DaveNash3 reviewed Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Review of 'Revolutionary Road' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
Hypocrisy is acting against values. People say one thing and do another. Outwardly, they may disparage suburban life, but inwardly even subconsciously yearn for it. Often the phrase I do not want this means I do want that. This is Frank Wheeler’s life.
He’s pretentious talker of big ideas, and Ivy League grad and WWII vet. He says he wants a bohemian or Hemingway like life of Paris cafe's and finding oneself. But he doesn’t. His wife is a problem. Simply writing her off as insane is too easy. She’s cold and can’t love. Frank struggles with his manhood.
To tell the story Yates add two couples –the Campbell’s and the Giving’s. They have a deeper nobility then the Wheelers give the credit for. The Wheeler have delusions. They have pride. They are cynics. They seem themselves as above suburbia as above working for a living, but they don’t do …
Hypocrisy is acting against values. People say one thing and do another. Outwardly, they may disparage suburban life, but inwardly even subconsciously yearn for it. Often the phrase I do not want this means I do want that. This is Frank Wheeler’s life.
He’s pretentious talker of big ideas, and Ivy League grad and WWII vet. He says he wants a bohemian or Hemingway like life of Paris cafe's and finding oneself. But he doesn’t. His wife is a problem. Simply writing her off as insane is too easy. She’s cold and can’t love. Frank struggles with his manhood.
To tell the story Yates add two couples –the Campbell’s and the Giving’s. They have a deeper nobility then the Wheelers give the credit for. The Wheeler have delusions. They have pride. They are cynics. They seem themselves as above suburbia as above working for a living, but they don’t do anything against it. The voice of the insane man is the most reasonable voice, like the fool in the King Lear. John Giving’s sees through it all and can speak free of the restriction of polite suburban society.
Yates’s prose and construction of the story is superb. You could call this an American tragedy in three acts. Set in 1955, so much of it still has relevance – the drudge work, the plastic suburbs, and the conflict between inner values and outer actions.