The Temple of Gold

This book was required reading at my friend's all boys high school many years ago. He recommended it to me and it became one of four or five books from my teenage years that have stayed with me. Many people have compared it to Catcher in the Rye. I can see the resemblance, but this book is so much better. It may not be, technically, better than Catcher but it has great heart and if you ask me, it's just a much better story. I have heard William Goldman say terrible things about this book; maybe because it was his first book he sees all kinds of errors or things he would write differently now, but boy, I just love love love it. I reread it this week for the first time in 10 years or so, and it was just as funny and fresh as it was the first time. I have teenage boys who are not readers and am going to start reading this to them at the dinner table. I think they might pick it up on their own after a few pages.

I've read this book a couple of times - first when I was a senior in high school, again a couple of years into college, and then most recently as a first year grad student - and every time I've loved it. There are a lot of reasons(it's wry, sincere, frighented, hopefull, and terribly honest... not to mention beautifully written), but I think one of them is that as Goldman works his way through the complex weave of friendship, hope, love, fear, confusion, etc with which he fills this novel, amist it all he somehow manages to capture that rhythm by which life just goes on and on and up and down and you learn some lessons and other things leave you scarred but either way things just keep moving. It's a really difficult thing to accomplish in such a personal and straigtforward novel such as this, but when it is accomplished, it's wonderful.That's just one stab at explaining one of many reasons that I loved this book, though. I recomend it wholeheartedly.

I have never loved a book the way I love this one. As someone who previously reviewed it said, it is the reason I became a writer. I have never written a word or reflected on my own life without being influenced by it. My mother, who was good enough to give me her copy (which, of course, I've subsequently given away) always called it The Better Catcher in the Rye and I tend to agree. I give this book to anyone I really love.

...to find that others feel as I do about this gem of a book. It was among hundreds of dusty, disintegrating old books my parents purchased at an auction when I was young, and even then it was well out of print, but its impact was huge: I read it countless times and will read it again. It contains some of the finest writing about youth and friendship I've ever read. Goldman went on to write a great many award-winning movies, but I think this was his greatest accomplishment -- and it was his first novel.

I have read a lot a books as a teenager but none have had the impact of this story. I have searched for high & low for a copy to be able to read it again. Vivid memories of Raymond's life changing episode always comes back to mind when I think about books I've read. Hopefully I will get another copy and once I read it, I will first have my husband read it, he never has had the opportunity. I will then LEND it to my grown sons and get their thoughts on it, then I will put it away for my grandson to read when he's older. I cannot wait to see if it leaves me with the same haunting memories, I have always wondered if I would feel the same way reading it today as I did all those years ago.