Andrew Pessin

Bright College Years by Andrew Pessin is an interesting and humorous novel in the style of Thomas Pynchon. I like to think of it as “Yalies Rainbow,” an arc that describes a group of Yale students from freshman to senior year. Pessin describes the emotional, intellectual, and personality development of a rather large group of Yalie friends. They seek out entertainment, personal relationships, and knowledge in a privileged environment. Pessin adds much local color of Yale and the general culture of the early 1980s. This includes many references to music that the students listened to at the time, the clothing that they wore, the demeanors they maintained, the ideas presented by their professors, the social conditions, and the knowledge base that existed at that time. These Yalies really do not know what the future will bring or care too much about it as their hijinks abound in their Freshman Year. They mature in many ways during their Sophomore and Junior years and wrap things up in their Senior year. The arc of their development tapers into decisions about life paths in their final year.
Like Pynchon, the pages of the novel are filled with interesting references that I enjoyed looking up during my reading. The similarity between writers continues when we consider the shear length of Bright College Years. It takes character to read every page in this novel and find definitions and explanations necessary to appreciate the Syzygy (“look it up!”) of the four-year experiences of the Yalies. From a psychological point of view, they reach a state of balance of many opposing forces or elements that is rational and irrational, conscious and unconscious. “If That’s Not Life.”
Also, it is fun to have a good laugh on many of the pages, start to finish.… (more)

*I received a free copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers in exchange for an honest review.*

I wasn’t feeling the beginning of this–it’s incredibly slow and suffers from a lot of info dumping. I wasn’t really sure what the point of the book was for a good 50 pages of it. Also, the main character seemed too bumbling and clueless for me. I understand why he works for the story to be revealed the way it does, but I just wasn’t feeling it. There’s also way too many suspicious characters who seem super shady for me to have really gotten into the mystery part of it. The way I saw it, it didn’t really matter who killed Descartes since they all seemed pretty guilty.

However, once the story properly got started, I enjoyed myself. There are a lot of twists and reveals that the reader can guess at once more information is given near the middle of the book, and that’s where a lot of the action picks up. The intrigue itself is quite good and there’s quite a twist at the end.

However, the part that shone for me and that I really enjoyed was Rene Descartes’s backstory. Once Pessin goes into the history of France and the area, the context of the time Descartes lived in, and his experience at school, I was hooked. More than anything, this book made me want to pick up biographies of Rene Descartes just to learn more about him. I was a little disappointed to get back to the proper storyline, but that interest in Rene Descartes helped get me to the end, which was quite good.

Overall, Pessin does a good job in connecting true historical events and weaving an interesting tale around Descartes and his murder. While the thriller aspects seemed a bit off to me, I did enjoy the overall story.

Also posted on Purple People Readers.… (more)

Os livros genéricos têm o defeito de serem genéricos. A quem se dirigem? Quem será o tal leitor padrão que "precisa" deste livro? Em boa verdade, ninguém faz parte desse grande todo anónimo que pouco sabe acerca de certos assuntos. Nem eu, nem você, nem ninguém. Embora gostemos de pensar que sim, fazemo-lo apenas por preguiça; ou real incapacidade de realmente pensar o todo no tudo que o faz como tal. Às tantas, se calhar, fazemos mesmo parte desse grande todo imbecil que julgávamos tão distante de nós. Sim, é verdade que este livro é genérico, mas ninguém sabe quanto de si é genericamente comum.

Talvez, sabe-se lá, este livro tenha algo para si.

Porque a filosofia, afinal, é feita de banalidades, o efeito colateral de estar consciente.



Adenda: O livro está escrito num português correto, mas a tradução às vezes é mazinha. A culpa, creio, não é tanto do tradutor – faltou um revisor mais capaz.… (more)