Going backwards

I just closed the cover on Andrew Sean Greer's The Confessions of Max Tivoli, and I'm finding myself at a bit of a loss. On the one hand I'm thinking, "Yeah, and Audrey Niffenegger did a similar idea much better," but on the other, it has a certain quaint old-timeyness to it that's appealing. The voice is authentically overwrought for Tivoli as a product of turn-of-the-century San Francisco high society, as amply demonstrated by such *thud* lines as (and I shit you not that the following is a quote - see p. 167 of the PB edition) "Reader, she married me." As much as I feel the voice fits the character and the times, it's still annoying as hell to read because it keeps me from connecting to the emotional heart of the story. I can't grasp this grand love affair that's going on between Alice and Max because it sometimes reads like a teleplay soon to appear on the bastard love child of Lifetime and The History Channel. So for all that the writing is tight and everything is just so, there's a hollowness that needs filling, I think. It could be that the hollowness is Alice herself - I mean, I just finished this book 10 minutes ago and I can give you exactly one character trait (free-spirited) that I remember. True, it's from Max's perspective and he doesn't really know her, but damn does that make it hard to root for them to be together when as a reader you don't know her at all.

Greer also frustrates me with his gimmick of Max aging in reverse. It's a fine idea, but it's weird and when you use a bizzaro biological idea you really need to think it through and establish clear rules and boundaries for how that weirdness is going to work. The early parts of the book suffer a lot because I just can't bend my head around what exactly is happening with Max as an old baby. Why is Max capable of remembering his childhood in great detail, when he's only old physically, not mentally? I get the concept, but the execution doesn't pass muster when you start to ponder some of the conflicts.

But in spite of the six dozen things I can find that I didn't like about this book, it still resonates because the theme of being out of sync with your life and feeling like you're missing out on happiness because of circumstance is deeply affecting and real even when the book's artifice gets overwhelming.

I don't have the right scale to rate this one right now - I'll update if I can settle on something.