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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Light and dark and in short, brilliant, July 26, 2000
This review is from: Are You Experienced? (Paperback)
My girlfriend gave me this book as a humorous alternative to the dark stuff that I normally read, so I was expecting some in-your-face, smart-aleck pulp that a reviewer somewhere thought was trying to be funny. I started reading it at 11 o'clock at night, and I have to say that by the time I finished it, four hours later in the wee small hours, I was pleasantly shocked to discover that it was actually very funny in a cynical sense, and overall a deeper and more insightful read than I had first expected. Some have called the storyline pointless and the characters 2-dimensional, but that is the point of the story: it satirises the latest PC fad. Anyone who says it is pure pulp cannot have read the part where Dave encounters a Reuters journalist, a passage where the author's intent for the novel is laid bare. With Liz and Dave, Sutcliffe accurately depicts the two main types of traveller swarming into the lesser regions of the world: the self-obsessed type who make out like everything is 'karmic' and 'spiritual' without the first clue of what that means, and the type who travel and 'experience poverty' just because everyone else is doing it and they can put it on their CV. It is very fitting that, whilst following Dave around India, we learn next to nothing about the country, and likewise, with Liz on a spiritual quest, we get about as spiritual as who she's sleeping with. Add to this some very accurate portrayals of travelling (such as how when you return home, everything seems strange), and some weird and wonderful (and morally corrupt) supporting characters, not to mention all manner of bizarre situations, and it's a riot. Don't believe the nay-sayers. You can read this novel as pulp if you want, because the humour and free-flowing storyline make it truly difficult to put down, but between the lines it is a dark and bitter diatribe to the culture of the traveller. Only the ending with its 'nosy-parker' humour lets the story down. But it shows that none of the travellers learned anything from travelling, despite their claims to the contrary. So it succeeds in its point. So buy it, now.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious!, August 19, 2001
This review is from: Are You Experienced? (Paperback)
If you were ever a teenager involved in backpacking and trekking; a flower child in search of peace, love, and spiritual fulfillment; a traveler to India adventurous enough to go off the regular tourist trails; or the parent of any of these, you will love this wickedly satirical tale of two callow 19-year-olds who decide to spend a few months of their gap year backpacking around India in search of experience and enlightenment. With so many summaries already on the site, I'll forgo writing another one, but this book, unlike so many others that critics tout as "hilarious," but which regular readers find only mildly amusing at best, really IS hilarious!
As Dave and Liz smugly "experience India," we see how shallow their involvement is, how much they are acting and trying on roles to see if they fit, how much this trip is a way to avoid boredom, and how, lemming-like, they do what everyone else does, staying in the same hostels, following the same itinerary, and searching for "meaning" in outrageously off-the-wall activities, the chief attraction of which is that they take place in a foreign country.
Sutcliffe does not hold back in his satire, but he is not mean-spirited. The reader can easily imagine that this novel evolves from some of Sutcliffe's own amusing experiences or those of some of his friends. He is laughing with, rather than laughing at. Most readers will probably not have pursued enlightenment in the extreme ways that Dave and Liz do, but most of us will see ourselves at nineteen mirrored in their naivete and gullibility. In laughing at them, we are also laughing at ourselves. Mary Whipple
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A truly splendid and intelligent read, October 2, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Are You Experienced? (Paperback)
When you consider how many novels of today are hyped and basically lifeless, this wonderful novel refreshes the soul and makes you realise that being a writer is the greatest calling known to man (or maybe the second after the task of bedding Liz, the ravishing-but-nauseatingly selfish heroine)of the book. I won't summarise the story,as other reviewers have already done this, but I WILL say that as soon as I'd read 'Are You Experienced', I bought another five copies and sent them to my best friends. The book is brilliantly written, wry, with utterly convincing dialogue and a savage line in satirising the selfishness and pretentions of privileged young twits who are too full of their own trite perspective on the world and think being young is de facto an achievement. Dave, the hero, is one of them in a sense but much nicer and also able to see thru himself. And don't we all know a girl like Liz - who thinks being a self-centred cow is okay if you're gorgeous. I was 40 years old when I read this and perhaps the best thing I can say about this book is that it made me immensely glad that I wasn't 24 any more! By the way, there is a great episode where Dave gets some dreadful tummy upset: a passage which manages to be highly amusing while not overly obnoxious to read. My only small complaint is that the author never tells us what Liz actually LOOKS like! I could have done with knowing. Mr Sutcliffe, you are a wonderful writer; I can't wait for your next book!!
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