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You Were Wrong
It is 2008 in the suburban town of Seacrest, Long Island. Twenty-six-year-old high school math teacher Karl Floor has no parents, no friends, few prospects, is a dim bulb, and lives at home with Larchmont Jones, the aggressively loquacious widower of Karl's mother. One fine afternoon, Karl returns to his house after work to discover a beautiful stranger in the upstairs hallway. She is Sylvia Vetch, and claims to be robbing him. She also asks for his protection, but won't quite say from what or whom, and draws him into troubles she won't elucidate.
No Sherlock Holmes, Karl still slowly begins to see and engage the complex forces that have been shaping his life: his parentage and inheritance, morality and law, the racial and economic geography of present-day New York City and the world at large.
Darkly funny and original, You Were Wrong is a surreal detective story told with heart, wit, and a singular voice.
No Sherlock Holmes, Karl still slowly begins to see and engage the complex forces that have been shaping his life: his parentage and inheritance, morality and law, the racial and economic geography of present-day New York City and the world at large.
Darkly funny and original, You Were Wrong is a surreal detective story told with heart, wit, and a singular voice.
181 pages, Paperback
First published August 2, 2010
About the author
Matthew Sharpe
40 books30 followersMatthew Sharpe (born 1962) is a U.S. novelist and short story writer. Born in New York City, but grew up in a small town in Connecticut. Sharpe graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio. Afterwards, he worked at US Magazine until he went back to school at Columbia University, where he pursued an MFA. Since then, he has been teaching creative writing at various institutions including Columbia University, Bard College, the New College of Florida, and Wesleyan University. Sharpe says he started writing fiction at age ten but was finally inspired and encouraged to be a writer after reading Sam Shepard's play La Turista when he was 21.
Matthew Sharpe is the author of the novels Nothing Is Terrible (Villard, 2000), The Sleeping Father (Soft Skull, 2003, translated into nine languages), Jamestown (Soft Skull, 2007) and You Were Wrong (Bloomsbury, 2010) as well as the short-story collection Stories from the Tube (Villard, 1998). He teaches creative writing at Wesleyean University. His stories and essays have appeared in Harper's, Zoetrope, BOMB, McSweeney's, American Letters & Commentary, Southwest Review, and Teachers & Writers magazine.
Matthew Sharpe is the author of the novels Nothing Is Terrible (Villard, 2000), The Sleeping Father (Soft Skull, 2003, translated into nine languages), Jamestown (Soft Skull, 2007) and You Were Wrong (Bloomsbury, 2010) as well as the short-story collection Stories from the Tube (Villard, 1998). He teaches creative writing at Wesleyean University. His stories and essays have appeared in Harper's, Zoetrope, BOMB, McSweeney's, American Letters & Commentary, Southwest Review, and Teachers & Writers magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
September 20, 2010
Attention DFW superfans, do you know about this guy Matthew Sharpe? He seems to be pretty obscure, I only know who he is because some blogger was pimping this book and then I saw it at the library and read it and liked it a lot. Anyway, he reminds me a lot of the dearly departed Mr. Wallace. The circuitous syntax leading to jaw-dropping marathon sentences; the sensitive moral and philosophical engagement with even the most mundane aspects of daily life; the heavyweight intellectual brainpower; the defiant, brainy sense of humor laughing ruefully in the face of human suffering and confusion. These are (some of) the attributes for which DFW has been (perhaps overly) lionized, and I've listed them here because they are all of them present in Matthew Sharpe's You Were Wrong, a terrific new novel that is not getting the buzz it deserves. The main point of divergence with DFW is a matter of scale: Sharpe is no maximalist, and he's able to say uncle after less than 200 pages, evincing a restraint DFW clearly did not possess in his longform fiction. I don't wish to make it sound as though Sharpe's voice is identical to or a ripoff of Wallace's, because he definitely has his own thing going on. I could just as accurately have mentioned Ben Marcus's Notable American Women as a comparative reference, but there are fewer Marcus fans on GR (though I think he's brilliant). Anyway I'm just saying if you're into DFW you will most likely be into this.
This book is weird, but it is accessibly weird, if that makes sense. Jonathan Franzen would probably get annoyed at it for being "difficult" but he would be wrong. It never exactly reveals itself, the reader is never really sure just what kind of book this is, but this condition is due not to authorial withholding so much as the book's general uncategorizableness. It begins as just a sharply written character study with a vague element of mystery, then becomes both weirder and plottier as a kind of existential thriller, then more or less casts off everything that it was before and just exists unidentifiably for a while, then ends as a demented love story. What's consistent is the singularly fucking amazing language, sentences that contort themselves baroquely but logically, prose pleasure on every page. Passages like this and better can be found everywhere:
What was the deep homily of the hundred mercifully distracting police procedurals that could be enjoyed on his television set at any hour of the night or day if it wasn't that there was no thing living or otherwise that was not a potential agent or vessel of the law? The law was in each capillary of the world. He could spit out the window and his spit would be law. Were he launched into space in a transparent plexiglass egg, each cell in his body and every molecule of his surrogate womb would be law, the stars but law's blind eyes gazing at him with cold impartiality.
And great knotty dialogue too, such as: "Stop pretending that being accommodating isn't just a form of aggression" and "I can't tell if you're bullshitting both yourself and me or just me."
From the reviews I've glanced at, some people are taking this book as a satire. I really don't know what they're talking about. Not everything that's funny needs to be a satire for you to praise it, critics. I think it is more an exaggerated fable about the opening up of an outcast, about the life of a painfully sensitive depressive and how a crazy sequence of events renders him possibly slightly more at ease with the world. Ugh, that makes it sound like some kind of awful Manic Pixie Dream Girl romp, which is most assuredly isn't, so just forget I said anything, ever. Point is, the book is really a lot of fun, smart and funny and deeply felt, and I don't know why it isn't a bigger deal. I mean, I'm the first GR user to even review it, what's up with that? I certainly had more fun with this than I am having with the Franzenstein monster at my bedside. Zing! (Also, this book has both a great title and a great cover, so you can't say it is not packaged for your pleasure.)
