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Everything Matters!
In infancy, Junior Thibodeaux is encoded with a prophecy: a comet will obliterate life on Earth in thirty-six years. Alone in this knowledge, he comes of age in rural Maine grappling with the question: Does anything I do matter? While the voice that has accompanied him since conception appraises his choices, Junior's loved ones emerge with parallel stories-his anxious mother; his brother, a cocaine addict turned pro-baseball phenomenon; his exalted father, whose own mortality summons Junior's best and worst instincts; and Amy, the love of Junior's life and a North Star to his journey through romance and heartbreak, drug-addled despair, and superheroic feats that could save humanity. While our recognizable world is transformed into a bizarre nation at endgame, where government agents conspire in subterranean bunkers, preparing citizens for emigration from a doomed planet, Junior's final triumph confounds all expectation, building to an astonishing and deeply moving resolution. Ron Currie, Jr., gets to the heart of character, and the voices who narrate this uniquely American tour de force leave an indelible, exhilarating impression.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published November 20, 2009
About the author
Ron Currie Jr.
7 books462 followersRon Currie, Jr. was born and raised in Waterville, Maine, where he still lives. His first book, God is Dead, won the Young Lions Fiction Award from the New York Public Library and the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His debut novel, Everything Matters!, will be translated into a dozen languages, and is a July Indie Next Pick and Amazon Best of June 2009 selection.
His short fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Alaska Quarterly Review, The Sun, Ninth Letter, Swink, The Southeast Review, Glimmer Train, Willow Springs, The Cincinnati Review, Harpur Palate, and New Sudden Fiction (W.W. Norton, 2007).
His short fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Alaska Quarterly Review, The Sun, Ninth Letter, Swink, The Southeast Review, Glimmer Train, Willow Springs, The Cincinnati Review, Harpur Palate, and New Sudden Fiction (W.W. Norton, 2007).
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September 16, 2013
At 11:00 a.m. on September 11, 2001, I hailed a cab in front of my office building in Southwest, DC and asked the driver if he would be willing to take me to my house in Northeast, DC. His radio was tuned to an AM talk station and he looked frightened. It appeared that he really wanted to just get the hell out of Dodge but he wasn't sure if this was the sort of event that warranted such a reaction. If this all turned out to be an overreaction or a hoax of some sort, wouldn't he have a tough time explaining to his boss why he decided to skip out early that day? I sensed his hesitation and started to move away from his cab, looking for other options. He yelled after me: "Please, please, I'll take you home. I'm sorry. Please get in." As we inched through the city and the people on the radio began to say things like "Washington, DC is under attack!" and "We believe that the White House is the next target!" the cab driver and I couldn't stop exchanging nervous glances through his rear view mirror. As the Capitol Building came into our view, a news alert came over the radio stating that large explosions at the U.S. Capitol Building had been confirmed. He said, "Oh God." I said, "Oh Shit." We didn't take our eyes off the building. I was prepared to witness a real-life version of the scene from Independence Day. Before this day, I was a naive 22-year-old kid who felt that a happy adult life was still ahead of him. In the matter of a few hours, I had become a different version of this 22-year-old kid who couldn't help but wonder what, exactly, was the point of getting up every morning and heading out into a world that had taken on the look and feel of an apocalyptic action movie.
I don't want to bore you with the details of my life since 9/11, but suffice it to say that I used it as a crutch to justify my laziness, my procrastination, my indecision, and, most of all, my inability to form deep connections with other human beings. Weak people are always looking for excuses. I felt that 9/11 was a pretty good excuse.
Which brings me to this book, which challenges you to consider how you would live your life if you knew that thirty-six years, one hundred sixty-eight days, fourteen hours, and twenty-three seconds after the moment you were born, the world would be destroyed by a rogue comet. Does anything really matter?
The book's hero, Junior, is the only person privy to this information and suffers from the day he was born with "the soul-dread caused by knowledge of the impending end of all existence." At one point Junior says: "Oblivion was always just around the corner, so what was the use of, say, trying to make the varsity basketball team, or starting a retirement fund, or having kids, or any of the other things that normal people do?"
This is a simultaneously depressing and uplifting novel that explores the meaning of life with humor, warmth, and passion.
I don't want to bore you with the details of my life since 9/11, but suffice it to say that I used it as a crutch to justify my laziness, my procrastination, my indecision, and, most of all, my inability to form deep connections with other human beings. Weak people are always looking for excuses. I felt that 9/11 was a pretty good excuse.
Which brings me to this book, which challenges you to consider how you would live your life if you knew that thirty-six years, one hundred sixty-eight days, fourteen hours, and twenty-three seconds after the moment you were born, the world would be destroyed by a rogue comet. Does anything really matter?
The book's hero, Junior, is the only person privy to this information and suffers from the day he was born with "the soul-dread caused by knowledge of the impending end of all existence." At one point Junior says: "Oblivion was always just around the corner, so what was the use of, say, trying to make the varsity basketball team, or starting a retirement fund, or having kids, or any of the other things that normal people do?"
This is a simultaneously depressing and uplifting novel that explores the meaning of life with humor, warmth, and passion.
September 22, 2010
Picking up a book called Everything Matters! (a book shouted Everything Matters!) turns out to be both a challenge to you, the reader, but also a trap, and a bit of a spoiler.
Because you are being told, nay, implored to Pay Attention! to everything. You don't think that's asking too much of you because the book has such a great premise, which is: what if you (this time I am not referring to you the reader, but the hypothetical you, but specifically, the main character) were born with the terrible, certain foreknowledge that in about 36 years, on a particular day in July, all life on earth would be obliterated by a giant comet? Have you got your attention yet?
We apologize if this is confusing, but you must know, large parts of the book you have chosen to read are written in the second person, from the POV of the all-knowing voice that tells you when the world will end and other things, like an omniscient narrator you (the character again) can hear. This is very annoying to you (reader this time), but it's just something you're going to have to deal with, no matter how tedious it gets. But if anyone who has read the book wants to get into why the second voice sections didn't really work for you, they can engage you in the comments, because you want to avoid excessive spoilers.
So anyway, you more or less enjoy this book, even though it reminds you a lot of Ken Grimwood's Replay, because in the end they are both really arguments for existentialism in a way, but because of the way they are written, it also turns out that large portions of them aren't strictly necessary, which is ok as long as you are enjoying them, but sometimes you do not.
You look up the author on the internet and realize this is his first novel, and he usually writes short fiction. And you are not surprised because a lot of this book, which is told in four or five different voices, feels like short stories strung together into a novel. And you tend not to heart short stories because you waffle in your attention to them sometimes, but here you keep plowing through because it really is a novel. But still, there are these large sections which are basically anecdotes from the past, often for characters who don't really matter to the narrative, never mind what the title is shouting at you. So you enjoy reading about the stoic father's experiences in Vietnam but find the section on preteen cocaine addition somewhat tiring, not to mention the weird torture and interrogation scene toward the end there.
In the end the author tires to convince you that all of the parts of the book you found boring or implausible really did matter in a "what if you went back in time and stepped on a butterfly (or didn't?)" kind of way. But you aren't really buying it, mostly because by that point, especially after the last 50 pages were entirely in second person (I mean really, even this review is annoying you), you were hoping for something a little more original instead of exactly what the title suggested the end would be.
But then you remember the book did keep you engaged for the most part and even when the characters were frustrating they were well drawn and there was some very clever writing, like "her silhouette thin as god's alibi," and the ending gave you a robin's egg-sized lump in your throat even though you found the very same thing so annoying when you netflixed that terrible, terrible Nicholas Cage movie that time. So you give it 3.5 stars. Because that matters too!
No, probably that does not matter.
Because you are being told, nay, implored to Pay Attention! to everything. You don't think that's asking too much of you because the book has such a great premise, which is: what if you (this time I am not referring to you the reader, but the hypothetical you, but specifically, the main character) were born with the terrible, certain foreknowledge that in about 36 years, on a particular day in July, all life on earth would be obliterated by a giant comet? Have you got your attention yet?
We apologize if this is confusing, but you must know, large parts of the book you have chosen to read are written in the second person, from the POV of the all-knowing voice that tells you when the world will end and other things, like an omniscient narrator you (the character again) can hear. This is very annoying to you (reader this time), but it's just something you're going to have to deal with, no matter how tedious it gets. But if anyone who has read the book wants to get into why the second voice sections didn't really work for you, they can engage you in the comments, because you want to avoid excessive spoilers.
So anyway, you more or less enjoy this book, even though it reminds you a lot of Ken Grimwood's Replay, because in the end they are both really arguments for existentialism in a way, but because of the way they are written, it also turns out that large portions of them aren't strictly necessary, which is ok as long as you are enjoying them, but sometimes you do not.
You look up the author on the internet and realize this is his first novel, and he usually writes short fiction. And you are not surprised because a lot of this book, which is told in four or five different voices, feels like short stories strung together into a novel. And you tend not to heart short stories because you waffle in your attention to them sometimes, but here you keep plowing through because it really is a novel. But still, there are these large sections which are basically anecdotes from the past, often for characters who don't really matter to the narrative, never mind what the title is shouting at you. So you enjoy reading about the stoic father's experiences in Vietnam but find the section on preteen cocaine addition somewhat tiring, not to mention the weird torture and interrogation scene toward the end there.
In the end the author tires to convince you that all of the parts of the book you found boring or implausible really did matter in a "what if you went back in time and stepped on a butterfly (or didn't?)" kind of way. But you aren't really buying it, mostly because by that point, especially after the last 50 pages were entirely in second person (I mean really, even this review is annoying you), you were hoping for something a little more original instead of exactly what the title suggested the end would be.
But then you remember the book did keep you engaged for the most part and even when the characters were frustrating they were well drawn and there was some very clever writing, like "her silhouette thin as god's alibi," and the ending gave you a robin's egg-sized lump in your throat even though you found the very same thing so annoying when you netflixed that terrible, terrible Nicholas Cage movie that time. So you give it 3.5 stars. Because that matters too!
