Be Specific About Books As The Road to Wellville
| Original Title: | The Road to Wellville |
| ISBN: | 0140167188 (ISBN13: 9780140167184) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Dr John Harvey Kellogg, George Kellogg, Eleanor Lightbody, Will Lightbody, Charlie Ossining, Goodloe H. Bender |
| Setting: | Battle Creek, Michigan(United States) Michigan(United States) |
T. Coraghessan Boyle
Paperback | Pages: 496 pages Rating: 3.67 | 5838 Users | 403 Reviews
Particularize Out Of Books The Road to Wellville
| Title | : | The Road to Wellville |
| Author | : | T. Coraghessan Boyle |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 496 pages |
| Published | : | May 1st 1994 by Penguin Books (first published 1993) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. Humor. Novels. Literature. Contemporary |
Ilustration Toward Books The Road to Wellville
Will Lightbody is a man with a stomach ailment whose only sin is loving his wife, Eleanor, too much. Eleanor is a health nut of the first stripe, and when in 1907 she journeys to Dr. John Harvey Kellogg's infamous Battle Creek Spa to live out the vegetarian ethos, poor Will goes too.So begins T. Coraghessan Boyle's wickedly comic look at turn-of-the-century fanatics in search of the magic pill to prolong their lives - or the profit to be had from manufacturing it. Brimming with a Dickensian cast of characters and laced with wildly wonderful plot twists, Jane Smiley in The New York Times Book Review called The Road to Wellville "a marvel, enjoyable from beginning to end."
Rating Out Of Books The Road to Wellville
Ratings: 3.67 From 5838 Users | 403 ReviewsWrite-Up Out Of Books The Road to Wellville
It started great, wonderful premise and colourful writing. But then it just went on and on without actually going anywhere. (Needed a bit of roughage to move things through. Or at least a good edit to cut to the chase.) I persevered but by midway it set me on the road to Snoozeville. Finally gave up and didn't finish. I'd recommend Boyle's terrific Talk Talk instead, or the Inner Circle. I haven't seen the movie, would be interested to see how/if the film snapped it into shape.TC Boyle has taken the historical figure John Harvey Kellogg who founded a bizarre health spa and invented cornflakes and has created an intelligent novel set at the spa. Eleanor Lightbody has been to the spa twice before and, like all well-meaning wives, has decided her husband, Will, will benefit from Kellogg's health miracles. Kellogg is written as authoritarian monomaniac with grandiose delusions about his power over his patients' lives.The satirical read is entertaining, intelligent and
You expect a certain amount of snarkiness from Boyle, and Wellville doesn't dissapoint, but I found no glee in it, as I did in Drop City, or Budding Prospects, or even Water Music. I kept thinking what a marvelous writer he is, yet how unfortunate his choice of stories and characters are. I get it that Kellog's sanitarium and its regimens were for the turn of the century's health nuts, and that many of its practices were misguided and downright dangerous in some cases. I get that there were
3.5 stars, really, but goodreads' war on subtlety continues. as a stylistic exercise this is a triumph. as an actual novel, something south of there, although not like antarctica south. very much in the vein of new yorker humor articles -- where my response is "ah, i see this person is making a joke" as opposed to actually laughing or feeling amused. there were a few exceptions: the repetition of "womb manipulation" toward the end gets pretty funny. but a lot of the other stuff really felt
There isn't a TC Boyle book that I don't love. This one seems like a cut from today; rather, than a book about the past. Doctors revered as gods, money buying health, a thousand hucksters out there hustling so we call all live forever....I mean.
The Road to Wellville is an at-times fascinating, at-times dull historical fiction about John Harvey Kellogg and his cult-like following of health nuts at the turn of the century. The fascinating parts are really fascinating and the dull parts are, thankfully, not that dull, thanks to T.C. Boyle's expertise with the English language. If thinks had moved along at a brisker pace, it would have held my attention better. This is billed as a comic novel, but maybe the long passages made me too drowsy
TC Boyle has taken the historical figure John Harvey Kellogg who founded a bizarre health spa and invented cornflakes and has created an intelligent novel set at the spa. Eleanor Lightbody has been to the spa twice before and, like all well-meaning wives, has decided her husband, Will, will benefit from Kellogg's health miracles. Kellogg is written as authoritarian monomaniac with grandiose delusions about his power over his patients' lives.The satirical read is entertaining, intelligent and
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