Customer Reviews (9)

Not the same without the illustrations
Back in the 70s, I became fascinated with John Gardner, starting with The Wreckage of Agathon and Grendel.When The Sunlight Dialogues came out, I was hooked.I picked up a paperback copy and just fell into the story.After that, each new Gardner was purchased in hardcover, which I could ill afford back then.

About 10 years ago, I tracked down a fine condition copy of TSG and re-read it.Bad move, though, donating the paperback to the library.

I welcomed the arrival of a new trade paperback edition of the novel, and of one or two others by Gardner until I actually had the opportunity to hold them.The reprints were done without the original illustrations, which are integral to the books.Unbelievable!

For old times sake, I bought a used Ballantine paperback copy and am re-reading it.I have no intention of buying this new edition.

So, five stars for Gardner and the book, with a one-star demerit for this compromised reprint.The new introduction doesn't add much to the book.

Enthralling
This novel is unabashedly symbolic, it's many characters each representing the dichotomies of order/chaos, love/hatefulness, light/darkness. But don't think that the work is heavy handed or didactic because ofthe obviously metaphorical quality. Rather, it is like other great metafiction, the reading of which is akin to entering a complex microcosm, and best of all, having a bird's eye view into the lives and minds of all the many characters. The multiplicity of narratives, some dramatic, others hilariously banal, is nearly perfectly balanced so that when one character might get tiresome, we are transported into another new and fascinating life. Most impressively, all these narratives are eventually woven together in perfect and beautiful harmony. Once you enter this work, you will not want to stop. I don't advice reading this unless you have some free time, otherwise all your other responsibilities will suffer.

Best book for decade of 1960s
John Gardner wrote many good works, the Sunlight Dialogues being by far the best. In it he captures the range of hope and anxiety that made the 1960s such a thrilling and tormenting time to be alive. Using the small town of Batavia, New York, Gardner plunges the reader into the life of a prodigal son of the most prestigious family in town and that of the dedicated police chief. And do the intellectural sparks fly! The illustrations by John Napper are reminescent of those from the Yellow Book in the 1890s, by Aubrey Beardsley. There is a lot of subtle humor ("take a gun of, say, x caliber...") as well as dead-on observation of what makes people do outrageous things for perfectly logical reasons.
It's a roller coaster of a novel, so hang on and enjoy the ride. You might even want to go back for a second trip. I did.

I think we're in big trouble.
I recently met a recent graduate of the State University of New York: Binghamton, an English major. He had never heard of John Gardner, author of the one American post WWII novel that stands comparision in scope and quality, if not import, with Middlemarch.

Unjustly Overshadowed By Grendel-A Truly Fantastic Novel
The Sunlight Dialogues_ is truly John Gardner's magnum opus, equaling and perhaps overshadowing _Grendel_, the book for which he is best known.

Grossly over-simplified, it is about the tide of discontent and changethat came about in the 1960s, exemplified in the stories of a handful ofpeople who live in the small New York town of Batavia.All of thesecharacters' stories occur at roughly the same moment, and to a certaindegree overlap each other; they all come into contact with one another atsome point during the novel, and may even influence each other, but everymember of the book's huge cast has his or her own story and denouement.

The primary one of these stories is the one that concerns Police ChiefFred Clumly and a haggard, maniacal drifter known as "the SunlightMan", and the happenings of this particular storyline are thecatalysts for the rest of the stories."The Sunlight Man", whomwe later find out is Taggert Hodge, the black sheep of the wealthy andpowerful family the members of whom comprise roughly half the othercharacters in the novel, is the one who sets all of these denouements intomotion with his seminal return to his hometown as a magician, hippie,murderer, and poet. His has been a life of disillusionment, loss, betrayaland unattainable wants, and he returns to Batavia to set into motion a sortof romantically juvenile plot to take revenge on the world and to mewl outhis disappointment with the way things are, the latter of which he doesthrough Fred Clumly(thus is the origin of the title.)

