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micaelabrody's review
3.0
I'll admit I am conflicted about this book. I loved the other books by Aleksander Hemon I've read (Nowhere Man, The Lazarus Project) but this one didn't quite measure up for me. A lot of stuff definitely works really well: the characters are mostly sharp, there's definitely a lot of comedy (which I'm dubbing "nightmare slapstick"), the threads of war and violence are effective.
It just didn't thrill me. It might be because the plot of "average joe gets mixed up in weird shit and he and his life spin out of control" is getting a little old for me (though of course I can't think off the top of my head about other books that fit that description...*), and it might be because I just don't love reading comedies and/or wasn't expecting one like this from Hemon (not a judgment of value), but regardless the book took me a while to finish and I never really felt drawn in.
*EDIT June 2017: Wonder Boys is actually a perfect example of this genre.
I think the humor just didn't land for me. The script excerpts just sounded awful, and not funny-awful. To me. I sure hope this was intentional, but whether it was or not, every time a new piece of the script showed up I found myself rolling my eyes a little. The Script Ideas got similarly old.
Joshua also felt like a passive observer for most of the book - again, fine in theory but it played as if he was supposed to be active and just... wasn't. I understand suspension of disbelief and am fine with it (like the underwear-sniffing scene; I would hope there is no one passive enough to not just call the damn cops, but whatever it's a book) but it felt more like Joshua was watching his life get more insane and not even engaging emotionally with that. I'm not being clear but essentially the one place it worked well for me wasin Esko's house as Joshua needed to pee , which essentially forced both Joshua's focus and the reader's on this minor thing in the face of bigger events. Elsewhere it doesn't have that contrast or that focus so it just feels a little lost.
All this said most of my issues are with my personal taste rather than objective flaws, so this is a classic ymmv three star rating. I'll definitely read another book by Hemon; this one just wasn't up my alley. And I'm solidly neutral here: there was a lot I think I liked and which I'm sure others definitely would as well.
It just didn't thrill me. It might be because the plot of "average joe gets mixed up in weird shit and he and his life spin out of control" is getting a little old for me (though of course I can't think off the top of my head about other books that fit that description...*), and it might be because I just don't love reading comedies and/or wasn't expecting one like this from Hemon (not a judgment of value), but regardless the book took me a while to finish and I never really felt drawn in.
*EDIT June 2017: Wonder Boys is actually a perfect example of this genre.
I think the humor just didn't land for me. The script excerpts just sounded awful, and not funny-awful. To me. I sure hope this was intentional, but whether it was or not, every time a new piece of the script showed up I found myself rolling my eyes a little. The Script Ideas got similarly old.
Joshua also felt like a passive observer for most of the book - again, fine in theory but it played as if he was supposed to be active and just... wasn't. I understand suspension of disbelief and am fine with it (like the underwear-sniffing scene; I would hope there is no one passive enough to not just call the damn cops, but whatever it's a book) but it felt more like Joshua was watching his life get more insane and not even engaging emotionally with that. I'm not being clear but essentially the one place it worked well for me was
All this said most of my issues are with my personal taste rather than objective flaws, so this is a classic ymmv three star rating. I'll definitely read another book by Hemon; this one just wasn't up my alley. And I'm solidly neutral here: there was a lot I think I liked and which I'm sure others definitely would as well.
ursulamonarch's review
1.0
I was put off from this book very early but tried to persevere. It just kept getting more unpleasant to read, and I found myself less and less interested in a sad sack writer who has multiple beautiful women who want to sleep with him. If you enjoy lines like p. 9 "With his testicles squeezed by his twisted underwear, Joshua avoided all eye contact with the beflanelled Dillon, who was outlining some idea of his, hip-deep in the faded, sunken futon," this may be the book for you. I'd be really interested to compare male and female reactions to this book.
carosbcher's review
5.0
Witty, hilarious, annoying and simply amazing. A brilliant satire of modern life in the Western world that starts with an unsuccessful screen writer and his ridiculous ideas of scripts and continuously speeds up racing through a spiral of sex, betrayal, disappointment and violence - veterans that steal other people's underwear, a Japanese psychologist, a child that tries to combine all the bad words into one and a jealous Bosnian husband looking like a bear involved.
gerhard's review
5.0
This comedic novel is also incredibly sad. Melancholy seeps through these pages. Make no mistake though, it is uproariously funny: but only, I suppose, if you like your sacred cows (or in this case, cats) served rare.
