Goodloe Byron

I received Revisions Of from first reads. As others mentioned, the book is very nice in appearance and the drawings at the beginning of each chapter are exquisite.

The language of the book is verbose, even relentlessly loopy at times, perhaps to emphasize the neurotic inner world of the main character, Nathan. Most of the book is spent in his mind, observing life through his nervous, obsessive point of view. Nathan is a broke biographer, who becomes obsessed about typing up everything a "regular guy" who recently died and publishing it as a book. His overall aim is not very clear. His attitude in life and in the project is severely affected by his neurotic behavior, which leads him to do outlandish things that must seem ridiculous from the outside which then causes him to panic which then causes him to lie which triggers free-association type of day dreams and personal assessments. And on and on it goes. It never really lets up, so as real events happen (some of which are personally very tragic) the reader is unsure or unaware of the extent of these events. Nathan is unable to feel or think about these events in a mature, comprehensive manner. Instead, he seems numb with bouts of overwhelming feeling, which quickly and suddenly is forgotten. Similarly, his very few interactions with other people are confused and immature, with lots of lying and pretending and emotional numbness.

Overall, the text could use some more editing, I think. Though the writing style gives a good feel for Nathan's psychological state, it could still be tighter and shorter. At times, I could not stop myself from skipping through some of Nathan's stream of consciousness to be able to stay interested in the book. These musings have a lot of interesting gems in them, but again, I often felt that it could be more concise.… (mehr)

Revisions Of is one of those books you will probably either love or hate, with little in between. Byron has a unique writing style and this is not your typical novel. For starters, there is virtually no dialogue. The story is in Nathan's ramblings, observations, thoughts, and obsessions.

Nathan, the main character, is an author. One day he reads an obituary that tells him next to nothing about the deceased man. Nathan becomes obsessed with this man's life. Determined to give some sort of status to this easily forgotten dead man, Nathan sets out to tell his story. In the process, Nathan stumbles through life, mentally unraveling as things go drastically wrong.

Goodloe Byron did a tremendous job of stepping into Nathan's head and bringing his readers along for the ride. Many times, I would stop and read a particular anecdote over again. This is not a suspenseful page-turner but is instead a mindful journey.… (mehr)

Hmmm, I think I have to start out by mentioning that Revisions Of is...quirky, to say the least. It's not entirely what you would expect and now as I just finished it, I find that my thoughts are a bit muddled to as to how I felt about the book. Let's see if I can sort out my thoughts...

Revisions Of basically follows the day to day life of an average man who happens to be a biographer who is writing a biography about, you guessed it, the average man. Did this just blow your mind for a minute? If you're still with me, let's continue. When I say day-to-day life, boy do I mean it. And I guess the day-to-day life of an average man isn't always so captivating, hence, why most of the world is painfully average (I, of course, include myself in that statement). But still, I have to say that Nathan (who's the main character) has the dry sense of humor that I totally got (most of the time). And I love a man with a dry sense of humor. So that endeared me to Nathan right up until the end.

However, I do have to say that it took me a while to get used to the style of the book, which includes the muddled thoughts of Nathan. I have to ask. Is it poetic justice that I myself am muddled at this particular moment? Was that Goodloe Byron's intention, to have the readers muddled? And with it to make us realize that we are all like Nathan, that we can't really escape the stigma of being average, no matter how much we try? Or maybe I'm just over-thinking it. Anyway, like I mentioned before. It took me about fifty pages to actually get acclimated with Revisions Of. Then when I finally had to put it down (it being 2 in the morning and all) and picked it back up the next day, I had to re-acclimate myself all over again. While it didn't take as long as the first time, it still took more than a few pages.

So, ultimately, how do I feel about Revisions Of? I think it was an okay book. It wasn't my favorite, but I don't regret reading it. And it did make me chuckle out loud a couple of times and that's always a plus. It did also make me think about what exactly was Goodloe Byron's point with the book and since school's out for the summer (did I just get the song stuck in your head? Talk about poetic justice if I did), over-thinking things isn't necessarily a bad thing considering that most of the time, us college students, avoid thinking during the summer at all costs. So, I think I do recommend Revisions Of to most people, especially if you like that dry sense of humor thing.… (mehr)