- This item is eligible for our 4-for-3 promotion. Eligible products include select Books and Home & Garden items. Buy any 4 eligible items and get the lowest-priced item free. Here's how (restrictions apply)
| ||||||||||||||||||
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nobody writes like this anymore,
By knucklehead (Beloit, WI) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Beetle Leg (New Directions Paperback) (Paperback)
This is a surrealistic western, basically, with language so odd, crisp, and surprising that every page has to be savored. Hawkes is a tremendously perceptive writer, whether he's dealing with the violent or the mundane. Readers should give this and THE BLOOD ORANGES a chance. His voice is strange, and takes time to grow on you; but once it does, his books begin to seem like a mixture of poetry and noir.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
recommended by John Gardner,
By Heavy Theta (Lorton, Va United States) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Beetle Leg (New Directions Paperback) (Paperback)
In Gardner's The Art of Fiction he sites two examples of the rare and difficult "lyrical" format: Finnegan's Wake, of course, and The Beetle Leg. Not an easy read, but not so challenging as, say, William Gaddis, a contemporary of Hawkes. (Both authors could be described as genius.)
Beetle Leg has a very dreamy quality, along with a definite rhythm within the fragments of non-linear plot. It's like sudden moments of clarity flashing within a sleepy haze of resonating detail. And within that detail is an authenticity and intimacy that is both compelling and haunting Really a stunning piece of work.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Beyond Esoteric,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Beetle Leg (New Directions Paperback) (Paperback)
I feel like I just got finished beating my forehead against a tree trunk. A friend (who's notorious for enjoying viciously difficult literature) recommended Hawkes to me and I picked this one after reading the synopsis in Amazon, something about a 'classic.' I feel there is only so much I could glean from each chapter, with each paragraph unglued from context and full of random descriptions. "The calf raised its bush for love or rain." As they're driving a truck followed by a wagon in the middle of the night towards an artificial lake for what reason? So the fat tourist can fish? And now Lampson is calling Doc "Pa?" Hey, here's a groovy rooster scene, are you confused yet? And why the hell is the drugged sheriff interested in taking Wade down to fish? Why are any of them besides Luke going? Are the Devils in the jail before or after the violence at the end and what can we learn or draw out of the dialog in the jail either way? If serious readers read to learn, as I do, about life and everything in it, to gain perspective, then what have I gained?
I felt like I was reading McCarthy minus the lyricism and philosophy with every other paragraph deleted. If you know of anyone reviewer/scholar that's attempted to put this in chronological order and extract some type of narrative (like a cognitive psychologist who understand how memory and meaning work) from it, then please email me at acdoyler@gmail.com.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
First Sentence:
Aquarius is poor. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Cap Leech, Luke Lampson, Harry Bohn, Hattie Lampson, Gov City, Great Slide, Red Devils Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Aquarius is poor. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Cap Leech, Luke Lampson, Harry Bohn, Hattie Lampson, Gov City, Great Slide, Red Devils Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
16
books
cite this book:
See all 16 books citing this book
- Innocence, Power, and the Novels of John Hawkes (Penn Studies in Contemporary American Fiction) by Rita Ferrari on 16 pages
- Playing Cowboys: Low Culture and High Art in the Western by Robert Murray Davis on 4 pages
- Postmodernism: The Key Figures by Hans Bertens on page 169, and Back Matter
- Thomas Merton and James Laughton: Selected Letters by James Laughlin on page 317, and page 333
- 'closing The Gap'. by Theo d' Haen on page 32, and page 65
See all 16 books citing this book
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