Aleksandar Hemon goes out of his way to poke fun at as many cultural, social, religious, racial, sexual, gender and political sensitivities as he can in the brief span of a few hundred pages. All this is jerry-rigged to a highly farcical plot that builds up (I think ‘crescendos’ is a better word) to a couple of outrageous setpieces starring cats called Bushy and Dolly, a Samurai sword, a deranged Iraqi war vet and an equally deranged Serbian.
I was surprised to find out that the main protagonist, Joshua Levin, is actually in his 30s, because he acts like a dissipated, perpetually horny teenager – with the same attention span and shallow grasp of himself and reality, not to mention a rather tenuous grasp on his own heritage.
And Jewishness. A lot of the book’s funniest moments occur when Josh engages with Bernie, a prototypical mensch. One conversation has Bernie debating the lack of religious faith as the main cause of a zombie’s insatiable appetite, when Josh tells him about his latest movie script conflating two of America’s favourite obsessions, zombies and war.
An English language teacher in his day job, Josh nevertheless has far bigger aspirations of making it big in Hollywood with one of his perpetually mutating movie scripts, which is where the title of the novel comes from, in case you were wondering.
Sections of this putative masterwork are sectioned throughout the novel in all their painful glory; the reader quickly takes these for granted, until a particular narrative sleight of hand right at the end, which is just simply gobsmackingly brilliant.
Initially I had reservations about this, because it reminded me too much of a failed hybrid of Portnoy’s Complaint and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. But stick with it; you’ll quickly be appalled at far Hemon can take this.
Despite being thoroughly dissolute and nihilistic, the reader is surprised to discover that Josh is a fanboy of Baruch Spinoza. Now I take my proverbial hat off to any writer with the balls to combine Ethics and zombies. And to have such riotous fun while doing so.
Aleksandar Hemon goes out of his way to poke fun at as many cultural, social, religious, racial, sexual, gender and political sensitivities as he can in the brief span of a few hundred pages. All this is jerry-rigged to a highly farcical plot that builds up (I think ‘crescendos’ is a better word) to a couple of outrageous setpieces starring cats called Bushy and Dolly, a Samurai sword, a deranged Iraqi war vet and an equally deranged Serbian.
I was surprised to find out that the main protagonist, Joshua Levin, is actually in his 30s, because he acts like a dissipated, perpetually horny teenager – with the same attention span and shallow grasp of himself and reality, not to mention a rather tenuous grasp on his own heritage.
And Jewishness. A lot of the book’s funniest moments occur when Josh engages with Bernie, a prototypical mensch. One conversation has Bernie debating the lack of religious faith as the main cause of a zombie’s insatiable appetite, when Josh tells him about his latest movie script conflating two of America’s favourite obsessions, zombies and war.
An English language teacher in his day job, Josh nevertheless has far bigger aspirations of making it big in Hollywood with one of his perpetually mutating movie scripts, which is where the title of the novel comes from, in case you were wondering.
Sections of this putative masterwork are sectioned throughout the novel in all their painful glory; the reader quickly takes these for granted, until a particular narrative sleight of hand right at the end, which is just simply gobsmackingly brilliant.
Initially I had reservations about this, because it reminded me too much of a failed hybrid of Portnoy’s Complaint and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. But stick with it; you’ll quickly be appalled at far Hemon can take this.
Despite being thoroughly dissolute and nihilistic, the reader is surprised to discover that Josh is a fanboy of Baruch Spinoza. Now I take my proverbial hat off to any writer with the balls to combine Ethics and zombies. And to have such riotous fun while doing so.
ranaelizabeth's review
Going in the Never-Finished pile, subsection: Whiny White Male. It was amusing, I guess. Just not the right book for me.
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