This book is weird, but it is accessibly weird, if that makes sense. Jonathan Franzen would probably get annoyed at it for being "difficult" but he would be wrong. It never exactly reveals itself, the reader is never really sure just what kind of book this is, but this condition is due not to authorial withholding so much as the book's general uncategorizableness. It begins as just a sharply written character study with a vague element of mystery, then becomes both weirder and plottier as a kind of existential thriller, then more or less casts off everything that it was before and just exists unidentifiably for a while, then ends as a demented love story. What's consistent is the singularly fucking amazing language, sentences that contort themselves baroquely but logically, prose pleasure on every page. Passages like this and better can be found everywhere:
What was the deep homily of the hundred mercifully distracting police procedurals that could be enjoyed on his television set at any hour of the night or day if it wasn't that there was no thing living or otherwise that was not a potential agent or vessel of the law? The law was in each capillary of the world. He could spit out the window and his spit would be law. Were he launched into space in a transparent plexiglass egg, each cell in his body and every molecule of his surrogate womb would be law, the stars but law's blind eyes gazing at him with cold impartiality.
And great knotty dialogue too, such as: "Stop pretending that being accommodating isn't just a form of aggression" and "I can't tell if you're bullshitting both yourself and me or just me."
From the reviews I've glanced at, some people are taking this book as a satire. I really don't know what they're talking about. Not everything that's funny needs to be a satire for you to praise it, critics. I think it is more an exaggerated fable about the opening up of an outcast, about the life of a painfully sensitive depressive and how a crazy sequence of events renders him possibly slightly more at ease with the world. Ugh, that makes it sound like some kind of awful Manic Pixie Dream Girl romp, which is most assuredly isn't, so just forget I said anything, ever. Point is, the book is really a lot of fun, smart and funny and deeply felt, and I don't know why it isn't a bigger deal. I mean, I'm the first GR user to even review it, what's up with that? I certainly had more fun with this than I am having with the Franzenstein monster at my bedside. Zing! (Also, this book has both a great title and a great cover, so you can't say it is not packaged for your pleasure.)
September 25, 2014
Full disclosure: I received a review copy of this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
You Were Wrong is a short book, but manages to wear out its welcome in no time at all. I was ready to throw it against the wall after two chapters, but forced myself to continue reading so that I could finish and give it a fair review. The good news is that I got used to the writing style after a few more chapters, but the bad news is that I think that may have just been Stockholm Syndrome in action.
The main character, Karl Floor, is a sad-sack twenty-something math teacher who shares his dead mother’s house with his hateful stepfather. When the book opens, Karl is beaten up by two of his students, only to stumble home and discover that his house is apparently being robbed by the beautiful and mysterious Sylvia Vetch. Sylvia doesn’t act like a normal robber, however, and tends to Karl’s wounds before taking him on a journey across town to the house where she lives. As Karl’s life becomes intertwined with Sylvia and her circle, he wanders aimlessly through a series of mysterious encounters with people who abuse and confuse him. Karl is entirely passive by nature, and spends most of the book whining, getting dragged along against his will, or just plain lying down and passing out.
The book feels a bit more like a series of rambling vignettes than a novel. There is the slightest hint of a mystery concerning Sylvia’s real motivations, and the story almost swerves into crime fiction at one point before course-correcting, but mostly it’s a shambling collection of long-winded character studies. Sharpe describes the most mundane of things in excruciating detail, often employing digressions within digressions that bloat single sentences into page-long tangents. Characters don’t speak like actual human beings; either they monologue for pages about vaguely related matters, or they utter terse exchanges full of thudding importance and implied mystery.
The best I can say about the book is that Sharpe occasionally pulls off a fine turn of phrase or throws in a decent joke. For the most part, however, I found it both overwritten and crashingly dull, and was glad to see the back of it.
You Were Wrong is a short book, but manages to wear out its welcome in no time at all. I was ready to throw it against the wall after two chapters, but forced myself to continue reading so that I could finish and give it a fair review. The good news is that I got used to the writing style after a few more chapters, but the bad news is that I think that may have just been Stockholm Syndrome in action.
The main character, Karl Floor, is a sad-sack twenty-something math teacher who shares his dead mother’s house with his hateful stepfather. When the book opens, Karl is beaten up by two of his students, only to stumble home and discover that his house is apparently being robbed by the beautiful and mysterious Sylvia Vetch. Sylvia doesn’t act like a normal robber, however, and tends to Karl’s wounds before taking him on a journey across town to the house where she lives. As Karl’s life becomes intertwined with Sylvia and her circle, he wanders aimlessly through a series of mysterious encounters with people who abuse and confuse him. Karl is entirely passive by nature, and spends most of the book whining, getting dragged along against his will, or just plain lying down and passing out.
The book feels a bit more like a series of rambling vignettes than a novel. There is the slightest hint of a mystery concerning Sylvia’s real motivations, and the story almost swerves into crime fiction at one point before course-correcting, but mostly it’s a shambling collection of long-winded character studies. Sharpe describes the most mundane of things in excruciating detail, often employing digressions within digressions that bloat single sentences into page-long tangents. Characters don’t speak like actual human beings; either they monologue for pages about vaguely related matters, or they utter terse exchanges full of thudding importance and implied mystery.
The best I can say about the book is that Sharpe occasionally pulls off a fine turn of phrase or throws in a decent joke. For the most part, however, I found it both overwritten and crashingly dull, and was glad to see the back of it.
June 19, 2013
I have an old computer. It wheezes a bit when I turn it on, and take quite a bit of time to totally boot up, and become usable.
My reaction to this book was strong enough for me to get up out of my nice, comfortable chair in the middle of the night to boot this bad boy up again after shutting it off, just so I could get this review written.
