out here, and going down, if it weren't for...you.
Not you, Tasha.
I mean this other you. I refuse to resort to Uppercase here. But you hear me. And I feel you. I mean you, the who or whatever you are, being or nonbeing, that somehow comes to us and somehow consoles us. I don't know your name. I don't understand you. I don't know how to address you. I don't like people who think they do. But it's you alone, I begin to feel, who sends me this woman's love and our baby, and this new hope and stupid gratitude.
Now, for those who are still reading and want a real review instead of my incoherent musings, check out Steve's astonishing review.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... -
Aside from having fictitious siblings (an extra brother, and where in Ivan’s name did those two twin sisters come from) I must admit I enjoyed reading this book, based on my own family. I recognized themes similar to those that so oppressed my actual brothers and me. The references to baseball were enigmatic, but I decided to treat them as if a game of gorodki were being referred to. This helped.
Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov
I can’t remember the last time I consumed so many pages of the same book in so few days. Simply dropped most other books being read until I finished these Brothers, every place I stopped just left me hanging until I picked it up again.
So, the experience of reading this book was ***** all the way. But now, having finished the read, the memory of that experience has dissipated just a bit. SO - 4 ½. (I do think that the memory of some things experienced grows in wonderment and pleasure, rather than dissipating. But what do I know.)
When I tried to find passages to quote for status updates, it was very hard. Not because there was any deficient supply of moving or funny passages, but because they all seemed to be connected in so many different ways, to what had gone before in the story, that, without that context, that which made them stand out wouldn't have been apparent.
In another review I recently wrote, I expressed my frustration at figuring out how to review fiction, and particularly how I disliked trying to compose a useful synopsis of a book’s narrative. I’m not even going to bother with that task here.
Let’s instead take a look at part of the introductory statement about The Brothers Karamazov in Wiki:… a passionate philosophical novel … that enters deeply into the ethical debates of God, free will, and morality, a spiritual drama of moral struggles concerning faith, doubt, judgment, and reason …
Well damn, that’s pretty close to The Brothers K, except I suppose for the “passionate philosophical” bit. And for sure, it’s a lot more fun than I would suppose Dostoevsky’s novel is (I’ve never read it).
Two men playing gorodki, Moscow, USSR, 1935
So, Duncan’s book (in which he actually refers to Dostoevsky’s in a few places) has a mother who is an increasingly rabid Christian, and a dad who’s a good deal more uncertain about religion. Of the six children (four boys, two younger twin girls), four have varying measures of unbelief. The kids begin to phase into adulthood at the time of the Vietnam War. Mix in other relatives, some dark stories in the background. It’s no wonder that when the book came out in 1992 it was both popular and quite highly regarded by critics.
The book reminded me repeatedly of
We Were the Mulvaneys. (And to a lesser extent, thinking about it after I was finished, of
East of Eden.) Oates’ book is darker. Both novels feature a father of the family that is probably the main character, with a mother very close behind. Great male and female leading roles for a movie. But while Oates writes of a man consumed by a tragic event, Duncan’s lead figure is more likeable, one who is involved in an industrial accident which destroys his chances at a professional baseball career, but who mostly faces his lower middle class future with fortitude, a good family man, good father who later lives through better times until the Vietnam war in the late 60s knocks him down again (through its effect on his family).
Here's a couple reviews by friends which are far more eloquent than this one.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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Previous review:
The House of Writers post-post-modern
Random review:
Planet of Slums not an uplifting read, but …
Next review:
Plato's Dialogues a reading sequence?
Previous library review:
The World As I Found It
Next library review:
Invisible Man Ralph Ellison -
This was a very good book - worthy of the highest rating and all the acclaim it has garnered. Though basically the story of a family's struggle to cope with changing times during the turbulent 60s, I don't recall ever reading a work of fiction that better explores the consequences of religious extremism on family life. That's serious subject matter, but the book is actually very funny with several laugh-out-loud moments.
The novel features a mother who is a strict Seventh Day Adventist and fanatically devoted to her church. This leads to problems with her husband who worships at the church of baseball - which he compares to regular church by stating "Hell, they even have the same stinking organ music."
Together they have six children, but the Waltons, they are not. Thanks partly to the influence of an atheist grandmother, three of the older boys begin to lose their faith. One of them makes reference to his fellow church-goers as "P.O.W.s - prisoners of worship". When the eldest begins his dinner table prayer with "Dear God, if there is one..." the mother has a violent reaction and a family war ensues. The rift continues to grow and has dire consequences when the Vietnam War rears its ugly head.
The book had way too much baseball for me to ever call it a "favorite" and there were certain characters I just didn't care about. But as the daughter of an atheist and a Fundamentalist Christian, I found it a very even-handed look at religious strife, compromise and ultimately forgiveness. A family does not have to pray together to stay together. -
so entirely fantastic…
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It may be different for other people, but we in our green youth have to settle the eternal questions first. (Quote from "The Brothers Karamazov" used to head a chapter in this novel.)
I started this book after finishing
The Art of Fielding. Not wanting to leave that world, I thought this book would be a good follow-up; and though this novel is an American (especially of the Pacific Northwest) epic, while the other is an American (specifically Midwestern) sliver of time, I was right. Here was another I didn't want to end, one of those books I start reading more slowly near the end because of that, though the ending was completely satisfying.
The writing is funny, smart and heartfelt. I laughed; I teared up. Some of the passages may seem extraneous at first, but none of it is; it's impressive how well-structured this novel is.
It's been awhile since I read Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" but even I could tell the parallels are intentional of course, though not complete of course, (the K in the title is also because of a baseball scoring symbol, as I expected) but that doesn't take away from the originality of the world Duncan has created, though both novels do seem to contain 'everything.'
I don't think you need to be a baseball fan to enjoy this book. I'm not a fan of fishing, but those few references also seem intrinsic. The main pleasure is in the dynamics and intricacies of a family of two parents with vastly different ideas (mostly about religion) and their six children: four boys and two sisters (which almost sounds as if I'm describing my family though except for the way the brothers are described in the beginning, I felt no real comparisons) coming of age during the time of the Vietnam War, and the different paths each young man takes due to the war, and the effects each path has on the rest of the family, as a family.
This is definitely a book I could reread: it contains so much. And don't feel you need to read
The Brothers Karamazov first: you don't. -
Okay. I didn't love this book. I wanted to. I'd heard great things. But I didn't. So sue me!
I know this is going to sound really lame, but here's the first thing: LOTS of baseball. I mean, I'm not one to usually be bothered when the basic subject matter of a book is something I'm not super interested in. But ... so it is this time around. I felt the book was often bogged down in explanation of the family's history with baseball, the history of baseball in general ... and I just didn't want to hear it. I kept telling Kris (bf) he would love it, since I'm sure all the stats would resonate with him. But alas: not with me.
