Good-Bye, Chunky Rice

Craig Thompson

Craig Thompson has emerged as something of a big name in the last year or so, so I figured I'd drop in and see what all the fuss is about. Good-Bye, Chunky Rice was Thompson's first effort, and I have to say that, while I still intend to read Blankets next year, this one didn't move me to kick it further up the priority queue.

The biggest thing that bugged me about Good-Bye, Chunky Rice is that Chunky (who's a turtle, by the by) has no real reason in his head for wanting to leave, and more importantly, he never achieves any sort of self-discovery about his motives; it's as if Thompson wrote the first half of the book for the sole purpose of putting Chunky on a journey, but had no idea of why himself. While the journey is always as important as the destination, and this is certainly a whopper of a journey (on a barely seaworthy craft with a sketchy skipper, his borderline-nuts wife, and a pair of conjoined twins who love to argue with one another), not having a destination at all (an emotional one, not a physical one-- everyone knows where they're going, but no one seems to know why) tends to leave this reader somewhat cold.

Also, while some of the subplots do achieve satisfactory endings, others are just left hanging. This is understandable, arguably, as the book ends while Chunky and the boat's crew are still in the midst of the journey, but it does leave the book with an unfinished feel.

What's here is pretty good stuff, but it seemed like there should have been more.