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It's rare to find a novel that makes you burst out laughing--and I mean real guffaws, not smiling to yourself, "oh-that's-humorous" type chuckles--yet also fills you with a sense of deep sadness for the main character and the times he lives in, which we all share.
Milo is our hero and narrator, a sad-sack of a man who knows all too well that he is losing everything--his job, his wife, possibly even the love of his precocious 9-year old son Bernie. But what keeps Milo (and "The Ask") from descending into despair is a heightened sense of the absurd that accompanies his daily trials and setbacks. We laugh because he stoicly endures the contempt of people he knows are his intellectual inferiors--people who succeed because they have no shame of the indignities they're willing to heap on themselves (or others) to get ahead.
"The Ask" reveals a present-day America stripped of its honor and status, a kind of enormous reality show (and indeed the concept of a new reality show in which the country's top chefs compete to make last meals for death row prisoners hits home as at once bizarre and not at all hard to imagine popping up on a cable channel any day now).
Lipsyte lets Milo guide us through a land where a good but flawed man is given one last chance to save a job he doesn't even want, but desperately needs. And so we find ourselves rooting for Milo as he negotiates a sea of posers, hacks, and inflated modern-day egoists in order to land one last "Ask"--getting an old college friend turned Internet billionaire to sign off on a large donation to a second-rate liberal arts college in New York.
Will Milo succeed? What will be the cost to his own sense of pride and dignity if he does?
Finding out is a heartbreaking joyride that will leave you at times outraged, at others doubled over with laughter, and ultimately thrilled to have been in the hands of a master storyteller who isn't afraid of revealing hurtful truths with compassion, humor, and sincerity.
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(2 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)
More attention needs to be paid to this debut novel. Absorbing from page 1 to its conclusion, "Last Last Chance" taps into the frightening reality of 21st Century America, tackling everything from drug addiction to biological terrorism and what instigates fear responses in individuals and large groups of people.
Despite the fact that the book's heroine, Lucy Clark, is confronting (or running from) a litany of personal problems that include her own and her mother's drug addictions, a broken heart, crippling depression, and the death by suicide of her father after his unstoppable super-plague virus is stolen from a lab--threatening to wipe out most of the human race--much of this novel is actually...hilarious.
That's because Lucy narrates the tale with deadpan cynicism and wit. She's completely aware of her own faults and leanings toward self-destruction, but she narrates with pitch-perfect black humor the play-by-play of absurdity displayed her fellow Americans, who resort to mob mentality at the first sign of trouble.
Visits to a drug rehab ranch in the most desolate part of Texas and to a kind of "outward bound" right-wing Christian-cult summer camp for kids are just two examples of the surreal and very funny side trips Lucy takes from her home in New York City as the virus spreads around the country.
And while the book could have suffered from glibness in its portrayal of a hip woman dealing with drug problems, it doesn't shy from the terrible realities of dependence, and there are moments of deeply moving introspection and confession from the afflicted characters.
But "Last Last Chance" is ultimately a novel of and about our times, revealing people desperate to love but afraid to do so, and a country running from itself and fears both imagined and--at times--all too real.
There are also ruminations on reincarnation, the inevitable cyclical patterns of family histories, even Norse mythology.
"Last Last Chance" is infused with humor, compassion and fresh insight into modern human frailty. It will make you laugh in one moment and send a shiver down your spine the next, and will leave you eagerly awaiting the next work from this exciting young writer.
Losing David Foster Wallace to suicide was an enormous blow to anyone who views literature as an essential element of the human experience.
Reading 'Infinite Jest', while a time-consuming and often dizzying emotional and intellectual experience, will solidify that feeling forever.
This huge novel of ideas and footnotes that run for pages alongside the main action (and are just as enthralling) will envelope you if you stick with it, and you will never forget it.
The skeleton of the plot revolves around a mysterious and sought-after videotape that the viewer cannot stop watching once he or she starts.
This is the jumping-off point for an exploration on the nature and allure of entertainment as addiction, with off-shoots into the reasons for and difficulties overcoming drug addiction, mental illness (which Wallace struggled with all his life and is described in such stark detail that you will feel real chills running through your body as you read), and a spate of wildly drawn characters that include wheelchair-bound assassins from Quebec, budding tennis prodigies, and a spellboundingly beautiful woman who stars in the video you can't stop watching.
I spent 3 months reading this book, and became so absorbed in its fascinating, twisting fun-house narrative that it seemed at times as if the rest of the world was blocked out of my consciousness.
It's a masterpiece all at once funny, sad, baffling, infuriating, mesmerizing and unlike anything you will ever read. it is without a doubt a book I would recommend as a Top 10 all-time read. Don't be put off by its more than 1,000-page length. Each one contains wonders.