This is the sort of book that does the following:
-Spends a great deal of time in stream of consciousness.
-Absolutely drips with both metaphor and irony.
-Engages in endless digression.
-Prides itself on its obvious quirkiness.
-Eschews coherence.
Now the author, the publisher, and it would seem the New York Times expects us to overlook, or possibly embrace each of these qualities while praising the author for his cleverness and boldness.
The reason we are expected to do this is because we are to become absorbed in the unmitigated glow of beautifully crafted, complex language. The problem with this expectation is that the prose is not in fact beautifully crafted. It is merely a series of run-on sentences disguised as craft by way of large, obscure, or uniquely applied words strung together in large numbers around uncertain predicates that follow subjects one nearly forgets. Sentences pumped full of modifiers and adverbs, taking up entire pages. The result is language that is not beautiful, not especially clever, and more than a little pretentious since we clearly are supposed to think it is both.
This combination of lack of quality prose, the near total rejection of story structure, character development and plot fit into a small package that is just tidy enough to accuse the reader of being dense, uncultured, or cowardly should they dare not to love it.
It isn't profound. It isn't clever. It isn't even that unique.
That is my thought out review. Here is my off-the-cuff review...the one I just had to reboot the computer in order to write after I forced myself to get through at least the first 40 pages. (I always give a book 40 pages.)...
This book is nonsensical trash.
My reaction to this book was strong enough for me to get up out of my nice, comfortable chair in the middle of the night to boot this bad boy up again after shutting it off, just so I could get this review written.
This is the sort of book that does the following:
-Spends a great deal of time in stream of consciousness.
-Absolutely drips with both metaphor and irony.
-Engages in endless digression.
-Prides itself on its obvious quirkiness.
-Eschews coherence.
Now the author, the publisher, and it would seem the New York Times expects us to overlook, or possibly embrace each of these qualities while praising the author for his cleverness and boldness.
The reason we are expected to do this is because we are to become absorbed in the unmitigated glow of beautifully crafted, complex language. The problem with this expectation is that the prose is not in fact beautifully crafted. It is merely a series of run-on sentences disguised as craft by way of large, obscure, or uniquely applied words strung together in large numbers around uncertain predicates that follow subjects one nearly forgets. Sentences pumped full of modifiers and adverbs, taking up entire pages. The result is language that is not beautiful, not especially clever, and more than a little pretentious since we clearly are supposed to think it is both.
This combination of lack of quality prose, the near total rejection of story structure, character development and plot fit into a small package that is just tidy enough to accuse the reader of being dense, uncultured, or cowardly should they dare not to love it.
It isn't profound. It isn't clever. It isn't even that unique.
That is my thought out review. Here is my off-the-cuff review...the one I just had to reboot the computer in order to write after I forced myself to get through at least the first 40 pages. (I always give a book 40 pages.)...
This book is nonsensical trash.
July 9, 2011
Apparently this is meant for fans of DFW and Ben Marcus, and I am stupid and out of touch for not knowing that already. Shit!
***
Oh god my I never reviewed this?? Shit. Ummm, I dunno about the DFW comparison, and honestly I've never been able to get into Ben Marcus. It's a cool book, though; Sharpe has a super weird writing style that was kind of hard to stay immersed in, but never became overly quirky or annoying. I guess maybe the DFW comparison is like how his characters have these ridiculously long speeches, with really solid, believable, conversational speech, although they kind of also sound like drawn-out thoughts more than actual things that people would say out loud to one another.
I maybe am too tired to be writing this review right now.
But it's a pretty simple story, heavy on the language, and since there's only a few characters, they're all really fleshed out and fascinating. They're also kind of all assholes, but unapologetic, kind of likable assholes? Ugh, this was a bad idea, I'm going to bed.
***
Oh god my I never reviewed this?? Shit. Ummm, I dunno about the DFW comparison, and honestly I've never been able to get into Ben Marcus. It's a cool book, though; Sharpe has a super weird writing style that was kind of hard to stay immersed in, but never became overly quirky or annoying. I guess maybe the DFW comparison is like how his characters have these ridiculously long speeches, with really solid, believable, conversational speech, although they kind of also sound like drawn-out thoughts more than actual things that people would say out loud to one another.
I maybe am too tired to be writing this review right now.
But it's a pretty simple story, heavy on the language, and since there's only a few characters, they're all really fleshed out and fascinating. They're also kind of all assholes, but unapologetic, kind of likable assholes? Ugh, this was a bad idea, I'm going to bed.
September 21, 2010
Matthew Sharpe is an impressive writer, and he sure knows how to pack a sentence with wit and intelligence. You Were Wrong is a strange family odyssey, told through the eyes of Karl Floor, a sad sack, high school math teacher, who is still mourning the death of his mother five years after the fact.
I was barely fifty pages into this short novel when I had already decided to make it my next featured staff pick at the bookstore, where I am employed. I also felt that (as far as ratings go) You Were Wrong was well on its way to being a 5 star read, but the abrupt ending took me aback, and I am still trying to figure out whether I consider the end a disappointment or not. Either way. the preceding 180 or so pages contains some of the best writing I've encountered in years.
I was barely fifty pages into this short novel when I had already decided to make it my next featured staff pick at the bookstore, where I am employed. I also felt that (as far as ratings go) You Were Wrong was well on its way to being a 5 star read, but the abrupt ending took me aback, and I am still trying to figure out whether I consider the end a disappointment or not. Either way. the preceding 180 or so pages contains some of the best writing I've encountered in years.
September 30, 2010
This was really good. Then it got weird. And then it was good again, or maybe it was good all along, and I was maybe distracted.
I love Sharpe's turn of phrase, his technique, his cliche-breaking. I am not as fond of his characters, whom he seems to hold at arm's length. They were not whole people, but perhaps vehicles for his magnificent dialogue. Anyway, who cares, great writing!
