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Lunar Follies
 
 
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Lunar Follies [Paperback]

Gilbert Sorrentino (Author)

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Book Description

April 1, 2005

“For decades, Gilbert Sorrentino has remained a unique figure in our literature. He reminds us that fiction lives because artists make it. . . . To the novel—everyone’s novel—Sorrentino brings honor, tradition and relentless passion.”—Don DeLillo

“Possessing both the grace of James Joyce and the snap and crackle of Tom Wolfe, [Sorrentino] is a must-read for those who fancy fiction served on wry.”—Booklist

“Far from being overly highbrow, Sorrentino manages to be thrillingly disorienting and, at the same time, quite accessible.”—BookSense.com

“Sorrentino has shown himself a perfect mimic of the information age, an era when all is revealed and no one can quite remember who appeared on the cover of last week’s People.”—The Washington Post

A boyhood friend of the late Hubert Selby, Jr., teacher of Jeffrey Eugenides and two-time PEN/Faulkner Award finalist, Gilbert Sorrentino is an elder statesman of American literature who continues to transgress artistic boundaries.

In Lunar Follies, a bitingly satiric, imaginative tour of gallery, museum and performance art exhibitions, Sorrentino skewers the pretensions of the contemporary art world and its flailing attempts at relevance in a society whose attentions have strayed to the immediacy of pop culture. With precise comedic timing and an eye toward lascivious detail, Sorrentino is the perfect guide through this deliciously absurd world.

Gilbert Sorrentino has published over 20 books of fiction and poetry, including the story collection, The Moon in Its Flight, and the recent novel, Little Casino, which was shortlisted for the 2003 PEN/Faulkner Award. After two decades on the faculty at Stanford University, he now lives in his native Brooklyn, New York.


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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Readers skeptical of (but intrigued by) conceptual and installation art will enjoy this clever parodic take on the contemporary art world. In fake reviews, lists of found objects, profiles, photo captions and catalogue copy—each named for moon landmarks ("Sea of Rains," "Straight Wall," "Lake of Dreams," etc.)—Sorrentino (Little Casino) satirizes the esoteric works found on the cultural cutting edge. He skewers highfalutin academic language ("These familiar geometrical shapes function as footnotes or marginalia, of course"), targets fashion magazines featuring models in $900 "food-encrusted" sweaters from stores with names like "Suck-Egg Mule" and pokes fun at galleries by listing works they've inexplicably rejected, then displayed, including "Myrna Felt Like Undressing for the Conductor" by Yolanda Philippo and "Bottle of Worcestershire Sauce" by Raoul. But like the neon sculptures he playfully derides, Sorrentino belongs to the avant-garde: there's no narrative here, nor are there central characters. Instead, there's a dead-on appropriation of the pretentious critic's voice, which analyzes "qualities that insist on the absence that is within the implied absence of the brick pile itself" and an exquisite attention to detail within the fakery. This proves an intimate knowledge of the subject being mocked; beneath his loving, blustery banter, Sorrentino clearly values the rights of artists to push the limits of audience expectation—and patience. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

For decades Sorrentino, prolific, irreverent, and imaginative, has been sequestered in the lamentable territory reserved for that endangered species, the "writer's writer." But recently he has aligned himself with the moon, and leapt the barrier with irresistibly smart and pithy comic works. First came the acclaimed The Moon in Its Flight [BKL Ap 1 04], a collection of wry salvos on all things literary. Now, in Lunar Follies, he aims his satirical wit, acrobatic linguistics, and critical acumen at the art world to hilarious effect. In each mock review of an installation piece or exhibit, all of which are named after features on the moon to indicate their inherent lunacy, Sorrentino manages to brilliantly satirize not only bad and pretentious art but also ludicrously pedantic and fawning art criticism--not to mention our fascination with celebrities, sex, and mobsters, and our high tolerance for excessive historical minutiae and sheer vapidness. Sorrentino's riffs are beat poetry, his sly descent into absurdity deliciously funny, and his send-up of artistic pomposity at once affectionate and affirming. We knew the emperor had no clothes. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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