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    The Portable Veblen
    The Portable Veblen
    The Portable Veblen
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Portable Veblen

    Written by Elizabeth McKenzie

    Narrated by Julia Gibson

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    An exuberant, one-of-a-kind novel about love and family, war and nature, new money and old values by a brilliant New Yorker contributor The Portable Veblen is a dazzlingly original novel that's as big-hearted as it is laugh-out-loud funny. Set in and around Palo Alto, amid the culture clash of new money and old (antiestablishment) values, and with the specter of our current wars looming across its pages, The Portable Veblen is an unforgettable look at the way we live now. A young couple on the brink of marriage-the charming Veblen and her fiance Paul, a brilliant neurologist-find their engagement in danger of collapse. Along the way they weather everything from each other's dysfunctional families, to the attentions of a seductive pharmaceutical heiress, to an intimate tete-a-tete with a very charismatic squirrel. Veblen (named after the iconoclastic economist Thorstein Veblen, who coined the term "conspicuous consumption") is one of the most refreshing heroines in recent fiction. Not quite liberated from the burdens of her hypochondriac, narcissistic mother and her institutionalized father, Veblen is an amateur translator and "freelance self"; in other words, she's adrift. Meanwhile, Paul-the product of good hippies who were bad parents-finds his ambition soaring. His medical research has led to the development of a device to help minimize battlefield brain trauma-an invention that gets him swept up in a high-stakes deal with the Department of Defense, a Bizarro World that McKenzie satirizes with granular specificity. As Paul is swept up by the promise of fame and fortune, Veblen heroically keeps the peace between all the damaged parties involved in their upcoming wedding, until she finds herself falling for someone-or something-else. Throughout, Elizabeth McKenzie asks: Where do our families end and we begin? How do we stay true to our ideals? And what is that squirrel really thinking? Replete with deadpan photos and sly appendices, The Portable Veblen is at once an honest inquiry into what we look for in love and an electrifying reading experience.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJan 19, 2016
    ISBN9781501905254
    The Portable Veblen
    Author

    Elizabeth McKenzie

    Elizabeth McKenzie’s work has appeared in the New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.

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    Reviews for The Portable Veblen

    3.5/5

    163 ratings17 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This was a cute book. I liked the quirky nature of the protagonist (Veblen). Despite having a strong dislike of squirrels in reality, I loved her perception of them in the book. (However, I stand by my convictions and still insist that squirrels are actually evil.) The book was a bit difficult for me to get through at times, the pace shifted a lot. I found myself struggling to get through some bits and then breezing through chapters at a time. In the end, I liked the book and would recommend it.
    • 3/5
      Took me a while to get into it, but overall a good story. Just didn't feel a connection to the protagonist, but now that I've finished the book, I wonder if that was the point, as most of the characters are emotionally unavailable. So from that perspective, I can appreciate what the author did. I really enjoyed the overall writing style, as I felt I was reading literature and not just some trashy beach read. I'm all for trashy beach reads, of course, but a steady diet of them isn't good.