No, probably that does not matter.
August 9, 2012
I would like, if I may be so bold, to try a revolutionary new rating system for this particular book. Since the novel I'm reviewing is divided into three distinct "Parts," I would like to rate each of these individual parts separately (!!!!!!!).
This isn't just because I'm bored of giving a book only one rating (though, truth be told, I am sort of bored of doing that) but because I had very different reactions to each of the three sections.
So here goes:
PART 1 -- RATING: 4 Stars
It's hard not to get directly on board with the beginning of this book. It starts with a first personal plural voice from some kind of God Consciousness/Choral Voice Of The Multiverse. And this voice is all knowing. It is articulate, caring, and slyly funny. Also this voice is speaking to our narrator, Junior Thibodeaux, when he is fetus, just chillin in his mom. And it is speaking to him about the end of the world, which is coming in thirty-six years via one big-ass comet.
For a good long time after these initial revelations, delivered with a serious acrobatic use of POV I might add, I was pretty drunk on the premise of this book and thus willing to follow it through the significantly less mind-expanding worlds of our narrator's coming of age story. It helped, however, that Currie Jr. was at his best with the young Thibodeaux. A love-at-first-sight moment set against the Challenger disaster was masterfully staged. And the early family life of Junior came across believably, if a little heavily weighted toward substance abuse and some familiar "dysfunctions."
On the whole, though, the opening section dazzled with the revelation of its main conceit, it found a solid pace, and it presented the Thibodeauxs in a way that felt just realist enough to keep me emotionally involved in the prospect of comet-based catastrophe to come.
Then...
PART 2 -- RATING: 2 Stars
The dreaded dip.
It's rare to find a novel that doesn't sag a bit around the mid-section. They're all a bit like gym teachers in that way. But, even though I stayed interested in Junior's existential growth in the face of his knowledge in Part 2, I also could have used some less repetitive and slightly far-fetched examples of his "what's-the-effing-point" phase. And the major developments in his life (He's now an expert on the comet! He has the ability to cure cancer!) felt like they were all supposed to be explained simply by the fact that he was in the Gifted and Talented program in Part 1 (oh, and also the God/multiverse voice provides a few cheat codes every now and again). By the end of this section, I found myself hoping the comet might land sooner than expected.
But then...
PART 3 -- RATING: 5 Stars
Greatness. Pure greatness. Like sugar to the veins.
I'm going to resist the powerful urge to spoil and spoil again, but I won't. I won't spoil! I'll just say that Currie Jr. found a way to end his book that not only gave it twice as much depth, but that also completely confounded and satisfied me at the same time. The God/Other Thing voice plays a big part in this. And all of the big philosophical ideas surrounding our eminent demise finally came to feel visceral and resonant. Of course, it was easy to read the book all the way as just an exaggerated version of the holy-shit-I'm-going-to-die-someday-no-matter-what-so-why-does-anything-matter-at-all condition that affects everyone at some point (or constantly...). But oddly enough, it wasn't until the right combination of human drama and the possible end of everything arrived that I felt this keenly. Yet, when I did, it was a glorious surrender to the fictional moment.
I really imagined what it might be like to stare down the void, and it was comforting in a way that the best fiction should aspire to. It wasn't falsely comforting like the way I used to feel in Sunday School. And it wasn't indulgent despairing like the way I used to feel in high school. It was just a cogent moment of humbling realization, and even when the sentiments of the title come swooping in at just the right time, I couldn't resist them. In fact, I was ready to believe them.
This isn't just because I'm bored of giving a book only one rating (though, truth be told, I am sort of bored of doing that) but because I had very different reactions to each of the three sections.
So here goes:
PART 1 -- RATING: 4 Stars
It's hard not to get directly on board with the beginning of this book. It starts with a first personal plural voice from some kind of God Consciousness/Choral Voice Of The Multiverse. And this voice is all knowing. It is articulate, caring, and slyly funny. Also this voice is speaking to our narrator, Junior Thibodeaux, when he is fetus, just chillin in his mom. And it is speaking to him about the end of the world, which is coming in thirty-six years via one big-ass comet.
For a good long time after these initial revelations, delivered with a serious acrobatic use of POV I might add, I was pretty drunk on the premise of this book and thus willing to follow it through the significantly less mind-expanding worlds of our narrator's coming of age story. It helped, however, that Currie Jr. was at his best with the young Thibodeaux. A love-at-first-sight moment set against the Challenger disaster was masterfully staged. And the early family life of Junior came across believably, if a little heavily weighted toward substance abuse and some familiar "dysfunctions."
On the whole, though, the opening section dazzled with the revelation of its main conceit, it found a solid pace, and it presented the Thibodeauxs in a way that felt just realist enough to keep me emotionally involved in the prospect of comet-based catastrophe to come.
Then...
PART 2 -- RATING: 2 Stars
The dreaded dip.
It's rare to find a novel that doesn't sag a bit around the mid-section. They're all a bit like gym teachers in that way. But, even though I stayed interested in Junior's existential growth in the face of his knowledge in Part 2, I also could have used some less repetitive and slightly far-fetched examples of his "what's-the-effing-point" phase. And the major developments in his life (He's now an expert on the comet! He has the ability to cure cancer!) felt like they were all supposed to be explained simply by the fact that he was in the Gifted and Talented program in Part 1 (oh, and also the God/multiverse voice provides a few cheat codes every now and again). By the end of this section, I found myself hoping the comet might land sooner than expected.
But then...
PART 3 -- RATING: 5 Stars
Greatness. Pure greatness. Like sugar to the veins.
I'm going to resist the powerful urge to spoil and spoil again, but I won't. I won't spoil! I'll just say that Currie Jr. found a way to end his book that not only gave it twice as much depth, but that also completely confounded and satisfied me at the same time. The God/Other Thing voice plays a big part in this. And all of the big philosophical ideas surrounding our eminent demise finally came to feel visceral and resonant. Of course, it was easy to read the book all the way as just an exaggerated version of the holy-shit-I'm-going-to-die-someday-no-matter-what-so-why-does-anything-matter-at-all condition that affects everyone at some point (or constantly...). But oddly enough, it wasn't until the right combination of human drama and the possible end of everything arrived that I felt this keenly. Yet, when I did, it was a glorious surrender to the fictional moment.
I really imagined what it might be like to stare down the void, and it was comforting in a way that the best fiction should aspire to. It wasn't falsely comforting like the way I used to feel in Sunday School. And it wasn't indulgent despairing like the way I used to feel in high school. It was just a cogent moment of humbling realization, and even when the sentiments of the title come swooping in at just the right time, I couldn't resist them. In fact, I was ready to believe them.
December 17, 2022
"But I'm afraid to move, convinced that everything going forward hinges on this moment, that whatever we become, or fail to become, is entirely dependent on what happens in the next few seconds. And I'm paralyzed by the fear that I'll screw it up." (99)
If you can relate, you may enjoy this book.
3.5 stars. Above average overall but missing a certain oomph to get these ideas up and flying. The book is like a neatly wrapped package that turns out to be mostly empty inside, fluffed up with more packing peanuts than product.
If you can relate, you may enjoy this book.
3.5 stars. Above average overall but missing a certain oomph to get these ideas up and flying. The book is like a neatly wrapped package that turns out to be mostly empty inside, fluffed up with more packing peanuts than product.
July 13, 2009
I worried through the entirety of my pregnancy. How, I fretted, could I bring a child into this world? How could I protect him? What did he have to look forward to but melting ice caps, tsunamis, wild fires, genocide, floods, hurricanes, drought, war, war, war, serial killers, crazed gunmen in schools, bullies, etc. Now that I am a parent, I realize I can't protect him from these things. I can only protect him from what I can control, and even then I am often left powerless.
We will do as we wish, we humans.
Ron Currie's daring, humorous, poignant, heart-wrenching, and, ultimately, joyful second novel, Everything Matters! also addresses the question of how can one bring a child into a troubled world. Most importantly, though, it follows the life of Junior, who not only knows how he will end, but knows how the world will end as well.
It is from there, his foreknowledge, that we witness the choices he makes in his life--when does he choose to give up and when does he choose to push beyond his limits. When does he choose to live and accept all of the beauty that life has to offer him even though he knows it will one day be taken away.
Yes, on the surface this is a book about mass destruction, but it's not about hopelessness. Rather, it's about what we wake up and choose to do each day--put one foot ahead of the other and move forward even though we know that one day we will cease to be. We are all brave to live, to choose to live.
Some books you read to be entertained, others to learn something, and some you read to change your life. Everything Matters! was all of these books for me. I finished it just as my two-year-old was waking up from his nap. I was crying as I picked him up from his crib, not because I was sad, but because I was so happy and grateful that he was alive in this beautiful world where everything matters.
We will do as we wish, we humans.
Ron Currie's daring, humorous, poignant, heart-wrenching, and, ultimately, joyful second novel, Everything Matters! also addresses the question of how can one bring a child into a troubled world. Most importantly, though, it follows the life of Junior, who not only knows how he will end, but knows how the world will end as well.
It is from there, his foreknowledge, that we witness the choices he makes in his life--when does he choose to give up and when does he choose to push beyond his limits. When does he choose to live and accept all of the beauty that life has to offer him even though he knows it will one day be taken away.
Yes, on the surface this is a book about mass destruction, but it's not about hopelessness. Rather, it's about what we wake up and choose to do each day--put one foot ahead of the other and move forward even though we know that one day we will cease to be. We are all brave to live, to choose to live.
Some books you read to be entertained, others to learn something, and some you read to change your life. Everything Matters! was all of these books for me. I finished it just as my two-year-old was waking up from his nap. I was crying as I picked him up from his crib, not because I was sad, but because I was so happy and grateful that he was alive in this beautiful world where everything matters.
