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Read Tomcat In Love (2000)

Tomcat In Love (2000)

Online Book

Author
Rating
3.39 of 5 Votes: 1
Your rating
ISBN
0006551521 (ISBN13: 9780006551522)
Language
English
Publisher
harpercollins publishers

Tomcat In Love (2000) - Plot & Excerpts

Eh...First off... I think I've read this book before. If not this one, one very similar to it. As I was reading it (and steadily loathing the main character more and more), I felt like I had experienced some of this before. Something was triggering a memory for me. You know, that whole 'Great American Novel" thing.Then, let's talk about unloveable main characters. I did not love Thomas H. Chippering. I did not feel any sympathy, or empathy otherwise. I felt nothing for him but sheer annoyance. Here we're presented with this middle-aged man, freshly divorced from a relationship that probably should have never happened. Neither Tom nor Lorna Sue was happy with one another, and yet Tom persists in seeking revenge on her for leaving and drives himself literally insane by trying to win her back. During all of this, he can't help but be a narcissistic prick. He keeps a ledger book of every supposed encounter with women he has had, which is normally imagined. Apparently if a woman has a buxom chest and a friendly smile, she's giving him an invitation to sex. And while he withholds from actually partaking in the act of sex, the obsession alone is enough to have his wife feel that he's cheating on her. And I totally agree. Even when he meets a woman who is quite literally the most tolerant woman on Earth, he still persists in these stupid flirtations. In fact, he gets manipulated by a four-year-old girl because he's frankly too stupid with women to know how to handle it (he spanks her and she tells him to lay on her towel with him or else she'll tell her Mommy. He writes this in his ledger as well... effing creep).Like I said, the story line was one I felt I had read before. The narrator's voice grated my nerves, especially how he continually used a condescending, snooty tone with teaching people about language. I found there was a lot of fluff in the language, a little bit too much off topic, that made me want to skim the pages. The footnotes did the same. They added nothing to the story for me. And the narrator himself... easy to hate. I didn't wish him a redemptive ending. In fact, I wished that his newly acquired lover moved on and found someone worthy of her. She was pretty well the only good character in the book, and it turned out that she was weak-willed with love to a crazy man.

For a book about betrayal, revenge and madness, Tomcat in Love is surprisingly peppy. As I've come to expect from Tim O'brien, the characters are delicious and vivid, and the prose sparkles, more perhaps than it ever has before. Certain passages, like his narrator's riff on the word "commitment" ring so gloriously they could be performed at church. O'brien can write a mean sentence.For all its linguistic beauty, however, Tomcat is in content an ugly book, in the same lyrical/horrifying vein as Lolita. Its protagonist, Professor Tom Chippering, is a creation not unlike Nabokov's Humbert Humbert -- delusional, exceptionally self-centered, obsessed with language, and hopelessly "in love" with unattainable young members of "the malleable sex," who he perceives are deliberately and viciously seducing him, all the time. Not too far into the book it becomes apparent that Tom's interpretation of his women's actions is inaccurate. The only character in the novel who would agree with Tom's self-designation as a "tomcat" is, well, himself.I'll echo what other reviewers have written about the book's conclusion, which I, too, found a disappointing end to an otherwise scrumptious story. The revelation of the "you" to whom the narrator addresses his memoir is clever, certainly deepens the reader's sense of Tom's unending capacity for self-delusion, but the concluding events themselves . . . ? (Cornrows?!) The novel's biggest selling point is its ridiculousness -- public spankings, church bombings, (imaginary?) Vietnam buddies who stalk the narrator hoping to settle an old score, and more, but the last chapter is its biggest WTF moment -- impossible to predict -- and I find myself just unable to make the cognitive jump.I'd write more, but you know the deal about spoilers. I'd hate to deter you from what really is a fun and solid, if somewhat unfulfilling, read. Read it on the bus.

What do You think about Tomcat In Love (2000)?