To be more serious, I felt the tempo/writing style of the novel was uneven and not always so pleasing--the main narrator is the younger brother Kincaid, and the majority of the time the POV is first-person limited. The randomly, it would switch to first-person omniscient. Then, there was a random chapter narrated by another brother ... it took me a few pages to figure out the voice was not Kincaid's. Also, there was a weird shift between realism and a pseudo, exaggerated realism (magic realism?) that seemed out of place in this otherwise rolling, "family saga" type novel.
Lastly, there's of course the very obvious Brothers Karamazov homage ... I did very much enjoy the four sons exemplifying different ideals/belief systems (or lack thereof) in our modern day, but again, this didn't keep me completely riveted ... I kept thinking, "I should be reading the Brothers Karamazov instead!"
What DID I like, you ask? It was fun to read a novel set in Washington State; I enjoyed that the book was set around the divisive time of the Vietnam War; and I enjoyed that the mother was a seventh day Adventist--what a crazy way to be Christian, ya'll. -
Brothers K by David James Duncan
'In 1961 the best all-around player in baseball became a kind of machine for grinding out long fly balls. As he neared Ruth’s record the man in Maris recognized the Technician of Boink for the inhuman force it was, and began to grapple with it, sensing that his balance — that is his life — was at stake. He began to lose sleep, and to have trouble eating. His hair began to fall out in clumps. Near the end of the season he would break down during post-game interviews, sometimes ranting, sometimes weeping in front of reporters. Like Darwin and Oppenheimer, Maris found after attaining his end that he had little left with which to re-prove his humanity but his confusion and regret. He would say for the rest of his life that he wished he’d never heard of Ruth’s record, let alone broken it. But he did break it — and radically altered our conception of baseball heroics in doing so. Millions of traditionalists never quite forgave him for this. And one such traditionalist may have been Roger Maris himself. That may explain why the Technician of ’61 so soon became the Strikeout King of the mid-Sixties, the introverted beer distributor of the Seventies, and the cancer victim of 1985.'
David James Duncan’s 1992 work of fiction ’Brothers K’ is about the Chance family; mama, papa, the four brothers and the two sisters. The novel takes its title from Dostoevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. Both books feature a patriarch and follow four eclectic sons struggling collectively and individually with the meaning of existence — economically, spiritually and otherwise.
Baseball is the metaphor for Duncan’s book but religion, death and anti-war sentiment all play a large role. The father is a washed up major league pitcher in Camas Washington who gets a second chance at the big leagues when he develops a knuckleball. His eldest son, Everett, has his dad’s baseball acumen but lacks the physical attributes. The next son, Peter, has the physical gifts but is an intellectual and has little interest in baseball as he ages. Irwin is the trusting momma’s boy who eventually finds himself in the jungles of Vietnam. His tragic saga make up the most riveting scenes in the book. The youngest son is the narrator, Kincaid, and someone we don’t know much about. He’s essentially the fly on the wall and the author’s vessel to tell the story.
In the first third of the book there are numerous chapters covering baseball and introduction of the characters but we also get some beautiful writing from Kincaid’s perspective as a small child, like the following scene:
"The newspaper shudders, closes, then drops, and there is his face: the sun-browned skin and high cheekbones; the slightly hooked, almost Bedouin nose; the strong jaw still shiny from a late-morning shave, a few missed whiskers at the base of each nostril; the gray eyes — clear, kind, already crowfooted, and always just a little sad around the edges. There he is. Papa. There is my father"
As the children age the subject of baseball is no longer that meaningful to anyone other than the father as he tries to salvage his career. Baseball is the metaphor for innocence. Spiritualism, religion, the Vietnam war and the ensuing family dynamics consume the last two-thirds of the book. Although the writing is not always as beautiful in these later chapters, the plot and drama are much more riveting.
This novel was relatable to me and vividly captures a realistic slice of 1960 to 1970’s America. Perhaps for someone who grew up in a small town, with a baseball obsession, in an eclectic family of different religions, I was bound to enjoy it. Although the story is largely about the sons, Duncan’s development of mama and papa and the two daughters were all clearly drawn and added a lot to the realism and poignancy of this book. Duncan’s superb writing cannot be overstated. I was riveted by the ‘riffs’ on Roger Maris, Ted Williams and Vietnam.
This is a tome at six hundred forty three pages. While reading, I was reminded of parallels to David Foster Wallace’s ‘Infinite Jest’ with the sports references and coming of age stories. I later read that the authors were good friends, which I thought was interesting. I will say that Brothers K was an easier and more enjoyable read for me. Probably one for my six star shelf. I'll admit there were a few tears spilled while reading this one.
Five stars. -
A very charming novel. The story of the Chance family had me laughing out loud on several occasions, and many of the characters are simply unforgettable. This isn't just a coming of age story centered around a baseball family. Baseball lies at the heart of this novel, but Duncan has a lot to say and "The Brothers K" is a pointed analysis of American life in the late 60's and early 70's.
It is not a novel without flaws- the Chance boys Psalm war with their mother gets old after a while, and the rescue mission at Mira Loma is a little strange- but these are just a couple of minor complaints within 650 pages of greatness.
Duncan's style is also more complicated than you might expect to encounter in a normal coming of age story. The storytelling almost seems disjointed and messy at times, which only adds to the novels appeal. Reminded me a little bit of Moby Dick in that sense.
It's difficult to pinpoint what exactly makes this novel so great, but I know that every time I sat down to read a few chapters, I had to get up and go give my four month old son a hug. -
The Brothers K is one of the best books I've ever read. This is the deceptively complex story of an American family. A mother, father, four sons, and two daughters, growing up in the 50s and 60s. Their childhoods shaped by the family's two passions: baseball and religion. Their adulthoods shaped by the family's own small bundle of insecurities and conflicts, and the overwhelming nightmare of Vietnam. I'm a Canadian agnostic who doesn't like baseball, and I loved it. The story is brutally honest and unflinchingly real: sprawling, heartbreaking, touching. David James Duncan isn't afraid to show all the sides of the characters, even the ones that if they were real people they'd try to hide from the world. The characters change and grow as the novel goes on, and the story is both epic and personal, just like the story of any family. The way he uses language is remarkable: at times, he effortly strings together words that create a sentence that would be flawed if even one word was replaced by a synonym. I loved The Brothers K and think it should be more readily available, but since it's not, you owe it to yourself to track it down and read it. It's a rewarding experience.
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The praise that this novel continues to attract mystifies me. Its protracted, rambling narrative about the various members of a wholly uninteresting family felt phony to me from its first word. Only a long list of laudatory reviews kept me reading in the hope that The Brothers K would get better. Every seventy pages or so, it seemed it was getting better and soon would become very good, indeed--at which point the author stumbled-in yet again with a fresh inanity to destroy the mood, the moment, all caring.