December 17, 2013
I feel like the author is trying to say something really meaningful here about living life to its fullest and resigning yourself to your fate rather than moaning about the shitty hand life has dealt you or whatever. But it all falls apart when he introduces time travel, nonsensical conspiracy theory, terrorist plots, an unhealthy obsession with baseball, and all sorts of totally groan-worthy nonsensical plot twists. Every character in the book is not just talented and amazing, they are THE MOST TALENTED AND AMAZING PEOPLE in their given field. The brother is the most amazing baseball player, the main character is the smartest person, the dad is just an all around great guy (who has anger issues, but it only shows up when he's mad at someone we root for him to beat up). Every character has to have some extreme trauma in their past. The writing blurs the line between engaging and self-indulgent mess, and ultimately falls hard into the latter category. Seriously, at the halfway mark this book falls apart to such an extreme degree that it's like the author suddenly had a stroke or something. What a massive pile of garbage this book ends up being.
July 27, 2017
Everything Matters! serenaded me with an indifferent mediocrity. I hated it. This was yet another novel that had an exceptional premise, but it just didn't deliver on any creative front for me. Come to think of it, this would be a perfect doubleheader of torture alongside the bloated Welcome to Night Vale. That is, if you're a masochist. And the deadpan narration throughout EM! blew chunks. I was terribly bored the entire time and only completed it since I foolishly enacted a do-not-DNF rule on myself for this calendar year. The bright side is that it's now over, and I can move on to something much better—hopefully!
P.S. Baseball isn't all that interesting...even while watching it in real life, let alone imagining it inside speculative fiction. Just sayin' (typing).
P.S. Baseball isn't all that interesting...even while watching it in real life, let alone imagining it inside speculative fiction. Just sayin' (typing).
June 8, 2019
For a book to be enjoyable, the plot needs to have a certain amount of continuity in its progression. Things do not just happen in real life and the art of writing should imitate life. The lack of continuity is a significant problem with Everything Matters! The constantly shifting perspective from which the story is assembled hinders the development of characters and dices up the flow of time. The resulting experience was like watching a play comprised of multiple acts and intermissions. With each chapter, the stage lights would come on and then fade out, and every act opened with a new set.
The story itself, when you are able to approach it during some of the longer chapters, is another rendition of the end of the world. However, it’s also filled with pointless scenes and the end of the book was equally pointless with undertones of nonsense. These scenes did nothing to answer the philosophical question that this book pretends to ask: what matters? And while it may be cute to respond with Everything Matters! In fact, nothing matters when Ron Currie fails to make his readers care.
The story itself, when you are able to approach it during some of the longer chapters, is another rendition of the end of the world. However, it’s also filled with pointless scenes and the end of the book was equally pointless with undertones of nonsense. These scenes did nothing to answer the philosophical question that this book pretends to ask: what matters? And while it may be cute to respond with Everything Matters! In fact, nothing matters when Ron Currie fails to make his readers care.
June 23, 2012
1st Awesome Thing About This Book: There is an exclamation point in the title.
2nd Awesome Thing About This Book: Everything else (!)
I feel like I really did a disservice to this book by not reviewing it immediately after I finished it. But, as it stands, I’m about eight reviews behind right now, so there you have it. This book, like so many I’ve reviewed this year, was a gift from my husband and I guess he knows me well, because I loved it. This was my first foray into Ron Currie Jr.’s world and I’ll definitely be checking out his first novel (God is Dead) as a result. Seriously, read this book.
Everything Matters! is the story of one extraordinarily ordinary human named Junior Thibodeau, who has been given a special gift (?). From birth, Junior is aware that a catastrophic event will take place when he’s 36, effectively ending all human life on Earth.
Bummer for him, right?
The book follows him throughout his entire life as he struggles with this knowledge and tries to come to terms with it, all on his own (for the most part), and how this knowledge affects who he is, who he will become, and his relationship with his family, friends, and other assorted loved ones.
This book is more than an end of the world novel. Currie effectively creates an entire world inside Junior’s family unit, a world that becomes much more important to the reader than the fact that the planet is going to be destroyed at a specific point in Junior’s story. I grew exceedingly attached to everyone the story introduced me to. While Junior is the main focus, Currie gives little glimpses into the other characters that make the entire thing all the more heartbreaking.
I would like to touch a bit on the prose here, something I’ll admit I neglect to mention in most reviews unless it’s abysmal (which is unfair), but Currie’s writing is beautiful. Remember when you’d have to read a book for school and would immediately look to see how smooshed together the print was on the pages and would groan if it was too text heavy or there were hardly any paragraph breaks? This would be like medium threat level (midnight) in that department, but I never noticed because of how caught up I was in the story, which is a huge testament to the writing.
To say anything more about the actual plot would rob you of the experience, so I’m going to stop talking now, as hard as that is for me. But I will say again, please check out this novel. I was instantly hooked, which hardly ever happens, and remained enthralled as I read it, having absolutely no idea where the story was going to go, or even where I WANTED it to go. And as I finished the book, my chest getting heavier as I got closer to the end, I was completely satisfied, though heartbroken. I love it when a book breaks my heart. This will be one I read again, which is really the highest praise I can offer.
2nd Awesome Thing About This Book: Everything else (!)
I feel like I really did a disservice to this book by not reviewing it immediately after I finished it. But, as it stands, I’m about eight reviews behind right now, so there you have it. This book, like so many I’ve reviewed this year, was a gift from my husband and I guess he knows me well, because I loved it. This was my first foray into Ron Currie Jr.’s world and I’ll definitely be checking out his first novel (God is Dead) as a result. Seriously, read this book.
Everything Matters! is the story of one extraordinarily ordinary human named Junior Thibodeau, who has been given a special gift (?). From birth, Junior is aware that a catastrophic event will take place when he’s 36, effectively ending all human life on Earth.
Bummer for him, right?
The book follows him throughout his entire life as he struggles with this knowledge and tries to come to terms with it, all on his own (for the most part), and how this knowledge affects who he is, who he will become, and his relationship with his family, friends, and other assorted loved ones.
This book is more than an end of the world novel. Currie effectively creates an entire world inside Junior’s family unit, a world that becomes much more important to the reader than the fact that the planet is going to be destroyed at a specific point in Junior’s story. I grew exceedingly attached to everyone the story introduced me to. While Junior is the main focus, Currie gives little glimpses into the other characters that make the entire thing all the more heartbreaking.
I would like to touch a bit on the prose here, something I’ll admit I neglect to mention in most reviews unless it’s abysmal (which is unfair), but Currie’s writing is beautiful. Remember when you’d have to read a book for school and would immediately look to see how smooshed together the print was on the pages and would groan if it was too text heavy or there were hardly any paragraph breaks? This would be like medium threat level (midnight) in that department, but I never noticed because of how caught up I was in the story, which is a huge testament to the writing.
To say anything more about the actual plot would rob you of the experience, so I’m going to stop talking now, as hard as that is for me. But I will say again, please check out this novel. I was instantly hooked, which hardly ever happens, and remained enthralled as I read it, having absolutely no idea where the story was going to go, or even where I WANTED it to go. And as I finished the book, my chest getting heavier as I got closer to the end, I was completely satisfied, though heartbroken. I love it when a book breaks my heart. This will be one I read again, which is really the highest praise I can offer.
October 6, 2012
Oh boy! Have tissues at the ready.
So, you can find the summary easily enough. A fetus, in utero, learns of the world's impending end, from some outside unknown source, and has to live his life with this knowledge. I don't want to reveal much more but, suffice it to say, it's unique in its premise and intriguing. I loved it.
The book is written in two formats-one in the omniscent third person-religious people may believe it's God or a god (I thought it was some alien life form)-and the other is this first person narrative, alternating between various characters. All is told chronologically. I loved the style. It kept the novel moving and felt unique.
However, I won't lie. I did find some passages tedious, wishing to move on to find out what happened to other characters. And if you get the gist of the book-you'll realize that EVERYTHING MATTERS, every character, every passage, every choice. It's difficult to accept our mortality but, given that we can't change it, we have to accept and enjoy this one life. This book makes sure you get this reminder if you needed one. It was really emotional and difficult for me to read the cancer passages (my grandfather and uncle passed away from cancer) but it was life, the circle of it.
Anyway, my favorite lines:
"Pick a self. Any self."
"...with infinte choices comes the potential for infinite happiness."
"Everything ends, and Everything matters. Everything matters not in spite of the end of you and all that you love, but because of it. Everythying is all you've got...and after Everything is nothing. So you were wise to welcome Everything, the good and the bad alike, and cling to it all. Gather it in. Seek the meaning in sorrow and don't ever ever turn away, not once, from here until the end. Because it is all the same, it is all unfathomable, and it is all infinitely preferable to the one dreadful alternative."
"And knowing that the only alternative to your grief is the nothingness that's fast approaching, you try to embrace your own sorrow, to be open and empty and let it all pass through you. This is the key, you have learned-to relinquish control, to relinquish the desire for control."
"...that there is no escape and never war, that from the moment two cells combined to become one they were doomed. You wish they [people] understood that there is joy in this fact, greater joy and love in just this one last moment than they experienced in the entirety of their lives...Because even in this last moment there is still Everything, whole galaxies and eons, the sum total of every experience across time...anything, anything, anything is possible."
Thanks Universe and Ron Currie Jr. for the little reminder. :)
So, you can find the summary easily enough. A fetus, in utero, learns of the world's impending end, from some outside unknown source, and has to live his life with this knowledge. I don't want to reveal much more but, suffice it to say, it's unique in its premise and intriguing. I loved it.
The book is written in two formats-one in the omniscent third person-religious people may believe it's God or a god (I thought it was some alien life form)-and the other is this first person narrative, alternating between various characters. All is told chronologically. I loved the style. It kept the novel moving and felt unique.
