The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
By: Michael Chabon / Narrated By: Chris Andrew Ciulla
Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
Yeh yeh yeh—obviously a first novel, but I liked it quite a bit… so sue me!
Here’s the deal: I read aaaaallll the hoopla and huzzahs for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and as I’d aDORed the movie The Wonder Boys, I decided to give the former a go. CERtainly with such mighty hurrays and such-all, and given that it had ooooodles of pages, it HAD to be absolutely stellar, correct?
Uhm… WhattheHELL was it?!?
658 pages of dithering, blathering, oh sooo well-written, NONSENSE. Please keep in mind that I read it, like, from print, from a big-patoot tome. Eeeeeeons of m’ time—Hours I can NEVER get back.
Still, “Hi, I’m Gillian, and I’m an Audiobook Addict…”, so when I saw The Mysteries of Pittsburgh on sale at Chirpbooks, for but a few shekels? And I’d really, seriously, loved how the movie The Wonder Boys was crafted? And I’d recently really enjoyed the performance of Chris Andrew Ciulla in The One in a Million Boy
Yup, I got it.
I’ll get the performance outta the way first, seeing as Ciulla was the deciding factor in my decision to listen to this for the week. AWEsome. There are four main characters, each in the corners of a severely messed-up square, with several Wise Guys-ish characters thrown in, and Ciulla nails each and every one of them. Our main character, Art Bechstein, is a young man, immature as all heck, just outta a bad relationship, and he’s bored bored bored. Now, usually, a bored character makes for a boring book. But Ciulla’s narration has Art as an: Oh pleeeeze entice me to be daring?! sorta guy, and this livens up a character that one might wanna throttle otherwise. Likewise, Phlox, the much-in-love girlfriend, is handled with aplomb, as she narrates her own way through life like she’s living in a movie, throwing out classic lines, trying to keep her head above water. Arthur, who happens to NOT be living unless he’s sleeping with some man, any man, hopefully Art but unless and until then… ANYONE will do… And finally the forever drinking but never drunk biker, Cleveland, who could be a stereotype but is not because Ciulla fleshes him out, breathes life into him. Just wonderful narration all-around; I’m so very impressed, and Ciulla will totally be on my Gotta Get It list whenever an audiobook happens to be on sale.
There’s no way to tell you the plot because, as with any Chabon (ParTICularly …Kavalier & Clay), there is no true plot to be found. A brief meeting of eyes between Art and Arthur has the two becoming friends. And it’s a relationship that opens up an entirely different World to Art. Well, there’s drinking and then drinking and then drinking some more, but such actions only lead to outta this world escapades. And while Art has spent yeeeears trying to avoid his Dad’s Business, the new connection to philosophical Cleveland only serves to suck him in deeper to Dad’s World.
Again, there are a plethora of unlikely occurrences which I did NOT roll m’ eyes for cuz the characters are so amusing, and they always say clever things when Chabon is penning them, so it all wound up being quite enjoyable as things not so much flowed as devolved into chaos.
Much humor, a lot of musings on sexual preference, some pondering on What Is Love, Exactly, and characters who love each other but who wind up very much screwing each other over. Just not with malicious intent; Chabon writes it so that it Just Happens That Way. Ordinarily, I’d ding any author for this kind of ebb and flow, this kind of written manipulation, and CERtainly after trudging m’ way through that earlier 658-page effort and greatly resenting him as an author.
You see: I can hold a grudge with the best of them (Or the worst, depends up how you word things…), and now I think it’s time to let go, loosen up aaaallll that stuck energy, and p’raps try another Chabon. Because there were some adorable concepts, and I did like each of the characters, and the reckless whimsy they all engaged in was appealing.
So… Yeh, while this shows instances of true genius writing, sometimes it does indeed read like an Offering For His MA cohort. But that’s annoying only when given a second thought. For The Mysteries of Pittsburgh? At just over 8-hours, with zipping whizbang things Just Happening, this was vastly amusing for me, nary a second o’ time to be wasted on second thoughts. Not when first thoughts are so engaged.
Besides; what literary failings and flailings there are in here? Man, there’s Ciulla to take the writing in, and to breathe out a truly enjoyable experience…!
‘Nuff said!
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