Many words would be necessary to describe the impatience and frustration caused by this ebb and flow of great expectation and smashed hope. When I say that my mental anguish was close to physical pain, I do not exaggerate. The spirit in which I read to the end might be described as "the fascination of the abomination" (to filch a phrase from Conrad): I needed to know if a novel so long and overwrought by a writer who obviously believed in what he had written (and who just as obviously had worked long & hard to write it) could truly achieve thoroughgoing triviality at a cost of a 600-plus-page meander to its unmemorable end. I am sorry to report that, truly, it did.
If the title makes you hopeful for a contemporary American rendition of Dostoyevsky's great and difficult book, abandon that hope. If the tome's thickness and large-ish cast of characters makes you think of Dickens, think again. I do not know if the author was aiming for either effect or whether he adopted one or both of the aforementioned "D"-initialed novelists as a model, only that all such possible intentions & designs are irrelevant in the face of such clumsy storytelling and verbosity.
Others have described The Brothers K with encomiums every writer would love to have said of his novel: "touching, uplifting"; "uproariously funny"; "deeply moving"; "beautifully written throughout"; and so on. I wonder if these readers have read the same book I read. Yes, yes, I know: no two readers can read the same novel because they themselves differ from each other. It is also said that no reader reads the same book twice--that it is impossible to do so: having read a book once, the reader is changed in great ways or small and thus brings a new self--a different reader--to his or her second reading. Well, maybe. I have not read The Brothers K a second time since forcing myself through it some 20 years ago, nor do I plan to ("fool me once," etc.), so I will never discover if my perception of it has changed for the better. But I doubt it.
I do not know why I take time and trouble to knock down a book that seems much beloved by pretty much everyone who reads it. It is true that I have pondered these criticisms at various moments during the last twenty years. If writing them out finally frees me from them--and erases The Brothers K completely from my memory--the effort is worthwhile. I suspect, however, that I will never forget my frustration with this great mess of a baggy monster--because it could have been really good. If its author had been more canny and in better control of what he was doing and saying, The Brothers K might likely have been in fact what it seems to have become by reputation: a really fine American novel. -
Sigh... This was one of the most satisfying books I've read this year, and I'm kind of sad now that it ended... It was a wonderful heart-warming, silly, uplifting, depressing, funny, soul-crushing journey in the company of great characters, laugh-out-loud humor, multilayered stories, family love, history, baseball, war, religion, philosophy and 60's era politics. I cannot really express my admiration for the author's ability to show us how deep the love between the members of the Chance family runs, without even having to mention the word "love" itself. I too loved this terribly dysfunctional family, even the matriarch whom I would have liked to slap a time or two. Or three. David James Duncan's writing is utterly engrossing, and I could only smile, when I finished the book - it left me with the same sense one gets when reading by the fireplace, on a winter afternoon in a mountain village, sipping a cup of hot cocoa, while outside the snow silently falls on the trees...
PS1 The narrator, Robertson Dean, was one of the best parts of this book. Hats off to you, dear sir, you made this experience even better.
PS2 And I know virtually nothing about baseball! -
this is the story of an eight-way tangle of human beings, only one-eighth of which was a pro ballplayer
I don’t even like baseball, but I do love complex, multi-layered metaphors about life, even when most of them deal with this ‘ridiculous’ ball game. I also love smarty-pants, tongue-in-cheek novels that trick you into a debate about the eternal questions. Duncan has already convinced me about his particular talent with “The River Why”, but with the Saga of the Chance family I believe he took his [ball] game to a whole different league. Call it Masterclass, if you will.
K (kǡ) verb, K’ed, K’ing. 1. baseball: to strike out. 2. to fail, to flunk, to fuck up, to fizzle, or 3. to fall short, fall apart, fall flat, fall by the wayside, or on deaf ears, or hard times, or into disrepute and disrepair
There are two main keys to the letter K in the title. The baseball reference points at the misfortune that has followed this family over three generations, from a grandfather killed in World War I, to a father whose bright future in pro-baseball was cut short by his conscription in World War II, to a son sent to the bloody killing fields of Vietnam. They all start like valiant young hawks soaring high into the future, most of them end up with broken wings, a study of the different interpretations of the baseball term for failure.
Almost as obvious and spelled out clearly in the text is the connection with the famous Dostoyevsky novel, “The Brothers Karamazov” . Nothing less than understanding the meaning of life, and our place in the universe will do for the Chance siblings. In order of entering the scene, the children of Hugh and Laura Chance will guide us through the tangle of humanity trying to deal with a relentless stream of Bad Chance: Everett, Peter, Irwin, Kincaid, twins Bet and Freddy.
‘It may be different for other people, but we in our green youth have to settle the eternal questions first’
Ivan to Alyosha Karamazov
A more oblique literary reference, one among many, is to the classic Indian epic Mahabharata. The story of the five Pandava brothers: Yudishtira, Bhima, Nakula, Sahadeva, Arjuna may or may not be directly related to the story of the Chance family, but I felt the need to mention it as a highlight of the author’s talent as a storyteller, for the way he manages to bring the ancient story to life through the voices of children.
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[edit] so, sorry! I was planning to avoid spoilers, but I might have let a couple slip through. If you haven’t already read the novel, thread carefully.
thanks!
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The bulk of the novel deals with the childhood and youth of the brothers, with detours into family history told in hilarious school essays by successive narrators. I don’t have the strength right now to draw any parallels with the Karamazovs (I got infected with Covid a few days back, and I’m not doing too great. I’m vaccinated though, so I hope for the best) or with a detailed resume of the plot developments. This is a novel about the eternal questions, with the Chances assigned roles more worthy of the Lot family. Religion plays a big part in the proceedings, with the siblings torn apart between a militant, hardcore mother who insists on Church attendance and a father who lives only for baseball and takes a laid-back, detached approach to anything else in life.
Then along came Elder Babcock, telling and telling, acting like Christ was running for President of the World, and he was His campaign manager, and whoever didn’t get out and vote for the Lord at the polls we call churches by casting the votes we call tithes and offerings into the ballot boxes we call offering plates was a wretched turd of a sinner voting for Satan by default.
David Anthony Duncan does have a preachy side to his prose, but before dismissing him as a closeted missionary, I would advise letting the whole argument unfold. He always keeps a few aces up his sleeve for a late reveal. The Seventh Day Methodist Church gets a lot of flak from the young boys, who consider themselves POW’s (Prisoners of Worship) as they are dragged weekly to Sunday School or Sermon. Most of them are pushed into the opposite direction, slagging God and everything religious, with one bright exception. Later in the novel, Oriental studies, Flower Power movement, political activism, anti-war movement would enlarge the scope of the debate well beyond the pitfalls of militant Christianity.
It’s strange the way everybody has their own pet notion about Jesus, and nobody’s pet notion seems to agree with anybody else’s.
Jesus as an idea, not as dogma. This is the kind of debate I would like to see promoted in school curriculum instead of allowing the dominant local sect to control the discussion. Everett, Peter, Irwin, Kincaid, Bet and Freddy will each need to learn that they must deal with this issue on their own. It will drive the family to the breaking point, with little help from a Mother threatening Hell and Damnation and a Father wound tight around his own wounds.
