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horsley123's review against another edition
4.0
A tale of a family, but also a city and a country.
I enjoy Zink's direct turn of phrase, she does not beat around the bush and tells it as it is. The section dealing with 9/11 had a neat summation along the lines of the terrorists were from Saudi and were funded by Saudi, so it was imperative that the USA bombed Afghanistan and Iraq.
The build up to the election of Trump was interesting - the political ad man pitched a negative ad about Trump, but the Democrats would not go there, partly because they could not believe that he was a serious threat. And look at us now.
This is more than your story of two generations in New York, there is commentary on the music industry, fame, and political mechanisms of the USA. A book to make you think.
I enjoy Zink's direct turn of phrase, she does not beat around the bush and tells it as it is. The section dealing with 9/11 had a neat summation along the lines of the terrorists were from Saudi and were funded by Saudi, so it was imperative that the USA bombed Afghanistan and Iraq.
The build up to the election of Trump was interesting - the political ad man pitched a negative ad about Trump, but the Democrats would not go there, partly because they could not believe that he was a serious threat. And look at us now.
This is more than your story of two generations in New York, there is commentary on the music industry, fame, and political mechanisms of the USA. A book to make you think.
paroof's review against another edition
2.0
Nell Zink seems like an intelligent author with something to say, however, she doesn't seem to say anything in this disjointed, rambling novel. The only interesting character, Joe, is killed off about 1/3 of the way through the book and there's a brief side story about his evil girlfriend Gwen that never really seems to go anywhere - although it's brought up again and again right up until the end.
I wanted to like this book, and there were some good things about it. The premise itself seemed pretty sound, but none of it felt tied together or even connected. There were some brilliant lines here and there, but overall the writing was just OK. What this felt like was a first draft.
I cannot recommend this one.
I wanted to like this book, and there were some good things about it. The premise itself seemed pretty sound, but none of it felt tied together or even connected. There were some brilliant lines here and there, but overall the writing was just OK. What this felt like was a first draft.
I cannot recommend this one.
sam_bizar_wilcox's review against another edition
5.0
Nell Zink's Dickensian, punk-infused novel is one of the most surprisingly honest and astute accounts of the Trump inauguration, and the histories - personal and global - that led up to it. Doxology brings a cast of characters, lively and complex, through the late 80s underground up to the (near) present day. And thereby gives literary light to music and art built in feigned rebellion, and later baked into the system it rebels against. It's the sort of narrative that brings me back to the memoirs of great indie rock stars I used to read (Black Postcards, Just Kids, etc.); it is a narrative that does its best to unpack these stories, and provide political context.
There's a truthful war between idealism and pragmatism that this novel explores. We see it play out in the frenetic and musical first half; we see it play out in the news and in the lives of the characters (and ourselves) in the novel's second half. Deeply impactful is the story of Flora, who graduates aimlessly-yet-ambitiously in the wake of environmental crisis, whose political bets and efforts are hedged organizing for the Green Party in a wildly unpredictable, and regrettable, 2016 campaign. The challenges she faces - living with herself, doing her job - speak to the frustrations of political engagement with a system that takes one's rational beliefs as too radical. And where the damage of following one's ideological beliefs are costly. It's an experience where I've had the alternate perspective (working for the Democrats in spite of my more leftist tendencies), but one which rung true (how does one fight a rightist insurrection while staying true to an anti-neoliberal, egalitarian, and environmentally conscious agenda?).
I didn't expect to relive the world of the campaign when I started this novel. I expected a rich and smartly observed urban satire, which the novel delivered. But returning to the world where an enraged Trump supporter pulls a gun on a canvasser (not three weeks after this happened to me), through the gifted tongue of Zink, was cathartic.
Decades from now readers and critics will look for the great Trump-era novels. On day he leaves office, I have certainly finished reading one. Pulsing, beautiful, and refreshingly empathetic, Doxology is the unexpected anthem for the last four years. And at its core, a heart that speaks (cautiously) to four, better, years to come.
There's a truthful war between idealism and pragmatism that this novel explores. We see it play out in the frenetic and musical first half; we see it play out in the news and in the lives of the characters (and ourselves) in the novel's second half. Deeply impactful is the story of Flora, who graduates aimlessly-yet-ambitiously in the wake of environmental crisis, whose political bets and efforts are hedged organizing for the Green Party in a wildly unpredictable, and regrettable, 2016 campaign. The challenges she faces - living with herself, doing her job - speak to the frustrations of political engagement with a system that takes one's rational beliefs as too radical. And where the damage of following one's ideological beliefs are costly. It's an experience where I've had the alternate perspective (working for the Democrats in spite of my more leftist tendencies), but one which rung true (how does one fight a rightist insurrection while staying true to an anti-neoliberal, egalitarian, and environmentally conscious agenda?).
