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Summary: One of the best books of short stories I have read... ever..
Review: This book would be interesting even if it weren't so cleverly written. The character's that Mitchell portrays: Joe Gould, the bearded lady, the denizens and proprietors of McSorley's saloon are so... for lack of a better term human that this story would be worthwhile to read as if it were just a part of Joe Gould's 'Oral History'-- for what it contributes to a knowledge of a time that has long since passed us, for the insight it has provided in to a world that has since disappeared. Mitchell describes a world that has left us and makes it seem as if it were still with us; I think that I'd give this book four stars just for the characters and the insights alone....But one could say the same about writers like Iceberg Slim; certainly, he too described shady characters in works like 'Pimp' and 'Trick Baby'; today, those seem more annoying than invigourating, and his writing more self-aggrandizing than reaching toward a verismilitude. Mitchell seems with us. His work could stand alone as a work of fiction rather than one of journalism; if it is six-hundred and eighty for pages (I think it is...) all are worth reading in multiple. I highly recommend this book. And I'm usually not a fan of works of this type. If I were to be, another neat book that is vaguely similar but a lot older is Hamilton Holt's 'The Life Sotries of Undistinguished Americans as Told by Themselves...'
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Summary: death death death! also, fish
Review: this guy was a great writer. some blurb somewhere compared this book to joyce's dubliners and that's right. it evokes new york city in the early part of last century and the dignity of its bums. mitchell's outlook is that we're all going to die, you know, but look at the things that people do beforehand! it's flattening and haunting and immensely comforting, his outlook. as the book goes on the stories become more explicitly about death (and fish), so the early stories are better. if you don't know anything about joe gould like i didn't when i read the story you are in for something that will stay with you. one more thing, my favorite story in this book is the title story, which at first struck me as anticlimactic, but seems more and more profound every day.
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Summary: Desert-Island Books
Review: This is one of my all-time favorites - even non-New Yorkers will be engrossed. A loving, lyrical, touching and humorous description of a New York that died long before I was born - but Mitchell makes it come to life. After reading this book, you'll walk around Manhattan with newly keen eyesight - sometimes you may actually feel like you caught a glimpse.
Rating:
Summary: A multiple re-read
Review: Unless you have an extraordinarily adept system of tracking the books you've lent to friends (or friends far more diligent than mine) you should strongly consider buying two copies. I lent my hardcover to a friend, and mourn it. I will lend it no more, having made the same mistake with a subsequent softcover. This is a book into which you can escape. It is alternately hiliarious, troubling, deeply sad. You can pick it up and read one piece or go through it cover to cover. Mitchell was a genius. Brilliant non-fiction writers like John McPhee and Tracy Kidder had their way paved for them by Mitchell... wanna see courage in print? Here it is.
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Summary: A humorous collection of stories about every day people.
Review: Up in the Old Hotel is a collection of humorous stories about everyday people. I would highly reccomend it to anyone. Many of the stories had me laughing out loud. Up in the Old Hotel is a little peek into the past since the stories were written in the 30's to 40's era. The essays include descriptions of people and a few places. The reader is really able to see how these people lived and how they interacted with the world and people around them. I highly commend Josheph Mitchell for writing this funny, enlighting, intuitive book for readers of all ages.
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Summary: Fabulous
Review: While strolling in Soho, a friend dragged me by the ear into a small bookshop, bought this book for me and told me I had to read it. This kind of situation seldom works out for the best -- so many people have pressed mediocre books into my hands over the years, and I have slogged through them out of guilt. This volume hooked me from the start -- I very nearly missed by plane back home that day, as I became so deeply engrossed in it. Mitchell somehow managed to hold on to a wide-eyed wonder and appreciation for all things human throughout his long life. To read this book is to understand that below the surface of things -- old abandoned hotels, the oysters on one's plate, the raving lunatic on the street corner -- is a complex, moving, eloquent, fascinating story, available to anyone who would invest the necessary time, effort and love to extract it. Few of us can summon the necessary energy, but Mitchell could. I can't think of anyone who would fail to be interested in these stories, but New Yorkers past and present should, in particular, find this book fascinating.
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Summary: If you love sentences ...
Review: Yes, as the other reviewers have already noted, it's true that Mitchell captures a sense of place and character as well as any writer working today, but the real reason to buy this book is the opportunity it will give you to revel in the rhythm of some of the most hynpotic sentences you will ever read by an American writer. If you think I'm exaggerating, then just open the book to a piece called "The Rivermen" (pg 574) and read the opening paragraph, in which Mitchell describes the Hudson River and his sighting of a sturgeon: " ... it rose twice, and cleared the water both times, and I plainly saw its bristly snout and its shiny little eyes and its white belly and its glistening, greenish-yellow, bony-plated, crocodilian back and sides, and it was a spooky sight." If you love sentences like this, get this book. I've been teaching college composition for a dozen years, and can think of no better model for clean, elegant prose.
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