Everett, the oldest, is a firebrand, raging at the world’s injustice, loyal to his brothers, outspoken, snarky, ambitious and reckless. After failing to follow in his father’s footsteps, he leaves for California to study politics and poetry, and becomes a leading member of the Protest Movement, to the point where he looses sight of the wider world. His egotism and his recklessness will send Everett into exile, to seek absolution on the some desolate shore on Vancouver Island.
“We were young. We were arrogant. We were ridiculous. There were excesses. We were brash. We were foolish. We had factional fights. But we were right.”
Abbie Hoffman
Peter, the intellectual one, might have had the talent to outdo his father in the diamond field, but he is always focused on the spiritual side of life. He is vocal in his support of right causes, to the point people start laughing at his idealism. He goes to study Oriental philosophy in New York, later to find his vocation in India.
“This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children ... This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from an iron cross.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Irwin, the simple-minded, good-natured and powerful one, always does what he is told, including in Church with his Mother. He is the heart of the family and when, as a result of his good intentions, he gets sent to Vietnam despite being eligible for a Conscientious Objector deferral, he breaks everyone’s heart. Mine included.
Because thou shalt not kill, Kade. Thou shalt not kill. With all my heart I believed this. And I killed. So what am I now? And why should I live? How am I even alive? Because if this is what our lives are – if doing this to others before they do it unto us is all our lives are – we’re already dead. Honest to God I feel it Kade. I’m dead. The Hell with me.
The twin girls, Bet and Freddy, are younger and came into their own late in the novel. This is not to say their stories are less important that the adventures of the boys, or less developed. It’s just that there’s some overlap. Bet is like Everett, fiery and self-reliant and rebellious, especially against her mother’s church. Freddy is sensitive and scared, and takes refuge in religion. She is as good intentioned and emotionally fragile as Winnie, in his post-Vietnam trauma. From the mouth of children comes great wisdom from time to time.
You can’t avoid getting zapped, but you can avoid passing the mean energy on.
Kincaid, or Kade as he is affectionately called by the family, is the little brother that everybody likes. He is the slippery one, despite being the main narrator of the novel. He is observant, sensitive, introverted, but if Winnie is the heart, Kade is the conscience of the family. He will become a writer, more or less by default, the one who sees deep into the souls of others and can find a healing word or the right moment to get angry and fierce. His early interaction with his father is probably the defining moment of the novel for me, its backbone and its reason d’etre.
Papa himself had finally crunched his shards underfoot, found a new and pure kind of effort to make, and commenced punching walls, swearing, joking, whistling and living his life as if the past has passed. And in the present he was surviving. Perhaps even thriving. He didn’t know. It wasn’t his business to know. His business was to simply keep making the effort.
So yes, there are eternal questions that need to be answered, and maybe there is an answer or maybe it is unknowable to us in our present world. But please don’t lose sight of the real world or of the people in this world you care about. No matter how you striked out, how you K’ed to keep to the novel’s jargon, hang in there and make an effort. If not for you, do it for them.
This is brought painfully home to the Chance family by the drama of Irwin being brought back from Vietnam and locked inside a military clinic for the insane. It finds the family broken into separate bubbles, each focused on their own pain and troubles, before they look at one another and realize how far they have fallen.
To lose your very self, for the sake of another is, sweet irony, the only way you’re ever going to save it.
Salvation sounds like such a Big Word, debased by its overuse to justify various sectarian goals. I usually cringe away when I come to an author preaching salvation, but I honestly wished, from the bottom of my atheist heart, For Hugh and Laura, For Everett and his volatile Natasha , for Irwin and his deep wounds, for Peter and Kade, for Bet and Freddy and the rest of their friends, to find peace and companionship at the end of the road.
Pain and sorrow never end. Nothing we do is enough. It’s always been this way. “But joy,” I whispered to Irwin. “This joy. It’s boundless too, and endless. So hold on. This isn’t theirs to knock out of you. It’s not yours to lose. It’s not mine either. But it’s making the trip. It’s coming. So please. Just hold on.”
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“Art heals. – Tony Baldanos, 1971.”
Read the book if you want to get this reference in full, please. This is how I feel, both as I finished the novel, and as I now finish my review about a month later. Sometimes I forget what I want to write about, if I don’t start writing fresh, but in the case of Duncan, the value is not in the story details, the value stays in its compassion and in the joy I have as I close my comment, blackbirds singing into the heart of my day. -
I've read this novel twice, and it only *just* got edged out by The Corrections as my favorite book of all time. Like Franzen's novel, this is one of those mystical "crossover" books -- great fun for both boy and girl readers. But while Franzen's writing is crystalline in quality and psycho-putrid in tone, Duncan's novel is, yes, a masterpiece, both in its style and in its ability to convey emotionally such a wide range of family successes and disappointments. It's some of the most inventive, artful contemporary prose I've ever encountered.
I'm amazed that more people haven't read this book. Maybe because it tops out over 500 pages. But I wish it were longer. Did I mention it's a story about a baseball family? Maybe that will offset the length issue . . . not that you intrepid goodreaders are scared by length.
My full review is here: [
http://www0.epinions.com/content_6952...] -
Sweeping family saga set mostly in the 1960’s – 1970’s in the state of Washington, The Brothers K is the story of the Papa Hugh Chance, a former baseball player whose career was derailed by injury, Mama Laura, a fervent Seventh Day Adventist with a painful past, and their four sons and two daughters. It is told in first person by the youngest son, Kincaid, through his own observations, as well as news articles, letters, school papers, and family memorabilia that provide additional points of view into relationships and events, and covers topics such as baseball, family dynamics, religion, nature, politics, war, and coming of age during the turbulent sixties. Though the characters are many, the focus is primarily on Papa Hugh, Mama Laura, and three of the four sons: Everett, Peter, and Irwin. Everett, the eldest, clashes with his mother regarding religion and becomes a rebel-hippie-agnostic. Peter, the second son, is the most athletically gifted, but is drawn to intellectual pursuits and Eastern spiritualism. Irwin is a good-hearted trusting soul who embraces his mother’s religion but also suffers the most trauma. It is a great example of how siblings can be remarkably different in temperament and avocations.
The author has a wry sense of humor and is skilled at evoking emotion, at times funny, poignant, or heart-breaking. Baseball anecdotes and analogies are prevalent in the first half of the book. Duncan uses baseball as a metaphor for life, and baseball fans will particularly enjoy this part. As the storyline expands, and the children grow to adulthood, the focus shifts away from baseball and toward their various interests. It also moves away from their small hometown in Washington to international locations. There are plentiful allusions to The Brothers Karamazov, for which the book is named, but the storyline is substantially different, and it is not required to have read Dostoevsky’s novel in order to appreciate this one. As baseball fans will know, a “K” represents a strike-out, and the characters suffer a number of failures, life lessons, and adversities. Duncan explores the nature of success and failure by examining life-altering decisions, and the roles of fate, chance, and spirituality. The characterization is outstanding, with enough detail to understand motivations. At almost 650 pages, Duncan takes a few detours that perhaps were not strictly required and relates extended dream sequences. It will require the reader’s patience and persistence, but the payoff felt worth the effort. This book explores the themes of faith, hope, self-discovery, doubt, internal strife, love, forgiveness, and redemption. It is a gem of a book, a mixture of a great yarn and a thought-provoking philosophical look at life. -
Short summary right at finishing: This was a wonderful book. I don't even care that it had baseball in it and that sometimes I needed to skim those parts. This novel about a family going through life, in the 1960s in Camas, Washington, and the characters are so vibrant and real I may never forget them. Highly, highly recommended.