However, I won't lie. I did find some passages tedious, wishing to move on to find out what happened to other characters. And if you get the gist of the book-you'll realize that EVERYTHING MATTERS, every character, every passage, every choice. It's difficult to accept our mortality but, given that we can't change it, we have to accept and enjoy this one life. This book makes sure you get this reminder if you needed one. It was really emotional and difficult for me to read the cancer passages (my grandfather and uncle passed away from cancer) but it was life, the circle of it.
Anyway, my favorite lines:
"Pick a self. Any self."
"...with infinte choices comes the potential for infinite happiness."
"Everything ends, and Everything matters. Everything matters not in spite of the end of you and all that you love, but because of it. Everythying is all you've got...and after Everything is nothing. So you were wise to welcome Everything, the good and the bad alike, and cling to it all. Gather it in. Seek the meaning in sorrow and don't ever ever turn away, not once, from here until the end. Because it is all the same, it is all unfathomable, and it is all infinitely preferable to the one dreadful alternative."
"And knowing that the only alternative to your grief is the nothingness that's fast approaching, you try to embrace your own sorrow, to be open and empty and let it all pass through you. This is the key, you have learned-to relinquish control, to relinquish the desire for control."
"...that there is no escape and never war, that from the moment two cells combined to become one they were doomed. You wish they [people] understood that there is joy in this fact, greater joy and love in just this one last moment than they experienced in the entirety of their lives...Because even in this last moment there is still Everything, whole galaxies and eons, the sum total of every experience across time...anything, anything, anything is possible."
Thanks Universe and Ron Currie Jr. for the little reminder. :)
November 18, 2009
Some good writing and an interesting experiment, but the book ultimately fails. The book begins with the premise that a man, from in utero forward, knows the exact moment and cause of the end of human life on earth. Talked to constantly by an inner voice, his life is informed by this ongoing chatterbox. It's not a conversation since he never talks back or engages with the voice. It's less "God" or alien and more the on-going "monkey mind" we all have: hopping around, chastising us about our choices as we make them, reminding us of every self-destructive tendency, warning us of consequences.
The boy/man is a genius and in the first version of his story he is a self-destructive, asocial genius who figures out a way to save the world while completely destroying his own familial ties and personal development: a life lived under the premise that "nothing matters." At the last possible second before the destruction of human kind, he's offered a choice to jump into a different dimension and live his life all over again. This time he choses to keep his essential nature and "gift" to himself and not intervene in saving human kind. His payoff is he gets to live normally with his childhood sweetheart turned wife, child, and family. A world in which "everything matters," but little is accomplished.
The novel is really a re-tread of an old moral argument: will you chose personal fulfillment (in a macro worled) of your genius or gift at any cost? Or will you choose a more modest existence that leaves you fully engaged in a nuclear family (in a micro world), but ignore your gift and its contributions to greater humanity?
This has always been a false choice. There is significant geography that exists between "nothing matters" and "everything matters." Ultimately, this book is disappointing in that it reiterates in a very dramatic scenario (save the world or die with your family!) an old hackneyed choice without advancing understanding.
The boy/man is a genius and in the first version of his story he is a self-destructive, asocial genius who figures out a way to save the world while completely destroying his own familial ties and personal development: a life lived under the premise that "nothing matters." At the last possible second before the destruction of human kind, he's offered a choice to jump into a different dimension and live his life all over again. This time he choses to keep his essential nature and "gift" to himself and not intervene in saving human kind. His payoff is he gets to live normally with his childhood sweetheart turned wife, child, and family. A world in which "everything matters," but little is accomplished.
The novel is really a re-tread of an old moral argument: will you chose personal fulfillment (in a macro worled) of your genius or gift at any cost? Or will you choose a more modest existence that leaves you fully engaged in a nuclear family (in a micro world), but ignore your gift and its contributions to greater humanity?
This has always been a false choice. There is significant geography that exists between "nothing matters" and "everything matters." Ultimately, this book is disappointing in that it reiterates in a very dramatic scenario (save the world or die with your family!) an old hackneyed choice without advancing understanding.
May 7, 2013
Everything ends, and Everything matters.
This book spoke to me for many reasons, one of which happens to be my unyielding fascination with inevitable trauma, both in real life and in fiction. What really gets me emotional and endeared to an idea, a story, a way of life are the endings, the last times, the finality of people, places, things. Endings are always traumatic for me and I can't always explain why, and obviously this book is about the end of the Earth so I was destined to be traumatized, and there were definitely moments where I was.
But even with as much pain as there is in endings, there deep inside that pain lingers an importance and purpose that I find that keeps me coming back to be traumatized all over again. What I learn about the world, the craft, and myself. How happy it makes me that I am able to feel that sad. Because to feel truly sad you first have to feel truly happy, and I'll be damned if that isn't the most beautiful thing there is.
This book spoke to me for many reasons, one of which happens to be my unyielding fascination with inevitable trauma, both in real life and in fiction. What really gets me emotional and endeared to an idea, a story, a way of life are the endings, the last times, the finality of people, places, things. Endings are always traumatic for me and I can't always explain why, and obviously this book is about the end of the Earth so I was destined to be traumatized, and there were definitely moments where I was.
But even with as much pain as there is in endings, there deep inside that pain lingers an importance and purpose that I find that keeps me coming back to be traumatized all over again. What I learn about the world, the craft, and myself. How happy it makes me that I am able to feel that sad. Because to feel truly sad you first have to feel truly happy, and I'll be damned if that isn't the most beautiful thing there is.
September 4, 2010
This is a strange book--interesting premise--Junior, the main character knows from birth that the world will end 36 years after his birth, more or less. How does he live his life? I thought this was the set up for a modern take on Camus' "The Plague" instead it unfolded as one of the weirdest meditations on life and love and family I've encountered. There's a lot that flat out doesn't work and some parts are so ridiculous as to be off-putting (for me the fact that Currie obviously didn't spend a whit of time researching how the MLB Draft works made one subplot irrelevant). Then there's the fact that Currie tacks on an entire alternate ending scenario that should seem like a total cop out. In spite of this, I was engaged throughout the read and found it prompting me to consider big questions and think about how life is best lived.
I can understand why some people would not like this book. I can understand why others love it. It may not be for everyone, but two weeks after finishing it, I find my mind keeps going back to it--for a book, even a flawed one, to get its hooks into me so deeply, it must be doing something right.
I can understand why some people would not like this book. I can understand why others love it. It may not be for everyone, but two weeks after finishing it, I find my mind keeps going back to it--for a book, even a flawed one, to get its hooks into me so deeply, it must be doing something right.
June 16, 2020
Too much hit and miss for my taste. This resulted in some disjointed narrative. One part would be phenomenal and then the next was droll. Thereafter the story was scintillating and then it’d shift to something seemingly unrelated and dull. A roller coaster ride of a book, but the dips were just too low. Collectively just average.
February 4, 2021
the funniest part of this whole book is that when offered the chance to essentially redo his life, the main character goes back to a point in time to stop himself from getting dumped by his girlfriend instead of stopping his 9yr old brother from getting addicted to coke and subsequent brain damage lmao
fairly entertaining (though perhaps not conceptually original and partially contrived), earnestly passionate, and reasonably well written, this is definitely good material to blast through in a day, the kind of thing you pick up at the airport or whatever
3/5 but really more like 7/10
fairly entertaining (though perhaps not conceptually original and partially contrived), earnestly passionate, and reasonably well written, this is definitely good material to blast through in a day, the kind of thing you pick up at the airport or whatever
3/5 but really more like 7/10
October 3, 2012
One and one-half stars; maybe one and three-quarters on a day when I'm feeling magnanimous (which I'm not today).
Few things make me want to cry (and not in a good way) quite so much as a book with a great theme, a decent premise, a pretty good narrative, and awful execution. By that measure, Everything Matters! almost drowned me as the tears filled the bedroom and started reaching my ankles. Ron Currie's thesis here -- over-simply stated, just live your life and stop trying to micromanage everything because capital-L Life is ultimately meaningless, and the law of unintended consequences won't let you get away with it anyway -- is very fine, and in the hands of another author (say, David Mitchell) might have led to a great, or even near-brilliant work.
But Currie doesn't quite seem to know to do with either his theme, his characters, or himself. Everything in the book is so over-determined that my eyes also got stuck in the back of my head from rolling them so hard.
For starters is the really obvious one: the protagonist is named "Junior." Surely there was another way of conveying a fraught father-son relationship without having a protagonist (a supergenius, no less) a grown man who calls himself "Junior"? I mean, really -- is Currie honestly unaware what comes to mind when you present someone with an adult named Junior? Really? He couldn't have accomplished the same thing by naming his character, whose given name is John Thibodeaux, Jr., "Johnny" or "Jack"?
The inevitable conclusion is that Currie simply doesn't think his readers will get it unless they're pounded over the head, hard and repeatedly. It's not altogether clear whether that's because Currie doesn't trust the reader or doesn't trust himself, but whichever reason it is, it results in a book that makes you want to grind your teeth from almost the first page. This flaw afflicts the entire book, and the result is to patronize the reader. It's not enough that Junior (arrrrgh, I hate even typing that) . It's not enough that Junior's brother is a baseball player -- he has to be the greatest baseball player of his time. It's not enough that Junior is a prodigy -- he has to be the 12th (that's an approximation; I don't recall the exact ordinal number and there's no way I'm leafing through this mess of a book to find it) smartest person in the history of mankind and And so forth.
Currie also spends a lot of time painting himself into narrative corners and then wriggling out of the mess he's created by use of a single plot device: Junior is not only a genius, but also omniscient. This plot device would be just fine, I guess, if it weren't for the fact that it comes and goes for no reason other than to advance the plot when Currie has written another check he can't cash. Thus, when it's convenient for Junior to know everything, Junior knows everything, but when it's convenient for Junior know nothing, Junior knows nothing. Nuh-uh. Can't do that. The world of the book can be fantastical, but it has to be consistent.
