'Help me, God, God help me. I hate your ass, but help me if you can. Help me lie down beside the still waters.' (P. 236)This book is one of the most compulsive reads I've experienced. It's 'literary' in its themes and form, but it crackles along easy as pie. I'm a very slow reader normally, but I read this in about three concentrated sittings. I wanted to read it because it is the rare novel set in my home town of Indianapolis, Indiana and the author was a friend of Kurt Vonnegut's (both of them from 'Naptown'). They were also fellow-atheists until Wakefield returned to Christian faith in the 1980s. I plan to read his 'spiritual autobiography' Returning (1988), but I wanted to see something of his background first. This book totally does the trick. It documents the protagonist's sexually-frustrated, existentially tortured quest for the God he both hates and doesn't believe exists. It perfectly exhibits the contradiction C. S. Lewis said he lived as a young atheist: 'I was at this time living, like so many Atheists or Antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world' (Surprised By Joy). The protagonist of Wakefield's novel might add: for creating a world in which I can't 'get laid' by the kind of hot babe I think will solve all my problems. At any rate, it seems obvious to me that the main character's frustrations were shared by the author.The book is hilarious and poignant by turns. The plot structure of the endless search for good sex with a 'sexy' woman gets old once or twice, but then some deeper layer always shows up to wow and devastate you. I could also do without some of the more pornographic details, but to be fair these are always provided in the most depressing way possible, increasing the pathos and misery. The sexism and misogyny of the male characters is hard to sit through at times, but it is clearly portrayed as a 'slice of life' in the Midwestern 1950s and largely (but perhaps not entirely) seeks to subvert such attitudes. The religious satire is spot on and hilarious. One sexually mortifying scene that centres on the word 'manipulating' (I won't spoil it for you) had me laughing so hard and loud for about ten minutes that I had to stifle myself so my family wouldn't think I was weeping inconsolably in the next room. On the opposite end of the spectrum, one scene had me taking five minute breaks between paragraphs so I wouldn't vomit (I can handle tons of violence - Cormac McCarthy is one of my all-time favourite authors after all - but I'm squeamish about slow, detailed cut-and-bleed scenes). And some passages made me feel nearly as depressed as the protagonist felt. If you can get past the 'dirty' tone of the novel, this is a tremendous and enlightening read.(Note: do NOT read the foreword by Kurt Vonnegut until AFTER you've finished the book. It gives away a few plot developments that would have shocked me much more if I'd not known they were coming. Thankfully, they still retained a punch even though I kept anticipating them. The same goes for Wakefield's own foreword if you have that edition. These are much more meaningful when read afterward anyway and provide a nice 'cool down' from the emotional impact of the novel.)
Dan Wakefield was a professor I had at FIU and I really liked him and his subtle way of teaching and inspiring. I was looking for a book to read and so I though of him and read Going All the Way. I remember him telling us the story of being on the set when they were making the movie with Ben Affleck, Affelcks fame and talent exploded to stardom. Mr. Wakefield was so happy to have had that experience. It was a pleasure taking his class. The book is well written and a fast read and really give you a sense of a couple of facets of the male mind and how it works. It shows also the different perspective of how males approach women. The style is comfortable and I trust what the author is saying and reading this book is like sitting down with a friend who is telling me a very interesting experience in their life. The book was a best seller in the 70's and is a timeless book about the transition of two young guys back from a war going through the motions of finding a place back in the united states in their hometown to secure some sort of future for themselves after the excitement of youth and you have to figure out what to do with the rest of your life.
What do You think about Going All The Way (1997)?
I read this because the forward to the book was included in Kurt Vonnegut's book Foma, Wampeters, and Grandfallons, a collection of his non-fiction writing. Being a big fan, I trusted K. Vonnegut's judgment.After the first few pages I was disappointed that it read nothing like Vonnegut. I was also disappointed that I didn't find any of the "belly laughs" Kurt Vonnegut so gleamingly wrote about. However, once I was 3 or 4 chapters deep I started to really like the characters and care what happened to him. The main character is a hapless, sex crazed yet sexually unfulfilled young man with low self-esteem. Though I don't readily identify with this character, I think he resonates with in ways that I'm not quick to admit to myself; and I'd wager he also resonates with any person who has been a 15 year old boy.Recommended if you have some time to kill and would like an interesting easy read :)
—Luke
I read this just out of high school or very close to then anyway- a ridiculously silly half-memoir of a guy growing up in dull old Indianapolis (Vonnegut said the book ought have been titled "Getting Laid in Indianapolis")- Funny for me since I had no problems of the like at the time, living in the bay area, about a decade after this book is set- in the greaser years of the late-mid 50's when car jocks trying to be cool nursed deep neuroses beneath the sweat and swagger- like these guys! I don't want to spoil anybody on this, only to say it's more or less a period piece and probably inspired more "nostalgia culture" than Sha Na Na, American Graffiti and "Happy Days" will ever care to admit to.
—Mark
Two former soldiers who served during the Korean War meet each other on the train going back home to Indiana. Willard 'Sonny' Burns - the photographer for the school newspaper when he was in high school - was a quiet, shy and rather introverted student, whose high school years were wholly unremarkable. Sonny has grown into a quiet, shy and rather introverted adult - preoccupied with thoughts of sex and women. Tom 'Gunner' Casselman - the typical 'Big Man on Campus' when he was in high school - was incredibly popular, with the type of reputation that inspired awe in his peers. For good or ill, Sonny and Gunner search for love and fulfillment throughout their travels in middle America. They form an unlikely friendship after that first meeting on the train. In fact, it comes as a huge surprise to Sonny.to discover that Gunner truly respected him in high school. Sonny's unpretentious and inconspicuous demeanor was the quality that Gunner most admired. What follows is a coming-of-age novel about growing up in a time before free love, Vietnam and AIDS. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book; quite a bit more than I was actually expecting I would. It was a very funny story, although in my opinion, Sonny and Gunner's friendship was probably not the most advantageous relationship for either of them. This book was a best-seller in 1970, and is considered to be Dan Wakefield's most famous novel. I give this book an A+! Going All the Way was made into a movie in 1997 and won an award at the Sundance Film Festival. It starred Jeremy Davies as Sonny and Ben Affleck as Gunner.
—Mary
