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Cargando... The Last of the Savages (1996)por Jay McInerney
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. I'm not sure characters can get any more cliche than the characters in The Last of the Savages. How many times have we heard this story? Poor but smart kid goes to prep school and then ivy league college and tries to forget his humble upbringing and fit in. Rich but nonconformist kid befriends him while rejecting his own upbringing. The two grow apart and yet remain friends. Oh, and it is set against the turbulent back drop of the 1960s/1970s. Patrick Keane and Will Savage come together by pure chance as they find themselves roommates at a New England boarding school in 1967. Different in many respects, Patrick from a somewhat ordinary background, a local scholarship boy; Will from a wealthy, privileged and notable Southern States family, yet with an affinity with black soul music and blacks. The story, related by Patrick, spans thirty years of their unusual friendship. They have no doubt they are best friends, and keep in touch throughout Will's successes and near failures, and his turbulent life as a notable music producer while Patrick steadily climbs to great success as a lawyer. While the story is predominantly about Will, we gradually learn about Patrick too, and the secret he carries and has revealed to few. While the story progresses more or less chronologically, it also regularly jumps back and forth, but it never confuses. Covering the period from the sixties to the nineties, it is as much a record of social change, of Southern attitudes and prejudices. The story is peppered with the names of the famous musicians of the period, giving it a sense of reality and an identity easy to related to. It is a story of family, of interracial love, but above all the story of a remarkable friend. The Last of the Savages is beautifully written, there is drama, there is humour, but above all there is the overriding love and affection of a great and enduring friendship. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
A friendship between two men who met in an elite prep school. One is Patrick Keane, an Irish-Catholic from the working classes eager to adopt the culture of the upper classes. The other is Will Savage, a rich, upper-class Wasp in rebellion against it. By the author of Brightness Falls. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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I forgot, though, that all of McInerney's novels work at the very least because of the language. Other writers in his "generation" may arguably be better storytellers, or have a better grasp on the pulse of the nation and popular trends, but he is damn near unbeatable when it comes to his diction. That may seem like scant praise, but combined with a subtle style--I think he made a conscious effort to simplify after Brightness Falls--make for an enjoyable read. McInerney falls into that category of writers who I'll read everything I can of simply because I love what he does with words. Story becomes secondary in the face of that.
Even though McInerney threatened to go down a well-trodden path with his story about Patrick Keane and Will Savage's coming of age, he mostly avoids the typical scenes by simply having our narrator Patrick not be present at many big events. Patrick is a scholarship student from a working class family desperate to belong to the caste that the rebellious Will is all too ready to give up. Patrick's desperate need to belong has some unfortunate consequences, but tempered as they are by Will's recklessness they're ultimately bearable. Even when characters make some horrible decisions the reader can't help at least understanding why the decisions were made, because of McInerney's skill.
All in all, a great way to start out the new year. ( )