Customer Reviews

Flesh Guitar

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

 

 

If you want to read a poorly written book with no plot and very little to no understanding of music or guitars or the creative process, Flesh Guitar is for you.

This is indeed Nicholson's weakest book. A series of vignettes and anecdotes that taken individually would be fun, are presented in the place of a traditional narrative or even an overt message. These tales of the flesh guitar simply don't add up to much.

As a fan of Nicholson, hands down, this is the weakest of his work. It's a surreal story set in a post-modern guitar rock fantasy world that goes nowhere. (Was he experimenting with a new style?) After all the brilliant plots, characters, and dialogue; this was a huge letdown.

This is one of the most poorly written books I've ever had the discomfort of reading. It lacks style, imagination and depth. I suppose it could possibly entertain 13 to 16 year old wanna-be musician's, but if your over that age, then don't waste your time. This book is not even comedic. Don't waste your money. Instead buy Angels & Demons or Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy --Something with content...-Anything but this...No offense to Geoff Nicholson the author

Definitely the weakest of the three Nicholson books I've read (the other two being Bleeding London and Still Life With Volkswagen), this novel haphazardly follows the career of Jenny Slade, an avant-garde female guitar player. Other readers have criticized it's lack of narrative framework or traditional plot, but I think it adheres fairly closely to the traditional "quest for knowledge" structure. The problem is that the various incidents and episodes fail to add up to the larger knowledge or truth that is implicit in such a structure.

Over the course of the book, Jenny appears as a vision and converses with various guitar gods right before they die, including Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, and Kurt Cobain, and also dispenses advice to a young Frank Zappa. Intermingled are her encounters with fictional musicians, the most captivating of which is the one-armed Freddie Terrano and his band of worshipers. Intermingled are excerpts from the "Journal of Sladean Studies", an uber-fanzine written by her favorite fan. Ultimately, it's a surreal hodgepodge that is intermittently entertaining, but kind of meanders to nowhere. In that sense, I think Nicholson is rather like Jonathan Lethem, who is also capable of great writing and wild ideas, some of which are genius, and some of which flop. For Nicholson, this is a flop.

Flesh guitar is an unusual book that really gets into the mind of the musician and the fan. It follows Jenny Slade (guitar goddess)through phases and stages of her life and career, as well as through time where she meets such people as Robert Johnson, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. Flesh guitar can be a bit overwhelming for people without music knowlege, but it does tend to explain itself if you keep reading it.