Books

Telegraph Avenue

  • Jun 25, 2021
  • Michael Chabon
  • 723 responses.

Telegraph Avenue Telegraph Avenue is the great American novel we ve been waiting for Generous imaginative funny moving thrilling humane triumphant it is Michael Chabon s most dazzling book yet As the summer of

  • Title: Telegraph Avenue
  • Author: Michael Chabon
  • ISBN: 9780061493348
  • Page: 196
  • Format: Hardcover

    • Telegraph Avenue is the great American novel we ve been waiting for Generous, imaginative, funny, moving, thrilling, humane, triumphant, it is Michael Chabon s most dazzling book yet.As the summer of 2004 draws to a close, Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe are still hanging in there longtime friends, bandmates, and co regents of Brokeland Records, a kingdom of used vinyl loTelegraph Avenue is the great American novel we ve been waiting for Generous, imaginative, funny, moving, thrilling, humane, triumphant, it is Michael Chabon s most dazzling book yet.As the summer of 2004 draws to a close, Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe are still hanging in there longtime friends, bandmates, and co regents of Brokeland Records, a kingdom of used vinyl located in the borderlands of Berkeley and Oakland Their wives, Gwen Shanks and Aviva Roth Jaffe, are the Berkeley Birth Partners, two semi legendary midwives who have welcomed than a thousand newly minted citizens into the dented utopia at whose heart half tavern, half temple stands Brokeland When ex NFL quarterback Gibson Goode, the fifth richest black man in America, announces plans to build his latest Dogpile megastore on a nearby stretch of Telegraph Avenue, Nat and Archy fear it means certain doom for their vulnerable little enterprise Meanwhile, Aviva and Gwen also find themselves caught up in a battle for their professional existence, one that tests the limits of their friendship Adding another layer of complication to the couples already tangled lives is the surprise appearance of Titus Joyner, the teenage son Archy has never acknowledged and the love of fifteen year old Julius Jaffe s life An intimate epic, a NorCal Middlemarch set to the funky beat of classic vinyl soul jazz and pulsing with a virtuosic, pyrotechnical style all its own, Telegraph Avenue is the great American novel we ve been waiting for Generous, imaginative, funny, moving, thrilling, humane, triumphant, it is Michael Chabon s most dazzling book yet.

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      Published :2021-03-06T14:13:19+00:00

    About "Michael Chabon"

    1. Michael Chabon

      Michael Chabon b 1963 is an acclaimed and bestselling author whose works include the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier Clay 2000 Chabon achieved literary fame at age twenty four with his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh 1988 , which was a major critical and commercial success He then published Wonder Boys 1995 , another bestseller, which was made into a film starring Michael Douglas One of America s most distinctive voices, Chabon has been called a magical prose stylist by the New York Times Book Review, and is known for his lively writing, nostalgia for bygone modes of storytelling, and deep empathy for the human predicament.

    723 Comments

    1. Count me among those that found reading this book a chore. Chabon is obviously brilliant and talented but reading his work is a bit like being trapped in the corner at a party by a manic genius, who feeds you dozens of brilliant different ideas at once, but at such a speed and with so many different tangents along the way that's it difficult to take it all in. Here, to slow things down, you often have to read sentences a couple of times just to keep track of what the noun and verb were in betwee [...]

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    2. This book drove me a little nuts. It's plot is overstuffed making the whole thing much too long. That wouldn't be such a bad thing if the language didn't irritate me so much. Chabon tries to be both hip and smart, while dealing with characters who seem to be lacking in both. I felt too often that I was reading an Elmore Leonard book written towards the Ivy League set. Elmore Leonard at least knows how to plot. The plot lacks punch and swiftness and I felt myself caring less and less as the book [...]

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    3. Hey, check out my razzle-dazzle, dictionary-demanding, neverending prose that rolls off the page like marbles falling from a flatbed truck, grabbing you like a gardener's glove in a Venus flytrap, moaning like Robert Johnson on a late-night radio blues show, carousing like a Common Ornery Cokeheaded Ho Intransigently Seeking Excitement (that's C.O.C.H.I.S.E. -- get it?), continuing on and on and on and on like my man Joyce's Molly Bloom without ever switching sentences 'cause I'm producing a Uly [...]

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    4. A bunch of quirky characters wear clothes from the ‘70s and use old technology like a portable 8-track player while dealing with each other’s personal tics? I honestly wasn’t sure if I was reading a Michael Chabon novel or a Wes Anderson screenplay for a while.Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe are co-owners of a vintage record store in Oakland, but the business is circling the drain. A former pro football player is about to finish them off by opening up a huge retail store featuring an extensi [...]

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    5. Onvan : Telegraph Avenue - Nevisande : Michael Chabon - ISBN : 61493341 - ISBN13 : 9780061493348 - Dar 465 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2012

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    6. I wanted to like it. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is one of my favorite books of all time, and I went into this one with excitement and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, that only lasted about fifty pages. I shouldered through because I wanted to give Chabon the benefit of the doubt. In the end, I think the novel could have been saved with some judicious editing. It should have been about a third shorter. Chabon lets his thoughts run away from him and while his many asides are beautifull [...]

