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wagmore's review
2.0
The author says that his book is an homage to this book. I didn't care very much for that book, so maybe it's not a surprise that I didn't like this one much either.
It had an occasional hilarious moment, but the problems outweighed them by far: the characterizations were muddy and unconvincing and the plot was dragged way too far out for me. I almost stopped reading about 2/3 of the way through.
It had an occasional hilarious moment, but the problems outweighed them by far: the characterizations were muddy and unconvincing and the plot was dragged way too far out for me. I almost stopped reading about 2/3 of the way through.
aneides's review
4.0
This isn't a summary, it's just my two cents
"Idiots" is an amusing work of absurdist fiction that is more than a little reminiscent of "A Confederacy of Dunces." Not a surprise, as Savio wrote it as something of an homage to "Confederacy." It is one of those books with a dozen minor characters, each with some sort of unlikely and hysterical history or outlook. The way these books go, the stories of all of these seemingly random characters converge in a complex, skillfully constructed climax... except in this case, the end just didn't quite seem to jell. For me, about the last 20% of the book fell flat and felt kind of tacked-on. On the upside, the eccentric protagonist, who has been nicknamed "Satan"by his friends because of his fascination with an imagined subterranean civilization, isn't nearly as venal and annoying as I found Ignatius Reilly. (This is the main reason I didn't enjoy "Confederacy" more than I did- Ignatius was so well written that I hated him too much to care what happened to him). Satan is a little easier to empathize with.
Sadly, though, the author seems to have a serious problem with homonyms, in nearly every chapter substituting words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings (eg waver/waiver, toe/tow... oh and heroine/heroin.) Maybe it was supposed to be clever; if so, I did not get the joke and it drove me absolutely bonkers. (Dude, you have to read it, not just turn on the spell-check function). The editor should be tarred and feathered and the author should spend some serious time with flashcards.
Mostly, it is a funny and well-crafted story whose author shows signs of eventually becoming great.
"Idiots" is an amusing work of absurdist fiction that is more than a little reminiscent of "A Confederacy of Dunces." Not a surprise, as Savio wrote it as something of an homage to "Confederacy." It is one of those books with a dozen minor characters, each with some sort of unlikely and hysterical history or outlook. The way these books go, the stories of all of these seemingly random characters converge in a complex, skillfully constructed climax... except in this case, the end just didn't quite seem to jell. For me, about the last 20% of the book fell flat and felt kind of tacked-on. On the upside, the eccentric protagonist, who has been nicknamed "Satan"by his friends because of his fascination with an imagined subterranean civilization, isn't nearly as venal and annoying as I found Ignatius Reilly. (This is the main reason I didn't enjoy "Confederacy" more than I did- Ignatius was so well written that I hated him too much to care what happened to him). Satan is a little easier to empathize with.
Sadly, though, the author seems to have a serious problem with homonyms, in nearly every chapter substituting words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings (eg waver/waiver, toe/tow... oh and heroine/heroin.) Maybe it was supposed to be clever; if so, I did not get the joke and it drove me absolutely bonkers. (Dude, you have to read it, not just turn on the spell-check function). The editor should be tarred and feathered and the author should spend some serious time with flashcards.
Mostly, it is a funny and well-crafted story whose author shows signs of eventually becoming great.
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