This a terrible review; I'm too tired to write what I really mean, and I hate that I used a cliche after praising his cliche-breaking. Ugh.
I love Sharpe's turn of phrase, his technique, his cliche-breaking. I am not as fond of his characters, whom he seems to hold at arm's length. They were not whole people, but perhaps vehicles for his magnificent dialogue. Anyway, who cares, great writing!
This a terrible review; I'm too tired to write what I really mean, and I hate that I used a cliche after praising his cliche-breaking. Ugh.
April 21, 2011
Good Lord, this guy can write some sentences. That alone made this book worth it, just the sheer enjoyment of reading these long, meticulously constructed passages, often relating to some epic aspect of time or creation. Some might say it's a little too clever for it's own good, but I loved it. Take this first sentence of chapter three, where Karl wakes up on a beach:
Twenty thousand years after a slab of ice the size of France had made the beach he now woke up on in sodden clothes, Karl assessed the feel of having had all but a thin crust of flesh, hair, and skin scraped out of him by Stony and whatever series of people and events - now compressed into a red, wet bolus of vague sense memory - had come after Stony in the night.
If that sentence seems very long and annoying to you, I can't recommend you read this because it's all like that. I just happened to eat it up for some reason. Here's another I liked:
Karl pulled the car over to the side of a street almost identical to his own, in front of a house hardly distinguishable from his. A Martian visiting this section of Long Island, unable to decipher signs designating street names, would be so confounded by th similarity of the streets, the two-story houses, and the bright, dense, mown lawns, that it would, as if trapped in the labyrinth of a sadistic god, die a little in its Martian soul; not a bad outcome from the human point of view: Martians drive down property values; their children are bullies and perform poorly on standardized tests.
Not much actually happens in the book - this sad-sack named Karl comes home to find a pretty woman in his house who claims to be robbing him, but she sticks around and Karl slowly finds out a lot of truths about his life. The only thing stopping this thing from five star status is the characters themselves. Sharpe tries to convince us over and over that Karl is an idiot, but Shapre's wit and cleverness in dialogue makes Karl seem not as hopeless as was intended. In fact he seems pretty smart. Another character summarizes it pretty nicely at the end, commenting on how Karl always makes "these weird hostile jokes like you hate everyone even though we can tell you really love everyone but you're just really lonely and sad."
There's also the problem of Karl's dad, who goes on enormous monologues for literally pages. His and most of the character's dialogue is interesting and funny, but c'mon, no one talks like that. Sharpe may narrate like that, but not everyone (or anyone) should talk like that.
I dunno, I still thought it was great. Characters, yeah, plot, okay, but A+ for the sheer enjoyement of reading. If you like this, I recommend you run out right away and read A Fraction of the Whole, which is very similar to this but better.
Ok, one more sample:
He was curious about the implication that inanimate objects might also be dishonest, and periodically when encountering one he tried to figure out if it was telling the truth. He had wondered briefly too if, for a man-made object to be honest, everyone involved in its making had to be, and had concluded that was too stringent a requirement, since some man-made objects were honest but no men were all the time; lying to oneself, others, and the very nature of reality was intrinsic to humans, just as flight was intrinsic to buzzards, and buzzards who busted a wing, like humans who woke up one day to the pure truth, perished quickly unless lovingly maintained in captivity.
Twenty thousand years after a slab of ice the size of France had made the beach he now woke up on in sodden clothes, Karl assessed the feel of having had all but a thin crust of flesh, hair, and skin scraped out of him by Stony and whatever series of people and events - now compressed into a red, wet bolus of vague sense memory - had come after Stony in the night.
If that sentence seems very long and annoying to you, I can't recommend you read this because it's all like that. I just happened to eat it up for some reason. Here's another I liked:
Karl pulled the car over to the side of a street almost identical to his own, in front of a house hardly distinguishable from his. A Martian visiting this section of Long Island, unable to decipher signs designating street names, would be so confounded by th similarity of the streets, the two-story houses, and the bright, dense, mown lawns, that it would, as if trapped in the labyrinth of a sadistic god, die a little in its Martian soul; not a bad outcome from the human point of view: Martians drive down property values; their children are bullies and perform poorly on standardized tests.
Not much actually happens in the book - this sad-sack named Karl comes home to find a pretty woman in his house who claims to be robbing him, but she sticks around and Karl slowly finds out a lot of truths about his life. The only thing stopping this thing from five star status is the characters themselves. Sharpe tries to convince us over and over that Karl is an idiot, but Shapre's wit and cleverness in dialogue makes Karl seem not as hopeless as was intended. In fact he seems pretty smart. Another character summarizes it pretty nicely at the end, commenting on how Karl always makes "these weird hostile jokes like you hate everyone even though we can tell you really love everyone but you're just really lonely and sad."
There's also the problem of Karl's dad, who goes on enormous monologues for literally pages. His and most of the character's dialogue is interesting and funny, but c'mon, no one talks like that. Sharpe may narrate like that, but not everyone (or anyone) should talk like that.
I dunno, I still thought it was great. Characters, yeah, plot, okay, but A+ for the sheer enjoyement of reading. If you like this, I recommend you run out right away and read A Fraction of the Whole, which is very similar to this but better.
Ok, one more sample:
He was curious about the implication that inanimate objects might also be dishonest, and periodically when encountering one he tried to figure out if it was telling the truth. He had wondered briefly too if, for a man-made object to be honest, everyone involved in its making had to be, and had concluded that was too stringent a requirement, since some man-made objects were honest but no men were all the time; lying to oneself, others, and the very nature of reality was intrinsic to humans, just as flight was intrinsic to buzzards, and buzzards who busted a wing, like humans who woke up one day to the pure truth, perished quickly unless lovingly maintained in captivity.
January 6, 2015
A sad, self-reflective dweeb for a narrator, thrown through a weird conspiracy/shenanigan circus. Sharpe is quicker and shorter than David Foster Wallace, more modern than Thomas Pynchon, but like both of them he loves long, elaborate, clever sentences.
