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Title: Everything You Know by Zoe Heller ISBN: 0-7434-1195-1 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.73 (11 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Willy or won't he?
Comment: To borrow from Shakespeare, this novel offers up the tale of a fool, full of entertaining sound and fury, but in the end, signifying nothing. Heller's not-so-likeable main character, Willy Muller, apparently learns a valuable lesson in this book before its touching ending: "Only when you die do you run out of chances to be good. There is always the possibility of turning yourself around" (pp. 176; 203). Considering Willy's fifty-year history of bad behavior, however, we must wonder if, during the short course of events in this 203-page novel, he ever becomes genuinely capable of changing his ways. For me, this was the most intriguing aspect of Heller's trendy debut novel.
G. Merritt
Rating: 4
Summary: Willy or Won't He
Comment: I like the way Zoe Heller writes. She's great with dialogue and she just pulls you right along into her story--so the reading is real easy--but then, there you are reading along, and you realize this guy Willy--the main character in this story--is getting more & more obnoxious all the time. If every one of your female friends told her worst nightmarish story about what some ex-boyfriend had done to her--and you put all those stories together, you'd be in Willy's world. He is not lovable. He is not funny. He is really despicable. Heller sets him up--then says--even Willy has a choice--its not too late until you die--so can he change?...will he?. won't he?...is he--or any of us--really capable of changing? If you believe Willy can--then you & I probably can too. It is a worthy question. Not one with an easy answer but its worth pondering.
Rating: 2
Summary: A "Small" Book
Comment: Everything You Know, Zoe Heller's debut novel, tells the story of Willy Muller (based on Lukas Heller, famed screenwriter and father to Zoe Heller). Willy is in many respects the cliched old writer: bitter, sarcastic, aldulturous, mildly alcoholic, etc. There is nothing wrong with these cliches, as they often tend to be true and date back to Hemingway prototype; however, there is really very little substance to this story, and the insight we are given into Willy's character is somewhat shallow. The novel opens with the suicide of one of Willy's two estranged daughters. As a suicide note, the daughter sends Willy her diaries. Each chapter of the novel opens with a section of the diary, and so the curtain is slowly pulled back, revealing Willy's past.
In many ways Willy is an anti-hero. What Heller missed when writing this book is that even the most notorious anti-heros (Macbeth, Mersault, Sebastian Dangerfield) can carry a book because they are fully fleshed out characters with redeeming qualities to off-set their flaws. At the very least, the anti-hero should be interesting. Willy doesn't strike me as either realistic or terribly interesting, and he's one of the first characters I've encountered in literature that I don't think I'd care to meet.
Heller isn't halfway bad at the writing game though, and her humor helps to carry this book.
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Title: What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal: A Novel by Zoe Heller ISBN: 0805073337 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: The Wife: A Novel by Meg Wolitzer ISBN: 0684869403 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 14 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Liars and Saints by Maile Meloy ISBN: 0743244354 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Vernon God Little: A 21st Century Comedy in the Presence of Death by D. B. C. Pierre ISBN: 1841954608 Publisher: Canongate Books Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Brick Lane: A Novel by Monica Ali ISBN: 0743243307 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 09 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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