Robinson and Kovite’s novel documents a year (2004-2005) in the life of a quartet of American hipsters, some of whom go to war in Iraq. The book is beautifully written. Its occasional indulgence in literary virtuosity that does not further the plot is consistent with the characters' worldview. The authors narrate their own audiobook together—trading off scenes and voices. Although not professional performers, they are excellent readers. Their narration is well paced, and they have strong, clear voices. As with many ensemble performances, there’s added energy when two people read to/with each other. The evolving online encyclopedia entry, which appears like a chorus, works well even though it requires the narrators to read repetitive Internet code. F.C. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
War of the Encyclopaedists: A Novel
Narrated by Christopher Robinson, Gavin Kovite
Christopher RobinsonUnabridged — 13 hours, 17 minutes
War of the Encyclopaedists: A Novel
Narrated by Christopher Robinson, Gavin Kovite
Christopher RobinsonUnabridged — 13 hours, 17 minutes
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Overview
On a summer night in 2004, prepping for another blowout party in the arty Seattle enclave of Capitol Hill, Mickey Montauk has just learned that he won't be joining his best friend, Halifax Corderoy, for grad school in Boston. Global events have intervened, and Mickey's National Guard unit will soon deploy to Baghdad. But before he can make this stunning revelation, events spiral beyond their control. In the bleary-eyed dawn, Mickey and Hal glimpse their radically altered future, the start of a year that will transform them all.
Months later, Mickey struggles to lead his platoon safely through an increasingly violent and confusing war. In Boston, Hal finds himself unable to play the game of intellectual one-upmanship with the ease of his new classmates. When Hal's new roommate, Tricia, and ex-girlfriend, Mani, come between the best friends, Hal and Mickey find that cool irony and youthful self-regard cannot insulate them from the damages of love and conflict and the messiness of living. As Mickey and Hal's lives move further away from their shared dream, they keep in touch by editing a Wikipedia article about themselves: absurd and hilarious updates that morph and deepen throughout the year, culminating in a document that is both devastatingly tragic and profoundly poetic.
“One of the most revealing novels yet about the millennial generation” (Esquire), War of the Encyclopaedists beats with the energetic pulse of idealistic youth on the threshold of adult reality. It is the vital, urgent, and utterly absorbing lament of searching for meaning and hope in a fractured world: “A love story, a war story, and also a generational one, about coming of age in the time of Wikipedia and YouTube...darkly funny and absurd and terrifying at the same time” (The Wall Street Journal).
Editorial Reviews
03/09/2015
Robinson and Kovite’s debut novel is an uneven bromance set in 2004; Bush has just secured his second term in office, and the Iraq war is in full swing. Seattle hipsters and best friends Halifax Corderoy and Mickey Monterey are both accepted to graduate programs in Boston, but Monterey’s plans are interrupted when he is called up for military training before being shipped off to Iraq. The duo stay in touch via their Wikipedia page, “The Encyclopaedists,” about an ironic art collective they organized to highlight the absurdity of modern art. The pair’s love interests, Mani, an artist, and Tricia, a student, read as two-dimensional characters. The four come across as too naive; their clichéd conversations about art and literary theory make the reader feel trapped in an earnest but dull graduate school class. When the action shifts to Baghdad, questions turn from Foucault to the plight of Iraqis, especially the translators who worked for the Americans, making the latter part of the novel a gripping, thoughtful read. Despite the slow start, Robinson’s and Kovite’s novel is ultimately moving and memorable. (May)
"Only a poet and a soldier—like these collaborating authors—are mad enough or ambitious enough to conceive of this smart, wise and wise-assed first novel. Seattle hipsterville to Baghdad, Cambridge theory nerds and Army grunts, this book has sweep and heart and humor. It captures coming of age during foreign wars and domestic malaise, and it does so with electrifying insight."
The 429-page novel races, thanks to its accessible emotional depth. The distorted Wikipedia page tracks Montauk and Corderoy’s peaks and valleys with a poetic eye that warrants a deeper, careful reading that Corderoy and Montauk themselves might mock (or laud) depending on their mood.
As bizarre, hilarious and devastating as the past decade, War of the Encyclopaedists offers a brilliant portrait of America in the early years of the Iraq War. A startling, original accomplishment, Christopher Robinson and Gavin Kovite's novel is simultaneously a coming-of-age story, a war story, and a story of the disaffected millennial generation for whom the war hardly happened at all.
Kovite and Robinson perfectly capture the mistakes, confusion and vulnerability of early adulthood, as well as the bravado used to mask them...Bittersweet but ultimately redemptive, the Encyclopaedists' adventures in growing up, romantic failures and gaining perspective may remind readers of the pains and possibilities that are encountered when one makes a way in the world.
The book is a love story, a war story and also a generational one, about coming of age in the time of Wikipedia and YouTube… darkly funny and absurd and terrifying at the same time.
"Mr. Robinson and Mr. Kovite have…written a captivating coming-of-age novel that is, by turns, funny and sad and elegiac — a novel that leaves us with some revealing snapshots of America, both at war and in denial, and some telling portraits of a couple of millennials trying to grope their way toward adulthood.