I'm hoarding quotations after the spoiler cut, but I'm not prepared to fold them into a longer review quite yet. -
There is a lot of baseball in there - because the father was a baseball player and various developments in his career are closely followed. Later his sons too had failed Baseball careers with high school teams - actually their baseball careers foreshadowed their failures to achieve what they could in life. Besides there are a lot of baseball quotes.
There are a lot of literature references too, mostly Russian - the title nods to Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, there are other nods too – a character named after Myshkin from ‘The Idiot’; chapters named ‘The Bland Inquisition’, ‘The shoats from underground’, 'Kwakiutl Karamazov’ etc. Big great authors are often quoted - which is a thing I love, books quoting books.
There is also a lot of religion in there; mostly creating friction among characters having different religious opinions – the Bible is the most quoted and misquoted book. Another book often quoted is Budha's biography. The mother is deeply religious Christian and want to force her belief on the children, the later ressist it.
There is also a lot of politics in there, mostly focused on U.S.-Vietnam war – and oh! There is that war in there too, mostly destroying and disturbing lives as wars always do. Almost all characters who aren't in army are against war.
But above them all, it is story of a family surviving through their differences and problems created by fate, religion, war and their own mistakes as the four brothers live their lives. Their father is a baseball player and the mother is a deeply religious Christian – two things they inherit and lose.
From among four brothers – Everett is by nature a rebel; an agnostic and a political protester and loses his way in trying too hard to change the world.
Peter is a scholar, the religious one but changes his religion to Buddhism - in his quest for knowledge (he comes to India), he leaves much of his life behind and realizies his mistake only too late.
Irwin is a conformist (always a mistake), a real love-them-all type of person – the only one who held on to his mother’s church and which resulted in his doom. The failure of careers of these three brothers is symbolized in the title (‘K’ in baseball stands for “Strike out’)
There is a fourth brother and two sisters (twins) as well. I can't share much as the story is spoilable but there is that whole spectrum of characters and the narrative is full of humorous punches - it is a little like a story from a family comedy sop but with realistic characters having realistic issues. Not something I usually look for in books, but it is hugely entertaining. And it covers so many countries - we see characters who have been to US, UK, India, Canada, Vietnam and Russia. -
“He loved
The Brothers K,” to bastardise Orwell. He is me, I am he: love-abundant, reduced at one early point to actual, proper tears that, while more the gentle-slide-down-cheek kind than the heavy-flood-of-face sob, was nevertheless an impressive first for a book. Wonders never cease at how squiggly marks on dead trees can be so capable, generate such heartfelt magic, yet somehow David James Duncan manages it here, easily if sadistically.
The Brothers K: a complete knockout, plus collection of well-aimed kicks and knees to spots on the body and mind certain to make the soul’s chakras go kaput. Duncan charts the rise and fall of not only a family—the Chances—but of each of its member, in ever-expansive and -vivid detail so immersive they feel real, are real. And what falls indeed, keenly felt half a dozen times over, for the six characters (both parents—faded baseball star Hugh and hyperreligious Laura—and the four brothers—Everett, Peter, Irwin, and Kade) to whom Duncan devotes much of his blessed/cursed attention as he builds them up, they little knowing of soon meeting his wrecking ball.
Back to that love, very much still intact, for this kaleidoscopic family epic and fourfold coming-of-age story, spanning the turbulent decades of America’s sixties and seventies. Baseball, Religion, Politics: we careen around this grand narrative between these three points of the triangle, now become a diamond of the baseball field once we add a fourth, i.e., Family at the home base. How is it that I, decidedly a gay heathen who might burst into flames upon stepping into a stadium or church, nevertheless end up harbouring such love for Duncan’s book that has both in sustained abundances, that contains pages of play-by-play baseball and Sabbath School lessons? Yet that love admittedly remains a complicated if outright paradoxical one, which bears qualifying if only to account for the less-than-smoothness of my reading experience. Or, rather, multiples of them, happening in restless stops and starts. More, there was even a wholesale restart when, having let the book lay for too long, I reread the first almost-200 pages because characters and plotlines’d become foggy, horribly confused with others from elsewhere read/watched at the same time. Life also rudely interfered.
Or the baseball portions got to be too much: what’s a slider? a shortstop? Foul lines and grass lines, the outfield and infield: the geometry of the baseball field seems straightforward enough at first. Then all descends into pure chaos as Duncan animates it with seeming infinities of names, of not just players but also coaches and commentators: Mudcat, Dizzy, etc. That cat was me, too often left muddleheaded and dizzy at Duncan’s lightspeed-paced, barely disguised sports writing. If various editions of
Moby Dick come fitted with appendices detailing parts of ships in uncondescending diagrams, and those of
A Clockwork Orange with glossaries explaining its madcap vocab, we may’ve here appreciated the same thoughtfulness. Whereas Kirkus Reviews finds in all this “a garden of delights for baseball lovers,” it’s probably more a sinkhole of horrors for baseball skeptics, responsible on here for many one-starred reviews: “WAY too much baseball talk.” “Whoever said you don't have to be a baseball fan to appreciate this book is full of poop.”
The Brothers K: a striking enough title, not least because it’s doomed you to a perpetual dance of clarification that you mean the Duncan book and not Dostoevsky’s, though you maintain your love for either or both, in the latter of which case please don’t make you/me choose. But due to such naming, Duncan’s debt to Dostoevsky—and to Russian literature and even the pure love of reading in general (more later)—goes without saying, as does my initial motivation for starting this book, hankering for more immediately after emerging with eyes squinted from
The Brothers Karamazov. Or more crudely, setting aside the brothers, the letter might predict the overall whelmedness, the indifference bordering on aggressiveness, which said skeptics would feel towards Duncan’s book. Or it reminds us to eat more bananas. But going back to baseball again, Duncan steps in via the more baseball-crazed of the brothers, Everett, to take up a page explaining that in baseball parlance “K” denotes a strikeout, the act of striking out, etc.; and in broader terms, “2. to fail, to flunk, to fuck up, to fizzle, or 3. to fall short, fall apart, fall flat,” etc., before Everett’s quasi-official definition approaches philosophical heights: “to lose your happiness, your hopes… yea, even your memories… your very self.”