Making this giant mess worse is that while the book has a strong narrative, the writing itself, with a few short exceptions, just kind of plods along, never achieving anything remotely poetic, beautiful, or even especially interesting. The whole thing comes across as a novella written by a talented 15-year-old who hasn't quite found his voice yet.
This conclusion holds especially true in light of the fact that Currie includes a long aside about how the history of the world might be changed if one character hadn't stepped on a bumble bee. Truly. This passage might be all right in a certain context, particularly if this was a YA book (which I think it wasn't, but frankly, the tone and style made it awfully hard to tell). But the entire passage is presented in a breathless, gee-whiz-isn't-this-clever, I-bet-you-never-thought-of-it-this-way tone that left me unsure whether to burst out laughing or just throw the damn book across the room (ok, I was reading it on a Nook, so that would have been a bad idea, but you know what I'm saying). I mean, it's hard to know how to react, except to note that "A Sound of Thunder" was first published nearly 60 years ago, in 1952. Have things gotten so bad in publishing that the bumble bee passage didn't sound vaguely familiar to anyone reading the manuscript?
Mostly, this book left me annoyed about the waste, the waste, the waste. As I said, there's a strong narrative and good theme (which is the only thing that elevated it over one star for me), but came across as an unfinished work from a writer's workshop where the main goal was to be supportive rather than to actually help someone improve his writing.
Few things make me want to cry (and not in a good way) quite so much as a book with a great theme, a decent premise, a pretty good narrative, and awful execution. By that measure, Everything Matters! almost drowned me as the tears filled the bedroom and started reaching my ankles. Ron Currie's thesis here -- over-simply stated, just live your life and stop trying to micromanage everything because capital-L Life is ultimately meaningless, and the law of unintended consequences won't let you get away with it anyway -- is very fine, and in the hands of another author (say, David Mitchell) might have led to a great, or even near-brilliant work.
But Currie doesn't quite seem to know to do with either his theme, his characters, or himself. Everything in the book is so over-determined that my eyes also got stuck in the back of my head from rolling them so hard.
For starters is the really obvious one: the protagonist is named "Junior." Surely there was another way of conveying a fraught father-son relationship without having a protagonist (a supergenius, no less) a grown man who calls himself "Junior"? I mean, really -- is Currie honestly unaware what comes to mind when you present someone with an adult named Junior? Really? He couldn't have accomplished the same thing by naming his character, whose given name is John Thibodeaux, Jr., "Johnny" or "Jack"?
The inevitable conclusion is that Currie simply doesn't think his readers will get it unless they're pounded over the head, hard and repeatedly. It's not altogether clear whether that's because Currie doesn't trust the reader or doesn't trust himself, but whichever reason it is, it results in a book that makes you want to grind your teeth from almost the first page. This flaw afflicts the entire book, and the result is to patronize the reader. It's not enough that Junior (arrrrgh, I hate even typing that) . It's not enough that Junior's brother is a baseball player -- he has to be the greatest baseball player of his time. It's not enough that Junior is a prodigy -- he has to be the 12th (that's an approximation; I don't recall the exact ordinal number and there's no way I'm leafing through this mess of a book to find it) smartest person in the history of mankind and And so forth.
Currie also spends a lot of time painting himself into narrative corners and then wriggling out of the mess he's created by use of a single plot device: Junior is not only a genius, but also omniscient. This plot device would be just fine, I guess, if it weren't for the fact that it comes and goes for no reason other than to advance the plot when Currie has written another check he can't cash. Thus, when it's convenient for Junior to know everything, Junior knows everything, but when it's convenient for Junior know nothing, Junior knows nothing. Nuh-uh. Can't do that. The world of the book can be fantastical, but it has to be consistent.
Making this giant mess worse is that while the book has a strong narrative, the writing itself, with a few short exceptions, just kind of plods along, never achieving anything remotely poetic, beautiful, or even especially interesting. The whole thing comes across as a novella written by a talented 15-year-old who hasn't quite found his voice yet.
This conclusion holds especially true in light of the fact that Currie includes a long aside about how the history of the world might be changed if one character hadn't stepped on a bumble bee. Truly. This passage might be all right in a certain context, particularly if this was a YA book (which I think it wasn't, but frankly, the tone and style made it awfully hard to tell). But the entire passage is presented in a breathless, gee-whiz-isn't-this-clever, I-bet-you-never-thought-of-it-this-way tone that left me unsure whether to burst out laughing or just throw the damn book across the room (ok, I was reading it on a Nook, so that would have been a bad idea, but you know what I'm saying). I mean, it's hard to know how to react, except to note that "A Sound of Thunder" was first published nearly 60 years ago, in 1952. Have things gotten so bad in publishing that the bumble bee passage didn't sound vaguely familiar to anyone reading the manuscript?
Mostly, this book left me annoyed about the waste, the waste, the waste. As I said, there's a strong narrative and good theme (which is the only thing that elevated it over one star for me), but came across as an unfinished work from a writer's workshop where the main goal was to be supportive rather than to actually help someone improve his writing.
March 12, 2011
Ron Currie Jr. would probably take umbrage with a Bud Light commercial making the rounds these days. In it, scientists spot a meteor heading toward Earth, realize that death is imminent, and commence partying as if nothing matters anymore. But Currie takes a rather unconventional route toward trying to convince you that, even when you know you're going to die, everything in fact, DOES matter.
When our protagonist, Junior Thibodeau, is born, a mysterious voice, which stays with him his entire life, informs him the exact moment the world will end. A comet will crash into the planet on June 15, 2010 at 3:44 pm EST, approximately 36 years from the day he's born. So Junior has to go through life trying to make meaning out of a seemingly purposeless existence, or as he says at a particularly low point of his adulthood, "...life has never been any great f#$%ing shakes in my opinion. In fact, it's always seemed a messy and heartbreaking and overall pointless affair."
Will Junior ever change his mind? I kept hoping so, and that's why I couldn't stop reading. Everything Matters! is a novel about discovering the pleasures of life, the importance of love, and capitalizing on opportunities. Look, death is a part of life, Currie would say. We all know we're going to die. Whether we know exactly when doesn't matter. What does is that for life to fulfilling, to matter, we must find our own paths toward life's meaning. So, carpe diem!
The story is told though a cadre of shifting narrators — Junior himself, his family and his girlfriend Amy, and the Voices Junior hears, which tell their sections to Junior ("We should tell you at this point," eg.) in a numbered countdown to Comet Day. We see Junior come of age, struggle with alcoholism and heartbreak, and generally try to make meaning of his life.
The pleasures of this novel are two-fold: the characters and the writing. The characters: Junior's brother, recovering from a teenage cocaine addiction, which rendered him, um, simple-minded, plays baseball for the Cubs. His mother is an alcoholic and his father a workaholic. And, addition to the fact that he hears the Voices, Junior himself is also the 4th smartest person on the planet, according to the Voices. But he's still a normal, easily recognizable dude, as are all these flawed-but-real characters.
Secondly, Currie is a fabulously talented, fun-to-read writer. At one point, writing about Junior and his classmates watching the Challenger explosion, he describes the booster rockets that "...fly wildly away...tracing slow, chunky vapor trails, like illiterate skywriters." I got chills. What an image!
But beyond a sentence-by-sentence basis, the inventive structure of the novel — the different narrators, the omniscient Voices counting down section-by-section to doomsday — gives a well-rounded perspective on Junior and the events of the story. The fact that other characters tell their own stories in the first person also lends a bit more realism to the novel, lest you're turned off by the narrative gimmick of the Voices telling us what's happening to Junior. And, finally, the structure works and is necessary because Junior is often so jilted and misanthropic that the multiple narrators bring much-needed reliability and trust to the story. They also provide some essential levity. If we only heard Junior's story, most readers would stop after page 75, depressed and frustrated.
The only major problem I had with the book is that just after I understood the point, and was kind of in awe of Currie's writerly prowess and looking forward to a great, profound ending, Currie turns to a sort of silly narrative trick. It made me wonder if Currie's editor didn't request another 50 or so pages to beef up the book a bit. But I don't want to dissuade you from reading this great book. The good far outweighs the bad, and the uplifting message makes it a fine book for anyone who has ever struggled to understand what it all means.
(Two other reasons I loved this novel, that I'm putting down here because most readers of this review probably won't care: 1) Currie includes a hilarious inside joke intended solely for sports geeks: Junior's older brother Rodney plays for the Cubs, and in one the sections Rodney narrates, he explains that he has to use a fake name to check into hotels to avoid stalkers. That fake name: Ron Mexico, which is also the fake name Michael Vick used when he checked into hotels. 2) There's a homage to David Foster Wallace's short story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men — a conversation between Junior's brother Rodney and a therapist in which we only get to read Rodney's side of the conversation. Don't worry, if this post-modern strategy isn't your cup of tea, it's only a few pages and doesn't distract from the main story at all.)
When our protagonist, Junior Thibodeau, is born, a mysterious voice, which stays with him his entire life, informs him the exact moment the world will end. A comet will crash into the planet on June 15, 2010 at 3:44 pm EST, approximately 36 years from the day he's born. So Junior has to go through life trying to make meaning out of a seemingly purposeless existence, or as he says at a particularly low point of his adulthood, "...life has never been any great f#$%ing shakes in my opinion. In fact, it's always seemed a messy and heartbreaking and overall pointless affair."
Will Junior ever change his mind? I kept hoping so, and that's why I couldn't stop reading. Everything Matters! is a novel about discovering the pleasures of life, the importance of love, and capitalizing on opportunities. Look, death is a part of life, Currie would say. We all know we're going to die. Whether we know exactly when doesn't matter. What does is that for life to fulfilling, to matter, we must find our own paths toward life's meaning. So, carpe diem!