One of the most revealing novels yet about the millennial generation…Recent war fiction—like Kevin Powers’s The Yellow Birds, Phil Klay’s Redeployment, and Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk—has accounted for the battleground overseas and at home, but none has focused so incisively on the choice between serving and shopping. Getting drunk at brunch and releasing your gun’s safety. Montauk and Corderoy keep in touch by editing a Wikipedia entry about themselves. What starts off as a fun, absurd exercise grows more poetic and deadly serious…The millennials have gotten a bad reputation for a bewildering sense of self-regard and privilege, their dreams encouraged by their protective parents and discouraged by the recession. And this might be their defining novel—what feels like a human encyclopedia, its opposing entries revealing characters and a
country in a confused state of revision following a nonsensical war.
A breath of fresh air. War of the Encyclopaedists is the extraordinary product of a collaboration between two writers… more entertaining than your standard important-yet-dreary war novel… By placing Mickey and Halifax in separate locations, enduring distinct experiences, their voices can do something amazing: have a completely unpedantic intra-generational conversation.”
"An epic for the 9/11 generation, War of the Encyclopaedists chronicles the churning uncertainties of new adults, when everything represents possibility or peril."
"An epic for the 9/11 generation, War of the Encyclopaedists chronicles the churning uncertainties of new adults, when everything represents possibility or peril."
The book is a love story, a war story and also a generational one, about coming of age in the time of Wikipedia and YouTube… darkly funny and absurd and terrifying at the same time.
02/15/2015
College graduates totally adrift, Mickey Montauk and Halifax Corderoy are deep into the party scene in early 2000s Seattle but about to move ahead with their lives, voluntarily or not. Mickey is heading to Iraq to serve with the army and Halifax to graduate school in Boston to study literature. Left over from their previous existence is beautiful, free-spirited artist Mani, whom Halifax dumped and Mickey sort of caught on the rebound. Arriving in Iraq as a platoon leader, Mickey is thrown into the total chaos of providing security around the Green Zone in Baghdad. Halifax, meanwhile, is mystified by graduate school, haunted by thoughts of Mani, and battling alcohol dependency. As wrenching as life is for both of them, they keep in touch by updating the Wikipedia article they have created about themselves. VERDICT Yale Younger Poets Prize finalist Robinson and Kovite, a former infantry platoon leader in Baghdad who's published in various literary magazines, seem to have taken their individual histories and attitudes and invested them in their two main characters, who are deftly portrayed and a perfect fit for each other. Their story unfolds rapidly, humorously, and convincingly from page one. [See Prepub Alert, 11/10/14.]—James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.
Robinson and Kovite’s novel documents a year (2004-2005) in the life of a quartet of American hipsters, some of whom go to war in Iraq. The book is beautifully written. Its occasional indulgence in literary virtuosity that does not further the plot is consistent with the characters' worldview. The authors narrate their own audiobook together—trading off scenes and voices. Although not professional performers, they are excellent readers. Their narration is well paced, and they have strong, clear voices. As with many ensemble performances, there’s added energy when two people read to/with each other. The evolving online encyclopedia entry, which appears like a chorus, works well even though it requires the narrators to read repetitive Internet code. F.C. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
★ 2015-02-02
Two "twentysomethings of early-millennium Seattle" take different paths to maturity in this likable, highly readable, double-bylined coming-of-age first novel. Mickey Montauk and Halifax Corderoy are best buds sharing a large house and a sense of irony that leads them to put on faux art shows as "The Encyclopaedists," complete with their own Wikipedia entry. When Corderoy dumps his girlfriend, Mani, before leaving for grad school, Montauk helps her through the aftermath of an auto accident before he heads overseas as an Army lieutenant in the Iraq occupation of 2004. Chapters alternate between Corderoy's ill-prepared and humorous immersion in lit-crit seminars and his friend's hard-edged life amid the threats and slaughter of insurgency. Both areas have fun with the lingo. A four-page analytical romp through Star Wars dips into New Criticism, Marxist theory, post-colonialism and semiotics. The military's love of shorthand gets a workout: "LN sources indicate coordinated attack mixing VBIED with SAF. BOLO for a silver BMW sedan." In a nice piece of plotting, Corderoy's roommate, Tricia, embeds near Montauk's unit, and Mani migrates back from Seattle to her Massachusetts roots, not far from Corderoy in Cambridge. The authors give these principal women enough of their own growing up to balance all the manning up by the male leads. There are many nice touches in the writing, including a witty show and tell concerning female anatomy at a difficult moment and some Shandy-esque fun with display pages for Wikipedia entries and military forms. Minor cavils concern a simplistic sense of politics that yet might be age-appropriate for the characters and a fairly restrained rendering of the occupation, surprising given that Kovite in real life occupied the same role as his character and clearly wrote the words "a hundred horrific possibilities every single day." That two different writers are at work is sometimes apparent but not bothersome given that two distinctive characters are in play, and the overall narrative's smart and entertaining.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940171147815 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 05/19/2015 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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