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(2 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)
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The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
MitchW, January 5, 2011
It's rare to find a novel that makes you burst out laughing--and I mean real guffaws, not smiling to yourself, "oh-that's-humorous" type chuckles--yet also fills you with a sense of deep sadness for the main character and the times he lives in, which we all share.Milo is our hero and narrator, a sad-sack of a man who knows all too well that he is losing everything--his job, his wife, possibly even the love of his precocious 9-year old son Bernie. But what keeps Milo (and "The Ask") from descending into despair is a heightened sense of the absurd that accompanies his daily trials and setbacks. We laugh because he stoicly endures the contempt of people he knows are his intellectual inferiors--people who succeed because they have no shame of the indignities they're willing to heap on themselves (or others) to get ahead.
"The Ask" reveals a present-day America stripped of its honor and status, a kind of enormous reality show (and indeed the concept of a new reality show in which the country's top chefs compete to make last meals for death row prisoners hits home as at once bizarre and not at all hard to imagine popping up on a cable channel any day now).
Lipsyte lets Milo guide us through a land where a good but flawed man is given one last chance to save a job he doesn't even want, but desperately needs. And so we find ourselves rooting for Milo as he negotiates a sea of posers, hacks, and inflated modern-day egoists in order to land one last "Ask"--getting an old college friend turned Internet billionaire to sign off on a large donation to a second-rate liberal arts college in New York.
Will Milo succeed? What will be the cost to his own sense of pride and dignity if he does?
Finding out is a heartbreaking joyride that will leave you at times outraged, at others doubled over with laughter, and ultimately thrilled to have been in the hands of a master storyteller who isn't afraid of revealing hurtful truths with compassion, humor, and sincerity.
(2 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)
Last Last Chance by Fiona Maazel
MitchW, January 1, 2010
More attention needs to be paid to this debut novel. Absorbing from page 1 to its conclusion, "Last Last Chance" taps into the frightening reality of 21st Century America, tackling everything from drug addiction to biological terrorism and what instigates fear responses in individuals and large groups of people.Despite the fact that the book's heroine, Lucy Clark, is confronting (or running from) a litany of personal problems that include her own and her mother's drug addictions, a broken heart, crippling depression, and the death by suicide of her father after his unstoppable super-plague virus is stolen from a lab--threatening to wipe out most of the human race--much of this novel is actually...hilarious.
That's because Lucy narrates the tale with deadpan cynicism and wit. She's completely aware of her own faults and leanings toward self-destruction, but she narrates with pitch-perfect black humor the play-by-play of absurdity displayed her fellow Americans, who resort to mob mentality at the first sign of trouble.
Visits to a drug rehab ranch in the most desolate part of Texas and to a kind of "outward bound" right-wing Christian-cult summer camp for kids are just two examples of the surreal and very funny side trips Lucy takes from her home in New York City as the virus spreads around the country.
And while the book could have suffered from glibness in its portrayal of a hip woman dealing with drug problems, it doesn't shy from the terrible realities of dependence, and there are moments of deeply moving introspection and confession from the afflicted characters.
But "Last Last Chance" is ultimately a novel of and about our times, revealing people desperate to love but afraid to do so, and a country running from itself and fears both imagined and--at times--all too real.
There are also ruminations on reincarnation, the inevitable cyclical patterns of family histories, even Norse mythology.
"Last Last Chance" is infused with humor, compassion and fresh insight into modern human frailty. It will make you laugh in one moment and send a shiver down your spine the next, and will leave you eagerly awaiting the next work from this exciting young writer.
It's my favorite book of the decade.
Infinite Jest: A Novel
MitchW, September 15, 2009
Losing David Foster Wallace to suicide was an enormous blow to anyone who views literature as an essential element of the human experience.Reading 'Infinite Jest', while a time-consuming and often dizzying emotional and intellectual experience, will solidify that feeling forever.
This huge novel of ideas and footnotes that run for pages alongside the main action (and are just as enthralling) will envelope you if you stick with it, and you will never forget it.
The skeleton of the plot revolves around a mysterious and sought-after videotape that the viewer cannot stop watching once he or she starts.
This is the jumping-off point for an exploration on the nature and allure of entertainment as addiction, with off-shoots into the reasons for and difficulties overcoming drug addiction, mental illness (which Wallace struggled with all his life and is described in such stark detail that you will feel real chills running through your body as you read), and a spate of wildly drawn characters that include wheelchair-bound assassins from Quebec, budding tennis prodigies, and a spellboundingly beautiful woman who stars in the video you can't stop watching.
I spent 3 months reading this book, and became so absorbed in its fascinating, twisting fun-house narrative that it seemed at times as if the rest of the world was blocked out of my consciousness.
It's a masterpiece all at once funny, sad, baffling, infuriating, mesmerizing and unlike anything you will ever read. it is without a doubt a book I would recommend as a Top 10 all-time read. Don't be put off by its more than 1,000-page length. Each one contains wonders.
(2 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)