Tomcat in Love A NovelTim O BrienThis is a test! There is no right answer. He had the appearance, if I may say so, of an ostrich attempting to swallow a toaster. If you find that funny, you will love Tomcat in Love. If you think otherwise, you may find the book less pleasing in direct proportion to the depths of your otherwise.Sometimes I try to imagine what a book might be like if it was made into a movie. Would I like the movie? Do I like raunchy PG-13 movies? Did I like Cheech & Chong? Enough said.What do others think? On the front cover of the book is this quote:Tomcat in Love is a wonderful novel, laugh-out-loud funny, one of the best books I’ve come across in years…-- Washington PostWith the help of Google, I find the actual 1998 review. And, in fact, the quote is accurate. But, as it has been said elsewhere: “…no accounting for taste…” and “… everyone has a right to their own opinion…” I would add, “Do not believe reviewer David Nicholson.”There are 1254 ratings on GR that yield a less than scintillating 3.32 average. Now, I can relate to that. A bit high, I think, but no accounting for taste. About the same number give it two stars as give it a five. Put me in the two column. [Three years later there are more ratings, 2369, but still only a 3.38 average. I am decreasing my own rating to one star since I figure that is what a book ought to get if you are unable to get beyond halfway after two tries.]In my era the term Tomcat was associated with the male cat on the prowl. Can a cat exhibit promiscuous activity? Amoral sex is common in Tomcat in Love. Not lyrical enough to be erotic, not graphic enough to be pornographic and not funny enough to be ribald or farcical. The shortest self-description by Tom: “I was no simple Lothario; I was complicated.” A longer description by a woman: “If you ask my opinion, you’re a sick, dangerous, compulsive skirt chaser. And a sneak. And a liar.”The book started out with humor. I was believing its own book cover raves about itself. I like words and thought some of the “linguistic” aspects were clever. But then I just got tired of it. My recommendation: read Tim O Brien’s The Things They Carried and In the Lake of the Woods.
—Larry Bassett

All of the reviews quoted on the cover of Tomcat in Love call it a "comic novel," or "wildly funny," or "laugh-out-loud funny." I closed the book and looked at those reviews multiple times during my reading. The main character is sort of a hapless guy. He's a professor of linguistics in Minnesota, a Vietnam veteran, a man who is irresistible to women (don't believe that? Just ask him, he'll tell you) - and yet, things seem to always turn out wrong for him. He married his childhood sweetheart, Lorna Sue, but she's since left him and married a tycoon with a stupid name. The problem is that Thomas just can't let go, no matter what his pursuit of her does to his life.Sounds hilarious, right? It is, kind of. It reminded me of an Elmore Leonard novel being put into a blender with Catch-22 and about a third of Tristram Shandy, and then someone sneaking in a dash of A Confederacy of Dunces. (Full disclosure: I absolutely hated A Confederacy of Dunces, but I cannot help but note some similarities between Ignatius T. Reilly and Thomas H. Chippering). O'Brien has a way of mixing the heartbreaking, the true, and the ridiculous together from paragraph to paragraph, and he does that frequently here. I felt like the book was maybe just a tad over-long, but I'm not sure what could be cut. I just know that my reading pace slowed in the latter part.Recommended for: fans of breaking the fourth wall, logophiles, people who don't mind the absurd mixed in with their pathos (or vice versa).Quote: "The shortest distance between two points may well be a straight line, but one must remember that efficiency is not the only narrative virtue."
—Ursula

This is the first of O'Brien's works that I've read. To be honest, I was planning to read "The Things They Carried," but I found "Tomcat in Love" in a bookstore first. I understand this book differs from his others because of the humor. In some ways, Thomas reminded me of Ignatius in "Confederacy of Dunces." Both have hidden writings, both have misadventures and both are selfish, deluded, tragic and comic. There the similiarity ends though.As I read, there was no way of knowing throughout the book whether Thomas H. Chippering was telling the truth unless he offered other characters' reactions to his behavior. Thomas does a great job of ruining his life, but believe it or not, it's a story of not just second but third, fourth and fifth chances. There is a surprise ending.I guess it was also a surprise to his readers that O'Brien could pull this complex, darkly humorous novel out of his hat. I had nothing to compare this work to, so it stood alone. I gave the book four stars. That's very high praise, coming from me.
—Sandralee

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