RevRo: One Fan's Blog About Author Richard Yates

Fans of Richard Yates: Zhiv

Zhiv is a reader's reader. And a lovely writer. If you like Richard Yates, and are frustrated by the lack of critical commentary on the author, I encourage you to visit Zhiv's archive on Richard Yates.

Revolutionary Road: The Poster

Yeah, I'm doing it: I'm blogging about a poster for a movie.

USA Today has released "the first look" at the official poster for Revolutionary Road, the movie. (Will this be a movie or a film?)

I have to admit, when I envisioned the lighting and colors in the home of the Wheelers, I did imagine it to possess this quality. I even imagined April and Frank dressed in this manner. However, that type face has got to go. It's like they're trying to reassure RevRo newbies that this "isn't simply another period piece."

Oh, well, the whole point is to get them to read the book. I'll give them each a Chiclet just to accomplish that goal.

Revolutionary Road: Movie Trailer

A favorite of the literati, Entertainment Tonight recently ran a trailer of the movie adaptation of Revolutionary Road.

Revolutionary Road: Cinematical's Take

Over at Cinematical, Eugene Novikov dodges the misguided suburban angst tag for Revolutionary Road, and gets at what I believe to be the book's true core:

The jacket pitches it as being about "the opulent desolation of the American suburbs," but Revolutionary Road is not another of those books that merely mocks the empty lives of well-to-do suburbanites. It's about our attitudes toward life and love and each other. Almost a half-century after it was published, it contains as much devastating insight into human nature as just about anything else I've ever read.

Imagine a book where you see the characters clearly as weak, insincere, pitiable, sometimes even repulsive – and yet also eerily familiar. Oh, maybe not familiar in the lives they lead or the things they do, but in the way they think, interact, rationalize, compete, calculate.

Yes, people, the story takes place mostly in suburbia, but chalking it up to being merely a screed against life inside the area just outside the city takes the responsibility away from the rest of us. We are all Frank and April Wheeler. We're all fooling ourselves. And we all fall short. But it's okay; it's normal; it's the human condition.

Nice post, Cinematical.

Easter Parade: Reader Quote of the Week

"It's got a somber tone so I'm glad it's a short novel."

-- from the BookCrossing forum

Yesterday's News: RevRo Won't Be Complete for the...

Don't worry, the film is still hitting theaters before 2009.

Thompson on Hollywood reports that the film adaptation of Revolutionary Road won't be complete for the fall festivals.

Mendes will return to the editing bay around Labor Day to do the final mix on Revolutionary Road, which DreamWorks/Paramount Vantage will open at year's end.

Note: I'm not italicizing novel titles, etc. anymore; I'm just too lazy.

Author D.H. Schleicher on Revolutionary Road Plot

Author D.H. Schleicher, a purveyor of "psychological suspense and thrillers," has something to say about the film Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road:

I have to admit, the plot of this one (from a novel by Richard Yates) sounds like a snore-fest..

See, that's the beauty of Yates: He can take the seemingly mundane, a "young couple dealing with problems and such," and make it more suspenseful and thrilling than an apocalypse.

In all fairness, Schleicher goes on to suggest that the director Sam Mendes and the Titanic stars blessing the potentially snore-inducing plot may save this film.

For anyone who loves to read -- or write -- and has somehow not only missed reading Yates' masterpiece, but also hasn't encountered heaps of praise for the novel, please see the piece by Richard Ford on Revolutionary Road in The New York Times.

... and they've said Yates is a "writer's writer."

Easter Parade: Zhiv's Review

I took a very long break -- to say the least -- from blogging about Richard Yates, as the more dogmatic end of the overall blogging craze had started to annoy me. When I get annoyed, I walk away.

Yet a friend's recent devouring of Easter Parade in three hours last night -- only days after finishing Revolutionary Road -- got me searching around the blogosphere for Richard Yates posts. I wasn't disappointed. This post by Zhiv about Easter Parade is one of the greatest reviews of the book I've read. And for all I know Zhiv isn't a professional journalist or academic.

This is why I got into blogging in the first place -- not for the solipsism much of it has become.

Here's a sample, but please be sure to read the whole post.

The term that seems to capture the general impression created by Yates is devastation, which of course hardly melds with slightness or accessibility, but perhaps that just shows the deft touch of the master.

Vintage Reissues Richard Yates Works

The Girl Who's Afraid of Foxes reports that Vintage will be coming out with a line of their classic reissues for Richard Yates.

The blog goes on to speculate about the upcoming film adaptation of RevRo:

In more Yates-related news, the forthcoming film of Revolutionary Road looks disastrous, with Kate Winslett and Leonardo DiCaprio being reunited for the first time since Titanic. I’m sure Richard would have approved…

Can a film with no released footage "look disastrous?" Or does the blogger mean that the actors chosen make it a "recipe for disaster?"

Either way, you know my feelings about the movie: Whatever gets more people to read Yates is a good thing. His works will slice through anyone, be they a 14-year-old DiCaprio Fan Club member or a 20-something who wants to keep all their favorite artists safe in their pocket.

Two Richard Yates Works on Joey Rubin's 2007 Reading List

Writer Joey Rubin read at least 46 books in 2007, including two Richard Yates works: The Collected Stories of Richard Yates and Revolutionary Road. That's nearly a book per week. Man. Check out his list. Then create your own.

I unfortunately didn't record a list of all the books that I read in 2007 -- don't worry, it's not even close to the amount Rubin finished -- but here are a few I enjoyed:

What Books I Remember Liking in 2007

Abundant Dreamer by Harold Brodkey

The Closed Circle by Jonathan Coe

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (again)

A Good School: A Novel by Richard Yates

Foam of the Daze by Boris Vian

Money by Martin Amis

Okay, I need to check my Goodreads list later to recall the rest...