Rating: 
Summary: Classic American Satire
Review: What would you do if you had the resources to buy anyone or anything you wished? Guy Grand acts immediately and directly on this premise, and the results are, on the surface hilarious. But it is Southern's quiet, subtle, and expertly woven satirical narrative and incisive comment on 1950s America amid the vignettes of money-fueled chaos that are the true gems, and the heart of this wonderful novel. The best example of this is the book's final lines, where Southern closes gently yet pointedly with a description of "the strange searching haste which can be seen in the faces, and especially the eyes, of (American) people in the (American) cities, every evening, just about the time now it starts really getting dark" (parenthesis added).A comment of this book is not complete without a nod to the 1969 movie. Believing that most readers of this book will come to it by way of the film, I think there may be some disappointment. This is no massive epic (the novel is only 148 pages) that had to be pared down for screenplay treatment, so there's just not that much more to enjoy. Most of the sketches from the movie are directly out of the book, the only real change being the story's placement in late 1960s mod Britain, not 1950s Eisenhower-Middle America. This change of venue works very, very well for the film, with its English cast and contributors, including lead Peter Sellers, hippie Beatle Ringo Starr, Monty Python studs John Cleese and Graham Chapman, and ubiquitous party-boy Who drummer, Keith Moon as an addled nun. The only thing missing from the film is the novel's quiet satire.
Rating:
Summary: Classic American Satire
Review: What would you do if you had the resources to buy anyone or anything you wished? Guy Grand acts immediately and directly on this premise, and the results are, on the surface hilarious. But it is Southern's quiet, subtle, and expertly woven satirical narrative and incisive comment on 1950s America amid the vignettes of money-fueled chaos that are the true gems, and the heart of this wonderful novel. The best example of this is the book's final lines, where Southern closes gently yet pointedly with a description of "the strange searching haste which can be seen in the faces, and especially the eyes, of (American) people in the (American) cities, every evening, just about the time now it starts really getting dark" (parenthesis added). A comment of this book is not complete without a nod to the 1969 movie. Believing that most readers of this book will come to it by way of the film, I think there may be some disappointment. This is no massive epic (the novel is only 148 pages) that had to be pared down for screenplay treatment, so there's just not that much more to enjoy. Most of the sketches from the movie are directly out of the book, the only real change being the story's placement in late 1960s mod Britain, not 1950s Eisenhower-Middle America. This change of venue works very, very well for the film, with its English cast and contributors, including lead Peter Sellers, hippie Beatle Ringo Starr, Monty Python studs John Cleese and Graham Chapman, and ubiquitous party-boy Who drummer, Keith Moon as an addled nun. The only thing missing from the film is the novel's quiet satire.
Rating: 
Summary: Magic Christian lacks any real magic
Review: While Guy Grand's pranks are amusing, the book lacks any real satirical center or dramatic structure, which would give it some meaning (and some real bite). You could take the chapters out of their present sequence, reassemble them in any order, and the book would be just as effective --- and that's about as damning a criticism as I can think of. The book utlimately is a washout. It starts and stops in the same place, and in between the narrative just meanders from episode to episode without any real idea of what it wants to do, or how to do it. Not Southern's best, by any means, but better than tripe like CANDY.
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