Customer Reviews

A Man Jumps Out of an Airplane

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

 

 

I'm all for weird books and stories, but Barry Yourgrau's A Man Jumps Out of an Airplane was a bit too much for me. I liked (and could keep focused) about 25% of the short stories in this collection of flash fiction. Some of it was just too crazy for me, and some were crazy but with some substance to them. I think it would be interested to take some of Yourgrau's more substantial short fiction and turn them into movies -- depending on who does it and how it's done, of course. Take everything literally, and you'll just have a Rene Magritte movie that doesn't really make sense.

Hey! Excellent way to explain Yourgrau and probably a great compliment to him as a writer -- his writings can be greatly compared to Magritte's art. Enough sad. If it's your "thing," then you'll love it. If you need a bit more to hold a story together, then you may be driven crazy.

This is one of my favorite books of all time, one of the funniest books I have ever read. Barry Yourgrau is a genius. I read this book a long time ago and have always had a hard time finding copies. I give good books to my friends all the time, and I'm thrilled that this is being reissued and now I'll be to find copies for myself and other people. Definitely read this book. Everyone I have given it to loves it. And I just read his new book, The Haunted Traveler. It's great, read them both, but read this one first.

This collection of short prose pieces (each about a page long) depict seemingly ordinary situations where fantastically absurd things happen. They seem less like like stories than cosmic jokes or Zen fairy tales for Americans. Each prose piece offers surprises and revelations. ("A man comes home and finds his wife in bed with a squirrel", "A couple of girls are locked up in a big aquarium," "I have the last pack of cigarettes in the world; but no matches.") The characters themselves are less interesting than their situations; one page is enough for them to fall in love or meet imaginary creatures or feel some grand feeling. A lot of the prose pieces are sexually explicit but strange (in one a man finds a map of Greenland on the inside of a girl's thigh). The prose style is compact and exquisite and easy to read (and suitable for being performed publicly). Now that I'm finished, almost none of the pieces have stuck in my head; all I retain is the memory of being dazzled by a rapid series of unreal images and events. On the bright side, I probably could reread these pieces and enjoy them just as much as the first time.

What is the aim of these koan-like stories? Should the reader notice the allegorical resonances or simply enjoy Yourgrau's marvelous and whimsical sense of the absurd? With Kafka or Dino Buzzati, the initial situation may have been absurd (i.e., turning into a cockroach), but the author spent considerable effort expanding on the idea and giving it an air of plausibility. But Yourgrau's stories are more playful than plausible. I am unsure whether to call this a profound literary work -- you can't have real character development or serious drama in a form so compact and whimsical. These kinds of stories don't NEED to be profound -- especially when the far-fetched imagery is so metaphorical. In the Soupbone story, the protagonist jumps out of an airplane while emptying a shoebox of letters from his old love; to his surprise he finds a falling dog also in midair helplessly trying to chase after a bone. Why a dog? Why a soupbone? Part of the fun of these stories is trying to relate the imagery to some universal feeling of dismay or anomie - if that is even possible. The stories grab and intrigue me, but they don't really move me; that is not the point. Yourgrau has written sequels to this collection using this same innovative short form: Sadness of Sex (about sex) and the NastyBook (geared towards younger readers). This form breaks all rules and takes advantage of today's reader's short attention span and the magical possibilities of prose. Highly recommended.

SUMMARY: Spellbinding flash fiction which is silly/fantastic/profound - take your pick. 5 Stars.

I read this book several years ago when it first came out, and I loved it. I still like to go back to it every now and then, pluck one of the stories and savor it like a fresh grape.

You cant see it in that little picture but thats a quote from Ad Rock from the Beastie Boys that looks like it's coming out of the jet on the cover. Id say pretty much everything Ad Rock likes I like, and so I read this, and this is no exception. Theres some funny, trippy stuff in here. I say definitely read this book.