Karl Floor, a math teacher (who's beaten up by two of his students) persists in sad, devastating, quirky philosophizing (all in grim but hilarious existential malaise), not as funny as it thinks it is but funnier than nothing: "most of Karl’s suffering was mild, but there was so much of it that his two hundred mild sufferings a day were the equivalent of another man’s one horrifying suffering a day."
Death to him is passed off -- obliquely, with a so-tiny-it's-funny ceremony -- as "one less Volvo on the road", which (less/fewer confusion, I'm sure authentic to Karl, notwithstanding) is just about the funniest death-related clause I've ever read.
Karl's mother Belinda has been dead for a while, but her will requested Karl stay at her house and care for her husband, his stepfather, for a long period. Larchmont Jones is annoyingly verbose and mealy-mouthed and so mature and interesting and awesome. It's a beautiful match and good for a few, short LOLs.
Karl eventually falls in with Sylvia Vetch (a beautiful woman), Stony (a weird surfer dude), and others. And a whole very strange comic drama unravels, about race and identity and surprise.
Karl Floor, a math teacher (who's beaten up by two of his students) persists in sad, devastating, quirky philosophizing (all in grim but hilarious existential malaise), not as funny as it thinks it is but funnier than nothing: "most of Karl’s suffering was mild, but there was so much of it that his two hundred mild sufferings a day were the equivalent of another man’s one horrifying suffering a day."
Death to him is passed off -- obliquely, with a so-tiny-it's-funny ceremony -- as "one less Volvo on the road", which (less/fewer confusion, I'm sure authentic to Karl, notwithstanding) is just about the funniest death-related clause I've ever read.
Karl's mother Belinda has been dead for a while, but her will requested Karl stay at her house and care for her husband, his stepfather, for a long period. Larchmont Jones is annoyingly verbose and mealy-mouthed and so mature and interesting and awesome. It's a beautiful match and good for a few, short LOLs.
Karl eventually falls in with Sylvia Vetch (a beautiful woman), Stony (a weird surfer dude), and others. And a whole very strange comic drama unravels, about race and identity and surprise.
October 20, 2014
Karl is my kind of American. While I can enjoy a good thriller with the likes of Jack Reacher overcoming every obstacle in my heart I say give me your hapless, your clueless, your basically decent guy. Karl "wondered how may of his misapprehensions of the world the world had the patience and resources to correct."
Karl is an underdog by virtue of his upbringing, a kid in a home where he experienced "an adult male's effectively telling a child every day for years, My life counts for more than yours." Karl shrunk his world to his bedroom and job until his life gets a shaking. He begins to realize that he impacts other people's lives. After reverting to his recluse life for a time, a character remarks on how he vanished. "Karl had always assumed it was other people who disappeared."
It is interesting that this book, written in 2010 can be seen as a bildungsroman for the current time when coming of age may not happen at all.
It is the language and the flow that propel this novel to a high rating. Sharpe is unpredictable and quirky in his ability to create a mood and a scene through language. Comparing one author to another can only end in in disappointment but Lethem, Vonnegut, and in this quote Dostoyevsky came to mind as a character refers to Karl's job as a math teacher, "the purpose of math is counting, and counting is a form of aggression." I look forward to reading more books by Matthew Sharpe. .
Karl is an underdog by virtue of his upbringing, a kid in a home where he experienced "an adult male's effectively telling a child every day for years, My life counts for more than yours." Karl shrunk his world to his bedroom and job until his life gets a shaking. He begins to realize that he impacts other people's lives. After reverting to his recluse life for a time, a character remarks on how he vanished. "Karl had always assumed it was other people who disappeared."
It is interesting that this book, written in 2010 can be seen as a bildungsroman for the current time when coming of age may not happen at all.
It is the language and the flow that propel this novel to a high rating. Sharpe is unpredictable and quirky in his ability to create a mood and a scene through language. Comparing one author to another can only end in in disappointment but Lethem, Vonnegut, and in this quote Dostoyevsky came to mind as a character refers to Karl's job as a math teacher, "the purpose of math is counting, and counting is a form of aggression." I look forward to reading more books by Matthew Sharpe. .
February 2, 2011
The descriptive tone was nice. The characters were certainly not two dimensional.
The problem I had with this books is that, even though the voice is third person, everything is from Karl's perspective and almost suffocatingly so. I wanted some space. The reader is deeply entrenched in Karl's mind and since he is dim-witted and his mind is prone to wandering, we get the feeling, much like Karl does, that we're just not quite understanding everything that is going on, that something is missing. This speaks to the writer's ability to put us in Karl's shoes but serves as an unfulfilling read. Also I was surprised at the point the story ended.
The whole experience was like going out to dinner and ending up with a 2 oz steak that's a little overdone with a spoonful of potatoes and three slightly mushy pieces of broccoli. You're still hungry but you don't particularly want more of that meal.
The problem I had with this books is that, even though the voice is third person, everything is from Karl's perspective and almost suffocatingly so. I wanted some space. The reader is deeply entrenched in Karl's mind and since he is dim-witted and his mind is prone to wandering, we get the feeling, much like Karl does, that we're just not quite understanding everything that is going on, that something is missing. This speaks to the writer's ability to put us in Karl's shoes but serves as an unfulfilling read. Also I was surprised at the point the story ended.
The whole experience was like going out to dinner and ending up with a 2 oz steak that's a little overdone with a spoonful of potatoes and three slightly mushy pieces of broccoli. You're still hungry but you don't particularly want more of that meal.
September 2, 2011
strange book. much of the plot and dialogue was completely unrealistic... ridiculous, really. in this, i was reminded of Toole, but that is where the similarities end: this novel was not "A Confederacy of Dunces". i truly wanted to like this novel because i saw some risk-taking in the writing. unfortunately, i found Sharpe's style cluttered and inconsistent, confusing me and making for a difficult read. i have a tough time recommending this book because i regularly checked out for pages at a time while reading it.
