Rating may increase on further reading.

0 of 0 members found this review helpful.
Help us improve!  Register or log in to rate this review.

The sidebar description “in the manner of Tom Jones” is an eye-catcher for me, I must admit, and there are some similarities to the Henry Fielding masterpiece.  But although Stephen C. Rose’s Panflick is enjoyable, don’t read it looking for the zany antics of a good-hearted Fielding scapegrace or the absurd pronouncements of a Mr. Partidge.

I understand, in a way, the comparison to Tom Jones, even aside from the sort-of summary at the beginning of each chapter; Rose moves us through his hero’s life with a certain easygoing dispatch, beginning with a history of the Panflick family from well before Adam Panflick’s birth in the 1930s and continuing in some detail, which is conveyed mostly in exposition rather than dialogue or even proper scenes.  And like Tom Jones, Panflick is guided very much by coincidence; he has, we find, a way of appearing in the right place at the right time and among the right people (though I personally am still a little miffed that James Baldwin has appeared twice so far and absolutely nothing was said by or about him).  But Adam Panflick is a serious and rather remote fellow, nothing like Fielding’s Mr. Jones.  And though he does journey from one place to another he is not, unlike Tom Jones, on a quest; for much of his early life he is rather aimless.  So altogether the story does not closely resemble Tom Jones.  Oddly, it did remind me of another novel: Steven Millhauser’s wonderful Edwin Mullhouse (full title: Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer, 1943-1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright).

Why Edwin Mullhouse?  Panflick so far isn’t nearly as comic, nor as dark.  There may not be a Mr. Partridge in the story, but neither is there a fully-rounded and very present narrator/sidekick like Jeffrey Cartwright; the narrator of Panflick’s story, like that of Tom Jones’, merely pokes his nose in from time to time.  Where is the similarity?

I think it’s the scrupulous seriousness about minutia, and the feeling, from the very beginning, that the story’s hero is destined for greatness.  Everything is not merely noteworthy but downright portentous.  From the beginning we are told, with apparent authority, to expect to see the making of an American genius.

We are also told from time to time that the author spent a great deal of time and effort studying the “Panflick archives” to get his information (though the author also admits, once or twice, that the entire piece is a novel).  There are hints from Adam’s childhood of coming greatness, and the biographer seems to expect the reader to be familiar already with Panflick’s eventual accomplishments and reputation.  These seem to have something to do with writing . . . and, we eventually learn, theology . . . and politics . . . 

This is not by any stretch an action-packed drama.  The whole story has a somewhat detached flavor lacking in the two other “biographical” novels mentioned. 

Things were distant, empty of purpose, removed. 
No action seemed possible. Adam pulled into
himself and would not come out. Ganya [his wife]
nattered about this, but not insistently enough to
dislodge it. Adam observed that Ganya seemed 
more at home than he when in Vermont.

The portions of Panflick that deal with historical events and social climate are of interest., and the narrative asides can be entertaining.  (I did say it has some similarities to Tom Jones.)  As with most Web serials, the story could use some proofreading; a few sentences repeat themselves or must be puzzled out.  But if you’d like to take a stroll through a twentieth-century life, give Panflick a try.

2 of 2 members found this review helpful.
Help us improve!  Register or log in to rate this review.