Bright Lights, Big City

Rating:
Summary: With all of the hype, I expected more.
Review: I saw the movie and have several friends who thought the book was "the best" or "the coolest". As far as one more book about self indulgent, self destructive, pseudo-intellectuals - it's ok, but enough is enough. I just didn't find the subject worthy of my or anyone's time. The writing is merely adequate. If you are stuck on a plane it's not a bad killer of time, but only worth a check out from the library, not a buy/keeper. What's the story with the rumor the ex-wife in the book is based on a real life model/actress?

Rating:
Summary: This book is depressing.
Review: I just read a review of this book in which the author stated that he loved it. He raved about how "fun" of a book it was. Quite the contrary. Quite. I loved the book too, but for different reasons. Bright Lights, Big City was about a lost soul in the depressing eighties. Glitz and glamour and decadence. He was lost in it. Like all of us. And he had a major drug addiction. It wasn't "fun." Was it fun when he coughed and coughed and then found himself with a bloody nose? You don't notice that these problems in his life are serious because of the use of second person. When something happens to you, you are too close to it, you can't see what happens. I got completely wrapped up in that frame of mind and didn't realize until the last chapter that the only thing he had consumed all weekend was crack. Very clever on McInerney's part. I liked the book. Oh, and to the person who wrote that review, I am in a college class and it was on the curriculum. I guess schools are getting a little more liberal!

Rating:
Summary: over-praised
Review: I think BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY is a very thin novel, that happened to capture (with little depth) the 80's conspicuous consumption ethic. Not a bad topic. But the writing isn't great (for such a praised novel) and i sincerely believe if the narrator hadn't been second person (you, you, you...), this book would not have been the success it was. In other words, the book sold because of a gimmick...A gimmick stolen from Hemingway, I might add. (read parts of A FAREWELL TO ARMS).

Rating:
Summary: Working the system backwards
Review: An incredibly alive story of being beaten to death. I have read and reread this book many times. Each time I start with just the first page and before I know it I'm spinning in the depths of this tale. If you enjoy this you'll also like The Story of My Life.

I saw Jay McInerney talk in San Jose one time and he's worth a trip.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most entertaining books I have ever read.
Review: This is the story of a guy who epitomizes what it was like to be at the beginning of your career in the mid-1980s, at least in the big cities. I lived in DC at the time that this book came out. I remember all the political parties I went too and the wild and crazy, and FUN (although self-destructive--healthwise) time it was to be in your 20s then. I adore Jay McInerney's accurate portrayal and hilarious sense of humor. In my opinion, his book is a novel based on real life. I loved the creativity and couldn't put it down. I have reread it so many times that I had to buy a new copy. Also, I give this book to anyone who aspires to be a novelist. Not all books must be as wild and crazy as this one. But J.M. got it right here; this is the most entertaining book I have read in my lifetime. (By the way I am a PAID and employed writer by occupation--a technical writer: computer manuals and all that boring stuff that pays really well). Of course, I hope to publish something creative before the end of this century, or at the very latest before die from old age. I am disappointed that his subsequent books seemed to be written by someone else. Gone was the magic of Bright Lights, Big City. I hope that college literature professors will put this on their reading list, but I doubt that will ever happen. Lots of sex and drugs in the novel. But I felt it was all done tastfully. I know it will offend some, but being a California native, I found it unoffensive and very true to life. I may write some novels or short stories about some of my experiences as a technical writer. And I can write a book about ferrets (there is one in Bright Lights). J.M. inspired me to write fun stuff, instead of the late 1990s trend towards morbid crime novels or accounts of gruesome violence. I am trying to use Bright Lights, Big City 14 years later to inspire me. Jay McInerney took a stylistic risk and it worked! I hope that anyone who wants to be entertained will read this fine book--as long you are NOT offended by graphic descriptions of promiscuity (random sex with strangers) and heavy drug use. The book is hilarious and interesting. I reread it occassionally and, and recomend it to any aspiring author. I never bothered to watch the movie because I enjoyed the book so immensely.

Rating:
Summary: A truly bright star in the firmament
Review: This novel falls just short of the American classics Huck Finn, Sun Also Rises, Gatsby, Holden Caufield, True Grit. MacInerney captured being young in New York in the 80's which means he captured being young and confused for all times. The smell of bread in the beginning brings you to the smell of bread at the end. The only other author who comes this close to sensory reproduction and getting to the "heart" is Jackson McCrae (think his BARK OF THE DOGWOOD or his CHILDREN'S CORNER with their incredible descriptions et al. The people and situations are as true to the rules of reality as fiction can be. And the walk that you and Tad's cousin take through the Village is most fetching indeed. The bricks and wooden Dutch shoes at the end of the book point beautifully to the Dutch sailor's eyes that first contemplated this continent at the end of Gatsby. The only problem I have with the book is it's a little too New Yorker, polished fiction--he never let loose the reins. Still, this is a fantastic piece of fiction, nay, history, and should be read by everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Timeless Timeliness
Review: It has been said that those flames that burn the brightest fade the most quickly. It has also been argued that an extension of this maxim to literature provides a quick dismissal of all topical, works of and in a moment. Bright Lights, Big City serves as an eloquent riposte to this critique of topicality; though it is very much a book about a moment within a subculture within a place (and it rejoices in its rootedness), more importantly it is about a person, and the details which seem to date it provide no more a detriment to its universality than those that Fitzgerald reveled in.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: As much as I enjoyed Ellis's "Less than Zero," and despite the fact that McInerney wrote this book in the same short, undescriptive, relentless style, I could never get into "Bright Lights, Big City" as I'd hoped I would. The second-person narration is an attempt to close the gap between narrator and reader, and does an awful job at actually doing this. You feel forced around a story that you may not at all be familiar with or sympathize with -- although I found many similarities between myself and the narrator, the narration was distracting and annoying.