Striking out, then, or failing, happens to everyone in the book: to Hugh whose baseball-star’s trajectory unexpectedly plunges earthward; to Laura whose religious fanaticism puts her on a collision course towards much of her family with their secular beliefs; to Everett whose baiting radicalism stays the same if more accelerated course; to Peter whose scholarly/spiritual detachment proves too unconnected to life’s nitty-gritty that he becomes untethered from it; to Irwin whose big-hearted innocence leads to both wholesome and disastrous results; and to Kade who we know the least about, yet that makes him the perfect reader surrogate. We’re not exempt from the same strikeout, too, as with those who might’ve too soon quit this book, or yeeted it at walls and windows, at various peaks of its baseballness. Yet despite my own “baseball prowesslessness,” as Kade once describes himself, Duncan’s writing about it, though relentless, eventuates in supremely rewarding beauty, as when he waxes captivating poetry in describing the pitcher’s unthinking mindset (“No-Think”), conjuring up “this realm of pure reflex” not dissimilar to when David Foster Wallace in
Infinite Jest writes of tennis’ same near-transcendence.
Speaking of, it’s worth considering Duncan in light of Wallace, and not just because of their name. You’ll notice that, as mentioned in Steve’s delightful review, their books share an editor in Michael Pietsch, though given the sprawling length of both, an argument from the disgruntled, still sore about baseball/tennis, can be made against even the existence of one, i.e., editor—that editing as a concept simply doesn’t register in those households. But the connection runs deeper: in Duncan’s poignant autobiographical piece for The Sun Magazine, where he trains the same artist’s keen and generous eye upon himself and his experiences with loss (of his brother and mother), Duncan briefly touches upon Wallace, who he finds “crossing [his] mind often — or crossing something deeper” via Pietsch, who in missing Wallace means “David has sifted into [his] prayer life, such as it is, and now sits on the other end of a spirit thread of well-wishing.” Poignant. Yet more relevantly for their books, Duncan takes after Wallace in their whole-hearted embrace of sentimentality in these postmodern times, the former “not at all afraid to sound sentimental or naive to all the weary ironists.” If Wallace reserves, at least initially, this unselfconscious sentimentality for Don Gately’s character, balancing it with the ironic pose, also initially, of the Incandenzas save for sweet Mario—reminding me of Duncan’s Irwin—then Duncan holds back none of it for all his characters during the entirety of
The Brothers K, the formal and narrative whole of it carefreely running the gamut of human emotion in a full-throated yawp.
Much of the book’s appeal, as with that of any halfway-decent work, stems from good, well-developed characters, of which Duncan has no shortage. With the same knack for voice as Stephen King and George Saunders, Duncan’s characters’ dialogues just flow. And this well-developedness means depth, and Duncan certainly digs deep into the Chance family, especially the brothers, every shovelful revealing a voice more distinct than the last: Kade’s lively watchfulness, Everett’s provocative radicalism, Peter’s academic self-restraint, and Irwin’s boundless energy, each with their own specific joys and sorrows, hilarities and tragedies. For example, one brother has probably the funniest part of the entire book, which veers in an unexpected though probably also unsurprising turn from the narrative into the essay form, i.e., the freshman high-school essay form, brimming with all the grammatical mistakes imaginable and endearingly bizarro phrasings (“buried in rocks at feet of cliffs,” “Christ as her personnel Lord and Savoir,” etc.”) that the form entails, as he tackles the modest task of sketching out his father’s history that soon spirals out of control into his own whole damn version of this family epic: “Though to tell the truth, if I’d of dreamed any dad of mine had even a tenth this much information to him I’d of wrote my Essay about somebody who died the instant they were born instead.” Another brother “claims that a person’s mind is much larger than their brain. He claims your mind actually hovers out around your head in a pulsing, invisible ball of varying size and color.” Yet another brother, at church, “couldn’t figure out how the choir was still standing. Must be their faith, he reasoned after a while, since it was primarily the brain that needed oxygen to function, and faith, as he saw it, was a kind of scripture-breathing brain-eating termite you turned loose in your head on the day you were baptized, causing your need for oxygen to steadily decrease.” More of such personality powerhouses, with their specific idiosyncrasies, appear throughout the book, to often memorable effect.
From the last excerpt, you’re shown another major aspect of the book: the Religion that, alongside the Baseball, some may find off-putting. But returning to character—particularly that of the Chance family, with their great passions for either or both—Duncan manages to integrate these two aspects into his book without sounding at all preachy. Granted, Everett and co. get preachy as all get out about baseball, at whose baseball-card-sprinkled altar they worship every waking and dreaming moment, just as it remains her moral imperative that Laura cannot not be preaching the Lord’s (mangled) Word, likewise at all seconds, minutes, hours. Despite all this, i.e., compounded preachiness, it’s perfectly acceptable, perfectly organic, well in line with the golden rule of narrative, of character. If anything, the only preachiness that happens, which is the only kind that matters, is Duncan’s return to the core theme of Family—and how it remains intact (or not) among all these different, seemingly irreconcilable differences. In the interest of reconciliation, it would be dubious to find any great value in overcoming difference. That implies eliminating it. That way lies self-erasure; unfulfilling conformity. Instead, Duncan aims for understanding difference, yet how he does it, with characters of such awesome differences—between the brothers and their baseball-hating Grandawma, Everett and Laura, Kade and Hugh, etc.—achieves nothing less than elegance.
And if the Russian greats like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are allowed a pass for including religion in their stories, why not Duncan too, Russian/great or not? More saliently, however, this nicely segues into Russian Literature as the
The Brothers K’s hidden fifth point, even if this would seem to unfortunately wreck my earlier baseball-field analogy for Duncan’s narrative workings. Look upon my academic despair, a very Peter thing. But not so!, thanks to the blessings of baseball (most unsaid sentence ever by me in history). The home plate, shaped pentagonally, comes to our rescue. The metaphor: saved! Anyway—Russian Literature! Beyond the title as obvious nod, Duncan folds it further into the book, seamlessly, now less a nod than quantum entanglement, via Everett’s character who at university meets the appropriately-named Natasha Lee, “the Russian lit-freak,” “Natasha of Czarist Russia.” Of course it would be love that Duncan'd fashion as the gateway through which the ghosts of such Russian greats would pass, enjoying a fresh resurrection. And Everett, initially not a fan, comes around to Russian literature, his Natasha-motivated reason soon forgotten in his discovery of its magic. If this is pandering, by all means pander away, so long as it’s consistent with character, which here it certainly is: Everett is a horndog for Natasha, whether her last name is Lee or Rostov.
