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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
When asked by a student what it takes to be enlightened, a great spiritual teacher replied: "You must want God as much as a drowning man wants air."
Once, as a teenager, swimming in the rough waves of the ocean, a panic-stricken white haired geezer grabbed my arm and cried out for help. In that instant I knew what it meant for someone to want air so badly he would have pulled me under so he could continue breathing.
The narrator of Westlake's tale, Burke Devore, is one such drowning man gasping for air. In Bruke's case, drowning is being over fifty and unemployed with a wife and kids. Air is a job.
Burke has spent his entire career as a polymer paper specialist. Its the 1990s, the post-Reagan years - he was downsized along with hundreds of other dedicated employees many months ago. The money is about to run out. Burke stands to lose his nice house in Connecticut, his car, his possessions, any remaining shred of respect from his family. As far as Burke is concerned, he stands to lose his life. No doubt about it, Burke Devore needs a job. Fast.
After trying to win a job these past months their way, the way society says you have to win a job, Burke realized the odds were stacked way too high against him, too many other equally qualified job hunters in his specialized field and too few companies looking to fill his position.
Burke Devore knows what he has to do. He goes up to the attic, locates the chest with the Luger pistol his father brought back from Germany as a souvenir after the war. He sets his plan in motion, a plan to pinpoint those other qualified job hunters competing for a polymer paper manager job, his job.
Can he really do it, kill off the competition? With his very life on the line, you bet he can.
American author Donald E. Westlake wrote The Ax at age sixty-five, with more than forty published novels to his credit. Mr. Westlake brings a true writer's wisdom to this work I judge an overlooked classic. Through the magic of entering the heart and mind of Burke Devore, the author makes credible the incredible, plausible the implausible, how an everyday kind of guy, a law abiding citizen can take drastic measures to reclaim his life.
You read The Ax with a combination of shock and fascination. Your jaw drops. Can this really be happening? It can. And the more pages you turn, the more you appreciate the tale's black humor. Wow! Donald E. Westlake. Why haven't I heard of this guy before?
And there's such an acid critique of society. Burke Devore reflects on capitalism's underbelly, how politicians, stockholders and the CEOs are the real enemy. The rich don’t care about a workforce toiling, bleeding sweat and sweating blood to keep their company in the black. Not one bit. What the rich at the top care about is maximizing profit. If merging with another company or moving their plant overseas can squeeze out the most profit, that’s what they’ll do. Thousands of men and women who have created a life around their job means nothing. Let them and their families eat cupcakes. Don't go away mad, gang, just go away.
Burke cracks a wry smile. Fortunate in years past for those blue collar types, steel worker, miners, factory workers - when automation hit and they could be replaced by machines, at least they were unionized. But nowadays when computers replace white collar middle managers like himself, no unions. Your education and professionalism, so the theory goes, gives you benefits enough. What a joke.
Stopping to fuel up his car, Burke considers another solution to his problem: banditry. Simply pop into a convenience store like this one with a Pakistani behind the counter, point the Lugar at his face and demand all the cash in the till. He could rob such a convenience store once a week until Social Security kicks in. Now that’s convenient!
No, that's not the solution. Burke knows the solution.
To find out how Burke will fair in his role as a methodical serial killer, I highly recommend reading The Ax. Middle America never had a more articulate spokesperson.
American author Donald E. Westlake, 1933 - 2008
وقتی رفتم سراغ این کتاب هیچ انتظاری ازش نداشتم، صرفا چون هدیه بود و خیلی وقت بود که توی کتابخونم قرار داشت خوندمش. ده بیست درصد اول کند بود و عجیب، بعد داستان روی غلطک افتاد و دیگه نمیشد کتابو زمین گذاشت.
داستان در مورد مردیه که توی سالهای آخر قرن بیست از کار بیکار شده و برای به دست آوردن شغل جدید حاضره دست به هر کاری بزنه، حتی از میان برداشتن رقباش توی صنعتی که مهارت داره.
داستان در مورد یه مرد معمولیه که شروع به کشتن رقباش میکنه، و با هر قتل خودشو به هدفی که داره نزدیک‌تر میبینه.
این آدم با مشکلات مختلفی رو به رو میشه اما چون چشماش رو به آینده‌ست و هدف خاصی داره، خونسرد میمونه و راهشو ادامه میده.
من آخر کتاب رو دوست نداشتم، اما مسیر داستان و اتفاقاتش تاثیر خاصی رو خواننده میذاره.
اینکه سختی و مشکلات جامعه از یه جایی به بعد آدم رو کرخت میکنن، و فرد به هر قیمتی که شده میخواد بالای سطح آب بمونه.
داستان در مورد مردیه که توی سالهای آخر قرن بیست از کار بیکار شده و برای به دست آوردن شغل جدید حاضره دست به هر کاری بزنه، حتی از میان برداشتن رقباش توی صنعتی که مهارت داره.
داستان در مورد یه مرد معمولیه که شروع به کشتن رقباش میکنه، و با هر قتل خودشو به هدفی که داره نزدیک‌تر میبینه.
