Customer Reviews

Geronimo Rex

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am not a student of fiction (though I am an avid reader), but I have rarely enjoyed a book so much as Hannah's Geronimo Rex. His ability for phrasing is unbelieveable (limp, like a wet shoelace draped over a fence) and his ability to mesmerize you with his characters' thoughts made this book one of the best I've ever picked up.

Barry Hannah is the most successful graduate of the English Department at Mississippi College, however, you will be hard-pressed to find his name mentioned there today. The main reason is this book. This book is largely an autobiography of Hannah, and who knows how much of it is true? The college in the book is Mississippi College, and Hannah's criticisms are honest and embellishing, as are the other observations that he makes in this journey of a book. Geronimo Rex is strangely compelling, and Hannah pulled me right into his head as he tells this story of growing up in the world. Good book, and a must read for anyone from Mississippi College.

This is Barry Hannah's coming of age novel and it is quite fine. The prose is more straigtforward, more traditional than most of his other stuff. It was his first novel and should not be missed by anyone who loves his work.

See the title.

Anyways, the book's about this guy whose dad is a foreman, so he's rich, and he doesn't know what he wants to do. He hears these great bands play so he thinks he wants to do music, and he follows that dream for a while, stops, starts again, meets geniuses he can't possibly measure up to, tries to get back on the straight and narrow, stops again, almost dies multiple times, starts carrying a gun around and wearing a dramatic scarf to look like a bandit, and, in the end, gets just barely that little bit calmer.

The book is imbued with the South, and there are countless good turns of phrase in it. I had someone loan me this book after I told them how much I idolized DFW for a month or so, and Hannah isn't DFW, but that's not the worst thing ever. [All writers are themselves ... hooray!] In the end, I enjoyed this a lot more than Catcher in the Rye - it's more realistic, and Hannah is more lyrical than Salinger [IMHO]. I have to say, though, that it was very reminiscent of that book ... if I hadn't read that first I would probably have a much higher opinion of this.

Worth a read, if nothing else. The fiction that nobody reads ... if this book is any indication, it's somewhat depressing that his stuff isn't more widely read. He died on March 1st, people! Everyone should be snapping up his works like hotcakes now![I didn't know he'd died until ... right now, actually. Go wikipedia.] Read it, you won't regret it.

Great reading by a good old fashioned southern writer. Gets right to the heart of the stories without much ado.

The Best. Start here before moving on to lesser--but worthy--talents like Pynchon and Denis Johnson. Line-for-line, the best, most confounding American novel ever written.

Hannah is a musician and a whizz-bang conductor. He writes sentences and paragraphs of the highest order.

That said, for all the pop of his words, the story was lacking and I never felt the narrator. Rex felt like a coming of age novel sans wisdom of hindsight.

Still, a good read. You won't regret the purchase.

The descriptions and phrasings and writing were great. The story line was boring. What was the point??? Trying to recapture Catcher in The Rye? I only finished it because I was on a plane trip.