The story is told though a cadre of shifting narrators — Junior himself, his family and his girlfriend Amy, and the Voices Junior hears, which tell their sections to Junior ("We should tell you at this point," eg.) in a numbered countdown to Comet Day. We see Junior come of age, struggle with alcoholism and heartbreak, and generally try to make meaning of his life.
The pleasures of this novel are two-fold: the characters and the writing. The characters: Junior's brother, recovering from a teenage cocaine addiction, which rendered him, um, simple-minded, plays baseball for the Cubs. His mother is an alcoholic and his father a workaholic. And, addition to the fact that he hears the Voices, Junior himself is also the 4th smartest person on the planet, according to the Voices. But he's still a normal, easily recognizable dude, as are all these flawed-but-real characters.
Secondly, Currie is a fabulously talented, fun-to-read writer. At one point, writing about Junior and his classmates watching the Challenger explosion, he describes the booster rockets that "...fly wildly away...tracing slow, chunky vapor trails, like illiterate skywriters." I got chills. What an image!
But beyond a sentence-by-sentence basis, the inventive structure of the novel — the different narrators, the omniscient Voices counting down section-by-section to doomsday — gives a well-rounded perspective on Junior and the events of the story. The fact that other characters tell their own stories in the first person also lends a bit more realism to the novel, lest you're turned off by the narrative gimmick of the Voices telling us what's happening to Junior. And, finally, the structure works and is necessary because Junior is often so jilted and misanthropic that the multiple narrators bring much-needed reliability and trust to the story. They also provide some essential levity. If we only heard Junior's story, most readers would stop after page 75, depressed and frustrated.
The only major problem I had with the book is that just after I understood the point, and was kind of in awe of Currie's writerly prowess and looking forward to a great, profound ending, Currie turns to a sort of silly narrative trick. It made me wonder if Currie's editor didn't request another 50 or so pages to beef up the book a bit. But I don't want to dissuade you from reading this great book. The good far outweighs the bad, and the uplifting message makes it a fine book for anyone who has ever struggled to understand what it all means.
(Two other reasons I loved this novel, that I'm putting down here because most readers of this review probably won't care: 1) Currie includes a hilarious inside joke intended solely for sports geeks: Junior's older brother Rodney plays for the Cubs, and in one the sections Rodney narrates, he explains that he has to use a fake name to check into hotels to avoid stalkers. That fake name: Ron Mexico, which is also the fake name Michael Vick used when he checked into hotels. 2) There's a homage to David Foster Wallace's short story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men — a conversation between Junior's brother Rodney and a therapist in which we only get to read Rodney's side of the conversation. Don't worry, if this post-modern strategy isn't your cup of tea, it's only a few pages and doesn't distract from the main story at all.)
September 8, 2010
This book came as a recommendation from the sages at Amazon.com. After analyzing my browsing and purchasing history, they decided this book would be right up my alley. I was definitely intrigued by the synopsis, which states that the book's protagonist knows the exact date of the end of the world. With such a premise, the possibilities, both thematic and philosophical, would be plentiful and surely intriguing.
You'd think, right?
Unfortunately, this novel is all style and shockingly little substance. What is consistent with expectations is the establishment of Junior, our protagonist, as someone who hears a narrative voice in his head, one that tells him everything from details about the people around him to the date of a comet's extinction-level collision with Earth. From where exactly this "voice" comes is up to interpretation - aliens, God, schizophrenia, etc.
So where does author Ron Currie Jr. take us with this? After introducing readers to a family that has more dysfunction than charm, he simply tells us odd, seemingly random and loose stories about each character, switching narrative voice, jumping over significant swaths of time. I felt like I had to play catch-up at the beginning of every chapter and not in the fun, detective sense. To make matters worse, very few of the characters are likable and those who are don't affect the plot, or lack thereof.
And what about the looming doomsday prophecy? With the exception of Junior's decision to somehow try and stop this event from happening, it doesn't permeate the story with enough frequency to remind us of its inevitability. Is it unfair of me to demand that a novel whose first five pages shock us by placing a specific end to civilization follow-up such soothsaying by making its plot relevant to it? It isn't until the novel's denouement that the characters actually begin reflecting on the implications of extinction, meanwhile I'm rolling my eyes thinking, it's about time.
Finally, I didn't enjoy the ending whatsoever. I couldn't help but wonder if Currie had recently seen Spielberg's "A.I." because the novel ends by shoehorning a parallel "What If" that is clichéd in its attempt to wax philosophical and completely absolves the plot of any consequence. However, for all my complaints, the novel had an interesting, if not risky style that occasionally pays off and for that, I didn't hate it.
You'd think, right?
Unfortunately, this novel is all style and shockingly little substance. What is consistent with expectations is the establishment of Junior, our protagonist, as someone who hears a narrative voice in his head, one that tells him everything from details about the people around him to the date of a comet's extinction-level collision with Earth. From where exactly this "voice" comes is up to interpretation - aliens, God, schizophrenia, etc.
So where does author Ron Currie Jr. take us with this? After introducing readers to a family that has more dysfunction than charm, he simply tells us odd, seemingly random and loose stories about each character, switching narrative voice, jumping over significant swaths of time. I felt like I had to play catch-up at the beginning of every chapter and not in the fun, detective sense. To make matters worse, very few of the characters are likable and those who are don't affect the plot, or lack thereof.
And what about the looming doomsday prophecy? With the exception of Junior's decision to somehow try and stop this event from happening, it doesn't permeate the story with enough frequency to remind us of its inevitability. Is it unfair of me to demand that a novel whose first five pages shock us by placing a specific end to civilization follow-up such soothsaying by making its plot relevant to it? It isn't until the novel's denouement that the characters actually begin reflecting on the implications of extinction, meanwhile I'm rolling my eyes thinking, it's about time.
Finally, I didn't enjoy the ending whatsoever. I couldn't help but wonder if Currie had recently seen Spielberg's "A.I." because the novel ends by shoehorning a parallel "What If" that is clichéd in its attempt to wax philosophical and completely absolves the plot of any consequence. However, for all my complaints, the novel had an interesting, if not risky style that occasionally pays off and for that, I didn't hate it.
May 30, 2011
everything matters! sucked me in pretty quickly and i ended up finishing it in about three or four days. i have a full-time job, GET OFF MY BACK, GUYS!
this book did feel in many ways like getting hit by a comet. there's so much happening - in the plot, structure and themes - that it was sort of like getting sucked into a whirlwind and then dumped back out with those little cartoon birds and stars floating around your head.
everything matters! starts with the main character in his mother's womb, narrated by some larger presence. from there, the chapters switch narrators pretty frequently and started to remind me of the quick change of scenes in a television sitcom. made it incredibly easy to keep reading and get invested in the plot, so that was amazing.
the larger themes here - the end of the world, true love, the way each thing you do impacts another thing you do - have been explored in books for a long time. but it felt different here - sci-fi didn't feel like sci-fi. they called this book "genre-bending" in one review and i think that's apt. it felt like a collage of a group of people's lives, with the input of that larger presence, building and building until finally this great flash of light hits and boom: here's an ending that will rip your face off and make you cry.
the thing, the thing, the thing: that larger presence narration was so comforting in such a weird way. example:
"one other thing, and we promise after this we really will leave you alone for a bit: please don't allow your sorrow to blind you to the scope of possibilities on offer. you know as well as we do that with infinite choices comes the potential for infinite happiness. if we may be allowed to speak frankly, for the fourth-smartest person in the history of the world, you can be quite stupid at times."
reading enough of that sort of narration made me feel like the universe and all the stars and the sun and the moon and mars were watching me, thinking things, saying stuff like this while i stupidly stumbled forward through life. and probably those things aren't happening. but it was nice to feel that way and i liked this book.
this book did feel in many ways like getting hit by a comet. there's so much happening - in the plot, structure and themes - that it was sort of like getting sucked into a whirlwind and then dumped back out with those little cartoon birds and stars floating around your head.
everything matters! starts with the main character in his mother's womb, narrated by some larger presence. from there, the chapters switch narrators pretty frequently and started to remind me of the quick change of scenes in a television sitcom. made it incredibly easy to keep reading and get invested in the plot, so that was amazing.
the larger themes here - the end of the world, true love, the way each thing you do impacts another thing you do - have been explored in books for a long time. but it felt different here - sci-fi didn't feel like sci-fi. they called this book "genre-bending" in one review and i think that's apt. it felt like a collage of a group of people's lives, with the input of that larger presence, building and building until finally this great flash of light hits and boom: here's an ending that will rip your face off and make you cry.
the thing, the thing, the thing: that larger presence narration was so comforting in such a weird way. example:
"one other thing, and we promise after this we really will leave you alone for a bit: please don't allow your sorrow to blind you to the scope of possibilities on offer. you know as well as we do that with infinite choices comes the potential for infinite happiness. if we may be allowed to speak frankly, for the fourth-smartest person in the history of the world, you can be quite stupid at times."
reading enough of that sort of narration made me feel like the universe and all the stars and the sun and the moon and mars were watching me, thinking things, saying stuff like this while i stupidly stumbled forward through life. and probably those things aren't happening. but it was nice to feel that way and i liked this book.
March 1, 2013
I can't remember the last time a book toed so close to the line between heartrendingly brilliant and just plain cheesy. In the hands of a lesser author this would have been the latter, plain and simple. And while Currie comes dangerously close at times, he always stops short of going over the line to melodramatic cheese. Instead he comes across as a modernist storyteller like Vonnegut - with just enough of a dash of science fiction to allow suspension of disbelief for some of the stranger plot twists and developments.
The novel begins with the central character, "Junior" still in utero, with a disembodied voice (voices?) giving him all sorts of information, including possibly the most important piece of information anyone could ever know - the exact date, time and method of the end of the world. Unfortunately for Junior, this world destroying event is scheduled to occur when he's 36 years old.
