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A review by lauraborkpower
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby
5.0
I usually give 5 stars to books that I'd recommend to anyone, but there are sometimes exceptions to that if I think a book is terrific but will not be everyone's cup of tea. Infinite Jest is on that list, and now, so is Last Exit To Brooklyn.
Selby's book is a tremendous achievement in style and narrative. It is a novel told in short story with multiple points of view--sometimes in the same paragraph--and a forceful rush of prose that is not just a wave of words, but a groundswell. The characters are sometimes sympathetic, always unpleasant, and frequently depraved. Their routines are terrifying, but they are still routines, and there seems to be little hope that any of the characters would break these routine to get out of the world in which they lead such grotesque and impoverished lives. The poverty is not simply financial, but moral and intellectual as well, which makes the characters sometimes more pathetic than repulsive. But not always.
Selby's prose lacks any apostrophes or much proper punctuation, and there are frequent odd grammatical choices. It's a style that will not be acceptable or readable to many people, but if you can get past that, he has some really beautiful writing. His sense of voice is spot-on and, unfortunately, so is his sense of pain and fear.
Talking it over with our book club helped me put my thoughts together enough to write this review, and it is them I also have to thank for working out Selby's more complex themes of commodity, tribalism, and hopelessness. I also attribute Carrie with the revelation that young readers might be able to handle this a bit better than us old ladies. Youth comes with hopefulness and a certain kind of naivete (for which I am sometimes jealous). For someone with more life experience to read this book is to understand that these vignettes are not far away from the truth: humanity is frequently and terrifyingly absent. Young people (my students' ages) might not see that with such a clarity. And thank goodness for that.
Selby's book is a tremendous achievement in style and narrative. It is a novel told in short story with multiple points of view--sometimes in the same paragraph--and a forceful rush of prose that is not just a wave of words, but a groundswell. The characters are sometimes sympathetic, always unpleasant, and frequently depraved. Their routines are terrifying, but they are still routines, and there seems to be little hope that any of the characters would break these routine to get out of the world in which they lead such grotesque and impoverished lives. The poverty is not simply financial, but moral and intellectual as well, which makes the characters sometimes more pathetic than repulsive. But not always.
Selby's prose lacks any apostrophes or much proper punctuation, and there are frequent odd grammatical choices. It's a style that will not be acceptable or readable to many people, but if you can get past that, he has some really beautiful writing. His sense of voice is spot-on and, unfortunately, so is his sense of pain and fear.
Talking it over with our book club helped me put my thoughts together enough to write this review, and it is them I also have to thank for working out Selby's more complex themes of commodity, tribalism, and hopelessness. I also attribute Carrie with the revelation that young readers might be able to handle this a bit better than us old ladies. Youth comes with hopefulness and a certain kind of naivete (for which I am sometimes jealous). For someone with more life experience to read this book is to understand that these vignettes are not far away from the truth: humanity is frequently and terrifyingly absent. Young people (my students' ages) might not see that with such a clarity. And thank goodness for that.