Customer Reviews

The Book of Guys

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Garrison Keillor is an excellent storyteller. I have loved my visits to Lake Wobegon, both through his books and his radio broadcast.

"The Book of Guys" is the kind of funny, well-crafted storytelling you would expect from Keillor. However, he is not at his best here.

These short stories tend to explore some areas that Keillor does not seem to be as comfortable in. They seem, at times, to be an exercise in which G.K. stretched his own limitations, experimenting with different types of characters and situations.

It's a very good book -- very funny, and very well-written. But if you haven't read Keiller before, I would recommend "Lake Wobegon Days" first.

Yet, even Keillor at his absolute worst (and "Book of Guys" is certainly not this!) would probably be worth reading. The man is simply a great storyteller!

I like books that make me laugh out loud, though they're way too few and far between. This one had me laughing throughout, and for that reason alone it is well worth the read. And no, I don't think you'd have to be a guy to enjoy this one.

Keillor's writing, besides being very funny, is very literate and clever. Many of the stories come across in much the same way his radio skits and monologues do. But - I wouldn't say that he's quite mastered the written short story genre just yet. Quite a few of the stories have endings that read like Keillor just decided that the story had gone on long enough, so let's see if we can wrap it up in the next 20 words or so. They kind of leave you hanging.

However, stylistic demerits aside, this is one very funny book!

Other reviewers are more than informative about the book's contents, so I'll be brief.

This book is for middle-aged men. As a guy leaving my own youth behind and headed into the middle years, the book is more relevant and funnier than it would have been even three years ago.

If you are a fan of Prairie Home Companion, be warned! This is NOT his usual sappy fare. A couple of pieces have that Garrison Keillor sheen we know and love, but for the most part, these pieces expose another side of Mr. Keillor's talent. Though his style has not changed, his subject matter does.

The book is at turns, funny, sappy, sad, disturbing. The honesty of his phrases, whether in a comedic or tragic moment, is very refreshing. His words get right to the truth of the matter and don't dress it up much. Not a bit of it is bad writing; it's all good, but you must be prepared for a wider definition of "good" than you might expect from works like Lake Wobegon Days and such.

And, finally, delivery is key. I found I "got it" when I imagined Mr. Keillor reading it to me, which is perhaps a weakness of his writing -- it must be delivered in his voice. So consider buying the audiotape of it -- you won't miss anything and you'll have the added benefit of experiencing these tales exactly as Mr. Keillor intended.

The best way to describe THE BOOK OF GUYS would be to say that it is written about guys, by a guy, and for the entertainment of guys. It really is a guy book. Let's take a look at some of the guys:

There are a couple of stories about guy gods: Zeus trapped in the body of an overweight Lutheran minister, and Dionysus undergoing middle age crisis.

Don Giovanni is now a piano playing guy in a seedy lounge in Fargo.

We meet the first President Bush out for an afternoon's fishing with Willie Horton. Just a couple of guys passing the time.

One of my favorite guys is Omoo the Wolf Boy as he raises a litter of human babies and makes them bi-lingual by teaching them Wolfspeak and Humanspeak.

We mustn't forget Earl Grey, the American guy who invented the tea that bears his name, but who can never get over the trauma of being a middle child.

A few others to think about: "Casey at the Bat" told from the standpoint of the other team, Dustburg, "Buddy the Leper," "Roy Bradley, Boy Broadcaster," and we wouldn't want to miss "Herb Johnson, the God of Canton.

I would be remiss if I left out the opening address to "The Federation of Associations Convention." Here, Keillor talks about the annual mid-winter campfire of the "Sons of Bernie" in which several grown guys stand in waist deep snow in 20 degree below zero weather swapping manly guy tales.

This is a sampling of the treats awaiting the reader of THE BOOK OF GUYS.

Fans of Garrison Keillor's radio shows and his Lake Woebegon stories will appreciate this dark departure from the all-smiles characters he usually talks about. The lonesome cowboy who can't decide whether to rope cattle or to collect china -- or -- when Dionysius the wine god turns 50. The stories are more 'way involved than I expected, and I'm thinking of buying several copies for Xmas gifts. If you've ever wondered about your relationship and whether anyone else feels like 'guys can't win,' this spells it all out. Gawd, it's funny!