      Last 150 pages flew by--story really picks up there.
    • 4/5
      At times I found the writing to be a bit dense and overly detailed for the light, quirky tone, but as someone who also as a child created imaginary worlds that starred squirrels, I enjoyed it overall. A strange but fun jaunt through how our families impact us as adults, even when we're not consciously aware of it.
    • 2/5
      Weird. Not sure why it was long listed and short listed for all sorts of prizes. I had a hard time getting through it.
    • 4/5
      I think the consensus view on this book is "Good, but not great". I'm with that. 'Quirky' would also be a commonly used word in reviews. I'm ok with quirky. Actually, the word 'dysfunctional' would be better than 'quirky' to describe most of the people in this book. The mothers are particularly dysfunctional, but so many people are strange or extreme that I tended to become distanced from the story. That meant the serious underlying elements (corruption in business, exploitation of the sick and disabled, the economy of consumption, etc) had a diminished impact. Further, the main character who I initially liked became less real and hence less attractive. And anthropomorphised squirrels? No thanks. That all sounds very negative, doesn't it? But I do give it four stars because it is possible to see though these distractions to what is essentially a valuable and often entertaining story about fundamental issues in families and the essential evil of American consumer society in which business rules.
    • 4/5
      This was a very creative book with a unique story. It was long listed for the 2016 National Book Award. The writing is excellent and the author shows excellent creativity in a story that deals with many different issues. Essentially we have a 30 year old woman and a 34 year old man who both come from borderline dysfunctional families and come together. They quickly fall in love and decide to get married. We get to see how their families impact them in terms of their own coming together and also dealing with their family problems. We also touch on themes of corporate greed(Paul the man is a neurologist who has invented a device to deal with battlefield injuries). Because the book lagged a little in places ,I gave it a lower rating than its' creativity deserved. I will check out her other novel. Overall a good book and one I recommend.
    • 4/5
      This book total snuck up on me and won me over with its story, characters and creativity. I really enjoyed it.
    • 4/5
      Veblen - named for the economist that her mother admired - surprisingly finds herself engaged to Paul, an up-and-coming doctor who wants to get a patent for his new invention and is in the process of trials. Meanwhile, Veblen and Paul worry about introducing the parents. Veblen wants Paul to accept her eccentric mother, and Paul has his own baggage to deal with his special needs brother and his parents, who grew marijuana on their commune.Okay so I like a certain amount of eccentricity in the characters I read about, but this was a LOT of eccentricity to deal with, and at first I wasn't sure how much I liked anybody. In fact, I spent most of the book wondering what on earth Veblen and Paul had in common or saw in each other. It probably doesn't help that I'm also unfamiliar with the economic and political values of the real Thorstein Veblen and found myself googling several elements of that and the medical terminology. Sometimes it was funny but most of the time it was ridiculous and I was as surprised as anyone to find in the end that I rather cared about what happened to the characters.
    • 2/5
      Sometimes you have to accept that you are just not the target audience for a book. I am never keen on rom-com, and whimsy is my least favourite form of humour. Add in a caricatured pair of dysfunctional families and a rather strange obsession with apparently sentient squirrels and it starts to sound like the script of a film I would run a mile from. All of that is rather a shame, because I'm normally sympathetic to anything which is critical of the values of corporate America and the excesses of big pharma, the heroine Veblen is charming and Thorstein Veblen sounds fascinating. Overall though, I felt that there were not enough high points to compensate, so I can't recommend it, but I'll happily accept that others will disagree, as the current discussion in the 21st Century Literature group demonstrates.
    • 4/5
      Veblen Amundsen-Hovda is engaged in temporary secretarial work. She has a fascination for her namesake, Thorstein Veblen, the 19th century economist and academic outlier. She contributes to translation work for the Norwegian Diaspora project. She sometimes talks to squirrels. She is in love with Dr Paul Vreeland, a medical researcher who has invented a portable device for emergency craniotomies. Paul is ambitious but susceptible to temptation. When a representative from a powerful medical supply corporation lures him with riches and potential fame, everything that Paul holds dear is put at risk. Mostly Veblen.This is a wild and raucous story of debilitating families, misplaced ambition, guilt, greed, and capitalist critique. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is rather difficult to pin down. Perhaps “fun” would be the best word to describe it. Despite the zaniness of many of the characters, you’ll find that you come to care for them all, even Veblen’s mother. A very fun read. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      I loved the warmth and humanity in this book. I thought Veblen, with her day dreaming escapism from the tribulations of life, was a very likeable character. I was less inspired by the attempt at satirical commentary on Capitalism, commercialism, the environment and corruption in Big Pharma, but it didn't get in the way of a good, entertaining read.
    • 3/5