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    7. I was afraid I wouldn't like this book. My daughter gave it to me last year, I'd already been unable to finish one of the three books she gave me, and when I looked at some of the professional reviews, I interpreted them as ambiguous. So, the book sat and waited.I've read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. I liked it but it was a long time ago; at the time, I didn't have the hooks in my head to hang a lot of it on, so little memory of it lingers. I read The Yiddish Policemen's Union; [...]

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    8. “They were little more than boys, and yet while they differed in race, in temperament, and in their understanding of love, they were united in this: The remnant of their boyhood was a ballast they wished to cut away.” ― Michael Chabon, Telegraph AvenueI lived for several idyllic months during my virgin adulthood in Boulder, Colorado. There was a term often tossed around, at least then, that Boulder was 20 square miles surrounded by reality (I've since heard the same line used for Madison, [...]

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    9. What a delight to be treated to this life affirming story after sustaining a series of books by Chabon that did not live up to the pleasures of “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.” He clearly loves all his characters in this tale, and I was quite satisfied how their challenges in his narrative led them to evolve toward their visions in some cases or successfully stumble past their misfortunes in others.The story concerns the struggles of a black couple, Archy Stallings and Gwen Sha [...]

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    10. Sentence to sentence, just great. There's some wonderful writing about babies, and about commerce and old stores and those parts of Telegraph where Berkeley and Oakland kind of wander into each other (lived not far from there for about 2 years in early 90s, at at about 61st just off Claremont). Not to mention birthing and midwifery and lotsa nerd-boy stuff. Which is the problem. As early as Werewolves in Their Youth, Chabon started working the whole SF/fanboy/former nerd angle into his fiction, [...]

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    11. Telegraph Avenue is a major commercial thoroughfare in a minor California city. It is also the setting of Michael Chabon's brilliant slice in the life of Archie, the half-owner of a used record store, struggling with impending fatherhood, and Gwen, his wife, a fast-talking, hormonally-challenged midwife, who is determined to have her baby with him, or without him, and to salvage her career after an unfortunate encounter with a smug physician. Two of the many people who complicate their struggles [...]

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    12. Telegraph Avenue, a strip of mostly hanging-in-there shops and a funeral parlour in Oakland, California, is home to Brokeland Records, a rare and secondhand vinyl record shop run by old friends, Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe. It's August 2004, Archy's wife Gwen, a midwife, is thirty-six weeks' pregnant, Nat's only child, Julius, is having a sexual relationship with his new friend, Titus, and the record shop is barely scraping by, partly dependent on the records bought by their long-standing cust [...]

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    13. Main characters; Archy Stallings (black) and Nat Jaffe (Jewish). Gwen Shanks (pregnant) and Aviva Roth-Jaffe, both mid-(and)wifes.Other characters: Luther Stallings (drug addict, small scale criminal, formerly movie star)Valetta More (Luther´s sometime girlfriend, porn star quality)The Undertaker and his family of gangstersThe ex-NFL star Gibson Goode, now a ruthless entrepreneur under the pretext of local development.The 100-year old Chinese Kungfu mistress.Customers at the Broke(!)land Record [...]

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    14. I wish Chabon would stop acting like a spokesperson for the East Bay Area. He did not grow up there or even spend his 20s there. He knows ZERO about what it was like to be there during the 70s especially-just embarrassing to read. He arrived post with all the techies and transplants. Thus viewed as a complete satire and a send up the book might actually work but as a piece of American social lit (however whimsical) it is a HUGE yerba mate goji-berry infused DUD littered with an appalling number [...]

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    15. About halfway through the novel, in the midst of a 12-page-long sentence which comprises the whole of Section III of V, Chabon uses the phrase "short story long," which pretty much sums it up. Let it be known that I am most definitely not a fan of Chabon (after reading Kavalier & Clay and then Maps and Legends), and only read this because I felt like I had to, as I live a block off of Telegraph. I gave it an honest chance, but ended up speeding through it pretty quick, because it bugged me r [...]

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    16. I think this book should come with its own sound track and each time another artist/track/ song from eons ago is mentioned it should play gently, harmoniously and briefly as a back drop to the book. Why? Well, like ambience and stuff. I am sure this must be possible as an added extra on kindle by now, surely?This is a tale of many characters the existence of whom hinges on a dated but much loved record store on the eponymous street. Archy Stallings and business partner (muso bromance) Nat Jaffe [...]

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    17. I was looking forward to revisiting my old town through Chabon's words, but not enough to finish the book. The first 12 pages weren't bad, but then more characters are introduced and I lost interest. The plot meanders. Skimming some of the reviews here only clinches it: For a 465-page book, I would rather read something else.

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    18. I saw the author in person last night.he read a section from this novel. Wow. I almost wanted to start over and read it againhe did an awesome job. The room was full. I took 9 of his books with me,and bought 3 more, for my son.he was very gracious and signed them all. What a nice guy,and what an author.I will tell you that this book starts slowbut stick with ithe spends quite a bit of time setting it all up,and I will tell you it's worth it in the end. I love Kavalier and Clay,and this one comes [...]

