Manhood for Amateurs - Michael Chabon

One spring afternoon when I was fifteen years old, a kid who was new to the tenth grade showed up at our front door unannounced, with a backgammon set folded under his arm. I had no talent for backgammon or friend-making. I hated games that, like backgammon or the making of friends, depended in any way on a roll of the dice or a gift for seizing opportunities. I disliked surprises and all changes of plans, even changes for the better--except in retrospect. At the art of retrospection I was a young grandmaster. (If only there were a game whose winning required a gift for the identification of missed opportunities and of things lost and irrecoverable, a knack for the belated recognition of truths, for the exploitation of chance in imagination after it is too late!) True, I might have felt some disposition to like this kid already, but I would have dared to act upon it.

I must confess, I don't generally like confessionals and this book did nothing to change my mind. The writer has received so much acclaim that I thought I would start by reading this book, his newest. A mistake! The book is a collection of random thoughts in short chapters. They are supposedly grouped in some order, but I failed to see any relationship between the pieces grouped together. Even worse, many of the writings have little to do with the book's title. The chapters discuss often meaningless and/or uninteresting events and thoughts by the author which I guess he assumes the rest of us would find interesting. Some recollections had simple morals similar to those in simple self-help books. Others didn't seem to have any purpose. Creative writing gone amuck.