One main difference between this and "Less than Zero" is that McInerney puts forth a more cynical and lonely narrator, while Ellis's narrator seems to be a part of the pack, and considering that these books were written in the '80s, I think that the latter is more effective in being a sort of zeitgeist novel.

Also, given the title, I had imagined something along the lines of Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities" as far as a grand opus about the wonders of New York City. However, I was disappointed to find that the city was rarely discussed at length or in any sort of meaningful or epic sense.

The best part of the book, that nearly redeemed it, are the scenes between the narrator and his brother Michael and the scene of the narrator at his mother's deathbed.

Rating:
Summary: cocaine decisions
Review: In this supposedly zeitgeist novel of the '80's we see a protagonist who incorporates the essence of that decade: hedonism, urbanity, wealth, cocaine-fuelled nightlife in a competitive social minefield. Coming to think of it, not alot has changed really. Speaking in the second person singular, the writer is following himself around New York as though singing an extended version of "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" by David Bowie.

The structure is innovative and the tone is innane and babbling at times, which reflects our coke-head heroes mentality perfectly. Anything to drown out the sorrow beneath. From his rash decisions to the reasons behind his nihilistic spiral, all questions are answered slowly.
It may seem like I am slating this book but I am not. He is describing a character who is a complete mess. It would be criminal to give cerebral insights and flowery desciptions about such a sullen, defunct lifestyle. Yet pity grows for him as his unfortunate past is revealed. For anyone who has lost someone close to them, his passage of loss is a touching and painful reminder.
It was once described as the Trainspotting of the '80s. Perhaps in an obvious drugs/dilemmas/adventures kind of way, but this novel is more about one man who is a heretic of a scene rather than of how or why a scene works. He is not from a poor background, he is not unemployed, he is not living in a dreary council estate in middle fof Sotland. It is too personal to be considered a social commentary and its singular tragedy surpasses even those of Welsh's protagonists.

So overall, not a fantastic book, not something to bring on holidays, not something to cheer you up, not essentially something to learn from, as the heroes coping mechanisms leave a lot to be desired. A tale of self-indulgent decadence and why. Certainly a book to read at some time in your life. It has its time.

Rating:
Summary: The Ferret Incident was about my college professor!
Review: Believe it or not, my College Professor for English Composition 201 was the roommate of Jay McInerney, the author of this book, when they both lived in New York City! I was forced to read this for that class and in the course, found out a bit about the author and his life before the book. On page 109, the incident about releasing the ferret into Clara's office was about an incident that actually happened to my professor, in fact, I have seen the scars on his hand! He tells me that ferrets have VERY sharp, hard teeth. Both my professor (to protect his privacy he will remain nameless) and Jay McInerney worked for a magazine in the Department of Factual Verification.

But to get to my review, I must say this was not one of my favorite books. Like my review of Saul Bellow's "Seize the Day", I found this book to be depressing. Also, both characters have drug addictions, are separated from their wives, have lost or are losing their jobs and have major issues with their parents.

However, the interesting aspect of this book is that it is told from "second person perspective" meaning that the author never gives a name to the main character, his is simply known as "You". An example: "You are both in high spirits. You have decided that you are better off without that p***-ant job, that it is a good thing you got out when you did." The book is almost as if it is about the reader, as if the book is talking to the reader. I like that it is an interesting new twist on story telling.

The basic plot is that You is a fact checker for a magazine in New York City, he slacks off in his job and is about to be fired for submitting an article that he didn't check. You is a cocaine addict and is fueled on by his incidious friend Tad Allagash, an incurable player. You was married to Amanda, a midwest girl-turned model who went to Paris and never came back. You is struggling with his life in general, he once wanted to be a writer but all ambition is gone. You also has Mom issues, she died of cancer before he ever got to know her and he has regretted it ever since. You also feels trapped, his is at times overcome with the desire to escape his life, jump out a window and fly away. His apartment is unkempt, he parties too much, forgets too many things and cannot get over Amanda in order to have a healthy relationship. Also, there are references throughout the book to an article about a pregnant mother in a coma and speculation as to whether she will live long enough to extract the child alive. This is an allusion to You, he still feels as if he cannot cut the cord that ties him to his mother, he is caught between life and death, existence and nonexistence.

To live, You must overcome his problem of settling for cheap imitations, his love for women who are never coming back, his reliance on drugs as an escape from life and surpass the shock of his mother's death. You also must find a way to trade his fast-paced, empty life for reality, we see allusions to this in the end. Altogether, this is not a bad book. But, it had a rather depressing effect on me and is full of the seediness of life in New York in the 1980's.