Rating: 
Summary: Classic Allen
Review: I was recommended this book because of the play "Death." I found the two plays to be much funnier than some of the short stories and essays. The short stories are written in the older style of Allen's humor. They are funny because Allen is constantly using unexpected silly plot twists. I found these silly twists to be a bit much at times. However, if you like his older movies then you will probably like the way he writes the short stories. The plays were, I thought, much more clever. They were still silly (of course) but they had more continuity than the short stories. In addition the unexpected still occurred frequently but it seems more in context, in the plays.Regardless, this book is very funny and if you like Allen's movies, then you'll definitely find this book funny as well.
Rating:
Summary: Classic Allen
Review: I was recommended this book because of the play "Death." I found the two plays to be much funnier than some of the short stories and essays. The short stories are written in the older style of Allen's humor. They are funny because Allen is constantly using unexpected silly plot twists. I found these silly twists to be a bit much at times. However, if you like his older movies then you will probably like the way he writes the short stories. The plays were, I thought, much more clever. They were still silly (of course) but they had more continuity than the short stories. In addition the unexpected still occurred frequently but it seems more in context, in the plays. Regardless, this book is very funny and if you like Allen's movies, then you'll definitely find this book funny as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Lot of laughs
Review: If you enjoy Allen's early movies, you must read this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as the films.
Review: Like many collections of 'classic' 'humour', and unlike Woody's own wonderful films, WITHOUT FEATHERS has dated very badly. The problem is that the trick and the voice remains the same and becomes monotonous. The trick is generally parody-pastiche (and he parodies everything from Nabokov, Beckett, Scandanavian drama, Ionesco, Borges, Pirandello and Kafka to the game Mindtrap, newstand books on the paranormal and the Bible) with a dollop of surrealism to make things a little 'zany'. The pastiches are very clever, but, for example, the send-ups of PALE FIRE or WAITING FOR GODOT are nowhere near as comic as the originals. The pieces seem aimed to flatter anyone who has studied English literature at university, which seems to me rather narrow, but not elitist - although Allen mimics, mocks or alludes to many great thinkers and writers, he never attempts to inject similar profundity, content merely to ape their style. Everything exists on the surface level of the jokes. There is the odd minor chuckle, yes, but with Woody that isn't nearly enough. Some of the material here would be put to much better use in the films - for instance the arch play 'Death' will become the masterpiece SHADOWS AND FOG. The second play 'God', a parody of 'Six Characters in Search of an Author' and 'The Bald Primadonna' amongst many other things, is very good - I'd love to see it performed.
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as the films.
Review: Like many collections of 'classic' 'humour', and unlike Woody's own wonderful films, WITHOUT FEATHERS has dated very badly. The problem is that the trick and the voice remains the same and becomes monotonous. The trick is generally parody-pastiche (and he parodies everything from Nabokov, Beckett, Scandanavian drama, Ionesco, Borges, Pirandello and Kafka to the game Mindtrap, newstand books on the paranormal and the Bible) with a dollop of surrealism to make things a little 'zany'. The pastiches are very clever, but, for example, the send-ups of PALE FIRE or WAITING FOR GODOT are nowhere near as comic as the originals. The pieces seem aimed to flatter anyone who has studied English literature at university, which seems to me rather narrow, but not elitist - although Allen mimics, mocks or alludes to many great thinkers and writers, he never attempts to inject similar profundity, content merely to ape their style. Everything exists on the surface level of the jokes. There is the odd minor chuckle, yes, but with Woody that isn't nearly enough. Some of the material here would be put to much better use in the films - for instance the arch play 'Death' will become the masterpiece SHADOWS AND FOG. The second play 'God', a parody of 'Six Characters in Search of an Author' and 'The Bald Primadonna' amongst many other things, is very good - I'd love to see it performed.