But we run into the same problem as with Baseball and Religion: the problem of prerequisite readings with Russian Literature, the better to appreciate
The Brothers K. While it might help, whether looking up the broad strokes of it or immersing in it, reading Russian literature isn’t necessary to the enjoyment of the book, albeit it may not be the fullest possible, i.e., the enjoyment. And while Russian literature is inarguably always necessary reading at any stage of life—yes strap that newborn to a high chair now and give them a Gogol or Chekhov—we can take away at least one core, homework-free idea: the love and joy of reading, with its resultant deep connection with different minds and worlds, leading ultimately to a more understanding and kinder you. There is one character, the book’s best, who embodies that spirit completely, being Duncan’s Grand Unifying Character. Speaking earlier of differences, it’s almost as if Duncan purposefully erects these near-insurmountably tall walled towers of Differences in the forms of Baseball, Religion, and now Russian Literature, all with their distinct cultural incomprehensibilities, before showing how illusory these divides, how traversable these distances, can be with some Empathy. With patience, plus ladders and rock-climbing gears aplenty.
The so-called “Great American Novel” label gets lobbed around often, never settling on any one book for long—
Huckleberry Finn or
Moby-Dick if we look to the classics;
The Corrections or
Mason & Dixon if the contemporaries. True, this exercise’s probably meaningless, with the subjectivity of whichever answer’s put forth. Besides, probably too early now to plop
The Brothers K down alongside those greats. Yet there’s no denying the sheer Americanness of Duncan’s book, its self-insisting quality. The comprehensive exploration of Baseball and Religion, both of them American in their own ways, only intensifies it. But what’s more fascinating is Duncan’s fixation on the collective over the individual. The Great American Dream, after all, boasts of pulling yourself scrappily up by your bootstraps, of self-madeness. The individual extraordinaire. Certainly, each brother gets their spot in the light, their shot at greatness, though with varying degrees of success/failure. The return to Family, however defined, remains at once a leap of faith and a universal constant. -
Remember what it feels like to fall in love? Better, remember how exciting was the immersion into the love of this novel or that novel when you were younger? Remember falling in love with Siddartha? Or with Even Cowgirls Get the Blues? Remember how exciting the first read of Catch-22 was, or Gravity's Rainbow? To read The Brothers K is to experience all that again, and to be younger. It's a novel to love. It's one to remember fondly and to bask in having read it. About halfway through I began to wonder where this novel had been all my life.
Duncan has written a kind of symphony. It's that grand in scope and that impressive in the diverse prose styles and voices he uses to tell his story. That story is a family saga encompassing love, family, war, religion, the current events of the Vietnam Era, and, yes, baseball. It's ultimately wise in what it has to say about those things and more. I was impressed with the author's prose style. I loved its zip and zing, the most energetic verbal knuckleballs I've read in a while. But also because in such a big novel, the control he maintains over the vast panorama of family history, and in each of the individual episodes making up the rosary of the Chance family. Duncan says the decades of his family with beauty and devotion.
It's a little bit of a riff. Take a step to the left of The Brothers Karamazov and there you are in Camas, Washington with what Kincaid, the youngest of the 4 brothers, calls an 8-way tangle of parents, twin sisters and brothers. Each of the brothers--Everett, Peter, Irwin, and Kincaid--whose story this is, along with the father's, exhibit the same general characteristics as Dostoyevsky's famous brothers. Plus, the K is an allusion to the baseball scoring notation for a strikeout. Baseball is an important element in the novel.
So is religion. Acceptance, though, isn't a foregone conclusion. The Chance family members display many gradations of belief and nonbelief. This character is pious while that family member is a sceptic while yet another tries to find transcendence through Eastern thought. There's something Zen-like about it all and about the relation to baseball, as its fans can appreciate. Krishna is invoked, the story of the 5 brothers of the Mahabharata is alluded to, as is Zen archery, Greek mythology, and Islam. The Christianity of those Chance believers is plumped by the goodness and wisdom of all religions. And religion is plumped by baseball being seen as a path towards a higher consciousness, a way to fill the emptiness of existence. Baseball is a conservatism, but it's a way toward transcendence. Not every Chance believes in God, but they all believe in baseball. It's impressive how Duncan can write a novel about both the power and the meaninglessness of religion, but he does.
It's an antiwar novel. The Chance brothers are involved in some of the more visible endeavors of the 60s and 70s: the antiwar movement, service in Vietnam, fleeing to Canada, the search for spirituality in Asia. By refining his characters and narrative in the blast furnace of those tumultuous years of our country's history, Duncan paints a portrait of the times and has much to say about them.
Maybe The Brothers K can't be included among the great novels. Maybe it can be. It is true it's a delicious, completely satisfying read. It's ambitious in its scope and the range of its ideas. The very richness and energy of those ideas means you can't hold it all in your head. It asks for thought, reflection. Maybe not great, but a reading experience that will delight you in many ways. It'll also break your heart. Uproariously funny, it'll make you laugh out loud. Sweet and touching, it'll make you wish it were true. -
9.5 on a 5 point scale. Okay maybe 7 out of 5. Both are ridiculous of course but short of revising nearly every prior rating it's the only way I can think of to signify how extraordinary this book is. Seriously. I've been intentionally tight fisted with my 5-star ratings, reserving them for books I've found exceptionally life-enhancing, knowledge-widening, comprehension-giving, paradigm-challenging, soul-enriching &/or breath-taking.
Nevertheless The Brothers K has shattered the 5 star ceiling so thoroughly there's not a trace of debris to suggest it ever existed. Hence 7 points. No, 7.5 surely.
I'll leave elucidating comments about the book itself to reviewers better able than I to discern & describe nuances in theme, tone, character development, point of view, etc. Just assume I agree with the positive things everybody else says and I wish I were able to say it half as well.
One last note in this it's-all-about-me review. Because of The Brothers K I am about to do something I've never done before. I am returning immediately to page one. Riches! -
Sometimes I don't even want to review a book.
You know how it is. You read it. You think, "Eh. That was okay, or pretty good-- or yes, I liked it but I have nothing more to say on the subject."
I'm hesitant to write a review for this book.
But for none of the reasons listed above.
My fear is that any words I attempt to use will only detract from the beauty of Mr. Duncan's already flawless prose-- which, in my opinion, should speak only for itself.
My friend Les said he's never been able to give a definitive answer to the "What's your favorite book" question, simply because there are too many from which to choose.
...until he read this.
I'm joining his camp.
I've never been so moved as I have by this story-- these characters.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go and see if the Brewers are playing today...
(for those of you who know me well enough to know where my sports fanaticism usually lies, that speaks volumes all by itself). -
Ce roman a été une montagne russe d'émotions : tant par le romanesque et la vie des personnages que par mon ennuie fluctuant au fil des pages. L'auteur a des choses à dire. BEAUCOUP de choses à dire, et notamment sur le baseball qui semble être sa marrotte, ce qui donne des pages et des pages entières d'analyses baseballistiques. Alors certes au début c'est mignon car tout ceci est raconté du point de vue d'un enfant qui observe son père jouer et parler de baseball. Mais ça devient vite lassant.
