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Cargando... Bedlam Burningpor Geoff Nicholson
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. Something along the lines of The Magus, but more ironic. As an earlier reviewer notes, Nicholson really ought to be better known and read than he is. In his own lighter, more humorous fashion, Nicholson has some of the tendency toward the outrageous as Will Self, but makes better use of the technique, and is a far better craftsman. A fantastic novel; I've no idea why Geoff Nicholson isn't better known. This novel is funny and clever, dark and light. Nothing can be taken at face value and the book keeps you on your toes all the time. Mike Smith lets his friend Gregory Collins use his photo on the cover of Gregory's novel; seems harmless enough until he is asked to do a reading at a local book shop. The action becomes more chaotic as the novel moves on. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
It all starts at Cambridge, in the rooms of Dr John Bentley, an eccentric don famous for his book-burning parties. Mike Smith is handsome, clever but untalented; Gregory Collins is unprepossessing of face and form, but, it will transpire, a novelist of enormous promise. When Gregory¿s first novel is published, he persuades Smith to take his place on the book jacket, on the grounds that nobody would buy a novel by an ugly novelist, however talented. Thus is set in train a chain of events which leads to Mike Smith becoming writer-in-residence in a mental hospital. The therapy of the charismatic but possibly fraudulent Dr Kincaid is based on the theory that people are driven mad by an overload of images; all such are banned in the hospital, but words are encouraged, hence Smith¿s job. It is only when a book of the patients¿ writings, teased out of them by Mike, is published and becomes a literary succes d¿estime that this comedy of errors of judgement threatens to become a tragedy ¿ No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)823.914Literature English English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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i don't feel like i enjoyed this book, but something certainly kept me turning the pages.
totally not representative of the story at all, but a good explanation of the weirdness:
"And yet it seemed to me things had come to a very peculiar pass when you were relieved to find a dog's penis left outside your door."
it gets so into your head that i can't tell if i just didn't like the way it was written, or if he wrote it not as well as he could have on purpose. how much of this story was a game? how much was he playing with the reader? the following quote was referencing a book review about a book written in this book, but i think it sums up the purpose of bedlam burning pretty well:
"'...although readers frequently found the book hilarious, they were generally unsure whether they were laughing with the book or at it and, perhaps more problematically, whether the book was laughing at them.'
i think this book laughs at many, many things that most people take (or try to take) seriously. and maybe there's some brilliance in that, in the way he does it. i don't know, it's hard to say. it leaves me questioning everything, which i think was his intention. ( )