I received this book from Library Thing to read and review. This book came in a rather difficult to read format on my kindle, and it was hard to get through it. This is the story of Pierce Williams, whose father recently died from cancer and who is trying to come to terms with this and with himself. The reader follows Pierce through many venues, and finally to Florida, where he hopes to find his once upon a time love Jennifer, who he is sure can solve his dilemma. A lot of the book was filled with intellectualism, which the reader must work through and figure out if the book is to make sense. I found that this constant introspection and deep thought processes lent very little to the book, which made it drag for me. I think the author would have been better off to create a story around some sort of active plot rather than around a disillusioned student’s thoughts. In fact, as I read it, I wondered just where the author was going with this work. Other reviewers found the book a good view of Pierce’s life and that of a regular college student, but I got rather bogged down with Pierce’s intellectual introspection and did not see this. This is not the action packed mystery thriller or beloved romance. I found it interesting that, even after all the reflection and philosophizing, there really is no big conclusion on his part. ( )

free e-book received in exchange for a review

This was an interesting read. The story follows the life of Pierce, a university student. His character is complicated but well developed throughout the book. His relationships and interactions with fellow students, professors, and community members are explored. He is trying to learn who he is and what he ought to do with his life. Not my favourite book, but engaging enough to keep me reading. ( )

This book centered around the life of a disillusioned university student named Pierce. He has just lost his father to cancer and I don't remember a mother, but he seems to be alone in the world and trying to make sense of things. He is still obsessed with an old love named Jennifer who does not share his feelings. Basically, it is a story of a young man who doesn't feel like he fits anywhere and is trying to find his place. ( )

Writing a first-person novel whose narrator and main character is an alienated, profoundly cynical, post-adolescent faces numerous obstacles, not the least of which is Mount Catcher in the Rye, at whose base lie several generations of yellowing manuscripts, most derivative of Salinger’s novel to a more or lesser degree.

Daniel Clausen’s The Sage and the Scarecrow tracks a few days in the life of Pierce Williams, an undergrad at an unnamed Florida university. The time is unspecified, but people still communicate with letters, and no one mentions the Internet or Facebook or texting.The narrator says that his father’s favorite song was Warren Zevon’s "Werewolves of London," “I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic’s...” The song came out in 1978. It’s not much of a surprise to see on the copyright page that the novel was published in 2003. Early new millennium,

We meet Pierce Williams, the narrator and main character, six months after his father died of cancer, and not many years after his mother’s early death. Caring for his father during his battle with the disease, Pierce experienced first hand the difficulties of obtaining adequate medicine and hospital care. Out of this struggle, Pierce develops a desire for a better society. The loss of his father has also left Pierce depressed and feeling without purpose or direction, for his father had become the center of his universe. Adding to this melancholy state are Pierce’s memories of Jennifer, his high school crush. Pierce carries around and constantly consults a copy of the Tao Te Ching, loaned to him by Jennifer, with a personal note from her on the inside cover. As the story unfolds, Pierce will focus on Jennifer as the one person who might rescue him from his bleak existence.

On the face of the above, we have a sympathetic character here, but not so fast. Pierce is one of the most self-centered, neurotic, manipulative (think The Prince), pedantic and just plain weird characters in contemporary fiction.

For example, not many pages into the book, Pierce is having a conversation with Professor Foster, “one of the few teachers I could stand.” Foster makes a suggestion that Pierce include a critique of Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon in the paper he’s writing for the class. “I told him that I thought I might add Fitzergerald’s text into my paper, but it was a complete lie, one of those things you say to make people think they’ve achieved a small victory. I really had no interest in The Tycoon. Really, I’d only read half of it.” A short while later, Pierce will tell his friend Brian (a well-wrought male pig), who casually leafs through the Tao Te Ching, an act that Pierce views as desecration, and feigns keeping it, that Jennifer died of cancer. Pierce’s outrageous but passionate lie is harrowing. Later, Pierce will intellectually bully a well-meaning older woman. Pierce is a deep well of deceit and insincerity. He is in fact a hipster: when you think he’s kidding, he tells you he’s serious and when you think he’s serious, he’ll tell you he’s kidding.

Nearby, Holden Caulfield may be murmuring phony, but Pierce Williams in the intensity of his attitudes and interactions is an original, and always interesting to follow. Even as a pedant, regularly dropping Hegel, Nietzsche and Lao Tzu into conversations, Pierce doesn’t bore. He’s passionate about his abstracts, so passionate that when an attractive woman tries to seduce him, his mind turns to Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. It also doesn’t hurt if you’re a reader who values philosophy and lit crit. I like this stuff, so even when it gets ponderous, I’m never less than amused and frequently provoked.

The other characters in the Sage and the Scarecrow are also very well drawn. Pierce's encounters with Angie, Brian and Phil are captivating, and provide many witty and funny lines.

If you’re looking for action and romance, The Sage and the Scarecrow isn’t your book. Essentially, it’s the story of a guy who doesn't do much but think. Pierce is too reflective, but that's the problem at the heart of the novel. When he finally does something, nothing much comes of it. That's the payoff.

In an arena where many have tried and most have failed, Clausen succeeds. ( )

Thank you to Daniel Clausen for the honour of reading and reviewing Sage and Scarecrow.
Sage and Scarecrow is centered around the life of Pierce, a strange young man who seems to have many odd issues including an obsession with the life of Orson Wells, doesn’t like being touched, likes to be alone and seems to have some form of social anxiety, maybe even a form of Asperger’s Syndrome. Throughout the book the reader follows Pierce and observes his relationship with various friends, professors, stalkers, and a girl he really likes but has trouble knowing how to express himself to her. The main theme of the book seems to be Pierce coming to a realization about how he handled his father’s fight with cancer and eventual dreadful death.
It’s an interesting book as Pierce is such a complex character and at times you want to give up on the book but just at that point Clausen hooks you in again and you keep on reading. ( )