Less
Andrew Sean Greer
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
Less
Andrew Sean Greer
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
...[a] thoroughly delightful novel.
Less is the funniest, smartest and most humane novel I’ve read since Tom Rachman’s 2010 debut, The Imperfectionists.
...philosophical, poignant, funny and wise, filled with unexpected turns.
Alas, Greer's subsequent work has consistently fallen short of the standard set by The Confessions of Max Tivoli, a sobering reminder that early success can be a mixed blessing. Reading Greer's most recent novel, Less, I found myself searching for evidence of genius, which I wanted to believe was still there, lurking somewhere between the lines. Instead, I found myself tripping over awkward phrases and ill-chosen metaphors in a work whose title turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Greer’s use of language, dramatic irony, and a mysterious narrator casts Arthur Less as the unwitting hero in this comedy of errors. Throughout the novel, comedy takes the edge off more serious matters, as we follow Arthur through the Frankfurt airport under the influence of too many sleeping pills, attempting to teach a five week university course in his hilariously faulty ‘fluent’ German, and chasing wild dogs in India … It’s the combination of these three failures—loss of love, professional oversight, and aging—that sets him into such a tailspin that he packs up on this bumbling odyssey rather than confront them head on..
While such luminaries as Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers, and John Irving have praised Greer’s previous novels, including The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells (2013), Less is perhaps his finest yet.
Greer writes beautifully, but his occasionally Faulknerian sentences are unnecessary. He is entirely successful, though, in the authorial sleights of hand that make the narrator fade into the background—only to have an identity revealed at the end in a wonderful surprise..
Seasoned novelist Greer clearly knows whereof he speaks and has lived to joke about it. Nonstop puns on the character’s surname aside, this is a very funny and occasionally wise book..