Customer Reviews

Advanced Elvis Course

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is impossible to put down. CAConrad takes on the most americana laced topic possible, a trip to Graceland. He describes the place, people, tempo, and feel with keen accuracy, never minimizing his poetic voice.

Until I read this book I too was afraid of the vibration of Elvis, but C A Conrad is such a good Virgil he makes one feel safe, adored, and capable of feats of great spiritual power.

Advanced ELVIS Course first travels to Graceland and then in a big sweep of daring brings the lessons of Graceland back home, to Philadelphia in this case, a city healed and renewed in that merciful glare.

Meanwhile the car radio soars with the final anthemic choruses of "Now or Never" and "Surrender."

Conrad has an open, Whitmanic optimism and sunniness and he's a sucker for kitsch, again like Whitman, but he's got a sense of humor about it, and all those who cross his path will find themselves laughing their way right through the lower chakras and beyond.

Is his tongue in his cheek? I hope--for the sake of American poetry, for our nation's tremulous soul--not.

The first third of the book is great. it then promptly devolves into a lengthy diary describing various sexual fantasies. The parts the book began to explore in the first third were essentially abandoned for the sake of masturbation. on the other hand...in that way the book does get at the sexual components of celebrity worship which is part of what makes the book interesting but not awesome.