      I tried really hard to like this book, but there’s only so much quirkiness I can handle. Veblen earns a small income translating Norwegian and does clerical work as a temp. Paul, a scientist, invented a device that may be useful in treating traumatic brain injury and is about to start clinical trials. Veblen and Paul are planning to get married, although it seems there’s still a lot they don’t know about one another. There is the inevitable exploration of each partner’s quirky past, which includes meeting members of their quirky families. The family trees include hippies, hypochondriacs, disabled siblings, absent parents, and stepparents. Their histories are rife with mental illness, marriage breakups, mother-daughter tension, family secrets, you name it. Veblen has a bit of a squirrel obsession and believes the squirrels in their yard are trying to communicate with her. At the same time, Paul-the-innocent-and-well-meaning-scientist runs up against evil-big-pharma, also personified by -- you guessed it -- a very quirky woman. I kind of liked Veblen and Paul as a couple. Some parts of this book held my interest, especially when I could see the connections between past and present, and how childhood experiences affected their relationship. But most of the book, while attempting to be fresh, witty, and creative, came across as a self-conscious and over the top.
    • 5/5
      This must be my year for quirky protagonists created by women writers. Veblen Amundsen-Hovda may well be my favorite.She is the young heroine of Elizabeth McKenzie’s The Portable Veblen. She’s named for the nonconformist economist Thorstein Veblen, and lives in Palo Alto, where this creator of the term conspicuous consumption also spent time. Our Veblen is a temp typist, who loves the act of typing, and a freelance translator of Norwegian prose. She finds a little house that is close to falling apart and turns it into a home. That little place is a haven, and why Veblen would love to create and have and hold a haven becomes clear as the story rolls along.She also has a beau. Paul is a brilliant neurologist who has found Veblen enchanting and restful. She is both. Even though he is already a doctor and a researcher, Paul feels he has something to prove. So when a giant pharma medical supply corporate daughter who runs the firm finds his instrument fascinating, he is gullible and entranced. He signs on.As this pair realizes that they have committed themselves to a life together, their former lives come into play. Oh dear. It’s time to introduce the loved one to one’s parents.Although McKenzie has already set a light tone in her style, with side musings that show depth, she kicks this style into high gear with the families involved. Veblen’s mother is neurotic and an uber hypochondriac. She fusses over Veblen something fierce.In the midst of the light-hearted quirkiness, we see why. Veblen is rather nervous when Paul sets a trap in her attic’s house to keep the squirrels out. No wonder she’s nervous. She thinks one of them has been communicating with her for years. Growing up in a little place named Cobb, Veblen was akin to the Bronte sisters with her own created world: The map represented a place called Wobb, with all the topography and various special places sketched in. No, it wasn’t quite like Cobb. It was a place where animals had been gathering to reinstate their rights, and where a runaway girl lived by herself in a tree house and was somehow an important part of their world. Humans simply could no longer see the intrinsic value of anything. Squirrels, for instance, had thought that after fifty million years on the North American continent, it was safe to let down their guard. They had made a bad contract with people in innocence and trust, and had paid the price.Little noticings that make big points were a reading highlight, such as “Humans simply could no longer see the intrinsic value of anything” (as looking at the news today will tell us) and that any living creature might make “a bad contract with people in innocence and trust” because those qualities still do exist.Or, as a character notes: “Do you think wishful thinking is a psychiatric condition?”Veblen and her mother have had a strong relationship for years not only because they love each other, but because they have had to deal with Veblen’s father, who was institutionalized. Veblen’s stepfather is a librarian; she has grown up immersed in books, reading and living in other people’s words and creating her own: The smell was the London of Dickens, the catacombs on the Appia Antica, the Gobi Desert in winter, a dark monastery in Tibet. It was Nevada City in the gold rush. It was a telegraph office near the Mexican border. It was a captain’s trunk coming around the Horn. It was a dressing room on the Great White Way in New York. Sometimes, it was a breezy little tree house in Wobb.Paul’s family has had its struggles as well. He grew up under the shadow of his father’s brother dying a hero in Vietnam. Paul’s medical device that the big corporation has decided to develop could help battlefield medics. Paul’s brother is developmentally disabled and concern for him controls everything that has happened to the family for years. Paul’s a bit tired of that and he most definitely does not want this overwhelming concern to ruin his wedding.This makes the novel sound more distraught and heavy lifting than it actually is. McKenzie has a light and assured narrative style that allows the characters to learn to be honest about themselves and their loved ones without an underlying sense of despair or nihilism. Yes, bad things happen. People can be greedy and selfish. But they also can hurt and try not to let it overcome them. They can acknowledge the burdens of others and they can be forgiving. They can continue to reach out. And they can love and be loved.Even as Veblen and Paul figure out if they are grown-up and if they want to marry, let alone marry each other, the way they view their families and each other’s is a solid part of their journey. Seeing beyond the irritations or slights can do that: Through the rough glass she saw gestures of familiarity as they huddled over the pictures. Marion placed a hand on Paul’s shoulder. Justin leaned on Bill. Bill talked to his boys, and for that moment, listening to their father, they sat as brothers absorbed in family lore. What did she know about families, and how they ran?Another character sees this family later and knows how significant their moments of togetherness are, as we know how important family is to the observant character. It is one of those sweet moments in a novel that is the equivalent of a warm fire, comfy chair and blanket, and beverage of choice.Occasionally we see through the eyes of other characters; these times throughout the book are not overdone, but including them adds depth. Returning to Veblen’s perspective, it’s easier to see why she has come to her conclusions.And as for the squirrel -- an element that is not overdone and not as twee as some may think -- it’s worth the journey of reading the entire novel just to find out about its significance.