Thus the novel's central question is 'born', as it were. When you know exactly what's going to happen and when, what's the point of anything? Does anything really matter? (If you've read the novel's title you can probably guess the answer to this.)
But like life it's the details in between birth and death that really matter, and that's where a great portion of this novel lies - Junior's adventures and misadventures, as well as those of his family & loved ones. (The novel switches between narrators with pretty great effect.)
It's in the middle though, that this novel drags just a bit, and approaches the point where I thought I was watching a Lars von Trier movie instead of reading a novel, things got so damned depressing. But Currie reels things back in from the bring just in time, and ends the novel with a masterful Part 3 conclusion like a gymnast nailing a perfect 10 on a routine that most wouldn't dare attempt. Like I said before, it could have been cheesy to the point of laughter, but I can't really explain it, it just wasn't.
I'd never heard of this guy before a friend loaned me this book, but I'm definitely seeking out anything else of his I can find.
The novel begins with the central character, "Junior" still in utero, with a disembodied voice (voices?) giving him all sorts of information, including possibly the most important piece of information anyone could ever know - the exact date, time and method of the end of the world. Unfortunately for Junior, this world destroying event is scheduled to occur when he's 36 years old.
Thus the novel's central question is 'born', as it were. When you know exactly what's going to happen and when, what's the point of anything? Does anything really matter? (If you've read the novel's title you can probably guess the answer to this.)
But like life it's the details in between birth and death that really matter, and that's where a great portion of this novel lies - Junior's adventures and misadventures, as well as those of his family & loved ones. (The novel switches between narrators with pretty great effect.)
It's in the middle though, that this novel drags just a bit, and approaches the point where I thought I was watching a Lars von Trier movie instead of reading a novel, things got so damned depressing. But Currie reels things back in from the bring just in time, and ends the novel with a masterful Part 3 conclusion like a gymnast nailing a perfect 10 on a routine that most wouldn't dare attempt. Like I said before, it could have been cheesy to the point of laughter, but I can't really explain it, it just wasn't.
I'd never heard of this guy before a friend loaned me this book, but I'm definitely seeking out anything else of his I can find.
March 2, 2017
Personaggi decisamente ben caratterizzati, una storia abbastanza accattivante (se non forse un po’ stiracchiata sul finale), una scrittura liscia e precisa, senza sbavature, ma nemmeno troppi picchi (se non forse le prime cinquanta pagine). Un libro che di sicuro non vi cambierà la vita o vi farà gridare al miracolo, ma che certamente ripagherà il vostro piacere per una buona lettura senza troppo impegno.
September 17, 2010
Dalla nascita (anzi prima) sente le voci che gli parlano e gli anticipano cose etc. In particolare, sa di quando un metorite distruggerà il pianeta. Che fare sapendo qesta data esatta?
Alla fine appassiona e non è affatto male, però "come vonnegut" è una esagerazione.
Alla fine appassiona e non è affatto male, però "come vonnegut" è una esagerazione.
July 24, 2020
I've had this one for a while, just taking up space on my bookshelf and me "intending" to read it maybe once or twice a year since at least 2014 when I bought it at a very good (and sadly defunct) used book store in downtown Clemson, South Carolina (side note: used book stores are a gift from the gods, as are thrift stores and Goodwills where you find a really good selection of books that you may not expect). Anyway, I picked this up again recently with the intention of reading it, but this time I carried through.
Imagine that you know when the world is going to end. And there's really not much you can do about it. You can *tell* people, sure, but suppose they don't believe you (a realistic concern, as anyone who proclaims the end of the world is usually looked upon as crazy because, as of this writing at least, it hasn't happened yet). How would you go about life? What would you do with the knowledge you have? Would anything matter? As you may have guessed from the title, everything does, in fact, matter in Ron Currie's look at the life of Junior, growing up in the Seventies and Eighties and reaching manhood in the Nineties, who knows that the world will end in 2010 when a massive comet hits the earth and wipes out humanity. That's kind of a heavy burden, and at times he doesn't carry it well, slipping into drink and drugs and not really doing so well. But through his voice and others in his life (as well as the mysterious voices he hears who tell him all that he needs to know about the apocalypse), Junior begins to understand how to make the most of what is, admittedly, a pretty shitty thing to live with. The foreknowledge of humanity's ultimate end is a clever way to motivate a character in any art, and while there were times when I didn't quite buy what this novel was selling, the overall impression I got was that this is a very effective and very moving defense of why life itself matters. All the little moments that we might not think add up to much in the end, in fact, do matter. And what we do with that matters.
I've found in recent months that sometimes I can have a book on my "to read" list for years, never get around to it, and then finally read it because the library is shut down and I'm tired of re-reading. "Everything Matters!" has been a resident of my bookshelf for at least five years, if not six, and could've gone unread entirely. But I picked it up recently and started and kept going, and I'm glad that I did.
Imagine that you know when the world is going to end. And there's really not much you can do about it. You can *tell* people, sure, but suppose they don't believe you (a realistic concern, as anyone who proclaims the end of the world is usually looked upon as crazy because, as of this writing at least, it hasn't happened yet). How would you go about life? What would you do with the knowledge you have? Would anything matter? As you may have guessed from the title, everything does, in fact, matter in Ron Currie's look at the life of Junior, growing up in the Seventies and Eighties and reaching manhood in the Nineties, who knows that the world will end in 2010 when a massive comet hits the earth and wipes out humanity. That's kind of a heavy burden, and at times he doesn't carry it well, slipping into drink and drugs and not really doing so well. But through his voice and others in his life (as well as the mysterious voices he hears who tell him all that he needs to know about the apocalypse), Junior begins to understand how to make the most of what is, admittedly, a pretty shitty thing to live with. The foreknowledge of humanity's ultimate end is a clever way to motivate a character in any art, and while there were times when I didn't quite buy what this novel was selling, the overall impression I got was that this is a very effective and very moving defense of why life itself matters. All the little moments that we might not think add up to much in the end, in fact, do matter. And what we do with that matters.
I've found in recent months that sometimes I can have a book on my "to read" list for years, never get around to it, and then finally read it because the library is shut down and I'm tired of re-reading. "Everything Matters!" has been a resident of my bookshelf for at least five years, if not six, and could've gone unread entirely. But I picked it up recently and started and kept going, and I'm glad that I did.
March 4, 2021
Amazing on so many levels. The first part had me thinking it was nothing unique, just a story about a dysfunctional family (good....but not what my expectations were), then then second part gets a little Jack Clancy with secret government activity and then the third part....just a repeated punch in your face. In a way that you don't mind! Read it right before bed and couldn't go to sleep.
Read
June 11, 2022"the Polish army of your emotional self has fallen into the Nazi war machine of your intellect"
If I had to read it so do the rest of you. This book is full of similar terrible prose but this is the line that made me stop reading. This book cost me two bucks and I overpaid. Someday I'm gonna learn my lesson about NPR recommendations.
If I had to read it so do the rest of you. This book is full of similar terrible prose but this is the line that made me stop reading. This book cost me two bucks and I overpaid. Someday I'm gonna learn my lesson about NPR recommendations.
January 18, 2018
Solid 3 1/4 - 3 1/2. If the ending didn't get as sappy and predictable, I would have liked it a bit better.
December 22, 2012
REVIEW ALSO ON: http://bibliomantics.com/2012/12/21/h...
Everything Matters is told from multiple perspectives of the Thibodeaux family: worrisome mother, workaholic father, drug addicted brother, insane uncle, savant Junior, the love of Junior’s life Amy and the omnipresent 2nd person narrator(s). I have yet to find a second person perspective so well written and so relevant to the narrative style since this book. Although Junot Diaz comes a close second, particularly in his newest short story collection This Is How You Lose Her.
Junior is the only person in a good deal of the novel who knows the world is going to end when he turns 36. He discovers this in utero when an omniscient voice tells him all about it. Did I mention this book is also slightly unbelievable in terms of plot? Well it is, there, I told you. The government eventually catches on and super genius Junior is brought in to help save the world. Like you do.
Even though it’s less realistic, Everything Matters has an incredibly uplifting if depressing message: everything matters. You probably got that from the title.
There are poignant points scattered throughout the novel where the omniscient narrators explain how the smallest thing could have the biggest impact. Think the butterfly effect, but on a more social level. This happens to person A which effects person B who does this to person C, etc. These were perhaps my favorite moments. I could have read a whole novel with this singular narrator, but it was an interesting change of pace to read the other POVs as well. Especially because if one sucked you didn’t have to read it for very long (coughBRANCHAPTERScough).
The main focus is on the importance of family over the end of the world, as in the end of the world should conceivably put what’s important into perspective. Junior ends up (without giving too much away) doing everything for his father, working to save him. In a giant plot twist toward the end of the novel (no, Junior is not Dan Humphrey), and a spectacularly depressing conclusion the whole purpose of the novel finally comes into perspective.
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry… Just kidding, you’ll cry out all your tear ducts and you won’t laugh unless you’re a horrible, horrible person. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper. The whimpering of you as you cry yourself to sleep.
Just remember, in any apocalypse: Keep calm and carry on my wayward son.
Everything Matters is told from multiple perspectives of the Thibodeaux family: worrisome mother, workaholic father, drug addicted brother, insane uncle, savant Junior, the love of Junior’s life Amy and the omnipresent 2nd person narrator(s). I have yet to find a second person perspective so well written and so relevant to the narrative style since this book. Although Junot Diaz comes a close second, particularly in his newest short story collection This Is How You Lose Her.
Junior is the only person in a good deal of the novel who knows the world is going to end when he turns 36. He discovers this in utero when an omniscient voice tells him all about it. Did I mention this book is also slightly unbelievable in terms of plot? Well it is, there, I told you. The government eventually catches on and super genius Junior is brought in to help save the world. Like you do.