Gardner isremarkably adept at character development; Taggert Hodge, Walter Benson andFred Clumly are among the best painted characters of fiction I know of. The author has a gift for articulating neuroses and flaws of characters,from miniscule ticks in their everyday behavior to major personalityfaults. And with a cast of roughly eleven major characters, making each andevery one entirely unique in their drives and hamartias is no task to bescoffed at.However, the ability of John Gardner's I perhaps envy the mostis that of taking a very normal, even pretty environmental setting, andturning it nightmarish and haunting. In the novel, the dense forests andcentury-old barns of Batavia are made into artifacts and ruins of an almostLovecraftian caliber of queerness, and yet it does not serve to displacethe small New York town from the realm of believable reality, but ratherforces you to evaluate your reality on the same dark and weird basis as hisauthorial voice.

The sheer scope of the novel (that of several storiescycloning around a unifying theme and plot catalyst) at times threatens totear it apart, however; the reader at times is left wondering why theauthor has switched point of views when the scenario he was describingpreviously had yet to be resolved. This is a mere annoyance, however, andis not really something for which I believe the novel should be faulted,for the rewards of its pages are vast ones.

Due perhaps to itsrelatively young age, it has yet to receive the proper "classic" status itso rightly deserves, and, sadly, it may never, for "Grendel" seems to beJohn Gardner's only remembered and widely read work, and is perpetuallyovershadowing the rest of the author's material, most of which are just aspowerful and memorable as tale of Beowulf's tragic nemesis.In fact, somemay even be better, as I propose The Sunlight Dialogues is, but until thehigher-ups at Norton and the like get around to looking at this master offiction as a master should, I advise any and all of the people reading thisto purchase this book from whatever obscure publisher it has currently beentossed to. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Invoking the words and spirit of Thomas Paine, investor-turned-historian John Bogle concedes that his ideas for revamping the mutual-fund industry are perhaps "not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor." But despite likening the "ills and injustices suffered by mutual fund investors" to those "our forebears suffered under English tyranny," Bogle--founder of the Vanguard Group--makes a strong case for index funds with this exhaustive study of investing.

He begins with primer-like essays on investment strategy, championing mutual funds for their inherent investment value, and then grinding each point home with a bevy of graphs, charts, entertaining anecdotes, and common sense. He repeatedly stresses time as a basic tenet for investing, listing these simple rules: "Time is your friend"; "Impulse is your enemy"; "Stay the course." And then he proceeds to blast fund managers, who have become marketers rather than managers.

The trade-off between the profits that accrue to fund shareholders and the profits that accrue to the fund management companies seems subject to no effective independent watchdog or balance wheel, despite the fact that the shareholders actually own the mutual funds.

Customer Reviews (70)

Investments
This book was a gift for the man interested in investments!
He loves it!

Read This!
You must read this book.And it's the only mutual fund investment book you need.I read it cover to cover in just a few days.Now I know exactly what to do with my 401k's, and my IRA's.

A "Must Have" on Mutual Funds
Investing in mutual funds?This book is the granddaddy of books that reveal everything you want and need to know about mutual fund investing.Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, delivers a knockout blockbuster here that you won't want to miss.

This book did it for me.
Very detailed and informative book. I still read it from time to time to keep my investment perspective. It lead me to index investing a number of years ago, and I've never been sorry!

Excellent Complete Guide on Investments
This book reads like a college text (easier version from Bogle would be the little book of common sense investing) but it has all the information you will need to become a proficient investor of mutual funds.What impressed me the most was the use of data going back several hundred years for the case of asset allocation, the use of diversified equities, and cost containment. ... Read more

Book Description
A genuine classic of literary criticism, On Moral Fiction arguesthat "true art is by its nature moral." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Stream of Consciousness.
I have no idea what John Gardner intended to write in this book. I think he vents his stream of consciousness. Reading it's a struggle, and more trouble than I care for.

I mean, he's supposed to know how to write, right?

Obligatory Reading for All Novelists
Gardner defines the mission of the visionary novelist in a way that underlines the essential importance of storytellers to humanity's hopes and dreams--an approach as relevant in today's global village as it was when he first wrote it.