Garrison Keillor tells tales so well that he can even make male chauvinism laugh-out-loud hilarious. (I suppose that Comedy Central's "The Man Show" can do that, too, for the Neanderthal set). With titles such as "Buddy the Leper" and "Don Juan in Hell," the listener gets a strange mix of characters from all sides of the frustrated male experience in "The Book of Guys." Combined with Keillor's trademark voice and meditative delivery (a national favorite), you get an audio book guaranteed to please everyone, whether or not you hail from Lake Wobegon. A great recording for any guy, or married woman trying to better understand her husband's mind.

This is easily the funniest book I've ever read. I'm a totally devoted Prairie Home Companion fan and have been following Garrison Keillor's work for years. It's funny and I laughed out loud at almost every story. This is a priceless book and I recommend it highly.

On the one hand, these stories are clever and witty. On the other hand, they do a better job of emasculation than the ever present antagonists, women. It feels like a 15 year old's wet dreams come to life though written by an old bitter,albeit hilarious, man. Having listened to Keillor for years, I'm not entirely surprised at his hopes that men would be wild, bold and essentially irresponsible escapists (and therefore manly somehow), and that women should be silent, compliant sex toys. I am however disappointed that such a clever, learned fellow would try to pass off as misogyny as 'tongue in cheek'.

My husband and I did not enjoy this book. WE bought it on audio so we could enjoy it on a trip we were taking. We were grossed out by the "nubile" descriptions. The stories ambled with no points. It was like listening to soft porn at times. We were looking for some humor and the reviews sounded good. It's not. If you're looking for funny humor this is not the book for you. I also didn't think he read that well. I've heard much better.

I seem to be enjoying Keillor less with each book of his I read. Perhaps it's got more to do with me than him - it's not like I've gone through in publication order so it can't be related to a trend in his writing over time. Is it coincidence that the books I enjoyed most, Wobegon Boy and We Are Still Married were the first two I read?

Keillor can be an inspired improviser, taking a single idea and running to incredible and occasionally surreal lengths with it: `Earl Grey' is inspired riffing on a tea-bag. The danger in his stream of consciousness style - that's definitely the style here - is that while there is plenty of imagination, you may not be lucky enough to stumble into anything particularly wise, funny or touching. There's a level of honesty, sure, but that doesn't always reflect well on Keillor here. What we are restricted to are reflex actions, rather than controlled movement. OK, right, he thinks about sex a fair bit. He wishes he could be like a pagan god, eternally young and constantly moving from seduction to seduction of a train of delectable young babes. Sure. He wants to invest this lust for youth and sexual licence with some profound legitimacy. Uh ... He strives to open his readers up to the insight that responsibility is a tragedy. Sorry Gary, was your point that men should never have to grow up, and women destroy them if they dare try to form a relationship? I mean it's a day-dream, sure, but hardly a particularly new, insightful or powerful one. But there's confusion here: young people living such amoral lifestyles are presented quite negatively - he has nothing but derision for new age psychobabble about denying all accountability in finding yourself. Moreover there's not a hint of awareness that women might have day-dreams that growing up destroys too.

I suspect he wasn't consciously trying to make some grand point, and the day-dreaming thing is at times the charming thing about his musing. He wasn't trying to be fair minded - that's part of the point. But make no mistake, the repeated themes here, however heartfelt and artfully expressed, are selfish and childish. And lame: the Ecclesiast came as close as anyone is going to get to this day dream, and realised it wasn't going to satisfy anyway. I'm sure in his own life he's found some viable alternatives to teenage cravings: there are plusses, but a fair share of minuses too. None of that maturity is refected here.

Sure it's sad that we get older, and we lose some good things when Mum and Dad aren't paying for us to play any more, and every pretty girl isn't a potential fling. But this book seems to be trying to blame someone (generally women) for this. There are alternatives to emasculation and self-pity: an irony is that the masculine types Keillor is lamenting the loss of would never whine like this (cf. Eldredge's appalling Wild at Heart). Try Nick Hornby's High Fidelity for something touching on these issues but with far more wit, craft and insight.