Even though it’s less realistic, Everything Matters has an incredibly uplifting if depressing message: everything matters. You probably got that from the title.
There are poignant points scattered throughout the novel where the omniscient narrators explain how the smallest thing could have the biggest impact. Think the butterfly effect, but on a more social level. This happens to person A which effects person B who does this to person C, etc. These were perhaps my favorite moments. I could have read a whole novel with this singular narrator, but it was an interesting change of pace to read the other POVs as well. Especially because if one sucked you didn’t have to read it for very long (coughBRANCHAPTERScough).
The main focus is on the importance of family over the end of the world, as in the end of the world should conceivably put what’s important into perspective. Junior ends up (without giving too much away) doing everything for his father, working to save him. In a giant plot twist toward the end of the novel (no, Junior is not Dan Humphrey), and a spectacularly depressing conclusion the whole purpose of the novel finally comes into perspective.
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry… Just kidding, you’ll cry out all your tear ducts and you won’t laugh unless you’re a horrible, horrible person. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper. The whimpering of you as you cry yourself to sleep.
Just remember, in any apocalypse: Keep calm and carry on my wayward son.
May 25, 2012
A modern Candide. Voltaire used his episodic tale of misery and woe to demonstrate that happiness can never really be found, not until the very end, when the main characters all live in a shack and tend a garden outside. Living life is the only true happiness that mankind can have, and no amount of philosophical reasoning, or wealth, or fame, can ever get him that status. Except that's not the book I'm here to review.
I love apocalyptic books. I can remember reading When Worlds Collide by Wylie and Balmer at Band Camp, laying on the couch in the building next to our cabin and loving every minute of the book (well, the comfy couch and air conditioning helped.) There's nothing like the end of the world, and Currie's book is all about that. Except, the main character, Junior Thibodeax, has known all his life that the world will end on a certain day in the future, and it's the alien voices' experiment to see whether the knowledge of impending doom has any impact on his life. Whether, in a world where nothing matters, if anything matters at all. Starting with a blow by blow of his deliverance in the hospital, to his destruction by asteroid (maybe), the book details his life with a sardonic irony and humor that is quite entertaining. With Junior's knowledge and intelligence he sets out to save the human race, trying to fight the prediction that everyone will die in a gigantic fireball.
However, whether he succeeds or not, we aren't really sure, because the aliens come to him right before the end date and explain to him something he already knew... that the Earth he lived on is only one of millions of possibilities in a multiverse separated only by a sliver of a second. That basically there is a ring around the sun of different realities, and in each of those Earths, Junior makes a different decision, from not squashing a bug to not telling his big secret to his girlfriend, which effects the outcome of the world tremendously. It's the whole butterfly in the Sahara theory. A bit of a spoiler, but, the ending chapters are considerably different than the rest, and nothing much happens, but in the end, Junior's realization that Everything Matters proves the aliens wrong in their original assumption, and proves Voltaire right.
I love apocalyptic books. I can remember reading When Worlds Collide by Wylie and Balmer at Band Camp, laying on the couch in the building next to our cabin and loving every minute of the book (well, the comfy couch and air conditioning helped.) There's nothing like the end of the world, and Currie's book is all about that. Except, the main character, Junior Thibodeax, has known all his life that the world will end on a certain day in the future, and it's the alien voices' experiment to see whether the knowledge of impending doom has any impact on his life. Whether, in a world where nothing matters, if anything matters at all. Starting with a blow by blow of his deliverance in the hospital, to his destruction by asteroid (maybe), the book details his life with a sardonic irony and humor that is quite entertaining. With Junior's knowledge and intelligence he sets out to save the human race, trying to fight the prediction that everyone will die in a gigantic fireball.
However, whether he succeeds or not, we aren't really sure, because the aliens come to him right before the end date and explain to him something he already knew... that the Earth he lived on is only one of millions of possibilities in a multiverse separated only by a sliver of a second. That basically there is a ring around the sun of different realities, and in each of those Earths, Junior makes a different decision, from not squashing a bug to not telling his big secret to his girlfriend, which effects the outcome of the world tremendously. It's the whole butterfly in the Sahara theory. A bit of a spoiler, but, the ending chapters are considerably different than the rest, and nothing much happens, but in the end, Junior's realization that Everything Matters proves the aliens wrong in their original assumption, and proves Voltaire right.
November 5, 2011
One thing I'll say about Everything Matters is that its plot messed with my expectations. Not that I had a lot of expectations about a novel that opened with disembodied voices telling a developing fetus that the world would end in 36 years, but Currie's story of a typical American life with a few very untypical things about it dodges easy categorization. It's neither magic realism, nor science fiction, nor a supernatural tale, but more of an earnest existential drama about the choices people make with their lives.
That said, I thought Everything Matters did a flawed job of living up to its own ambition. At times, it sucked me in with its soulful character studies, but other times, it felt like a string of self-indulgent, slightly unbelievable vignettes of the sort a gifted but amateur writer might bring to a workshop. Currie clearly wants readers to respond emotionally to his story, and pummels us with one piece of drama after another -- a devastating breakup, substance abuse problems, terminal illness, post-9/11 government abuses, and, oh, yeah, the fiery end of the world. And then there's a lot of musing from various characters on what it all means. On a page-by-page level, it's involving and sometimes sadly moving, but as a whole, the story seemed a bit unreal and the characters' motives somewhat arbitrary. As I progressed, I wondered if Currie had really known where he was going with his book, or was just fumbling around for plot ideas and trying to keep the reader's sense of incredulity from catching up. Now that I've finished it, I can't totally disown this impression.
But, I will say that Everything Matters at least tries for something different, even if it falls a little short in execution. Currie asks some serious questions and doesn't wrap everything up neatly -- in fact, the bleak but beautiful ending wasn't the one I would have seen coming at the beginning. You may find yourself, when all is said and done, pondering the choice the main character makes about three quarters of the way through the book, wondering what other paths he (or the author) might have taken. I'll give this book a thumbs up for that, even if it won't make my top ten list.
That said, I thought Everything Matters did a flawed job of living up to its own ambition. At times, it sucked me in with its soulful character studies, but other times, it felt like a string of self-indulgent, slightly unbelievable vignettes of the sort a gifted but amateur writer might bring to a workshop. Currie clearly wants readers to respond emotionally to his story, and pummels us with one piece of drama after another -- a devastating breakup, substance abuse problems, terminal illness, post-9/11 government abuses, and, oh, yeah, the fiery end of the world. And then there's a lot of musing from various characters on what it all means. On a page-by-page level, it's involving and sometimes sadly moving, but as a whole, the story seemed a bit unreal and the characters' motives somewhat arbitrary. As I progressed, I wondered if Currie had really known where he was going with his book, or was just fumbling around for plot ideas and trying to keep the reader's sense of incredulity from catching up. Now that I've finished it, I can't totally disown this impression.
But, I will say that Everything Matters at least tries for something different, even if it falls a little short in execution. Currie asks some serious questions and doesn't wrap everything up neatly -- in fact, the bleak but beautiful ending wasn't the one I would have seen coming at the beginning. You may find yourself, when all is said and done, pondering the choice the main character makes about three quarters of the way through the book, wondering what other paths he (or the author) might have taken. I'll give this book a thumbs up for that, even if it won't make my top ten list.
January 18, 2011
Solipsism, resignation, hopelessness, fate. "Everything Matters" is about all of these things, but it is also about their opposites, or rather, it is a sort of argument against them all. Here is the book's simple argument really, distilled on page 292: "Everything ends, and Everything matters." Simple, right? But kind of powerful, too, when you stop to think about it. If you're like me, it's pretty easy these days to start thinking there's not much point to much of what takes up our time in this world; at the risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon, the world's just going to hell in a handbasket so how could it possibly matter, in the big scheme of things, what you or me do or do not do? Of course, if you were born with the certain knowledge of when and how the world would end, this sort of nihilistic pessimism would be even more understandable, as Junior explains:
"My whole life there never was a point to anything. Oblivion was always just around the corner, so what was the use of, say, trying to make the varsity basketball team, or starting a retirement fund, or having kids, or any of the other things that normal people do? No point. To anything. Try to imagine what that would be like" (163). I can imagine it all too well, actually. Can't you?
The book uses a gimmicky, yet interesting, inventive, and fun structure to explore its themes and eventually end up in a place where you probably don't really expect it to go. It's a bit madcap at times, as Junior lurches from being the smartest, most well-adjusted child on the planet, to the biggest alcoholic asshole you can imagine, to a terrorist (or at least a terrorist's accomplice), to the greatest scientist in history. The dude freaking cures cancer! So it's crazy, and some readers will inevitably be put off by this, but if you stick it out, I'd say it's worth it. In the end, it's a decent argument that everything does matter, really, despite the odds against that, and in these times, it's pretty nice to be reminded of that in such an entertaining and provocative way.
"My whole life there never was a point to anything. Oblivion was always just around the corner, so what was the use of, say, trying to make the varsity basketball team, or starting a retirement fund, or having kids, or any of the other things that normal people do? No point. To anything. Try to imagine what that would be like" (163). I can imagine it all too well, actually. Can't you?
The book uses a gimmicky, yet interesting, inventive, and fun structure to explore its themes and eventually end up in a place where you probably don't really expect it to go. It's a bit madcap at times, as Junior lurches from being the smartest, most well-adjusted child on the planet, to the biggest alcoholic asshole you can imagine, to a terrorist (or at least a terrorist's accomplice), to the greatest scientist in history. The dude freaking cures cancer! So it's crazy, and some readers will inevitably be put off by this, but if you stick it out, I'd say it's worth it. In the end, it's a decent argument that everything does matter, really, despite the odds against that, and in these times, it's pretty nice to be reminded of that in such an entertaining and provocative way.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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