September 10, 2015
One of those hip, flip books in similar vein to Tibor Fischer or even A.M.Holmes that ultimately leaves one a little underwhelmed by the totality, even if there are some entertaining phrases and sentences along the way. I say flip, but some of those sentences round back and comment on themselves (in the guise of the character's reflective thought) which can actually make them quite long and syntactically subordinated clausewise which may grate on some. I preferred his book of short stories which seemed a lot more directed and purposeful.
October 3, 2010
Did not like this book. Don't have anything more to add. Oh, wait, there is one more thing for just about every character and situation, my thought was, "who cares?"
April 5, 2021
This is just about the least enjoyable book I have ever read. The writing is artsy to no worthy end, it feels horribly misogynistic, there is only one likable character (Henrietta Jones) and the poor thing suffers with her feet and choice of man, and a ridiculously thin plot.
Karl lives with his stepfather after the death of his mother. He is a math teacher who is beaten by two of his students. Then he meets a home invader who turns out to be his stepsister Sylvia. He is troubled and withdrawn, she is beautiful and compelling. They fall in love (!). Karl must be extricated from his problem relationship with his stepfather, Monty. Sylvia must be extricated from her problem relationship with her rich, handsome and sadistic boyfriend, Stony, who took Karl's hat. Karl strikes his stepfather in anger (he thinks Monty hired the boys to beat Karl) and nearly kills him. This propels the stepfather to introduce Karl to Henrietta, Monty's ex-wife and Sylvia's mother, for the first time. Stony and his friend Arv are up to no good. Sylvia owes them (something?) and sacrifices herself to Stony to save her parents and Karl. So Sylvia spends the novel being punished (as if being a black woman main character written by a seemingly white male novelist isn't punishment enough). Karl is so unappealing that her relationship with him seems punishing, too. Blech.
The main issue I have with this book is that it sounds like it was written by an incel, or with an incel audience in mind. Gross. Much is made of Sylvia's beauty, her thinness, her capacity for loving and caring and sacrifice. Meanwhile Karl is an unattractive blob who makes absolutely zero effort in his life, unless you count his efforts to feel sorry for himself. So obviously she falls for him. (!?!)
The rest of the plot is obscured by the supposedly interesting or beautiful language. One reviewer calls the language "ambiguous" - well that's one way to put it. This reads like a challenge to reviewers - if I write complete dreck artfully will anyone call me on it? No, it gets labelled satire. If you mean a satire of a good book, I'll almost buy that, but it doesn't make this one worth reading.
Does the author hate himself and wrote this book to get people to reinforce his feelings of unworthiness? Is he Karl? Are we supposed to rescue him like Sylvia? Not me. I'm feeling more like Henrietta. This book makes my feet hurt (among other things).
Karl lives with his stepfather after the death of his mother. He is a math teacher who is beaten by two of his students. Then he meets a home invader who turns out to be his stepsister Sylvia. He is troubled and withdrawn, she is beautiful and compelling. They fall in love (!). Karl must be extricated from his problem relationship with his stepfather, Monty. Sylvia must be extricated from her problem relationship with her rich, handsome and sadistic boyfriend, Stony, who took Karl's hat. Karl strikes his stepfather in anger (he thinks Monty hired the boys to beat Karl) and nearly kills him. This propels the stepfather to introduce Karl to Henrietta, Monty's ex-wife and Sylvia's mother, for the first time. Stony and his friend Arv are up to no good. Sylvia owes them (something?) and sacrifices herself to Stony to save her parents and Karl. So Sylvia spends the novel being punished (as if being a black woman main character written by a seemingly white male novelist isn't punishment enough). Karl is so unappealing that her relationship with him seems punishing, too. Blech.
The main issue I have with this book is that it sounds like it was written by an incel, or with an incel audience in mind. Gross. Much is made of Sylvia's beauty, her thinness, her capacity for loving and caring and sacrifice. Meanwhile Karl is an unattractive blob who makes absolutely zero effort in his life, unless you count his efforts to feel sorry for himself. So obviously she falls for him. (!?!)
The rest of the plot is obscured by the supposedly interesting or beautiful language. One reviewer calls the language "ambiguous" - well that's one way to put it. This reads like a challenge to reviewers - if I write complete dreck artfully will anyone call me on it? No, it gets labelled satire. If you mean a satire of a good book, I'll almost buy that, but it doesn't make this one worth reading.
Does the author hate himself and wrote this book to get people to reinforce his feelings of unworthiness? Is he Karl? Are we supposed to rescue him like Sylvia? Not me. I'm feeling more like Henrietta. This book makes my feet hurt (among other things).
March 4, 2019
Lots of hype, but bland prose.
Read
January 21, 2023The guy who recommended that I read this has been blocked from my contacts.
November 6, 2010
It's hard to get a grip on whether I loved or hated this book, which I suppose is saying something that it had that reaction in me. I loved: the surreal feeling, the utter unreliability of every single word, the math--the way it defines and defies Karl--, the subtly aggressive moments of sexuality and the subtly sexual moments of aggression, the dead mother and her weird influence over her son, and sentences like this: “His life had been a series of slow, dull shoves through time toward the grave, which she had disrupted by existing in proximity to him, and now the sun was coming up on a post-Vetch life that was pathetic, intolerable, and that he could have prevented just by forgiving her—or even not forgiving her but living with her in unforgiveness and accepting the beating and any subsequent treacheries and lies as the modest price of loving and being loved, which was what he assumed most couples did.”
