The Ceo of the Sofa

Rating:
Summary: CEO of the Retreads
Review: P. J. O'Rourke is very funny. P. J. O'Rourke is very smart. P. J. O'Rourke is very clever. P. J. O'Rourke is very intelligent. P. J. O'Rourke is very savvy. Sadly, P. J. O'Rourke is neither as funny, smart, clever, intelligent or savvy as he thinks he is, nor as he would like us to believe he is.

In CEO of the Sofa, a loosely connected collection of some of his random and previously published works, he takes the pose of someone working from home to discourse about everything from cellular phones, and driving lessons to a trip to India he took several years before. He does this both in an interesting (and funny) and uninteresting (and unfunny) ways; As an example of the later his discourse on wine tasting is a complete waste of time (over ten pages worth).

When his is funny however he is very funny. But in this work very funny does not occur often enough.

Interspersed throughout is his usual brand of conservative political posturing designed to skewer Clinton (Mr. & Mrs.) or any governmental personality, quirk or bureaucratic quirk that may get his attention. Though George W. takes a couple on the chin, Clinton material is getting a little stale.

Some of his rants are funny, some are tedious, but the lack of consistency in approach, topic connection and writing make this seem like a book by committee. Oddly, some of the best parts are the chapter guides at the beginning of the book, which may or may not describe the chapter contents, but always do so with great humor.

Rating:
Summary: Not Up to Par
Review: P.J. O'Rourke is a marvelous writer. He is intelligent, witty with the ability to capture nuances in conversations, places and events. Unfortunately, CEO on the Sofa is not some of his best work. The most redeeming thing about the book is the dialog between the essays which is jaunty and amusing. Mr. O'Rourke obviously had fun. But the dialog provides only the most tenuous of links for the essays, many of which are far below Mr. O'Rourke's best work.

My experience with Mr. O'Rourke is that his "planned" books are much better than his "unplanned" books. That is "Eat the Rich," "All the Trouble in the World" and "Parliament of Whores" are far superior to "CEO on the Sofa" and "Give War a Chance" (although "Give War a Chance" IS replete with some very funny essays).

My recommendation: take the book out of the library but don't buy it unless it's a gift to a O'Rourke fan--it isn't a complete loss, and I'm all in favor of supporting good writers.

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious As Usual
Review: P.J. O'Rourke never ceases to entertain me and this book is no exception. I really enjoyed this "home-based" book. His take on modern culture is scathing and dead-on. I would recommend this book for anyone who's sick of listening to liberals.

Rating:
Summary: Better Satirical Commentary Than Most ...
Review: P.J. O'Rourke spares no one, especially not himself, in his sharp and funny observations on life, politics, culture, more politics, and family. I like his writing. Humor is a risky and delicate thing because it depends so much on knowing the reality behind the joke. For example, I am sure that there are many hysterical jokes that, oh, glass blowers tell among themselves that would elude me completely.

O'Rourke has the knack of being able to find the universal in some rather arcane scenery - like the bureaucrats in India, and has a lot of fun with wine tasting and altering the senses in general. He also likes to tee off on both of our political parties, though, being a Republican there seems to be more glee in his hammering on the Democrats (or maybe my being conservative and Republican, I get more glee from his pounding on the other guys. But I must admit to relishing his exposing the hypocrisy on the right as well.).

This book is a collection of his published articles (at least one unpublished before) that are woven (pasted - pastiched?) together as if they came out of events in O'Rourke's life rather being set up as separate articles. This device works OK and offers the P.J. the opportunity the opportunity of setting up a few more laughs.

I am sure you will enjoy some articles more than others, as I did. Again, humor is a difficult thing and sometimes you find yourself outside the point of the joke. But there are plenty enough delicious barbs that you will find yourself laughing out loud more than few times. It ends in August of 2001 so it comes from the pre-9/11 world and that shows a bit. But, hey, it is still very good stuff.

Four stars: while it is very good writing, it isn't the best O'Rourke - but it is still far better than most other satirical commentary.

Rating:
Summary: Better Satirical Commentary Than Most ...
Review: P.J. O'Rourke spares no one, especially not himself, in his sharp and funny observations on life, politics, culture, more politics, and family. I like his writing. Humor is a risky and delicate thing because it depends so much on knowing the reality behind the joke. For example, I am sure that there are many hysterical jokes that, oh, glass blowers tell among themselves that would elude me completely.

O'Rourke has the knack of being able to find the universal in some rather arcane scenery - like the bureaucrats in India, and has a lot of fun with wine tasting and altering the senses in general. He also likes to tee off on both of our political parties, though, being a Republican there seems to be more glee in his hammering on the Democrats (or maybe my being conservative and Republican, I get more glee from his pounding on the other guys. But I must admit to relishing his exposing the hypocrisy on the right as well.).