Rating:
Summary: Funny thoughts
Review: Like the earlier collection, Getting Even, this is Woody at his existential best. Short pieces centred around ludicrous concepts are again the modus operandi. And even though my complaint still stands that some of the pieces are a tad silly and filled with too many (comic) non sequiters, they are still damn funny, and I guess that is all that really counts. Some of my favourites include "The Whore of Mensa", wherein you pay a prostitute fifty dollars and she'll read from her thesis and then discuss Kierkegaard; "If The Impressionists Had Been Dentist", a series of letters from Vincent to Theo Van Gogh regarding his qualms about which kind of fluoride is the most effective; and "Slang Origins", in which Woody details, well, slang origins. Only they are all totally made up and terribly amusing. I guess the real highlights of the collection are the twin one-act plays, "Death" and "God". Woody once planned to complete the trilogy with a play entitled "Sex"; unfortunately he never completed it. We'll have to make do with what we have. And what we have is pretty inventive in its comedy, if not in narrative. "Death" focuses on Kleinmann, an everyman who is pulled from his bed in the middle of the night by a posse that is tracking down the town's serial murderer. Only they never tell him why the need him. Try not to picture Woody himself as Kleinmann. It is a tailor made role. "God" is actually the more ambitious of the two. It balances a parody of Greek theatre with the play within a play within a play concept (Woody actually makes a cameo appearance himself at once point, albeit only over the phone), to discuss the relationship between an artist, his work, and his audience (a very post-modern idea). The climax degenerates into Marx Brothers-style hysteria (and it is only fitting that Groucho makes an appearance, chasing Blanche DuBois across the stage). And it too is funny. The whole thing is funny. These pieces aren't intended as full-fledged stories. They are concepts that at one point flittered in and out of Woody's fertile imagination, and he had the good sense to put them down on paper.
Rating:
Summary: One Thing I Can't Do in Bed
Review: There are a few things my wife allows me to do in bed, but reading Woody Allens' books is not one of them. She can't sleep. The bed shakes too much when I laugh, and I can only stifle myself for so long before I have to get up. Honest.
Rating:
Summary: Woody Allen at his best
Review: This is like a comic book for grownups; short stories, lots of laughs! :)
Rating:
Summary: get this book ...
Review: This is one of the funniest bks you are ever going to read. And dont miss GETTING EVEN, which, in spite of its earlier date and vengeful title, is even funnier... ...after that, until you are ready for the subtle humour of Jane Austen, Thomas Love Peacock, James Joyce, and Robert Musil, PGWodehouse is the funny man to go with for now.. and LOTS of him, especially the Bertie Wooster/Jeeves novels... .. then you can thank me, after you've split your sides laughing ;)
Rating:
Summary: Frequently, there must be a beverage
Review: This is one of the most hilarious, actually, the most hilarious book I have ever read. I don't know how he does it, but the combination of entirely random situation with common cliches makes even the most worn out ideas and themes hilarious.
Mr. Allen takes some of the biggest questions in human existence, "What happens to us when we die?" and "Is there a God?" and makes them into plays that are so incredibly disjointed and out of the common literary form that I almost couldn't follow them. Its such a relief after Shakespeare, where everything goes in the exact same pattern (gimme a break, I'm in high school)! Instead of having to read between the lines to pick up sarcasm, you have to look to pick up the plot of the play! It might be annoying to some people, but once you do figure out what "the Writer" is trying to say, it's a great feeling. Almost as good as knowing that there IS someone on this earth who is stranger than you. But then, we're not all as funny as Mr. Allen is either.
And it truly is his ramblings, not his spoof of big, deep, messages, that will make you fall out of your chair laughing. The friends I have shown this book ( I had to! They all seem to give me incredibly strange looks when I'm sitting at a pep rally and laughing hysterically after someone gets hurt) have tried to steal it after reading the first paragraph.
And what is almost the best thing is, is that he gives you a break. (in exception to the plays, which can get tedious at times) he skips around from idea to idea so quickly that it takes you by surprise, especially when he goes from trying to convince you that Shakespeare was someone else, who was someone else, who was someone else, to analyzing great impressionist art in the form of dentistry. Oops, I hope I haven't given away too much.
It fits perfectly into the spare minutes you have everyday and you an skip around, and read it however you like, and no matter what you do, it will still be funny. Now I have to go run and give it to the first person who tried to steal it from me.
|