Mutual Exclusivity?
I enjoy Gardner's critical and educational writings even when I disagree, as with the idea of the indispensible "fictional dream." I'd like to point out, though, something other reviewers here seem to have either missed or mistaken for a contradiction. The avant garde and postmodernism seem to be placed, by these reviewers, at the opposite end of the scale from that which Gardner promotes. Meanwhile, Gardner clearly didn't believe that postmodernism and the avant garde were useless and irresponsible, as he himself wrote odd, postmodern novels while remaining within his own guidelines. He was also a vocal fan of much of Barthelme's work, as well as Beckett's. The avant garde is not the opposite pole from what Gardner intends, and he never suggested it was.

A most wonderful conversation
I first read this book in the 1970's when it was new.I've owned a copy ever since, and I've given so many away as gifts that I've lost count.

It is easily my favorite book.From the moment I first read it, until today; I open its pages and feel as if I'm having a literary conversation with an old friend.

The "moral" in the title puts off some folks, but don't be deterred.Gardner uses the term "moral" as you or I would use the word "truth." All Gardner is imploring is that authors seek the truth when writing fiction and avoid cheap tricks and cheap effects.That is all.

Yes, Gardner did feel that writing comes with a responsibility.He also felt it was nothing less than a privilege, and thus comes the responsibility that goes with privilege.

Buy it, enjoy it.If you share Gardner's view (as illustrated in the paragraph above, I promise you -- you will cherish this volume).

Postmodern novelist tells all!
I have to tell you, I don't get Gardner. To start with, he writes this book mainly as a gag to rile folks up. And some buy his confidence game, forgetting, as they do, that one of Gardner's favorite novelists was Melville. Because, if you're paying attention, he then goes on to write one postmodern novel after another. Grendel. October Light. The King's Indian. Mickelsson's Ghosts. Each more metafictional than the last. So what if his name's not Barth, or Barthelme, or Barthes, it might have been Barthgardner, for all the Barthing going on. He's as postmodern as they come. Don't let him fool you. Pynchon is his only rival as a writer of apocalyptic fantasy.

You might put it this way. And this is the nice way to put it. Gardner's theories and his practice don't match. Of course the gulf between them isn't the same as the one between Wordsworth's ideas and their reality. His injunction to write in the language truly spoken by men runs counter to the bookish and allusive poetry. But where Wordsworth was harmlessly mouthing Coleridge's Kant-addled dream dictums, what Gardner is doing seems much more deliberate and foul. Or funny, depending on the way you look at it. I mean, the fact that people actually FELL for this ruse is astonishing. ... Read more

Book Description
A comprehensive, clearly written text designed for undergradauate courses in introductory personality. Describes and interprets the major theories of personality. Emphasizes each theory's significance and application. Includes figures, tables, summaries, and boxed inserts featuring biographies and applications of theory to research. ... Read more

Book Description
Inside the Minds: The Board of the 21st Century is a detailed examination of the ways in which a corporate board should operate. This titile features a wealth of board members representing public and private companies, as well as boardroom recruiters and external experts, from some of the top companies globally as well as nationwide. Offering a broad, yet comprehensive overview of the ins and outs of board service - this text is wide in scope, as authors attempt to answer one seemingly daunting, yet fundamental questions, "What should the board of the 21st Century look like?"

In a balanced account of the current shape and the future state of corporate governance, authors raise critical points around the tools every board member needs to ensure success, the essential committees for best practices, the role of the board apart from that of management, the definitions - both implicit and explicit - of governance, the need for diversity in filling seats, and examines the role of the board in both adding value to, and governing any company. The different niches represented and the breadth of perspectives presented enable readers to get inside some of the great minds of today as experts offer up their thoughts around the keyes to success for any director. Within these pages lie the insights and truths around the evolving state of corporate governance - critical reading for any active director, an anyone about to take a boardroom seat. ... Read more

Product Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1841 edition by John Murray, London. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EARLY Perry Mason, originally published in 1934!She came into the office of Perry Mason and asked him if you could be convicted of murder if there was no corpse. She was nervous and said she wanted the advice for a friend. Perry looked at her and knew that she was lying, even before he heard the question.These were only the first of many lies Mason was to encounter in the case of the People vs. Rhonda Montaine. They tried her for the murder of her husband, Gregory Moxley. She said she was downstairs ringing the dorrbell when Moxley was killed; the prosecution claimed she was upstairs in his room. The only fact that seemed to be really true, was that Moxley was dead.But he had died SO many times before! ... Read more