This book is a collection of his published articles (at least one unpublished before) that are woven (pasted - pastiched?) together as if they came out of events in O'Rourke's life rather being set up as separate articles. This device works OK and offers the P.J. the opportunity the opportunity of setting up a few more laughs.

I am sure you will enjoy some articles more than others, as I did. Again, humor is a difficult thing and sometimes you find yourself outside the point of the joke. But there are plenty enough delicious barbs that you will find yourself laughing out loud more than few times. It ends in August of 2001 so it comes from the pre-9/11 world and that shows a bit. But, hey, it is still very good stuff.

Four stars: while it is very good writing, it isn't the best O'Rourke - but it is still far better than most other satirical commentary.

Rating:
Summary: Not his best or his worst.
Review: P.J. O'Rourke wrote one of my all-time favorite books (_Holidays in Hell_) and the most expensive book I've ever thrown away (_Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut_). _CEO of the Sofa_ is, for me, somewhere in between but closer to the former. Some bits are laugh-out-loud funny, including some unexpectedly hilarious ones like "Blind (Drunk) Wine Tasting". ("Driving a Car in Winter" is another classic.) Others, particularly those involving the Political Nut, were hard for me to get through.

Rating:
Summary: A CEO WITH MORE UNDERNEATH HIM THAN A SOFA!
Review: P.J. O'Rourke, you either love him with a passion or dislike him intensely. Personally, I thoroughly enjoy his wit and satire. Nothing ever changes about this author except he just keeps getting better and better, not to mention more outrageous!
Readers will ponder some aspects and chuckle endlessly at other off-the cuff viewpoints. The summary of mankind's achievements at millenium's end is by far the most outstanding focal point of the book. From his approach to drugs, woman in the work place and social security to Hillary Clinton and youth culture, the reader will receive more than a full share of hilarious, tongue-in-cheek humour. Humour is by far good medicine for the soul, so if you are a fan of O'Rourke, don't miss this destined to be best seller.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing, dreary, dull
Review: PJ O' Rourke is a funny man at times but this book didn't do it for me. There's a heavy US flavour to the book which is not a criticism but makes it less penetrable for an outsider than the only other O'Rourke book which I've read which was "Holidays in Hell" and which I enjoyed immensely.I also found it interesting that some of the other readers who were most highly critical of this book are non-Americans like myself.
Frankly I agree with those who find his tirades (and I think that's the most appropriate description) boring. No matter how clever the language in which they are couched his rantings become a little tedious. I'm about half way through the book and I don't think I'll finish it.

Rating:
Summary: We All Lose Our Edge Eventually
Review: Poor P.J. He's concertedly trying to be as witty and biting as he was when he created "Parliament of Whores," but there comes a time for all of us when we just don't have the edge we once had. Often, when an artist or media figure loses the edge, It's almost funny, if you're the kind who laughs at gallows humor. With P.J., it's only painful.

I've been following P.J. for over ten years, when a high-school job in a book store allowed me to get copies of his books at a cut rate. I think P.J. would appreciate the mercenary capitalist attitude behind this fact. His "Give War a Chance," which addressed the freshly-won Gulf War, touched a nerve with this military son, and I now own every book he's written (excepting some stuff where he's written introductions or forewords).

But this latest book is just sad. His political and social satire, though still blessed with a few high points, pulls its punches, weakly echoes past glories, and holds too much too sacred to really cut to the quick. Sometimes, when he's making fun of himself or poking fun at pop culture, he elicits some genuine laughs earned legitimately. At other times, though, he struggles limply through a series of repetetive conservative social statements and sounds like an old man grouching at how snotty kids are today.

His format for this book, cribbed from Oliver Wendell Jones' "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," seems like it ought to be promising. However, when he tries to compress some of his dated topical material into his enforced one-year time span, he has to shimmy and jump through hoops, and it really looks forced. His speeches to friends, family, and button-holed strangers, must be lengthy monologues, and I wish I could come up with such ostensibly pithy witticisms right off the top of my head.

The book is further hampered by when it was released. Hitting the shelves just days before the World Trade Center was destroyed, his strongly jingoistic American attitudes can easily rub the wrong way. Calling America one of the world's freest and most opportune countries may have seemed more apropos before a Third World organization attacked a symbol of our greatest economic excess.

I won't give P.J. up for lost just yet. He may well pull some good ones out in the future. However, he won't be able to do so until he's willing to re-examine the balance between being a humorist and being a jingoistic commentator. The latter must be secondary to the former unless he's satisfied to be just another grouchy old man complaining, Archie Bunker-style, about how America is going down the drain.

Rating:
Summary: A Delightful Read
Review: The CEO of the Sofa represents a step up from the traditional repackaging of columns - instead of a table of contents for unrelated pieces, P.J. links recycled material with new material and silly anecdotes of the sort his fans would expect. For a thoughtful yet amusing (moderately) conservative perspective on economics, domestic politics, foreign policy and cars and computers and a million other things, this is a great book to read.