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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"The perfect neighbor",
By
This review is from: Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World: A Novel (Paperback)
This is one of those books that keeps doing its work long after the last word has been read. Antrim makes his art like he observes his life: contradictions galore. Mr. Robinson's loyalty to his wife and to his ideals regarding education don't seem as if they should fit within the general paranoid isolative nature of his community, and yet they do, in a very real way. Mr. Robinson attempts to make a real difference in his community while neighbors build vastly deep moats equipped with lethal spikes to surround their homes. There is a haunting similarity to the entire town's psyche here in this image, and Mr. Robinson is not immune to this. Characters seem to proceed with a wide knowledge of life and its intricacies, yet are unable to make the connections between things: to see how interest can breed obsession, how love can inspire violence. There exists the danger of falling through these cracks and understanding and this is indeed what happens.
The novel creeps toward an unsettling climax that you always know in the back of your mind is coming, yet can't quite let yourself believe it to be true. The cliched neighbor response to the latest small town horror on the six o'clock news comes to mind. "He seemed like a nice man. The perfect neighbor. Basically kept to himself." "Elect Mr. Robinson For A Better World" is touching and unsettling in the way that little art is and most life can be. Despite jacketflap trumpeting, few novelists seem willing to be brave enough to address the pockets of darkness that exist in the well-lit homes of the upper middle class. Don't expect the feel good book of the year, but if you're looking for something thought-provoking, this might very well be what you need to read.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A bizarre yet familiar portrayal of suburban life,
By A Customer
This review is from: Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World: A Novel (Paperback)
Antrim takes a small suburban community and removes the authorities which force it to be civilized. The result is a bizarre mixture of barbarism, fad culture and civilized neighbourly rivalry. I found it fascinating, entertaining and darkly funny.
What made it funny was that, despite the extremity to which the aspects of suburban living had been taken, it was all very familiar. The satire is sharp, but Antrim manages to express it as an insider telling a shared joke, rather than as an outsider taking pot-shots at another's culture. I enjoyed this book immensely. Antrim's second novel, The Hundred Brothers, is also very good, but I think I liked Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World more.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Profound and Original,
By
This review is from: Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World: A novel (Paperback)
Donald Antrim is a wonderful original writer who takes the novel to a new and dark place unlike any book you will ever read. Black humor mixed with painful insights on us all it explores the paradoxical world of insanity and real suburban life in a very funny way.
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