The Devil Never Sleeps: and Other Essays [Hardcover]

Andrei Codrescu (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2000

The Devil is alive and well and living in America, Andrei Codrescu tells us, and with good reason. Nowhere else in the world--not even in Codrescu's native Transylvania--is he taken quite as seriously. When Codrescu gently derided the fundamentalist Christian belief in Rapture ("a pre-apocalyptic event during which all true believers would be suctioned off to heaven in a single woosh") in one of his commentaries on National Public, NPR received forty thousand letters in a protest spearheaded by Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition. Codrescu was warned to "stay away from eschatology."

Thankfully for us, he hasn't. In The Devil Never Sleeps, one of America's shrewdest social critics sets out to uncover the Devil's most modern and insidiously banal incarnations. Once easily recognizable by his horns, tail, and propensity for plague, today's Devil has become embedded in every fiber of our culture. Discussing everything from rock 'n' roll to William Burroughs to New Orleans bars to the Demon of Prosperity, Codrescu mockingly unmasks Old Nick as the opportunistic technocrat he really is. Embracing cell phones, cable access, and cyberspace, the ubiquitous Devil of secular culture embodies the true evil facing us today--banality.

In a world teeming with distractions, we are still more than capable of being bored to death. Tormented as much by insomnia and its ravages as the Devil (perhaps they are one and the same), we've become as twenty-four-hour society, swinging desperately between tedium and terror and sleeping fitfully, if at all. As Codrescu points out, the Devil never sleeps because we just won't let him.

With his characteristic charm and playful exuberance, Andrei Codrescu has successfully teased the Devil out from the darkest recesses and comic excesses of the human experience. The Devil Never Sleeps is his most wonderfully perverse book yet.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Prolific poet, memoirist, novelist and National Public Radio commentator Codrescu (Hail Babylon!, The Blood Countess etc.) offers a rousing new collection of essays, full of surprises, treats and provocations. In the title essay, he argues that the devil of medieval Christianity has never ceased acting in the Western psyche's subconscious and that eruptions of the Puritan ethos periodically roil American political and cultural life (examples: Kenneth Starr's "sexual witch hunt," the prohibition against smoking in public places). Several essays and NPR commentaries extend this conceit, as Codrescu criticizes those who demonize others--a category in which he lumps born-again Christian fundamentalists, Islamic extremists, racists, xenophobes and bigots of every stripe. A shrewd observer of American society, Codrescu explores the media's control over mass consciousness, tweaks the stock market's irrationality, examines cyberspace's growing encroachment on everyday reality and laments "the ideology of capitalism-uber-alles" that dominates political discourse. This potpourri includes a tour of Chicago, highlighting its labor and radical past, a tribute to Allen Ginsberg and marvelous pieces refracting the history of New Orleans (where Codrescu lives) through the prism of its cafes, bars and cemeteries. He also recounts his four eventful return trips to Romania, which he left in 1965 at age 19. Some of the best pieces include personal, down-to-earth reflections, for example, on the death of a close friend, or nostalgic ruminations. Codrescu is a freethinking spirit, a breath of fresh air, and this playful, quirky collection reflects his hunger for the world. Color photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

There is little of the devil in this new collection of essays by Codrescu (Ay, Cuba!; Hail Babylon!), and this book should not be mistaken for any major (or minor) attempt at investigating the theological concepts of demonic evil or devilry. This collection of 66 essays, some only a few paragraphs long, covers an incredible range of topics. One has the feeling Codrescu put this together from bits and pieces of his journal entries, both published and unpublished essays, National Public Radio commentaries, and other leftovers, with little thought given to thematic consistency or quality. The personal essays about his return to his native Romania following the end of the Ceau?escu's reign of terror are wonderful; his beautifully touching, darkly humorous insights reveal a deep love for his homeland. However, the blurbs about the Unabomber, the V-chip, Allen Ginsberg, grandfatherhood, and AOL (before the Warner merger) probably should have been left out, or at least expanded into more thoughtful pieces. Despite the eclectic range of topics and uneven quality, the major reason to read this book is Codrescu's prose. He has a particular and unique voice that makes even his blurbs worth reading. Recommended for public libraries.
-Glenn Masuchika, Chaminade Univ. Lib., Honolulu
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (April 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312202946
• ISBN-13: 978-0312202941
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,463,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrei Codrescu (codrescu.com) was born in Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania. His first poetry book "License to Carry a Gun" won the Big Table Poetry award. He founded Exquisite Corpse: a Journal of Books & Ideas (corpse.org), taught literature and poetry at Johns Hopkins University, University of Baltimore, and Louisiana State University where he was MacCurdy Distinguished Professor of English. He is a regular commentator on NPR's All Things Considered since 1983, has received a Peabody Award for writing and starring in the film "Road Scholar. In 1989 he returned to his native Romania to cover the fall of the Ceausescu regime for NPR and ABC News, and wrote "The Hole in the Flag: an Exile's Story of Return and Revolution." He is the author of books of poetry, novels, essays; the most recent are "The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess," (2009) "The Poetry Lesson" (2010) and "whatever gets you through the night: a story of sheherezade and the arabian entertainments" (2011), all published by Princeton University Press.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Terrifically Witty Essays, April 19, 2000

By 

David Polansky (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil Never Sleeps: and Other Essays (Hardcover)

This recently published set of essays by Andrei Codrescu is a wonderfully irreverent take upon America as it enters the new millenium. Codrescu was born and spent much of his young life in Romania so he still approaches much of American culture as something of an outsider. This allows him to have a wonderfully skewed perspective on America. He only uses the theme of the devil as a jumping-off point for which to comment upon our society at the turn of the millenium. His best essays are those which focus upon the lunacy of our society. Very funny stuff.