The Ginger Man [Paperback]

J. P. Donleavy (Author), Jay McInerney (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 13, 2010

Feckless, unwashed, charming, penurious Sebastian Balfe Dangerfield, Trinity College Law student, Irish American with an English Accent, maroon in the ould country and dreaming of dollars and ready women, stumbles from the public house to the pawnbrokers, murmuring delusive enticements in the ear of any girl who'll listen, in delirious search of freedom, wealth, and the recognition he feels is his due. Lyrical and ribald, illuminating, poignant and hugely entertaining, The Ginger Man is a work of authentic comic genius.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Scientific American

It is one of the books which reveals their quality from the first line. On every page there is that immediacy all good writing has. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

There are a few novelists who are writing out of a sense of what the contemporary world is all about. The best of them is J. P. Donleavy. -- The New York Times Book Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (July 13, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802144667
• ISBN-13: 978-0802144669
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #102,533 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A True Creation, September 23, 1999

By 

Jason Baer - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ginger Man (Paperback)

CAUTION: This book is not for everyone (ie--if you expect your reading to provide a strong moral and ethical paradigm, might as well skip this book). If, however, you can enjoy a book about a boozing expatriot in Ireland who disregards all responsibilities (including his family) and owes money to everyone he has come into contact with, then read on. This is not to say that Donleavy necessarily endorses a life of drinking and whoring, he is merely writing about it (more drinking than whoring). Fans of literature, this book cannot be ignored. Donleavy breaks every rule in the book with his poetic sensibilites. He writes with a flourish and a sense of imagery that is both uncommon and incredible. I cannot say that I have much regard for the modern library or their lists, but I can see why they included this book in their "Top 100 Books of the 20th Century in the English Language." This is a book I will not easily forget.

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funnier than Catch-22 or Bombardiers, and with more drama, March 31, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Ginger Man (Paperback)

Quite simply, one of the five funniest books of all time, I rate this alongside Confederacy of Dunces, Catch-22, Bombardiers, and Vonnegut's best work. It tells the story of an usually drunken American, Sebastian Dangerfield, studying at Trinity College, Dublin, and his trials and tribulations of him, his wife and friends, colleagues, and fellow drinkers. Written in 1965 and hailed as "A triumph of comic writing..." by The New Yorker it is crying-out-loud funny. The scene where Sebastian tries to buy condoms in 1960s Ireland is alone worth the price of the book. Friends raved about this for years, and I'm still kicking myself for waiting this long to read it. The best story I've ever seen about contemporary man trying to find pleasure in life without working in any sense of the word. I am more apt to give comedies a one, but this is definitely a ten

40 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beastly lyrical, February 16, 2005

By 

Wordsworth (Greenwich, CT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Ginger Man (Paperback)

JPD launched a storied literary career with a masterpiece in The Ginger Man. Sebastian, which means "venerable," is a man perpetually on the brink of utter madness brought largely upon himself. He is a Trinity College Dublin man whose condition is given to "staving off starvation" and whose only option when things always get worse is to "cheer-up or die." When you consider that JPD was first a painter, it's understandable that his writing style is pointillistic. The syntax like Dangerfield is non-traditional presented like life itself in fragments of which to make sense. His little lines of stacked type at the end of each chapter are works of art in themselves: "All the way/From the land/Of Kerry/Is a man/From the dead/Gone merry./ This man/Stood in the street/ And stamped his feet/ And no one heard him." Here the work winds from prose to poetry to create an endearing human quality and even tenderness that enables us to forgive the ginger man for his outrageousness. What would he and his poor as Pozzo crones do with a lot of money? Drink at every pub from College Green to Kerry over the course of a year and then "I'll arrive on Dingle Peninsula walk out on the end of Slea Head, beat, wet and penniless. I'll sit there and weep into the sea." Very Dylan Thomas. A touch Kafkaesque. Joycean. JPD's Ginger Man is worthy of a higher position on Random House's "Best Novels of the 20th Century." His body of work, including "Darcy Dancer," "Balthazar B," "The Singluar Man," "The Onion Eaters," "Wrong Info at Princeton" and "Samuel S." is astonishing in its lyric virtuosity, power and originality. When will the mavens of Hollywood treat us to tales by JPD that shimmer and dance upon the silverscreen? And when will the good people in Stockholm see the light on JPD's vast, rich, enduring, literary legacy?