Indecision

A Novel

By: Benjamin Kunkel

Narrated by: Patrick Frederic

Benjamin Kunkel’s brilliantly comic debut novel concerns one of the central maladies of our time–a pathological indecision that turns abundance into an affliction and opportunity into a curse.

Dwight B. Wilmerding is only twenty-eight, but he’s having a midlife crisis. Of course, living a dissolute, dorm like existence in a tiny apartment and working in tech support at the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer are not especially conducive to wisdom. And a few sessions of psychoanalysis conducted by his sister have distinctly failed to help with his biggest problem: a chronic inability to make up his mind. Encouraged by one of his roommates to try an experimental pharmaceutical meant to banish indecision, Dwight jumps at the chance (not without some meditation on the hazards of jumping) and swallows the first fateful pill. And when all at once he is “pfired” from Pfizer and invited to a rendezvous in exotic Ecuador with the girl of his long-ago prep-school dreams, he finds himself on the brink of a new life. The trouble–well, one of the troubles–is that Dwight can’t decide if the pills are working. Deep in the jungles of the Amazon, in the foreign country of a changed outlook, his would-be romantic escape becomes a hilarious journey into unbidden responsibility and unwelcome knowledge.

How to affirm happiness without living in constant denial of the ways of the world? How to commit, and to what? At once funny and poignant, gentle and outrageous, finely intelligent and proudly silly, Indecision rings with a voice of great energy and originality, while its deeper inquiries reflect the concerns and style of a generation.

©2005 Benjamin Kunkel (P)2005 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Here's what Indecision gives you: sustained social and intellectual comedy, possibly the last but certainly the funniest Superfluous Man in modern literature, drive-by satire plus detailed set-piece send-ups of Young Adult colgrads at work and play. The mockery is humane. The tale of Dwight Wilmerding is told with style and care. And there's a surprising ending. Benjamin Kunkel, welcome!"–Norman Rush, author of Mating and Mortals

“Very funny...The prose itself offers much pleasure. Kunkel would have given Stanley Elkin a run for his money in the clever metaphor department... Because he’s young and uses big words, Kunkel may unfairly be compared to David Foster Wallace or Rick Moody, but unlike them he has succeeded in writing a novel that’s clever without being self-conscious. Dwight’s plot never plays second-fiddle to Benjamin Kunkel’s intelligence. My advice? Read this one.”–Washington Post Book World

“Kunkel manages to whip up a cerebral novel that doesn’t feel overly, uh, cerebral...Funny.”–Village Voice

Irony...and a fantastic reader

I wanted to write a review to praise Patrick Frederic--his reading was wonderful, and added profound dimension and variety to this dialogue-rich book. However, I'm surprised to see so many other reviewers critiquing the ending as advocacy for democratic socialism. Dude: IRONY. He bought into an ideology wholesale, so to speak, and a rather banal one at that (democratic socialism is hardly a revolutionary concept in most of the world). Is that self-determination? What is self-determination, anyway? I think the book asks this question deftly. I was disappointed in the ending for other reasons--it seemed rushed and left many characters unresolved--but I thought the author brought home a particularly subtle and ironic point. Perhaps it was too subtle. Ah well. In any event, MAJOR props to Patrick Frederic. More novels from him, please, please.

Good writing, boring story

Kunkel's style and use of language are very good, sometimes great, with unexpected and quirky descriptions that bring a scene or a feeling to life. But the story is pointless and tedious and the characters are unappealing and soon get quite boring. I really didn't care much what happened to any of them. The narrator's forced, vaguely Europeanish accents for some of the characteres get pertty irritating.

Fun but light

Enjoyable listen ... but a bit predictable in the end. Okay if you're looking for something light ...

well it leads you to think its good

This novel has to be the first time I have stopped listening to a book, let alone with only 10 minutes of the audiobook left. Throughout the entire book the characters pretend to be philosophically searching for some sort of purpose or social order that the protagonist is continually revising, while journeying through his therapy sessions, adventures from Connecticut to Ecuador, and medicating that is both pseudo and self prescribed. It waxes about a generation jaded and freed of the cold war and thrown into the war on terrorism. Goes on at length about the abundacy of choices provided by a "neo-liberal/neo conservative"(charcter says they are one in the same) political economy. How realtionships suck in New York, And says democratic socialism is the greatest thing on earth.
Basically the main character is an insufferable character that never reaches any intelligent conclusions though he speaks philosophically on EVERYTHING...AND in the end his choice illustrates how thourghly ignorant and malfunctioning he really is, besides not wanting to do anything truly productive in his life other than get high and have sex(the entire book is about that immature). The author also ends the book as if it needs some sort of ridiculous movie style ending with the protagnist making a jackass out of himself in public. I guess I'll never really know how that situation turned out for the character, but I've never cared less about anything in my entire life.
If the character had more Don Quixote loveability and less unexcuseable pathetic, pretend to know that he has a valid stance (while he's preaching; I meant all the time). I might have listened to the last 10 minutes.

I give it 2 stars only because the prose is decent at times and conatins an occassionally funny line. Story and characters aren't worh the investment.

Great Book

Enjoyed it very much. Not best reader in the world but the story more than makes up for that.

Shallow and wooden

unique and neurotic is always good..pretending to be unique and neurotic is terrible. This book has no depth, is circular and read like a 3rd rate cable show.

Indecision, decisively terrible

I don't normally write reviews, but I felt compelled in this case so that you do not suffer the same plight as me in listening to this book.

The book is about a guy who is chronically indecisive. This could be a great premise for a comedy, but instead the book turns into a preachy book about "democratic socialism". The book says that if you are involved in a corporation then you are responsible for poverty in third world countries and that you should go over there and help them.

I do not get audiobooks to be preached at, I get them to be entertained, and this book was not entertaining.

Just not very good

I saw a review of this and figured I would try it out. It’s not good at all. You’ll be lucky to finish...

Awful

Billed as a comedy and a coming of age novel – it is neither. Drugged self indulgent ramblings do not move a person to maturity. If you want comedy, read Confederacy of Dunces. If you want coming of age, read Christ the Lord out of Egypt.

Farce or Philosophy?

What started out sounding like a comical look inside a young man's head struggling with himself while approaching a life transition, spirals away from the witty internal dialogue into a tedious lesson in the discovery of "democratic socialism". I couldn't tell if this became Kunkel's agenda to proselytize or if the struggle and transition that he attempted to write about really just became that absurd. What started as witty became tedious and painful. Though I did make it to the end of this book, I wish that I hadn't.