Reinhart in Love

Second in the Reinhart Series of four novels, Carlo Reinhart returns to the States from Berlin and the army. He is greeted by his cliche-espousing dad and sadistic mom (called Maw), and is soon awash in the overabundance of American consumerism of the 1950s (as opposed to the ruins and want of post-war Germany he was used to). As he tries to make his way through this new life experience (for him), he gets "help" from three characters: con-man Claude Humbold who is also his boss, the mischief-maker and black man Splendor Mainwaring, and the scheming Genevieve Raven, who dupes Reinhart into marrying her. Lots of humorous situations are found throughout the novel, one of my favorites being the sewer scam Carlo and Splendor cook up, which they then attempt to carry through legitimately, only to see it all get shot to hell when a bulldozer with a mind of its own (a favorite Berger theme) wrecks the neighborhood it was being built for. The dialogue, as usual, is Berger's strongest suit, especially in the mouth of Humbold and Splendor. One of Berger's funniest books.

In this 1980's novel by Thomas Berger we see the first emergance of the sensitive man.Reinhart is a guy with a life, a big one, not the typical career and nothing else life but a real life for the modern man, with art , cooking home repair and loving women as a few of his daily worksA good book about the freedom that men achived due to the womens movement .A great book about cooking before it was cool.

This novel, in its different way, is as great or greater than the author's most famous novel, The Little Big Man. It is a shame that it is out of print, and I hope this will be rectified soon.Reinhart in Love is the second in a series of novels about Carlo Reinhart, Berger's Everyman. The first novel in the series was Crazy in Berlin, Vital Parts followed RIL, and the last, thus far, is Reinhart's Women. They are all good in their way, Vital Parts almost on the level of this oneThere is no more fuller realized character in American fiction than Reinhart. A good man with strengths and flaws, Reinhart is easy to identify with. RIL begins in 1946 with Reinhart returning from Germany to his hometown in Indiana, a blond, overweight, young man of 22 years in the throes of some real anomie. It follows his adventures in readjusting to civilian life, as he gets a job as a real estate agent with one Claude Humbold, a truly great comic creation--the satire of the go-getting salesmen, a Music Man without the music but with more outrageous humor, is tempered by real sympathy and affection for the type. Reinhart also gets married, his wife and her father are mindboggling, goes to college, drops out, makes friends with a Negro, Splendor Mainwaring (the episodes where Reinhart goes to Splendor's house for dinner, making the acquaintence of Splendor's father as that man is working an insurance scam by setting an abandoned car of fire, and where he substitutes for Splendor at a motivational type of meeting,in the disguise of Dr. Goodykuntz, a sort of Ronco Chopra, are comic gems of the highest order), ultimately disgraces himself by letting himself be duped by Humbold and some corrupt pols in a shady business deal, and heads out on the highway to make amends by committing suicide, meeting another great subsidiary comic character, Homer T. Blesserhart. Reinhart is a great, full, rounded character. Sensitive, intelligent, yet not above fooling himself and acting dishonestly sometimes--usually in minor ways. His milquetoast father with hidden strenghts, his most unmaternal mother, his pushy, conniving wife, her self-important drunken father, Splendor, the Maker, Fedder--all varopis comic creation of the first order that enrich the book and instruct Carlo in the way of the world. Reinhart is not a naif, but is a man who genuinely likes people and believes that they can and will rise to their best. And believes that so will he. A lovely man, a great book. Read it slow, savoring the slightly cockeyed perambulating narrative style, and appreciating the rich characters and comic invention.