I didn't like so much the exquisite descriptions of vomit sliding and pooling and congealing on things, the way Karl’s “voice” and the rambling of the evil step-father were so similar...the long stretches of page-long sentences in Karl’s brain have the same tone and cadence and sardonic humor that Jones has. Is this a comment about how he resembles the man he detests? Does the step-father not actually exist, or not actually exist apart from Karl? Or is it unintentional, the result of a certain style overtaking the book? The plot, or lack of it—especially the ending...though it kept me reading, waiting for the big reveal at the end, it wasn't as satisfying as I had hoped (although I loved the last couple of lines--hysterical!), and, sadly, I didn't much enjoy the dialogue, which seemed to be trying too hard in some places.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, and it's one of the better ones I've received via the Early Reviewers' program--I can appreciate what Sharpe was aiming for and what he achieved in many places in this book, and I like it when authors take risks like this. An interesting and complicated book!
I didn't like so much the exquisite descriptions of vomit sliding and pooling and congealing on things, the way Karl’s “voice” and the rambling of the evil step-father were so similar...the long stretches of page-long sentences in Karl’s brain have the same tone and cadence and sardonic humor that Jones has. Is this a comment about how he resembles the man he detests? Does the step-father not actually exist, or not actually exist apart from Karl? Or is it unintentional, the result of a certain style overtaking the book? The plot, or lack of it—especially the ending...though it kept me reading, waiting for the big reveal at the end, it wasn't as satisfying as I had hoped (although I loved the last couple of lines--hysterical!), and, sadly, I didn't much enjoy the dialogue, which seemed to be trying too hard in some places.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, and it's one of the better ones I've received via the Early Reviewers' program--I can appreciate what Sharpe was aiming for and what he achieved in many places in this book, and I like it when authors take risks like this. An interesting and complicated book!
February 21, 2017
I did NOT get this book.
like....
at all.
like....
at all.
September 7, 2011
There are many funny passages in this book. And also many stylistic tics that are probably a statement on Karl's (the protagonist), dull acumen, such as these passages, wherein one thing is defined as another to simplify it, the scene is broken down to its molecules (to simplify it), and Karl exercises his characteristic passivity:
The lids had fluttered at times when he searched for a word, and the fluttering had functioned then as a hand held out to stay speech, a Shut up uttered by the eyelids.
They were led into a small room in which a brown woman in a black robe sat behind a tan desk.
Karl spied an oak tree in the yard and climbed it with his eyes.
The insistence on surreal, deadpan, and odd pairings of sentiment and language at times served to frustrate me as a reader who was just trying to figure out what was happening. It was at these times that I felt Sharpe could have just given away something small so I could get through the scene. Again, this might be a deliberate statement on Karl's seeming incapability to pay attention to, figure out, and participate in his own life.
Finally, in the end Karl makes an active choice and uses some hilarious logic to arrive there:
His life had been a series of slow, dull shoves through time toward the grave, which she had disrupted by existing in proximity to him, and now the sun was coming up on a post-Vetch life that was pathetic, intolerable, and that he could have prevented just by forgiving her--or even not forgiving her but living with her in unforgiveness and accepting the beating and any subsequent treacheries and lies as the modest price of loving and being loved, which was what he assumed most couples did.
The lids had fluttered at times when he searched for a word, and the fluttering had functioned then as a hand held out to stay speech, a Shut up uttered by the eyelids.
They were led into a small room in which a brown woman in a black robe sat behind a tan desk.
Karl spied an oak tree in the yard and climbed it with his eyes.
The insistence on surreal, deadpan, and odd pairings of sentiment and language at times served to frustrate me as a reader who was just trying to figure out what was happening. It was at these times that I felt Sharpe could have just given away something small so I could get through the scene. Again, this might be a deliberate statement on Karl's seeming incapability to pay attention to, figure out, and participate in his own life.
Finally, in the end Karl makes an active choice and uses some hilarious logic to arrive there:
His life had been a series of slow, dull shoves through time toward the grave, which she had disrupted by existing in proximity to him, and now the sun was coming up on a post-Vetch life that was pathetic, intolerable, and that he could have prevented just by forgiving her--or even not forgiving her but living with her in unforgiveness and accepting the beating and any subsequent treacheries and lies as the modest price of loving and being loved, which was what he assumed most couples did.
September 1, 2011
Weird. There is no other way to describe this novel. It begins when passive-aggressive, under-achiever Karl is jumped by two of his students. Beaten, bloody, and probably concussed, he meets Sylvia, a beautiful and mysterious woman who, for some reason, is in the home he shares with his speech-giving stepfather. Rather than kick Sylvia out or call the cops, he instead leaves with her and meets a group of seemingly slapdash group of beach bums, and life gets weird from there. He tries to sort out the lies that everyone seems to tell him, his desire for Sylvia (despite the fact that he can't seem to trust her), his own self loathing at his passivity, and his desire to kill his step-father. I don't know that there was a single character that I actually liked, including Karl, and I found myself increasingly annoyed by Sharpe's desire to throw in absurdities for absurdity sake. It had moments where I was genuinely interested and entertained, but then there were moments where I hoped that the characters would indeed implode under the weight of their own vaguely defined issues.
August 2, 2012
Sharpe's novel starts out with a strong premise--the narrator, Karl Floor, returns home to find a strange woman (Sylvia Vetch) robbing his home. The two characters become intertwined, and Sylvia more-or-less leads Karl on a journey that involves shady, mysterious characters, occasional violence, a stolen hat, drugs, sex, and even a wedding. I really wanted to like this book, but ultimately, I thought it fell flat. There seemed to be too much confusion, too much withholding of information, with very little payoff. All of the other characters seem to know exactly what's going on--it seemed to me that Karl was being manipulated, but I didn't know why, though I got the sense that any one of the other characters could tell me why. But they didn't. Karl's stepfather often speaks in long, rambling paragraphs. Other characters speak in code. Paragraphs of description were too dense, had too many lists. I loved the idea behind the novel, but not its execution.
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March 8, 2011From the opening paragraph informing me that Karl Floor "had had a hard life," I had a sinking suspicion that the two of us wouldn't be getting along well. Sharpe's quirky novel is about a stifled, boring teacher and the beautiful "robber" who enters his home, informs him that she's taking stuff -- but can't leave without chatting with him first.
