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Title: The Cheese Monkeys : A Novel in Two Semesters by Chip Kidd ISBN: 0-06-050740-3 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 03 September, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.63 (51 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Gotta love those Cheese Monkeys.....
Comment: Like many others have said, what happened around PAGE 200 (major plot twist)??? In all seriousness, Kidd has done an impressive job bringing to life the adventures and uncertainties of being a Freshman Graphic Design student. Even readers with absolutely no interest in the field will surely be able to appreciate this book for its razor-sharp wit, quirky characters, and impressive sense of tension.
The main character is a joy to follow. He's Holden Caulfield'esque without the overdone self-loathing and self-destructive tendencies. He has a tidbit of angst but mostly uncertainty in the workings of life in general; he's a normal kid living away from home for the first time and enjoying the highs and lows of the college experience, and coming into his own...not to mention, dealing with some unorthodox friends and professors along the way.
I would certainly recommend this book to friends from any age group and background, because it's laugh-out-loud funny with just the right amount of drama thrown in to make it feel substantial and make a statement. I can only hope that Chip Kidd will write more in the future.
Rating: 4
Summary: A tempered response
Comment: It's something of a shame that the word "monkey" has become so painfully overused. Where people who think they're being 'surreal' say "fish", people who think they're being 'wacky' say "monkey". Perhaps Chip Kidd gets a small part around this by eschewing words for pictures on the front cover of his novel.
The Cheese Monkeys is part autobiography, part post-teen fantasy, part intense lecture on the importance of good graphic design. Kidd made his name (and makes his living) designing book jackets for Alfred A. Knopf (the company, rather than the man), and is oft credited with causing some sort of revolution in American book covers. Although probably not on the scale of the French or Industrial revolution, his work has meant that the US is climbing out of its horrible hole of poor book design.
When turning to writing, he wasn't going to avoid the subject, or indeed avoid implementing it. Not only does the cover not support the title, but writing appears on the edge opposite the spine. The openy-page-turny side. A feat I've not seen since I drew zig-zaggy patterns with a red pen across my mum's childhood copy of The Treasure Hunters. Spread the pages in one direction and you see one phrase, bend the book the other way to see a second. It's a gimmick, but dammit, it's a cool one.
Layout inside is thoughtful and interesting. The traditional form of the copyright and publication bumph is played with, dragged over pages, printed backwards, etc. Thankfully the main text of the book itself is left well alone, although printed with an inch margin on all for sides. But of course this is just pretties.
It also has a fine story. The autobiographical tone of a young man studying art at State University is confused by its being set in 1958, eight years before Kidd was born. Why this is doesn't appear appreciable at first, until you meet the first potentially unlikely event, and he begins to play with a reader's assumed trust of the biographical tone.
The central protagonist meets the most perfectly captured literary form of that type of girl everyone has met at one point - and been bewildered by, male or female. She's dangerous, inspired and far too clever for the world she's trapped in, creating a disciple of the narrator, while of course having an inevitable, unreachable boyfriend.
But more of the story is devoted to one particular lecturer, Winter Sorbeck, a hideous and brilliant man, spiteful and passionate, cruel and inspiring. He teaches "Introduction to Graphic Design", and as such the book forms its own circle, utterly vicious.
A positive quote printed in the book (it carries negative reviews as well) says "cliche free". This is both completely true, and entirely wrong. Kidd never uses a single cliche, be they descriptive or narrative. But he invents about three hundred phrases that damn well should be. The ceaselessly inventive prose is never obvious, and really does become complete apparent until you read anything else at all, at which point you'll begin to spot the hackneyed phrases that infest all our language.
Rating: 4
Summary: Wheres the cheeze?
Comment: The Cheese Monkeys (by Chip Kidd) Reader Review March 9, 2004
Reviewer: Ricky Noel from Berwick, Maine: The Cheese Monkeys is a book with a somewhat unclear title. The phrase "cheese monkeys" is never really explained so readers may interpret it as whatever they like. This story is actually about college and discovering what you want for yourself. Basically about growing up. This novel is about college life, adapting to your environment and discovering for yourself what you want out of life. However whether or not it is an accurate representation as college is hard to fully believe, some of the situations are quite bizarre and extreme. The characters are well developed and seem a lot like many people I know today, so it was easy to relate to them.
The story line follows the main character (his name is never revealed) as he goes through his freshmen year at state college. The focus of the story is on his interests in art rather than his full curriculum. So most of the important characters are involved with these classes. The main character talks about his college decisions at the beginning of the novel, things like his choice of major and college. He put little value into furthering his education and looked at it as just something he had to do. His major, "art" he described as the easiest choice and the least amount of work.
The main character learns how to handle him-self in difficult situations, he takes some major risks and finds interests he never knew he had. Those around him also show growth as individuals so it's interesting to see how a character might react to something at the beginning of the novel and at the end by comparison.
The characters interact with one another very specifically to the character; none of the people you meet are very much alike. They all have their own ways of speaking, acting and thinking. They have a range of stereotypical college people to very strange out of the ordinary people.
Constantly the main character is being thrust into different kinds of situations, some more pleasant than others, and it is clearly visible his growth as a person as he deals with each situation. Like any normal person he makes mistakes, some...worse than others. The worst mistake he made was when he was drunk and got in a fight with Himillsy, during which he ripped the head of Himillsys doll (which had sentimental value to her)
Generally the flow of the plot was understandable and made sense, however at times an event would just take you by surprise which in a way is good to keep you guessing, but was certainly confusing because it didn't exactly fit in with the rest of the story, almost seeming unnecessary. Mostly however the novel worked together nicely and felt as though I could picture myself in his situation. The parts of the story I thought worked very well were, the relationship between the main character and Himillsy (a girl he meets from the class "introduction to drawing" as they were the most similar in the novel yet still so different that their personalities at times created a bit of rivalry between the two.
I felt a part of the novel that did not work quite so well was one event in particular where the main character played a joke on his teacher while he was drunk, the idea for the whole thing was somewhat justified, however the main character took some actions that did not seem to fit his character or the novel at all. Aside from this the only problem I had was the phrase "cheese monkeys" which only slightly applied to anything and was as I said never explained
Overall I thought this was a great novel it had ups and downs, problems and solutions, many levels of character development and the settings were vividly produced. A reader could feel as if he were watching the movie rather than reading the book.
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Title: Chip Kidd by Veronique Vienne ISBN: 0300099525 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Design Dialogues by Steven Heller, Elinor Pettit, Elinor Petit ISBN: 1581150075 Publisher: Allworth Press Pub. Date: September, 1998 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works, Second Edition by Erik Spiekermann, E.M Ginger ISBN: 0201703394 Publisher: Adobe Press Pub. Date: 15 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst ISBN: 0881791326 Publisher: Hartley & Marks Publishers Pub. Date: 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher ISBN: 0714834491 Publisher: Phaidon Press Inc. Pub. Date: 20 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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