Ant Farm: And Other Desperate Situations [Paperback]

Simon Rich (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 3, 2007

In Ant Farm, former Harvard Lampoon president Simon Rich finds humor in some very surprising places. Armed with a sharp eye for the absurd and an overwhelming sense of doom, Rich explores the ridiculousness of our everyday lives. The world, he concludes, is a hopelessly terrifying place–with endless comic potential.

–If your girlfriend gives you some “love coupons” and then breaks up with you, are the coupons still valid?

–What kind of performance pressure does an endangered male panda feel when his captors bring the last remaining female panda to his cage?

–If murderers can get into heaven by accepting Jesus, just how awkward is it when they run into their victims?

Join Simon Rich as he explores the extraordinary and hilarious desperation that resides in ordinary life, from cradle to grave.

"Hilarious." –Jon Stewart

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A contributor to Mad, 22-year-old Rich is a Harvard senior, a former president of the Harvard Lampoon and the son of New York Times columnist Frank Rich. Half of the short humor pieces collected here previously appeared in the Harvard Lampoon, and Rich has taken his college collage and mixed it with new material for a satirical salmagundi that bites back. Since brevity is the soul of wit, the book has 57 varieties of playlets, essays and mirthful monologues, and most are only two pages long. Imaginative premises abound, such as X Files with dog characters. In the title piece, ants plot an escape: "We've been digging tunnels ever since we got here. We always end up hitting glass." Since a college-level audience is targeted, older readers might find some references puzzling. In his original proposal to Random House (a portion of which was printed in the New York Observer), he claimed that the "subject matter—horrible, inescapable doom—is well-suited for a younger audience.... I think kids will be attracted to the book's unpredictability. The tone remains constant throughout, but the topic changes every page with the abruptness of an iPod shuffle." True, these fragments are fun, and some are so abrupt they could have been iPhoned in. Others are as unpredictable as YouTube, as in your face as MySpace (which will both surely be used for online promotions). (Apr. 3)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In this collection of comic vignettes, Rich, a Harvard senior and former president of the I^ Harvard Lampoon, displays a knack for extracting humor from scenarios of discomfort and despair. There's the son who unwittingly exposes his single mother's promiscuity, the nerd who becomes cool in the eyes of his Bulgarian pen pal, and the factory employee who goes a little nuts on the job. Performance anxiety among pandas, small talk gone wrong, the validity of "love coupons" when a relationship goes bad--all are covered here. Readers also learn about unlikely applications of math. (Who knew solving a trigonometry problem could mitigate a murderer's wrath?) And on the liabilities of being invisible, Rich writes: "When I was a lifeguard, I never got any credit for any of my heroic rescues. It was always 'angel this' and 'angel that.'" Some of the selections are more dark than droll (a boy's discovery of his father's alcohol cache, the text message of a teenager with hepatitis C), but all have the same good-natured goal: finding levity amid the gravity of everyday life. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (April 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400065887
• ISBN-13: 978-1400065882
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #339,083 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars My new favorite book! April 22, 2007

By Gary Lucy

Format:Paperback

And I'm not just saying that as an Emmy-winning 40-yr-old comedy writer in Hollywood trying to suck up to a young guy who will be running this place in about six months (how do you do sir?)...Ant Farm is a delightful bruschetta of absurdity served on crackers of keen insight.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars "I'm not trying to get negative, I'm just...(Sighs)" October 24, 2008

By gonzobrarian VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

That pretty much sums up this snarky, cynical and humorous collection of speculations and observations from Simon Rich. It's a collection that presents a more youthful, upbeat resignation echoing the more reposed one found in the writing of David Sedaris. Ant Farm is full of nostalgic recollections and weird possibilities concerning the irrelevancies of those desperate situations that give us awkward moments of reflection.

Moments that involve realizing the agony spent before receiving one's first calculator, the ironic closed-mindedness when experimenting with a ouija board, making candy with a forgetful someone named Peanut Al, keeping close tabs on your daily karma tally, God's overwhelming support for Orel Hershiser, and the three things you really don't need if stranded on a desert island.

Ant Farm is an incredibly fast and funny read. The selections are brief and varied, maybe a little too much so, as each consists no more than a couple of pages and is unbounded by coherent theme other than pure whimsy. But it does create that weird momentary pause, raising the question whether there is anything more absurd than us humans and our behavior.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing! August 1, 2007

By Jay

Format:Paperback

I love Simon Rich's sense of humor. His imaginings of what a situation would be like (What a conversation between God and the man who stands with a cardboard sign informing the public the end is near, for example, or what his mother believes runs through his mind when he is home alone at age 15) are just brilliant. Not all the entries are great, but the gems make up for the others. I loved sharing this with my family and friends, and despite age, gender, and frankly taste difference, they all found something to love in ANT FARM. The book goes fast, but you can revisit it again and again. It is well worth buying.