The Book of Guys

Rating:
Summary: Great storytelling (as expected), but not his best...
Review: Garrison Keillor is an excellent storyteller. I have loved my visits to Lake Wobegon, both through his books and his radio broadcast.

"The Book of Guys" is the kind of funny, well-crafted storytelling you would expect from Keillor. However, he is not at his best here.

These short stories tend to explore some areas that Keillor does not seem to be as comfortable in. They seem, at times, to be an exercise in which G.K. stretched his own limitations, experimenting with different types of characters and situations.

It's a very good book -- very funny, and very well-written. But if you haven't read Keiller before, I would recommend "Lake Wobegon Days" first.

Yet, even Keillor at his absolute worst (and "Book of Guys" is certainly not this!) would probably be worth reading. The man is simply a great storyteller!

Rating:
Summary: My favorite Garrison Keillor book
Review: Garrison Keillor tells tales so well that he can even make male chauvinism laugh-out-loud hilarious. (I suppose that Comedy Central's "The Man Show" can do that, too, for the Neanderthal set). With titles such as "Buddy the Leper" and "Don Juan in Hell," the listener gets a strange mix of characters from all sides of the frustrated male experience in "The Book of Guys." Combined with Keillor's trademark voice and meditative delivery (a national favorite), you get an audio book guaranteed to please everyone, whether or not you hail from Lake Wobegon. A great recording for any guy, or married woman trying to better understand her husband's mind.

Rating:
Summary: more laughs from the master storyteller
Review: Garrison Keillor tells tales so well that he can even make male chauvinism laugh-out-loud hilarious. (I suppose that Comedy Central's "The Man Show" can do that, too, for the Neanderthal set). With titles such as "Buddy the Leper" and "Don Juan in Hell," the listener gets a strange mix of characters from all sides of the frustrated male experience in "The Book of Guys." Combined with Keillor's trademark voice and meditative delivery (a national favorite), you get an audio book guaranteed to please everyone, whether or not you hail from Lake Wobegon. A great recording for any guy, or married woman trying to better understand her husband's mind.

Rating:
Summary: Two hours of my life that I will never get back...
Review: I had never read any of Keillor's books, but if this one was represenative, I'll avoid him completely. The stories were boring and pointless.

Rating:
Summary: Not a master of the short story, but VERY funny
Review: I like books that make me laugh out loud, though they're way too few and far between. This one had me laughing throughout, and for that reason alone it is well worth the read. And no, I don't think you'd have to be a guy to enjoy this one.

Keillor's writing, besides being very funny, is very literate and clever. Many of the stories come across in much the same way his radio skits and monologues do. But - I wouldn't say that he's quite mastered the written short story genre just yet. Quite a few of the stories have endings that read like Keillor just decided that the story had gone on long enough, so let's see if we can wrap it up in the next 20 words or so. They kind of leave you hanging.

However, stylistic demerits aside, this is one very funny book!

Rating:
Summary: Some stories are terrific, some are pointless
Review: My first foray into the reading world of Garrison Keillor was The Book of Guys. It consists of 22 stories that reflect an impressive amount of learning and language skills combined with a curious imagination. My favorite of the set was the opening chapter address to the National Federation of Associations convention. Keillor's spoofs on the age old battle of the sexes takes on smashingly funny proportions in this piece, from the description of his attendance at the Sons of Bernie drunken orgy of song and self-pity around a campfire in the freezing cold of winter to comments about his high school poetic aspirations, including such numbers as 'Soliloquies for Stringless Guitars'.

The Mid-life Crisis of Dionysusm, Buddy the Leper, Marooned, Don Giovanni, Earl Grey, and Casey at the Bat (Road Game) were other stories I thought both humorous and inventive, not to mention insightful in their comments about human nature. On the other hand, many of the stories were crafty but without direction. I finished several thinking, "What was the point of that?" You might want to read through a few of these stories while browsing through the book before deciding whether or not you want to purchase it.

Rating:
Summary: Grain of Salt
Review: Other reviewers are more than informative about the book's contents, so I'll be brief.

This book is for middle-aged men. As a guy leaving my own youth behind and headed into the middle years, the book is more relevant and funnier than it would have been even three years ago.

If you are a fan of Prairie Home Companion, be warned! This is NOT his usual sappy fare. A couple of pieces have that Garrison Keillor sheen we know and love, but for the most part, these pieces expose another side of Mr. Keillor's talent. Though his style has not changed, his subject matter does.