I didn't expect to relive the world of the campaign when I started this novel. I expected a rich and smartly observed urban satire, which the novel delivered. But returning to the world where an enraged Trump supporter pulls a gun on a canvasser (not three weeks after this happened to me), through the gifted tongue of Zink, was cathartic.
Decades from now readers and critics will look for the great Trump-era novels. On day he leaves office, I have certainly finished reading one. Pulsing, beautiful, and refreshingly empathetic, Doxology is the unexpected anthem for the last four years. And at its core, a heart that speaks (cautiously) to four, better, years to come.
tomstbr's review against another edition
4.0
very enjoyable, love her ironic black humour
surprised how quickly I read it to be honest.
surprised how quickly I read it to be honest.
chillcox15's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars. Reading Doxology, a certain undercurrent to Zink's artistic process has become clear. She's a parodist, but one whose targets are so wide and miasmic in scope that it's hard to see the works as parodies at all. Mislaid, her best work yet, works as a regular ol' entry into the campus novel genre (albeit a particularly hilarious, insightful one), but it also, at an askance glance, works as a rip on some of the foremost practitioners of the genre: the late modernist ilk of Roth and Updike and, a bit further back, Nabokov. This is instructive in my understanding of Doxology as a similar work of totemic satire. In this novel, Zink turns from the ex-urban keel of those plaid authors of the post-50s to the millennial New York compendiums of the Jonathans: Franzen, Safran Foer, Lethem, and so on. Doxology indeeds read as a languid deconstruction of a Jonathan Safran Foer novel that never existed. Like many of those authors' books, it tries to capture too much, traversing 50 years of history in a fleet 400 pages, Forrest Gumping through some of the greatest hits of Historical Importance. But Zink is too smart and funny to invoke empty signifiers without emphasizing their emptiness. Sure, 9/11 kills a character, but not in any Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close sort of way. Sure, the characters are NYC punks lurking in CBGB's, but they are also busy making funk music with dentists to pay the bills.
I do worry, though, that the 2016 election may have broken Zink a bit; the last 100 pages circle around that historical moment, and really did put a damper on my enthusiasm for this book. There are moments where Zink's immense talent for crafting an absurdly mundane sentence shines through, but often it feels a bit like recitation of points that were often exhausting enough to live through in real life.
I do worry, though, that the 2016 election may have broken Zink a bit; the last 100 pages circle around that historical moment, and really did put a damper on my enthusiasm for this book. There are moments where Zink's immense talent for crafting an absurdly mundane sentence shines through, but often it feels a bit like recitation of points that were often exhausting enough to live through in real life.
type1padawan's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
devinsr's review against another edition
I dont generally write reviews on here because I usually only finish and post books I’d at least mostly endorse, but this was definitely an exception, and so much so that it’s bothering me to not talk about it. I ultimately found this book disappointing. It was recommended to me by a friend on the merits of the author’s previous books (which I’m still interested in exploring despite my experience of reading Doxology), so I honestly wanted to like it and am disappointed I didn’t so much. I found, like many others, the beginning of this book to be the most engaging section. Once 9/11 happens, the book pivots around Flora growing up and the aftermath of Joe’s sudden death. Given that Flora is less than two years younger than me, I was interested in her depiction but I couldn’t relate to her at all outside of a pretty boring portrayal of the listlessness many millennials have experienced. She’s weirdly surrounded by almost no one else her age which only added to the general sense that Zink doesn’t understand our generation in an intimate enough way that she could even write Flora a millennial friend group. Or even just one friend her age who sticks around. Once the narrative approached present day and swung overly political, it was almost excruciating to read. Not merely because I think it’s mostly way too soon to be fictionalizing current events to any beneficial effect, but I also generally found Zink’s political analysis to be generic and often totally missing the mark. Overall, most characters felt like sketches, but with Joe, Pam, and Daniel, it didn’t bother me as much. It felt easier to understand them and like Zink knew who they all were and why they made the choices they did because she could personally relate to them better than she could with Flora. Even Flora’s much older boyfriend, Bull, felt motivationally more clear than she did. Perhaps that was her attempt at discussing the frustrating generational experience of being a millennial, but as a frustrated millennial, it really didn’t work for me. Overall, I found this book to be much too long and somewhat self-indulgent in a boring way. I don’t mind either of those things when the author makes it work, but I really had to struggle to finish this one. I dont particularly enjoy star or number ratings so I’ll just say I’d recommend skipping this one. Or stopping when 9/11 hits because honestly nothing after that is worth reading.
klimbermonkey's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.0
Enjoyed the first half of this book until they killed off the most interesting character. Then it just kind of dragged on without much direction