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.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is a very very good one
Review: Once in a while, a book surfaces that can deliver a stronger message than most novels, yet retain a contemporary sense. This book is one of the few. As our narrator wanders around from party to party, we eventually find that he is not lost, and not ever wandering, but running. This narrator is a little boy in a big city, and he took life on too fast and he lost control. Also the fact that he is obviously depressed is not helping him. People who hate this book, hate it because they cannot see how this man is unsatisfied with his life. wake up, that is the point OUR NARRATOR CAN NOT SEE WHY HE IS NOT SATISFIED WITH HIS LIFE. Our main man has an empty space inside him, and the whole novel he tries to fill it, unsuccessfully. Eventually he wakes up to the world, and the smell of fresh baked bread, but no more shall be said. Read it. The 2nd person is interesting, and I honestly dont know what to make of it. But nonetheless it is a fantastic book. And I think everyone can find a peice of this character inside him/her...oh wait, maybee that is why it is in the 2nd person...
Rating:
Summary: Timeless
Review: The first thirty pages in Jay McInerney's novel Bright Lights, Big City are intense. It's six in the morning, the main character is wandering high on coke through a club and his only friend is no where in sight. When he finally leaves disorientated and without enough cab fare to get home, he is hit with the crippling morning sunlight and the painful realization that he left his shades at home. Picture a comic reel where a man stumbles towards the light at the end of a dark tunnel dodging bald women, men in drag and tiny Bolivian soldiers and you will get a sense of how this story begins. The writing style grabbed me from the first page. The novel is written in the second person so as the reader you are the main character, "all messed up with no place to go" (10) reacting to life with a smart mouth.
I love the prose in this novel, especially in the sense that I find the main character's disheartened quips entertaining. My favorite passage so far is, "GRANNY CRUSHED BY NUT WHILE WIMPS WATCH" (13) where the main character furiously debates whether or not to help an old woman in distress. It intrigued me to realize that most of the scenes I was chuckling at were painfully unfunny. He laughs about his blow problem, the feelings he still has for his estranged wife and the job he hates; this seems like foreshadowing to me. I sympathize with the main character because I get the feeling that all the terrible things he jokes about will eventually happen and then life will hit him harder than he can imagine. I like that and I look forward to observing how he recovers, if he does at all. Either way, I'm hooked.
Rating: 
Summary: Superficial and tired
Review: This novel reads much like an entertaining article in a magazine; it's light, with little insight into the human condition or, more specifically, into the psyches of the central characters. The word surface has a gloss, which is pleasant enough, but which falls far short of sustaining repeated readings. It is disposable literature, masquerading as something more permanent.
*
The protagonist identifies himself swiftly as enjoying an elite, Ivy League, background, with an accompanying modest cushion of wealth. His talents and, more desperately, his potential are hailed as grand and admirable. His interest in literature, in particular, is implicitly cited as rescuing and validating his moral worth. All this is somewhat tiresome and self-satisfied, and does recall the basic scenario of Catcher in the Rye (for better or for worse). Unlike in that alleged classic, here the author feels obliged to explain the protagonist's lack of direction, and he does so clumsily, resorting to a poorly realised appeal to grief.
*
The minor characters fair still less well. Amanda, the prodigal model cum wife, is empty and vacuous - no attempt is made into fathoming how or why this might be so. Similarly, Tad, an accomplice in drugs and clubbing, is rendered flatly. The surface might well be amusing, or even alluring, but in a novel one could expect more than what could be provided in the space of a thirty second television commercial (and that's all that's offered).
*
The eighties in New York might have been interesting in some sense, but the source of that interest remains opaque after reading this ultimately rather dull book.
|
