Bliss

Rating:
Summary: Dark satire at its best
Review: Harry Joy is much like someone we all probably know. A regular guy, a successful businessman, husband, and father. But after suffering a heart attack he transforms into someone much more interesting. He is rescusitated, but convinced he is in hell.
Don't read this and think you know where this story is going, there isn't anything that can prepare you for the rest of this brilliant, quirky, dark, hilarious story. Harry is surrounded by a cast of characters who are not necessarily likeable, but complex and interesting. We get to know his wife, his children, his business partner, and some new friends as well as Harry gets to know people as they really are, and not as he thought they were. This is a funny story, told in a serious way. Pay attention and you will laugh out loud. Highly recommended, Peter Carey is a brilliant writer.

Rating:
Summary: Dark satire at its best
Review: Harry Joy is much like someone we all probably know. A regular guy, a successful businessman, husband, and father. But after suffering a heart attack he transforms into someone much more interesting. He is rescusitated, but convinced he is in hell.
Don't read this and think you know where this story is going, there isn't anything that can prepare you for the rest of this brilliant, quirky, dark, hilarious story. Harry is surrounded by a cast of characters who are not necessarily likeable, but complex and interesting. We get to know his wife, his children, his business partner, and some new friends as well as Harry gets to know people as they really are, and not as he thought they were. This is a funny story, told in a serious way. Pay attention and you will laugh out loud. Highly recommended, Peter Carey is a brilliant writer.

Rating:
Summary: Not Outdated at All
Review: Highly recommended. Surprisingly moving story that questions the rhythms and relationships in modern life. Definitely thought-provoking

Rating:
Summary: Early, dark Carey
Review: I enjoyed this comic novel by Peter Carey, in which Harry Joy suffers a heart attack, recovers, and suspects that he's arrived in hell. All the realities of Harry's family and working life appear to alter, not least due to the changes in his own behaviour following the heart attack. But is this really hell, or is Harry merely viewing his life and the people in it with a different eye?

I thought that Carey displayed a sharp, dark humour in "Bliss", a humour which seemed apt for the book. Those apsects of Carey's writing style which I've found irritating in other of his works I've read seemed to be either more under control in this novel, or just seemed to fit well with the story: for example, the fact that the characters are rather two-dimensional eccentrics and that Carey seemed not to be interested in examining their emotional development didn't really matter.

Perhaps (this being Carey's first novel) I stumbled across him before his style developed into what his fans would no doubt prefer and enjoy. But I appreciated this novel for that very fact.

G Rodgers

Rating:
Summary: A bit disappointing but worthwhile
Review: I picked this book up on recommendation by a book seller. It was the first book I've read by Peter Carey. While I found Carey's use of language fascinating (I have not read much Australian literature which may have increased my interest), the story failed to satisfy. I felt that Carey abandoned the gloom and doom of Harry's "Hell" as the story drew to a close in order to give the character the sense of bliss and heaven on which the book's themes revolve. While I appreciate the stab at finality, the ease with which Harry transitions to a bush lifestyle and forsakes his urban past is unbelievable particularly in light of torment and obstacles he is confronted with up to this point.

Following a good verses evil dichotomy throughout the book, Carey proposed that abandonment of the urban (evil) for the rural (good) is the path to happiness. Even if I had read this book at the time of its release in the 1980's, this structure would still have rendered the tale naive. Carey delves into the complex means with which modern society corrupts imperceptibly through the media's perpetuation of ideology and then offers an over simplified solution to the problem. It does not ring true.

I was also disappointed that Harry's daughter Lucy was not a more developed character. Carey's makes her character highly intriguing but then fails to fully flush her out.

This is definitely a worth while read despite its flaws and I will certainly explore more of Carey work. I only hope that his later books are more carefully constructed.


Rating:
Summary: Good read
Review: I was initially drawn by the overall theme of the book - a man is brought back to life from a heart attack and is convinced that he has in fact died and gone to hell. I found this precept interesting enough to start me reading the book, and watching the protagonist sorting people into "Actors", "Captives", and "Those In Charge" is delightful. In the end, this original groundwork is remembered from time to time, but falls by the wayside as Harry Joy continues through his life. I was surprised that this distraction from the original concept (which is what drew me to the novel) did not disappoint me. The book was inteligent, witty, and dry. With a sharp eye for detail and dialogue, Peter Carey made for an enjoyable read.

Rating:
Summary: Good, not great Peter Carey
Review: In "Bliss" we get a character study of a man named Harry Joy, who we join mid-cardiac arrest. He subsequently recovers, but thinks he has died and gone to hell. It's a great premise, and the book's opening is brilliantly entertaining. Unfortunately, for me at least, the balance of the book never quite lives up to the promise glimpsed in the opening pages. Harry is an occasionally adulterous ad man married to an occasionally unfaithful wife who herself yearns to be in advertising, and who utlimately contrives to join him in the business. By the time she does she is ensconced in a relationship with Harry's other business partner, Joel, who lives with her (and Harry, and their kids) in the Joy household, while Harry himself has fallen in love with a drug-running bush woman named Honey Barbara, who also moves into the household. While the book's focus is predominantly on Harry, it concerns itself with the conflicting relationships of these four people, with some secondary story lines revolving around the Joy children. Midway through the book I thought the story line became almost oppressingly obtuse, and hardly deserving of its billing as a dark comedy. In fact, I found it to be barely comic at all. Some of Carey's other work ("The Fat Man In History" and "Illywhacker" in particular) is much funnier and more substantial. If you're a big Peter Carey fan, you'll want to read this to round out your exposure to his body of work. If not, I'd skip "Bliss" and read some of his later books, such as "Illywhacker" and "Oscar and Lucinda."

Rating:
Summary: Five + Stars
Review: My favourite work of fiction, this dark comical look at a man trying to understand the meaning of life has helped me rethink my own.

Harry Joy is an advertising executive who's heart attack/near death experience allows him to see that his profession is leading him to hell.

But first Harry must decide if he's not already there.

If you can find the video I'd recommend it too, as it follows the book very closely.

Rating:
Summary: Good novel
Review: This book is well worth the purchase price for the entertainment value. With an original plot and multi-demensional characters, this book holds the readers attention through its many twists and turns. In the beginning, Harry Joy has a seemingly ideal life when he has a near death experience. Everything, it turns out, was an illusion. Now he is in Hell, or so he thinks. On his way to an eventual true happy life in a setting the Harry Joy at the beginning of the tale would have never dreamed, Carey has some good comments on how we arrange our lives and how we deal with other people. This is the first work of Mr. Carey's that I have read. Based on this book, I will read more.

Rating:
Summary: not the best
Review: This was Peter Carey's first book, and the first Peter Carey book I've read. Some of the story telling (Carey's, not the protagonist Harry Joy's) was truly fantastic, in other parts it felt forced and I became distracted.

Harry Joy, an oblivious yet "good bloke", suffers a heart attack. When he recovers he believes he is in hell. After witnessing his family in a new light he leaves. His journey makes up the story. I don't know if any of the other readers felt this way, but some of it reminded me of American Beauty.