If you've been paying any attention to recent movie releases, you might have noticed one film on the marquees that you've seen before - and I'm not talking about the Grinch. Wonder Boys, a film starring Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Robert Downey Jr., and Katie Holmes, is back in the box office to boost its Oscar chances, as well as go for both your wallet and your heart a second time. But if you don't feel like venturing out into the chilly New England climate to the Copley cinema, you might just want to read the book.
Simply put, Wonder Boys explores the basic search for the meaning of life - and don't worry, it's really not that boring. Michael Chabon's tale centers on Grady Tripp, a middle-aged English professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Tripp isn't having the greatest time, to say the least. His third wife has just left him, and he is still struggling to finish a long-winded sequel to his first book, which achieved national acclaim. To make everything worse, Tripp is on his way to pick up his editor at the airport for a weekend visit. The editor, Terry Crabtree, is anxious to read the new book, but Tripp doesn't even know what it's about yet.
Throughout Wonder Boys, Chabon manages to keep Tripp at the end of his rope - sort of the old "it can't get any worse" situation - but it does get worse. Extreme situations, such as the assassination of Tripp's girlfriend's blind dog (who happens to be the chancellor of the University - the girlfriend, not the dog) by one of his students, keeps the tale outrageous, but more than a little poignant at the same time.
Tripp constantly struggles to determine what's important in his life. He wants to believe that his unfinished book is of paramount importance, but as the tome approaches the 3,000-page mark, Tripp seems to be holding on to Wonder Boys (the title of his book as well) almost out of desperation.
Without his book, Tripp is lost. He smokes pot when the real world gets the slightest bit harsh. His girlfriend's husband is his boss, the head of the English department. In addition, his editor is relentlessly trying to seduce one of his male students. Tripp just doesn't seem to know where to start rebuilding his life.
In one of Chabon's many ironic plot twists, Tripp is cast in the position of mentoring another wayward soul - one of his students, James Leer. Leer is a brilliant writer, but a social outcast. He doesn't know right from wrong, or even how to interact with people. Tripp introduces Leer to alcohol and various illegal substances, but he also provides Leer with something quite unexpected and useful - his editor.
While Crabtree wants to publish Leer's book, The Love Parade, Tripp's book hardly even gets off the ground. Leer comes out as gay, and finds companionship in Crabtree. To top it all off, Tripp's wife tells him that she's never moving back, and his girlfriend tells him she's pregnant - with his child.
This is the turning point of the novel, when Tripp is under so much pressure from every direction that he doesn't think he can take it anymore. Strangely, he never feels the need to talk to anyone, or to talk about his feelings. Hannah Green, a student who is renting a room from Tripp, pleads several times for him to just let it all out, but he refuses.
In the end, Grady Tripp has to figure it all out for himself. On the one hand, he knows he can just go back to finding another good-looking trophy wife, smoking pot, and popping codeine, and writing more and more of his never-ending story. In some ways, it's hard for him to do anything else. At the other extreme, he has thoughts of just letting his life wind itself down.
On one of the last days of Crabtree's visit, the persistent editor asks Tripp if there's ever any time when he's actually happy. Tripp replies that he's truly happy when he's helping his students discover how to write. Crabtree seems to imply that as long as Tripp has some worthwhile part of his life, then his life is worth saving.
At the end of the tale, Tripp gets what he needs. He may not have found out the meaning of life, but it is easy to see that the lifestyle he ultimately leads is one that results directly from the decisions he makes after his editor leaves - what to do about the book, his wife, and his unborn child. Wonder Boys is a story that hits close to home. In hectic everyday life, this book is a call to further examine ourselves and to find out what we really want.