The book is at turns, funny, sappy, sad, disturbing. The honesty of his phrases, whether in a comedic or tragic moment, is very refreshing. His words get right to the truth of the matter and don't dress it up much. Not a bit of it is bad writing; it's all good, but you must be prepared for a wider definition of "good" than you might expect from works like Lake Wobegon Days and such.

And, finally, delivery is key. I found I "got it" when I imagined Mr. Keillor reading it to me, which is perhaps a weakness of his writing -- it must be delivered in his voice. So consider buying the audiotape of it -- you won't miss anything and you'll have the added benefit of experiencing these tales exactly as Mr. Keillor intended.

Rating:
Summary: BY A GUY -- ABOUT GUYS -- FOR GUYS
Review: The best way to describe THE BOOK OF GUYS would be to say that it is written about guys, by a guy, and for the entertainment of guys. It really is a guy book. Let's take a look at some of the guys:

There are a couple of stories about guy gods: Zeus trapped in the body of an overweight Lutheran minister, and Dionysus undergoing middle age crisis.

Don Giovanni is now a piano playing guy in a seedy lounge in Fargo.

We meet the first President Bush out for an afternoon's fishing with Willie Horton. Just a couple of guys passing the time.

One of my favorite guys is Omoo the Wolf Boy as he raises a litter of human babies and makes them bi-lingual by teaching them Wolfspeak and Humanspeak.

We mustn't forget Earl Grey, the American guy who invented the tea that bears his name, but who can never get over the trauma of being a middle child.

A few others to think about: "Casey at the Bat" told from the standpoint of the other team, Dustburg, "Buddy the Leper," "Roy Bradley, Boy Broadcaster," and we wouldn't want to miss "Herb Johnson, the God of Canton.

I would be remiss if I left out the opening address to "The Federation of Associations Convention." Here, Keillor talks about the annual mid-winter campfire of the "Sons of Bernie" in which several grown guys stand in waist deep snow in 20 degree below zero weather swapping manly guy tales.

This is a sampling of the treats awaiting the reader of THE BOOK OF GUYS.

Rating:
Summary: Laugh? Thought I'd Die
Review: This is easily the funniest book I've ever read. I'm a totally devoted Prairie Home Companion fan and have been following Garrison Keillor's work for years. It's funny and I laughed out loud at almost every story. This is a priceless book and I recommend it highly.

Rating:
Summary: Depressing, unfunny, and misogynistic
Review: This reviewer was never a fan of Garrison Keillor's radio show "A Prairie Home Companion", but its popularity inclined one to suspect that Keillor was a talented writer of homely comedic short stories. Disappointingly, this volume is anything but. Apart from the hysterical introduction and the delightful eponymous section, most of this book is depressing, unfunny, and misogynistic.

The introduction is in the form of an Address to the National Federation of Associations Convention and discusses Keillor's associate with a men's club known as the Sons of Bernie (S.O.B.'s) - desperate losers indulging in a drunken orgy of song, story, and self-pity around their annual campfire. Although basically as misogynistic as the rest of the book (as the title hints, misogyny is really the main theme), the piece struck this reviewer as genuinely funny, even evoking some outright belly-laughs. It would seem that male readers over the age of 25 or so had a real treat in store.

This hope was quickly dashed. "Lonesome Shorty" is the tale of a cowboy who gives up the life so he can pursue some of his more effete interests. He finds a little place to settle down, and picks out a china pattern, after which things pretty much fall apart. This is the first of twenty-odd stories about men whose lives were either ruined or at least needlessly complicated by women, and bizarre and senseless as it is, it's probably among the best of the lot, possibly because the very absurdity of it makes the story seem ironic. Other pieces are not nearly so excusable. "Buddy the Leper" makes no sense at all, while "Marooned" is plain hateful.

Only "Gary Keillor" achieves the kind of Wonder Years warmth that presumably characterized his radio show. The tale focuses on Keillor's introduction to the entertainment business, as a sixteen year old giving a dramatic reading of Whitman's classic elegy on the death of Abraham Lincoln ("O Captain! my Captain!") for the school's spring talent show. These 18 pages are good enough that they could be recommended as an enjoyable reminiscence. The 20 page introduction will be amusing for men who have suffered some reversals in their lives, but still have a sense of humor about it, although women will surely find it less amusing. But the rest of this 340 page book is very, very bad, and can not be recommended to anyone.