About this title: INDEPENDENCE DAY is the sequel to Richard Ford's 1986 novel THE SPORTSWRITER. The story picks up six years later and finds the narrator, Frank Bascombe, still trying to make sense of life. Bascombe is no longer a sportswriter; he now sell real estate. Over the course of a Fourth of July weekend he takes a stab at settling some aspects of his life. ...
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Description: Fine. 0679735186 Excellent condition Soft cover book, clean pages, No creases to spine, this book is Near NEW! Shop & Save With US. read more
Description: Fine. 0679735186 Excellent condition Soft cover book, clean pages, No creases to spine, this book is Near NEW! Shop & Save With US. read more
"This is one of the best books that I have read in a long time. I could at once relate to and be impressed by the clarity of the realities that Richard Ford deals with--fatherhood, relationships, career decisions, politics, race, real estate, happiness and morality. I prefer reviews where I don't feel like I can add much to what the author has already said. This is one of those books. It tempts me to read the other two books in Frank's trilogy, though I feel in no rush to. Like Frank's life by the end of the story, Independence Day is complete enough just as it is.
I do intend to give this book to someone close to me--maybe I won't but if I did it would be appropriate, since Ford seems to be critiquing the idea of independence. When it comes down to it, he's big on the idea that as much as we strive to sequester ourselves, based on anxiety, a sense of self-importance, or supposedly "irreconcilable" differences, we need to share our imperfect life with others if is to have meaning of any kind."
"I just love Richard Ford's trilogy of Frank Bascombe. I have read the three out of sequence as I first read The Sportswriter many years ago but I did not get the significance at that time. Last year I read Lay of the Land about Bascombe's "permanent period" and really got it. Now I have read the middle book of the trilogy about Bascombe's "existence period." Bottom line for me is all three books are life at its most real. The other similar series of books are Updike's Rabbit stories and they are very good as well.
This novel deserves all the awards and praises it has received. It is great."
"Goodreads' rating scale is odd. Five stars denotes, "it was amazing," while four stars means I "really liked it." I didn't especially like this book at all, but it was amazing. The book covers three days, but it does so in what it is meant to feel like "real time." Virtually every thought the main character could have (and far more, realistically) is shared with us the reader. It's like going through events in slow motion with the luxury of near-hindsight.
The book is not enjoyable in that the main character, while someone I can relate to, is not someone I'd be friends with. He's detached and self-aware all at the same time; at the same time, he's remarkably un-self-aware. Which is by design, I'm sure, and it's not an uncommon human trait. But in the main character, Frank Bascombe, Ford has created a person whose life is defined by words. His agency comes from how he spins events rather than how he takes command of his own life. Understandable, true, but also frustrating to the reader (again, I'm sure, by design). Frank experiences life (for the most part) like a cable surfer watches tv, or, perhaps, as a captain of a glass-bottom boat--sailing over the surface of the water, observing, interacting in some way but always at one remove. We know this not so much from his thoughts but from his actions and from the responses toward him of others.
Brilliant. Thoughtful but not philosopical, or at least not in a systematic sense. Still(?), very impressive."
"Frank Bascomb narrates one week-end in his life, as he pegs his "growing independence" and faces the realities of his life and his beliefs. The premise is revealed on page 5: "life is really what you have waiting for 'your life' to begin...." The second book of a trilogy, it stands independent of the others, and moves Frank out of his "existance" period where he accepted what life dealt, and into the possibility of now being able to shape, mold, change, and be "independent." If you are a believer in Housman's quip from "Terence, This is Stupid Stuff" --"Ale, man, Ale's the stuff to drink/For people whom it hurts to think!" then you won't like this book. If you can't appreciate how form follows function (thank you, Louis Sullivan), and appreciate the irony of Frank's job selling real estate to his understanding of the importance of "place" in a person's life, then you might find this tedious. But, it's a wonderfully constructed, thought provoking book!"
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