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    19. How could I not love this book? For the past twenty years I have lived a half block off Telegraph Avenue in Oakland. With this book Michael Chabon makes my world a colorful and vital place to live (which it truly is). It is a perceptive portrayal of life in a 21st-century urban American neighborhood full of cultural misunderstandings and larger than life personalities. It is a moving story about class and race, parenting, marriage, and friendship written with warmth and humor and enthusiasm. Tel [...]

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    20. A good novel digs a hole in you and fills it with its own loam, an invasive kudzu strangling some delicate, native species of scrub. A great novel works the other way around—its beautiful, beaming stamen bursts forth, normally only growing on the impossible cliffs of some tropical island and yet somehow here it is anyway, cutting through your mind's backyard bougainvillea to illuminate, elucidate, aspirate.Telegraph Ave is, naturally, in the latter category. Its drama is of a familiar, familia [...]

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    21. Two stars is probably harsh for a book that attempts most of the things that I want Big Six front-list fiction to attempt (contemporary urban setting, large diverse cast, social commentary, and a focus on work and relationships) in my favorite voice (alternating close third-person).However, Telegraph Avenue felt like a two-star book, from beginning to magical baby ending. It was just not a pleasant, entertaining, satisfying, or enlightening way to spend time.It's not that I needed Chabon to be p [...]

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    22. So love digging into this contemporary, real world, adult Chabon. THIS is the Chabon I love, the book I'd been waiting for. Contemporary(ish) Oakland, two middle-aged guys with a gradually dying record store, two midwives in the real world, a universe where the "old days" keep coming back at you--lots of gorgeous, crap-Seventies overtones here--and man can he write. You laugh out loud just because the mots are so bon, the specificity of description so brilliantly exact, everything from the intri [...]

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    23. Late last year I saw Michael Chabon give a reading from Moonglow at the public library in my city, and he was excellent—extremely gracious and funny (also very handsome. He smiled right at me once and I was dazzled). I left that night wanting nothing more than to be reading one of his books, and since my copy of Moonglow was still en route to me from Powell's, I decided it was an ideal time to tackle the nearly 500-page Telegraph Avenue instead. Of course my recent encounter with Chabon was a [...]

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    24. The Church of VinylDepending on who you ask, Michael Chabon is either one of the finest writers of the English language working today or he is THE finest writer of the English language, full stop. My opinion vacillates between the two. A reputation like that comes with some pretty lofty expectations for each new book. I'm pleased to say that Chabon's latest, Telegraph Avenue, did not disappoint.At the core of this novel is Brokeland Records, described at points as "the church of vinyl" and "an i [...]

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    25. Chabon has a gift for taking things that are mass market, pulp, and pop culture and spinning them into credible literary gold. I love him for this. In Telegraph Avenue, he tackles old R&B and jazz vinyl, blacksploitation films, and Kung Fu thrillers. He also captures a corner of Berkley that Chabon and his wife have lived in for years. It’s all in the service of a story about fathers and son – how father succeed, how they fail, and how sons carve their own paths because of or in spite of [...]

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    26. I could detect the alluring smell of Flint's Ribs wafting up from this book that captures the atmosphere of Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, where I lived in the early 1980's, my early twenties. Junior Wells and buddy Guy playing at the Omni, local blues at Eli's Milie High club. Oakland is still a happening place to be, still in mid-flourish while S.F. is getting so expensive its culture is threatened. Chabon captures small moments with tender clarity. His characters are diverse in type and in temp [...]

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    27. I'm a little ashamed to admit how little I enjoyed this book. I don't want to be all "Books are hard," but there are too many plot threads and characters that I can't keep straight and Chabon's never-ending sentences seems less like a demonstration of his control of the English language than a demonstration of his inability to control his rambling thoughts. I am a smart person, dammit! I have a Master's degree in English and everything! Why do I feel like such an asshole for not getting on board [...]

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    28. I thought I should start with my bias first, so you can understand where I am coming from. A great novel should not be a chore to read. The first 30% of this book crawled along introducing many characters with too little action. So I had the double problem of both trying to be engaged in the limited plot and trying to figure out who was who and why they were even present. The story did finally get moving as you got (way) into it, but it was work, not enjoyment. And then he hits you with part 3, [...]

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    29. UPDATED 10/9/17: I have removed one star (down from 2 stars).1 Star - NopeThis book is mediocre at best. There are so many different reasons why I didn't like/relate/connect to this book. Let me explain a few. The writing, oh the writing. This is my first book by Michael Chabon and I'm sorry it was. I can see read that he can write well. The problem is that there is so much of it and a lot of it does nothing for the story. At multiple points, I wanted to shake the book in the hopes that 25 to 75 [...]

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    30. Video-review: youtu/84xYrbZvKsQ#7 in my Top 20 Books I Read in 2015: youtube/watch?v=zIWkwThree words: Chabon goes late-Pynchon.After trans-continental tales of triumph and revenge, swashbuckling stories of oriental adventurers and compelling narratives of an impossible Jewish Alaska, Micheal Chabon writes an urban novel about the death of the twentieth century. The book compensate its somewhat sombre theme with an exuberant style that shows Chabon at his best: when people in this book get up an [...]

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