این آدم با مشکلات مختلفی رو به رو میشه اما چون چشماش رو به آینده‌ست و هدف خاصی داره، خونسرد میمونه و راهشو ادامه میده.
من آخر کتاب رو دوست نداشتم، اما مسیر داستان و اتفاقاتش تاثیر خاصی رو خواننده میذاره.
اینکه سختی و مشکلات جامعه از یه جایی به بعد آدم رو کرخت میکنن، و فرد به هر قیمتی که شده میخواد بالای سطح آب بمونه.
Unemployed for two years, a former paper executive sets out to kill the competition for his dream job. This reminds me of "A Simple Plan." It's chilling ... especially when I realized that I was buying into his rationalizations! I will definitely read more of Westlake's work.
About 20% of the way through this one, I wasn't sure it was going to be so great. It's written in the 1st person, and with a fun concept: a 51 year old man who has been unemployed for 2 years decides to start killing off the competition for a job he wants.
The reason I was losing my enthusiasm early on was that it seemed the novel was becoming redundant. Well, that changed about a third of the way in. I got hooked big time.
Like the human train wrecks of A Simple Plan and The Big Picture, we ride alongside our anti-hero as he plots his path of murder. This is not a sympathetic character. He is a psychopath. Although he feels entirely justified, this does not wash with the reader (one would hope). His actions and thoughts expose an amoral sociopath, and as a reader, you keep going because you just have to see how this is going to turn out.
When I finished the novel I was dumbfounded. The son of a bitch got away with it! My immediate reaction was disgust. My later reaction was a great admiration for Westlake for choosing this. The best stories don't need to end the way you would like, so evoking any strong emotions is a good thing when it comes to the reading experience.
This is the first novel I've read by Westlake, and I happily have the first Parker novel on my to-read list (by his alter ego Richard Stark).
The Ax was a fast, compulsive read, and exactly what I needed at the time. 5 stars for sheer entertainment.
The reason I was losing my enthusiasm early on was that it seemed the novel was becoming redundant. Well, that changed about a third of the way in. I got hooked big time.
Like the human train wrecks of A Simple Plan and The Big Picture, we ride alongside our anti-hero as he plots his path of murder. This is not a sympathetic character. He is a psychopath. Although he feels entirely justified, this does not wash with the reader (one would hope). His actions and thoughts expose an amoral sociopath, and as a reader, you keep going because you just have to see how this is going to turn out.
Spoiler
When I finished the novel I was dumbfounded. The son of a bitch got away with it! My immediate reaction was disgust. My later reaction was a great admiration for Westlake for choosing this. The best stories don't need to end the way you would like, so evoking any strong emotions is a good thing when it comes to the reading experience.
This is the first novel I've read by Westlake, and I happily have the first Parker novel on my to-read list (by his alter ego Richard Stark).
The Ax was a fast, compulsive read, and exactly what I needed at the time. 5 stars for sheer entertainment.
از اون وقت هایی که واقعیت از رویا ترسناک تر میشه
کتاب درباره ی جنبه های مختلفی از وضعیت کار و بی کاری و حالت بین این دو نوشته
اشاره هایی به تاثیر این عوامل بر شخص و خانواده ش داره
دوست داشتم نقش بعضی شخصیت ها تو داستان پررنگ تر می بود تا با خیال راحت 5 ستاره ش می کردم
کتاب درباره ی جنبه های مختلفی از وضعیت کار و بی کاری و حالت بین این دو نوشته
اشاره هایی به تاثیر این عوامل بر شخص و خانواده ش داره
دوست داشتم نقش بعضی شخصیت ها تو داستان پررنگ تر می بود تا با خیال راحت 5 ستاره ش می کردم
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Burke Devore, line manager at a paper mill, gets laid off and is unemployed for two years. Then one day he gets the idea of a lifetime: start killing the people he's competing for job with...
Wow. This thing is a damn masterpiece. Westlake takes an ordinary Joe in a situation we can all relate to in these uncertain economic times, and sends him on a killing spree. What separates Burke Devore from other killers on the paperback racks is that he's almost just like us.
The way Westlake tells the story of Burke Devore makes him a sympathetic character. He's not a cold blooded killer, just a guy driven to desperate measures to feed his family and save his marriage. While he's doing reprehensible things, you still wind up rooting for him and hoping he doesn't get caught.
If you're looking for some suspense, look no further.
Wow. This thing is a damn masterpiece. Westlake takes an ordinary Joe in a situation we can all relate to in these uncertain economic times, and sends him on a killing spree. What separates Burke Devore from other killers on the paperback racks is that he's almost just like us.
The way Westlake tells the story of Burke Devore makes him a sympathetic character. He's not a cold blooded killer, just a guy driven to desperate measures to feed his family and save his marriage. While he's doing reprehensible things, you still wind up rooting for him and hoping he doesn't get caught.
If you're looking for some suspense, look no further.
First-line-fever: I've never actually killed anybody before, murdered another person, snuffed out another human being.