For Kings and Planets - Softcover

Canin, Ethan

3.74

1,151 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312241259 ISBN 13: 9780312241254

Publisher: Picador USA, 1999

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From the celebrated author of "The Palace Thief "and "Emperor of the Air," comes this stunning novel about the relationship between two very different men. Orno Tarcher travels from a small town in Missouri to New York City to attend Columbia University, where he begins a new life feeling unsophisticated and insecure. He soon strikes up a friendship with Marshall Emerson, a seductive and brilliant New Yorker whose sophistication dazzles Orno. As time passes, Marshall is revealed to be bent on destruction, and Orno's involvment with Marshall's worldly sister further complicates their friendship. Carefully crafted and skillfully informed by the works of Fitzgerald and Waugh, "For Kings and Planets" is a remarkable novel. A "New York Times," "Los Angeles Times," "Boston Globe," "San Francisco Chronicle," and "Minneapolis StarTribune" bestseller, and a "Publishers Weekly" Best Book of 1998.

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Review:

Like Philip Roth and Robert Penn Warren, Ethan Canin won the Houghton Mifflin Fellowship for rising stars whose first books hit big. His luminous 1988 story collection, Emperor of the Air remains a must-read, and his second novel, For Kings and Planets, is recognizably part of the Canin constellation first established in those stories. Typically, they feature a straight guy (an accountant or some other sober type) transfixed by the spectacle of an out-of- control guy (a delinquent and/or child-prodigy brother or brother figure to the main character). This time it's Orno Tarcher, a Missouri farm boy thunderstruck by his Columbia University classmate Marshall Emerson, a theatrically bratty, sometimes suicidal Manhattan genius. "I grew up with farmers and insurance salesmen," says Orno. "I grew up with Kennedys and insurance salesmen," says Marshall. "I grew up with pigs everywhere," says Orno. "And we had that in common," Marshall replies. (In keeping with their characters, Orno becomes a sensible dentist and Marshall a cynical, coked-up Hollywood producer.)

Canin sensitively evokes Orno's prosaic world--you'd have to read Jane Smiley's The Age of Grief for better fiction about dentistry. But Orno mostly exists to relate Marshall's appealing, appalling antics, his manic raps about his childhood amid the ruins of Istanbul, his sabotage of his own (and Orno's) love life and his oedipal strife with his brilliant but cold parents. "Our family seal is a snake twisted in knots," says Marshall's lovely sister. And, reader, Orno marries her. Page for page, Canin's stories better show off his gift for epiphany, but the novel gives him room to develop character, entangle plots, and make a stab at the heart of the family romance. -- Tim Appelo

Review:

'A powerful piece of work, Ethan Canin has an eye. Throughout his novel, descriptions abound and give great pleasure.' -- Spectator

'A wonderful, subtle novel by a skilled and eloquent writer. Canin's insight makes his story take hold of the reader's heart' -- The Times

'Elegant and timeless.' -- Sunday Times

'Powerful ... Canin shares Fitzgerald's ability to create thoroughly vexing characters without perhaps realising how vexing they are' -- Spectator

'Shimmering and luminous ... leaves you wounded and healed' -- New York Times

'This is a wonderful, subtle novel by a skilled and eloquent writer.' -- The Times

'Wonderful ... recalls the work of Henry James ... savour it' -- The Times

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