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radioisasoundsalvation's review
3.0
Sometimes formatting takes away from substance, but that statement doesn't apply to the favorites in this edition of McSweeney's. The most special for me was Chabon's novel in progress... who doesn't want to get into the head of such genius?! I'm a sucker, I guess! I love that McSweeney's is embracing art. For a quarterly that has featured graphic novels and comics, may as well take the next step...
vivakresh's review
2.0
Not too impressed with this issue of McSweeney's, despite that it's literature in a sweaty head.
shawntowner's review
3.0
McSweeney's 36th issue, like issues 19 and 17, is a collection of stuff issue. Unlike the disappointing issues 17 (junk mail that doesn't fit on a book shelf properly) and 19 (cigar box that fits okay on a book shelf), issue 36 is an interesting collection of stuff. The stuff comes in a box shaped like a sweaty head. Well, maybe not shaped like a sweaty head. It's actually shaped like a box, but the box has drawings that make it look like a sweaty head. Inside the head box is is collection of stories, plays, screenplays, abridged novels, and artwork that, like most of McSweeney's quarterly outputs, range in quality from brilliant to space-wasting. I figure I'll just go through the box piece by piece.
The Domestic Crusaders
A play about a Pakistani-American family. In the introduction by Ishmael Reed, he writes something about the play not just being about Pakistani-Americans, but about all families. I suppose that's true, but that doesn't make The Domestic Crusaders any more interesting. And it certainly doesn't make it comparable to Eugene O'Neill or Arthur Miller, as Reed tries to claim. The Domestic Crusaders, if you'll pardon my sounding like local newspaper movie review, is rather domestic.
Fountain City
A fragment of an abandoned novel by Michael Chabon, with facing annotations and commentary. This is something that any aspiring or struggling writer could find solace in. Although some of his commentary is mundane (former names of airports, which friends of his mother's his characters are named after, etc.) Chabon gives rare insight into the working process of a novelist. He points out ideas that started to work well, those that didn't, and tries to explain how a novelist creates and how a novelist fails to create. It's super-interesting, but I suppose only for those who are interested in writing.
Ma Su Mon
A booklet from a forthcoming Voice of Witness series about life in Burma. It tells the story of Ma Su Mon, a college student imprisoned for a year and eventually forced to leave her family in Burma because of her association with opposition party organizations. The booklet provides an informative look into the life of the Burmese people, although it's very blandly written, which makes some sense considering the book is a collection of narrativized interviews. There's been so much good creative nonfiction coming out the last couple of years, that this journalistic approach seems trite and borderline uninteresting.
Jungle Geronimo in Gay Paree
The title pretty much nails exactly what this book is about: a low-rent Tarzan knockoff in Paris. The story reads like a Dinosaur Comic where every character is T-Rex. If that's your sort of thing, you'll probably be a fan of Jungle Geronimo.
Bicycle Built for Two
A screenplay about old-timey baseball and tandem bicycles, written for Mike Myers and Dana Carvey. It's not nearly as funny as The Love Guru.
The Instructions
I've written about Adam Levin's The Instructions before and the 40-page sample included in McSweeney's 36 is a perfect example of everything I found great about the novel and everything that frustrated me about the book. Great dialogue, including a tour-de-force recreation of a post-fight middle school locker room cacophony, but the sample also displays the violently unlikeable aspects of the characters that exasperated me over course of the novel's 1000 pages. Still, a good addition for those who might not be entirely sold on a such a massive undertaking of a novel.
Stories and Letters
A good batch of letters this time around, especially those by Steve Delahoyde. Most of the collection is taken up by Colm Toibin's longer story, continuing what seems to be a trend in the recent quarterlies of including a longer, generally disappointing story. Two of the other three stories, however, really shine. John Brandon continues to be one of my favourite authors, as it seems like everything he writes is gold. And Imet Prcic's "At the National Theater" was a story so wonderfully strange that I had to immediately read it a second time.
Final Thoughts
When McSweeney's sticks to its guns--literary storytelling--is still puts out tremendous writing by talented authors. When it tries to be hard to be clever and churns out the wink-wink-nudge-nudge so-bad-it's good silliness (which is better suited for the Internet Tendency than the Quarterly Concern) it still has a tendency to fall flat. The quality of McSweeney's 36 lies in two stories and the sweaty head box.
