Books I've read: The Interestings

This was one of those books that sounded like it would be really interesting and right up my alley.  Unfortunately, I ended up finding it quite boring....  Admittedly, I did read it in very small bites because I've been too busy to read much the past few weeks, and maybe if I had read it more quickly, I wouldn't have found it quite so dry.

But I don't think so...

The book follows a group of friends through their lives from the moment they meet as teenagers at an arty summer camp, focusing primarily on Jules, the one who is the most surprised to be included in the group.  This camp remains the high point of her life, the place she discovered herself, realised she could be funny and met the people who are to become the most important in her life.

At fifteen, all these people are talented and creative and certain their lives will be tied directly to the arts they are passionate about.  There's Ethan, the artist whose passion is animation and who, at fifteen, has already created an expansive fictional world in which he is the main character in a story unlike his own real life.  There's Jonah, the son of a well known folk singer whose passion for music has been soiled by the predatory acts of one of his mother's associates.  Then there's Ash and Goodman, brother and sister from a privileged New York family who are as different from one another as chalk and cheese.  And on the fringes of the group is Cathy, the voluptuous dancer whose passion and talent is not enough to overcome the challenges her decidedly undancerly body throws up.

When camp is over, the group remains connected, partly because they all - except Jules - live in NYC, something that makes Jules feel resentful and left out and makes her behave badly toward her mother and sister at home.  She escapes to the city and Ash's family whenever she can and moves to the city to make her name as a character actor as soon as she finishes college.

As they grow up, couple up, start careers, marry, have kids and live lives both rewarding and challenging, this group of people who once called themselves The Interestings remain friends, helping one another through tragedies, celebrating joys and holding one another's secrets.

I found the way this book was written annoying.  I felt very removed from the characters and never really felt like I grasped the motivations behind their actions.  Jules irritated me in the way she she remained so in awe of her wealthier, more successful friends even when the work she was doing seemed so much more important and meaningful than anything these supposedly more successful people were doing.  Again, this may have been because I only read a few pages at a time and never really fell into the book's rhythm or flow, but I don't think that is the case.

So, I probably would not recommend this one too highly. 

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life.

The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge.

The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence. Jules Jacobson, an aspiring comic actress, eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle. Her friend Jonah, a gifted musician, stops playing the guitar and becomes an engineer. But Ethan and Ash, Jules's now-married best friends, become shockingly successful—true to their initial artistic dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep expanding. The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and the shapes their lives have taken.

Wide in scope, ambitious, and populated by complex characters who come together and apart in a changing New York City, The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life.