Comme la majorité des sujets abordés dans le livre: le pacifisme en pleine guerre du Vietnam, la conscription, les études un peu new age et hippies des années 60/70; les sous-courants de religions aux Etats-Unis. L'auteur prend le temps de tout développer sur les 800 pages que composent le roman. Malheureusement il le fait en mettant de côté les intrigues ou le romanesque et cela produit des personnages surdéveloppés, desquels on se fait une idée très fixe mais qui n'avancent pas vraiment dans l'histoire.
Une amie me l'a comparé à un accouchement : beaucoup de douleurs et de passages qu'on préfèrerait éviter pour un beau produit fini (si votre enfant ne vous plait pas, j'y peux rien) et je suis assez d'accord avec elle. Le dernier quart a été pour moi grandiose, j'ai eu du mal à poser le livre même quand mes yeux se fermaient de fatigue, je voulais à tout prix arriver au bout. Cette fin et conclusion savamment menée pour chacun des personnages fait partie de mes fins de livres préférés.
Ceci m'énerve donc d'autant plus contre l'auteur ou l'éditeur qui n'ont pas jugé bon de supprimer quelques passages dans le livre ou du moins de le rendre un minimum plus digeste. -
My absolutely new favorite book. How I missed this one through the years is a mystery to me. Maybe because it features baseball and one could miss the point and think it's about sports. Maybe it was just the right time for me and Brothers K to find each other at this particular point in our respective lives/paths. Maybe enough time had to pass from its inception and publishing and for me to hit this rough patch for meaning to intensify. Maybe.
This was a buddy-read for me, something I've never done, and it was a delight. The book is long, and I tend to read and listen fast which helps me cover a lot of ground. BUT when one reads fast, it is true things can be missed, and even one chapter in, I knew this was something I didn't want to miss - but didn't want to trudge through slowly either. So I tried something completely new and broke a number of Readers' Rules. I listened at 1.5, while reading a physical copy and writing my notes and responses in pencil. Sometimes there are just my doodles or respon-selfmogies. It was one of the best reading experiences, ever!
This is a deep read, in places hard to read - I've never been able to get through Vietnam War narratives - so many of those men were my men and thinking of them can stop me in my tracks, while I glaze over, paralyzed by what was once and then what happened. Misery that just perpetuated into their return home if they got to. . .
The pages wove broad threads of religion, atheism, agnosticism and a bunch of "who knows? we just gotta get through this together" - I appreciated all of it because if anything describes the varied branches of my family tree, that does! We've got fanatics, aunt addicts, uncle nutcases, and cousins who just wanna have fun. Brothers who risk all, and sisters who fix things, parents who refuse to do what their parents did, and kids who only want to be a world away from home, not to forget the kids who are trapped in self-made worlds who only want to be home, and happy, like it used to be.
Look at your schedule. If any of this appeals, mark your calendar and read this book. If you have a buddy who reads like materials, make a pact and do it together - having the opportunity to discuss something as wide-ranging, funny, dear, shocking, awful and delightful as this is rare. There aren't enough stars for this one, if you ask me. -
The review below (which was written 5 months ago) still is anemic, but for the life of me, I am just way too intimidated to write a review for what remains my favorite novel.
I've never had a book toss me between laughter and tears the way this has (literally-- and I am NOT someone prone to histrionics. Seriously).
So, the lame review stands.
And my adoration of David James Duncan increases with each read.
________________________________________
Sometimes I don't even want to review a book.
You know how it is. You read it. You think, "Eh. That was okay, or pretty good-- or yes, I liked it but I have nothing more to say on the subject."
I'm hesitant to write a review for this book.
But for none of the reasons listed above.
My fear is that any words I attempt to use will only detract from the beauty of Mr. Duncan's already flawless prose-- which, in my opinion, should speak only for itself.
My friend Les said he's never been able to give a definitive answer to the "What's your favorite book" question, simply because there are too many from which to choose.
...until he read this.
I'm joining his camp.
I've never been so moved as I have by this story-- these characters.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go and see if the Brewers are playing today...
(for those of you who know me well enough to know where my sports fanaticism usually lies, that speaks volumes all by itself). -
Another reaffirmation of why I love novels, especially LONG novels with richly drawn characters that I feel I KNOW. I FEEL them. As crazy as this may sound, I found myself wanting to spend more time with them than, well, you know...
But then, this isn't so crazy. This is the reason we read literature, so that we can immerse ourselves and experience their lives as if they are real.
The Chance family IS real to me.
There is a beautiful balance between the tragic and the triumphant. It brought to mind the same extremities of life I experienced when reading Cutting for Stone, or A Prayer for Owen Meany.
LOVED this book. -
What a book. Here's another book with problems, sometimes big problems, involving voice and narrative perspective. And you know what? I didn't care a lick. It's a terrific read, just bravado storytelling. The term page-turner gets thrown around a lot, but this is the real thing, the genuine article.
This is the saga of the Chance family (see, Duncan lays it on pretty thick everywhere in this book, including the characters' last names), told in detail, from the narrator's earliest childhood memories of sitting on his father's lap while his father reads the sports section, into adulthood. The brothers in question here are Everett, Peter, Irwin, and Kincaid, and by the end of the book, I got to feeling like they were my brothers.
There are moments when the book gets a little corny. If there was even a hint of irony in it, I missed it. In fact, I'm tempted to say it's a melodrama. But the truth is that I haven't had this much fun reading a book in a long time, and that includes Tom Drury's The End of Vandalism, which I loved. I can't say that this big mess of a novel is for everyone. I know some people won't be able to get past the occasional technical issues and the sometimes cheesy tone, but those who can will find an amazing story waiting for them.
And I haven't read Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, after which, I'm assuming, this book is fashioned (there are direct references to the Dostoevsky that I'm afraid went sailing right past me. I don't even know what the plot of that book is). So I'm thinking I may have to hunker down with that at some point this summer. But for now, I'm going to read some smaller books.
Thanks to Robert for giving me this terrific novel. I owe you another one. -
This is a kind of coming of age plus family saga dealing mainly with the years 1950-1980, more specifically the writer calls the period from the Kennedy assassination to the Nixon resignation the darkest in modern American History. Someone else said the book is not about baseball but there's baseball in the book. There is also religion & war. I recommend this novel to family members of anyone who grew up in the 1960's United States. The first half is fun to read but as the brothers near adulthood complications arise making the reading a bit more tedious. Perservering readers will be richly rewarded.
-
This is my second favorite novel in the world (Jayber Crow has my heart forever). It has it all: a captivating plot, character development, brilliant writing, humor, depth . . . and weirdly (unexpectedly), it is the best-imagined account I've come across of how a small, motley, congregation can take on the powers. I listened to much of it on hoopla (free through your library) and the audiobook is excellent. If you are looking for your next engrossing novel, this could be it (and on page 100 is where it really takes off).
![My Story as Told by Water( Confessions Druidic Tants Reflections Bird-Watchings Fish-Stalking Visions Songs and Prayers Refracting Light f)[MY STORY AS TOLD BY WATER][Paperback]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1699473153i/85882723.jpg)