    • 1/5
      To say that The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie gets nutty is not a derogatory comment because Veblen, the main character, is obsessed with squirrels. As in talk to them, think they’re talking to her, anthropomorphize them. Her fiancé Paul is not as fond of them, but as a research neurologist who has created a medical device that will revolutionize the management of brain trauma injuries on the battlefield he has bigger things to worry about. In order to be the success he dreams of being his device needs FDA approval which entails costly trials and time. When the daughter of the founder of a giant pharmaceutical company takes an interest in his work he can’t understand why Veblen isn’t excited about their imminent wealth and would still rather spend most of her time researching her namesake, the obscure and unusual economist, Thorstein Veblen.McKenzie plays coy and waits until around page 100 to slam the reader with the fullness of family dysfunctionality in Veblen and Paul’s lives. That both of them come from parents who veer so far from normality that it can’t be seen is enough to take the novel into uncharted territory. His father is a socialist who raised him in a commune in Northern California where growing pot was one source of income and also led to frequent police raids. His older brother is developmentally disabled, but Paul believes his disabilities are faked, done solely to get attention. All of this fills Paul with a latent rage against non-conformity and a surprising lack of compassion. Veblen’s mother is a hypochondriacal narcissist who divorced her father long ago and married a man whose sole function in life is to ensure that she is never ‘stressed’ in any way. Veblen’s father is a vet whose PTSD presents as extreme paranoia and violence. All of these characters are meant to come together for their wedding which is a clue as to how things are going to culminate.McKenzie has a swinging grace with words and phrases—creating combinations not seen before—a trait that always grabs me in an author, but like the squirrels, The Portable Veblen becomes chittering and unnerving as she decides to unearth a treasure trove of oddities that go far beyond plausibility. I was onboard with the satirical aspects of consumerism, war, and the pharmaceutical industry, but in the rush to score points against these targets her characters are left to become caricatures. What started as quirky and whimsical became eccentric became problematic. As the plot exploded into the farcical I was left unable to care. The squirrels may have been speaking to Veblen but not to me.
    • 4/5
      This is a delightfully fun read. Veblen, is a strange, but wonderfully unique character who sees things that others don't. She delights in animals, particularly squirrels, for which she seems to have a special connection. When she meets Paul (A doctor who is obsessed with inventing a medical devise that can be used for traumatic brain injuries.), they are instantly attracted to one another and thus begins a strange, but unusual love story.This was a sometimes silly, but ultimately quite funny story that is, at least in part, reminiscent of the style of "Where'd You Go, Bernadette?". The families in this book are off the charts odd and dysfunctional. They provide not only humor, but some great tension that keeps things from becoming monotonous and juvenile. The madcap plot is tempered with some serious undertones as Paul seems to succumb to the lure of money and fame, only to figure out what is truly important in life. And the squirrels play some very key supporting roles in the whole thing.I think most people would enjoy this book. The story is original and contains plenty of humorous moments that make it a fun read. The characters are totally unique and captivating.I thank the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this title.
    • 4/5
      Elizabeth McKenzie's novel was delightful. Witty, self-assured and charming; I enjoyed this book enormously. Set in Palo Alto, The Portable Veblen concerns Veblen, a free spirit living in an old cottage at the end of a cul de sac in Palo Alto. Working a pink collar job at the university, she meets Paul, an up-and-coming medical researcher. So up-and-coming that he is promptly poached by a large pharmaceutical firm that wants to market his invention - a kit that allows for brain injuries to be treated by Army medics at the scene of the injury. Paul and Veblen fall in love, but they have very different visions of their future. Paul is being wooed by a much more affluent lifestyle than he's ever experienced, and Veblen loves her tiny cottage and simple lifestyle. The story of Veblen and Paul is not so simple as one wanting status that the other finds abhorrent. Both have families that they are still having trouble dealing with. Veblen's mother is a controlling hypochondriac, who nonetheless dearly loves Veblen, and her father is in a mental institution. Paul was raised by hippies who grew pot and made furniture out of found objects. They're both intent on shaping their lives partially in reaction to their upbringing. What's lovely about this book is that McKenzie never goes for the easy answer. All of her characters are understandable, and even likable in their own ways, even when their actions are harmful to others. Also, there is a squirrel. After a stretch of reading serious books doing inventive things to the story-telling process, it was wonderful to read a more traditionally (mostly) constructed novel. McKenzie has written an excellent book about families, and how they affect us, even in how we choose to be different from them and she's done so in a manner that charmed me.
    • 3/5
      A painfully funny account of Veblen and her fiance Paul and their disparate families, plus squirrels.
      I shall look at my squirrels differently from now on!
      I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Harper Collins via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.