The Domestic Crusaders
A play about a Pakistani-American family. In the introduction by Ishmael Reed, he writes something about the play not just being about Pakistani-Americans, but about all families. I suppose that's true, but that doesn't make The Domestic Crusaders any more interesting. And it certainly doesn't make it comparable to Eugene O'Neill or Arthur Miller, as Reed tries to claim. The Domestic Crusaders, if you'll pardon my sounding like local newspaper movie review, is rather domestic.
Fountain City
A fragment of an abandoned novel by Michael Chabon, with facing annotations and commentary. This is something that any aspiring or struggling writer could find solace in. Although some of his commentary is mundane (former names of airports, which friends of his mother's his characters are named after, etc.) Chabon gives rare insight into the working process of a novelist. He points out ideas that started to work well, those that didn't, and tries to explain how a novelist creates and how a novelist fails to create. It's super-interesting, but I suppose only for those who are interested in writing.
Ma Su Mon
A booklet from a forthcoming Voice of Witness series about life in Burma. It tells the story of Ma Su Mon, a college student imprisoned for a year and eventually forced to leave her family in Burma because of her association with opposition party organizations. The booklet provides an informative look into the life of the Burmese people, although it's very blandly written, which makes some sense considering the book is a collection of narrativized interviews. There's been so much good creative nonfiction coming out the last couple of years, that this journalistic approach seems trite and borderline uninteresting.
Jungle Geronimo in Gay Paree
The title pretty much nails exactly what this book is about: a low-rent Tarzan knockoff in Paris. The story reads like a Dinosaur Comic where every character is T-Rex. If that's your sort of thing, you'll probably be a fan of Jungle Geronimo.
Bicycle Built for Two
A screenplay about old-timey baseball and tandem bicycles, written for Mike Myers and Dana Carvey. It's not nearly as funny as The Love Guru.
The Instructions
I've written about Adam Levin's The Instructions before and the 40-page sample included in McSweeney's 36 is a perfect example of everything I found great about the novel and everything that frustrated me about the book. Great dialogue, including a tour-de-force recreation of a post-fight middle school locker room cacophony, but the sample also displays the violently unlikeable aspects of the characters that exasperated me over course of the novel's 1000 pages. Still, a good addition for those who might not be entirely sold on a such a massive undertaking of a novel.
Stories and Letters
A good batch of letters this time around, especially those by Steve Delahoyde. Most of the collection is taken up by Colm Toibin's longer story, continuing what seems to be a trend in the recent quarterlies of including a longer, generally disappointing story. Two of the other three stories, however, really shine. John Brandon continues to be one of my favourite authors, as it seems like everything he writes is gold. And Imet Prcic's "At the National Theater" was a story so wonderfully strange that I had to immediately read it a second time.
Final Thoughts
When McSweeney's sticks to its guns--literary storytelling--is still puts out tremendous writing by talented authors. When it tries to be hard to be clever and churns out the wink-wink-nudge-nudge so-bad-it's good silliness (which is better suited for the Internet Tendency than the Quarterly Concern) it still has a tendency to fall flat. The quality of McSweeney's 36 lies in two stories and the sweaty head box.
joshhornbeck's review
5.0
McSweeney's 36: Another fantastic collection of fiction includes four chapters of Michael Chabon's unreleased "Fountain City." (5/5)
n8duke's review
4.0
Disclaimer: I only read "Bicycle Built For Two" by Gregg Turkington. That man's a freakin' genius, and this was hysterical!
sshabein's review
4.0
Major highlights for me were Michael Chabon and Adam Levin's contributions, as well as the play from Wajahat Ali. Colm Tóibín's short story "The Street" was absolutely fantastic, and the fortune cookie scroll was amusing. However, I hated Jungle Geronimo and Bicycle Built For Two wasn't much better. An imperfect, but still good collection in a great package.
My full and more detailed review can be found on Glorified Love Letters.
My full and more detailed review can be found on Glorified Love Letters.
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