Moonglow

MOONGLOW


This is my second experience with Chabon, and it won't be my last...probably.

1) Kavalier and Clay was SO GREAT I likely expected too much from this book.

2) This is autobiography meets fiction which can be awesome when veiled. This was anything but veiled...which should work, but it didn't for me. The plot was really choppy, which was by design, I'm sure. That's where it got a fictional style and flair. Otherwise, it would have read as a narrative history and that would have been just plain boring. Because it's “fiction” we get to see Chabon do his thing a bit. Vivid details, exquisite descriptions, and geriatric sex. He just isn't going to cut that out, is he?

3) I'm not a space-enthusiast. To me, the final frontier is—well—death and I just don't care for the obsession with space travel, rockets, and that stuff. That's not Chabon's fault, by the way, I'm to blame there.

4) Early in the story, it flowed the way I hoped it would. I expected a meandering experience with a gentle start and a nice, soft landing into the finish. What I got was an excellent Chabonesque opening and a finale that seemed rushed, or bored, or fed up. Almost as though Chabon himself couldn't wait to put down the book. That would have been a major buzzkill if I had been buzzing at all.

5) Spies. I love spy stories. I love stories with mere tertiary spy angles. I love stories where kids run around pretending to be spies while they wait for dinner. This book presented Wild Bill Donovan and all I got was a rinky-dink story about a V2 rocket and a priest discovered in Europe; which, by the way NEVER WENT ANYWHERE! I'm a little pissed about the spy thing.

6) Is this speculative history? Yes. Is this reconstructionist? Yes. Is this family dirty laundry? Who f***ing knows.