Traveling Sprinkler

July 22, 2013
Paul Chowder, the rambling protagonist of The Anthologist, returns in Baker’s less successful latest. Between trips to Planet Fitness and disquisitions on subjects such as dance music and automobile maintenance, Chowder dwells on drones and other topics of a geopolitical nature. From lamenting his own inability to find (or keep) a girlfriend to decrying the “truly evil” nature of global agriculture industry giant Monsanto, Chowder hurls out his grievances in a gushing, sorrowful soliloquy while striving to reinvent himself by rekindling his old musical aspirations and buying himself a cheap guitar at Best Buy for his birthday. Though the stream-of-consciousness narrative wears thin, the character of Chowder—epic loser and literary striver—feels very real and is almost endearing. He is a study in contemporary dislocation, unable though he is to make any sense of his own condition. But that’s fine; for all Chowder really craves, like the homeless guy on the corner, is an audience he can chirp at for the duration: “Hey, Junior Birdmen. I’m Paul Chowder and I’m here in the blindingness of noon near the chicken hut talking to you about the things that need to be talked about. You know what they are.” Agent: Melanie Jackson, Melanie Jackson Agency.

Starred review from July 15, 2013
Baker foregoes the kinky eroticism of Vox and House of Holes this time and gives readers a sweet and idiosyncratic novel about the protagonist of The Anthologist (2009), a poet and pop songwriter manque. Although Paul Chowder's life is not exactly coming apart, it's also not what it could be. His girlfriend, Roz, has taken up with someone else, he's become less committed to writing poetry, and to make a little extra money, he shrink-wraps boats. (You've seen them, with the tight, white plastic....) On the other hand, he enjoys going to Quaker meetings, and he's really getting into music. We learn he used to be a serious student of the bassoon, but in college, he switched to the study of poetry and now has some regrets. What Chowder would like is a hit song, and he looks for inspiration everywhere. While driving, for example, he sees a truck with an "Oversize Load" banner and begins to improvise: "It was big/It was bad/It was round/It could explode//Yeah, he was driving down the road/with an oversize load." He's also recently taken up the guitar and hopes to impress his neighbors as well as Roz with his musical prowess. Most of all, Chowder is an observer of things and people, and he still has a poet's fascination with words, "garbanzo" being one of his new favorites. His musical erudition is impressive, and the attentive reader will receive quite an education, ranging from the reason for the bassoon solo at the beginning of The Rite of Spring to the brilliance of Victoria de los Angeles' version of Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 to the poignancy of Jonatha Brooke's rendition of "In the Gloaming." In sparkling and witty prose, Baker reminds readers why he's one of the masters of the contemporary novel.

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August 1, 2013
Adventurous novelist and essayist Baker (The Way the World Works, 2012) rejoins the eccentric, romantic, and hapless New Hampshire poet Paul Chowder, first met in The Anthologist (2009). Paul finally finished his anthology, but he still pines for his lover, Roz, who is now involved with a doctor. Paul is supposed to be writing a new book of poems, but instead he's taking care of his neighbor's chickens, smoking cigars, attending Quaker meetings, pondering killer drones, and attempting to write songsgoofy love songs, feeble protest songs. A bassoonist in his youth, Paul returns to music with quirky intent, trailing off into hilariously opinionated disquisitions and buying recording equipment he can ill afford and with which he becomes obsessed, just as he cherishes his vintage traveling sprinklers. Paul himself is such a gadget, showering us with a whirling cascade of consciousness as he traces his circling days, his meandering thoughts, always coming back to Roz, and to hope. Baker's endearingly comedic, covertly philosophical love story, spiked with intriguingeven alarminglittle-known facts, mischievously celebrates song and silence, steadfastness and loving-kindness.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

April 15, 2013

In Baker's The Anthologist, Paul Chowder tried to launch a collection of formal verse. Here he's eager to write a pop song or a protest song or, ideally, both. Baker will get the music right, as he played bassoonist (briefly) with the Rochester Philharmonic.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2013

If this is a book about Paul Chowder, who came to fame in Baker's The Anthologist, and if Paul now wants to cast aside poetry and embrace songwriting (particularly protest song writing), why does the narrative start with Paul's detailed discussion of the bassoon? Because this is a Baker novel, and a Baker novel finds its ground, then spirals upward in delicious flights of detailed fancy that unwind from point to point but remain connected, just as a traveling sprinkler does. So Paul moves from the "brain-melting bassoon lullaby" in Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird to the way he misses former love Roz, his failed date with folksinger Polly ("I was a rogue mastodon"), the Quaker meetings he attends to meet nice women, his reading Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov on orchestration in high school, his upset over drone warfare ("Why is a kill list a bad thing?...--oh gosh, where to begin"), and his song about an oversize highway load ("It was big/ It was bad/ It was round/ it could explode")--which immediately leads to a discussion of Serbian poet Vasko Popa. VERDICT Baker, a National Book Critics Circle Award winner, is always daring, and what results here is a witty and enticingly coherent blend of the everyday and the profound. [See Prepub Alert, 3/18/13.]--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.