I got about 40 pages into this one before flipping to the end, slightly annoyed by the pretentious writing style and seeming lack of plot. As I originally worried, Karl wasn't a guy I liked, felt for or cheered on -- and Sylvia, Karl's robber, wasn't any better.
I didn't really know what to make of this one. So I made nothing of it, putting it down in favor of something else. Didn't work for me.
Review copy provided by Goodreads' First Reads.
I got about 40 pages into this one before flipping to the end, slightly annoyed by the pretentious writing style and seeming lack of plot. As I originally worried, Karl wasn't a guy I liked, felt for or cheered on -- and Sylvia, Karl's robber, wasn't any better.
I didn't really know what to make of this one. So I made nothing of it, putting it down in favor of something else. Didn't work for me.
Review copy provided by Goodreads' First Reads.
September 29, 2010
I won this book in a Goodreads First Reads Give Away.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. The story is intelligent and dark, with layers of complexity and some withering sarcasm. The author uses wonderfully descriptive language to say a great deal in such a short novel.
The back cover offers a review by Lydia Millet that describes "You Were Wrong" as a hybrid of a P.G. Wodehouse social farce and the bitter wit of John Kennedy Toole. I have read P.G. Wodehouse as well as "A Confederacy of Dunces" and "The Neon Bible" by J.K. Toole. I found that "You Were Wrong" is closer to Toole than Woodehouse. Karl, like Ignatius, uses his bedroom as a sanctuary against the difficulties of living in the world for extended periods. Karl does not share the same eccentricities as Ignatius nor does he rise to the same level of outrageousness.
I recommend this book.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. The story is intelligent and dark, with layers of complexity and some withering sarcasm. The author uses wonderfully descriptive language to say a great deal in such a short novel.
The back cover offers a review by Lydia Millet that describes "You Were Wrong" as a hybrid of a P.G. Wodehouse social farce and the bitter wit of John Kennedy Toole. I have read P.G. Wodehouse as well as "A Confederacy of Dunces" and "The Neon Bible" by J.K. Toole. I found that "You Were Wrong" is closer to Toole than Woodehouse. Karl, like Ignatius, uses his bedroom as a sanctuary against the difficulties of living in the world for extended periods. Karl does not share the same eccentricities as Ignatius nor does he rise to the same level of outrageousness.
I recommend this book.
October 15, 2010
I'm about 60 pages in right now - I'm torn. The story is interesting, but it is not an easy book to read, and I'm not entirely sure where the book is going.
- - - - -
Now that I've finished the book, I have a slightly different perspective. It is still a twisted story and not an easy book to read. But looking back, I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would after the first few pages. The story has some intriguing twists. It's a quick read, but I think it's worth it; just be prepared to be confused.
- - - - -
Now that I've finished the book, I have a slightly different perspective. It is still a twisted story and not an easy book to read. But looking back, I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would after the first few pages. The story has some intriguing twists. It's a quick read, but I think it's worth it; just be prepared to be confused.
October 10, 2010
This has an interesting story line, a few twists and turns along the way and the author is able to pull together incongruous concepts to juxtapose ideas in an extremely novel way. These glimmers of brilliance are made recondite by the profusion of words, followed by clause after clause of cacophonous phrases, the best descriptor for the novel is abstruse, the key elements enshrined in a plethora of cynical commentary so turbid as to be occluded. Character motivations were nearly opaque throughout, with the possible exception of Karl's motivation to sleep which is consistently emphasized to the greatest extent.
March 5, 2013
dectective/noir set in the mundane. matthew sharpe, we are waiting for him to write the greatest novel of the 21st. one seems to believe he is fully capable of that. but then he uses things like "current lady of his life"..........is that terrible, or terrbily funny that matthew sharpe would write that?
for fans of scottish coastal new fiction and two dollar radio. Man or Mango?: A Lament How to Get into the Twin Palms
for fans of scottish coastal new fiction and two dollar radio. Man or Mango?: A Lament How to Get into the Twin Palms
October 15, 2010
I won this book in a Goodreads First Reads Give Away, and I am so glad I did! You will laugh, cringe and scratch your head. Matthew Sharpe provides a roller coaster of creative writing. In fact his use of words should have its own category of creativeness. There is a surprise around every corner of this book which is so rich in observations of everyday things it seemed like a movie. I think his main character lives in all of us, restrained and held back from the real world. This was a quick read perfect for a weekend adventure!
March 22, 2013
I'll start off by saying I didn't get it. I didn't mind the ride, but I didn't get the book as a whole. It needed a lot more contemplation than I felt like giving it. What definitely helped was that I went into it knowing it would be a very strange read. I was prepared and I was able to go along for the ride. It's definitely written in a very poetic and almost caressing style. I've never read a book before that felt like the main character's point of view was separated from the world by a layer of gauze.
October 25, 2010
This book is described on the cover as "strange, original, and devastatingly clever." So true.
I was gripped from the first page to the last. At times it was so disturbing, but I couldn't put it down.
The writing is so strange that at times it doesn't really seem to have any purpose except to put the reader in the same disturbed mind-set as the main character. Yet it was totally relate-able throughout.
I was gripped from the first page to the last. At times it was so disturbing, but I couldn't put it down.
The writing is so strange that at times it doesn't really seem to have any purpose except to put the reader in the same disturbed mind-set as the main character. Yet it was totally relate-able throughout.
December 20, 2010
Great writing always compels me to read on, and Sharpe is a great writer. There are some pretty ingenious uses of figurative language and imagery here. The story, though, and the characters, situations, plot, etc, struck me as almost surreal. There are little or no consequences for many of the actions, but I still can't decide if I enjoyed that or not. It kind of left me floating. Anyhow, I'm not making any sense, so I'll just say, I enjoyed it for the great writing.
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